Search results for: Failure Rate

Authors: Mohammed A. Hajeeh

Abstract:

This paper examines the behavior of a system, which upon failure is either replaced with certain probability p or imperfectly repaired with probability q. The system is analyzed using Kolmogorov's forward equations method; the analytical expression for the steady state availability is derived as an indicator of the system’s performance. It is found that the analysis becomes more complex as the number of imperfect repairs increases. It is also observed that the availability increases as the number of states and replacement probability increases. Using such an approach in more complex configurations and in dynamic systems is cumbersome; therefore, it is advisable to resort to simulation or heuristics. In this paper, an example is provided for demonstration.

Keywords: Repairable models, imperfect, availability, exponential distribution.

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Authors: Yahia M., Chaoui N., Chaouch A., Massinissa Yahia

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Our study was designed to determine the metabolic  changes of some biochemical parameters (cholesterol, triglyceride,  Iron, uric acid, Urea and folic acid) and highlight their changes in 57  women of the region Batna, during the first trimester of pregnancy.  This practical work was done with 27 women with missed  miscarriage, compared with 30 control subjects of normal pregnant  women. The assay results revealed a highly significant difference (P  = 0.0006) between the two groups in serum iron (64.00 vs 93.54) and  in the rate of folate (6.70 vs 9.22) (P <0.001) but no difference was  found regarding the rate of Ca (9.69 vs 10.20), urea (0.19 vs 0.17),  UA (33.96 vs 32.76), CH (1.283 vs 1.431), and TG (0.8852 vs  0.8290). The present study indicates that iron deficiency and folate  are associated with missed miscarriage, but no direct  pathophysiological link has been determined. Further in-depth studies  are needed to determine the exact mechanism by which these deficits  lead to a missed miscarriage.

Keywords: Biochemical parameters, pregnant women, missed miscarriage.

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Authors: Takeshi Sato, Mizuki Nakajima, Macky Kato, Shoji Igawa

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The purpose of study was to investigate the effect of varying pole weights on energy expenditure, upper limb and lower limb muscle activity as Electromyogram during Nordic walking (NW). Four healthy men [age = 22.5 (±1.0) years, body mass = 61.4 (±3.6) kg, height = 170.3 (±4.3) cm] and three healthy women [age = 22.7 (±2.9) years, body mass = 53.0 (±1.7) kg, height = 156.7 (±4.5) cm] participated in the experiments after informed consent. Seven healthy subjects were tested on the treadmill, walking, walking (W) with Nordic Poles (NW) and walking with 1kg weight Nordic Poles (NW+1). Walking speed was 6 km per hours in all trials. Eight EMG activities were recorded by bipolar surface methods in biceps brachii, triceps brachii, trapezius, deltoideus, tibialis anterior, medial gastrocnemius, rectus femoris and biceps femoris muscles. And heart rate (HR), oxygen uptake (VO₂), and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured. The level of significance was set at a = 0.05, with p < 0.05 regarded as statistically significant. Our results confirmed that use of NW poles increased HR at a given upper arm muscle activity but decreased lower limb EMGs in comparison with W. Moreover NW was able to increase more step lengths with hip joint extension during NW rather than W. Also, EMG revealed higher activation of upper limb for almost all NW and 1kgNW tests plus added masses compared to W (p < 0.05). Therefore, it was thought either of NW and 1kgNW were to have benefit as a physical exercise for safe, feasible, and readily training for a wide range of aged people in the quality of daily life. However, there was no significant effected in leg muscles activity by using 1kgNW except for upper arm muscle activity during Nordic pole walking.

Keywords: Nordic walking, electromyogram, heart rate.

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Authors: S. Vijayakumar, R. Vinoth, K. Abilash, P. Praveen

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Effects of insertion of coiled wire in juxtaposition with twisted tapes on heat transfer rate and solar radiation without disturbing the flow inside the riser tubes in a solar flat plate collector is experimentally reconnoitered in this present work. The wire coil used as a turbulator is placed inside the riser tube while the twisted tape is inserted into the wire coil to create a continuous swirling flow along the tube wall. The results of the heat transfer have been compared well with the available results. The heat transfer rate in the collector has been found to be increased by 18% to 70%. Solar water heaters having inserts in the flow tubes perform better than the conventional plain ones. It has been observed that heat losses are reduced consequently increasing the thermal performance about 30% over the plain water heaters under the same operating conditions. The effect of twisted tape with wire coils, flow Reynolds number, and the intensity of solar radiation on the thermal performance of the solar water heater has been presented. Effects of insertion of coiled wire in juxtaposition with twisted tapes on heat transfer rate and solar radiation without disturbing the flow inside the riser tubes in a solar flat plate collector is experimentally reconnoitered in this present work. The wire coil used as a turbulator is placed inside the riser tube while the twisted tape is inserted into the wire coil to create a continuous swirling flow along the tube wall. The results of the heat transfer have been compared well with the available results. The heat transfer rate in the collector has been found to be increased by 18% to 70%. Solar water heaters having inserts in the flow tubes perform better than the conventional plain ones. It has been observed that heat losses are reduced consequently increasing the thermal performance about 30% over the plain water heaters under the same operating conditions. The effect of twisted tape with wire coils, flow Reynolds number, and the intensity of solar radiation on the thermal performance of the solar water heater has been presented.

Keywords: Solar Flat Plate Collector, Heat Transfer, Twisted tape, Wire coiled turbulators

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Authors: M. H. Lai, D. S. Gunawardena, K. S. Lim, H. Ahmad

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In this paper, we have reported birefringence manipulation in regenerated high birefringent fiber Bragg grating (RPMG) by using CO2 laser annealing method. The results indicate that the birefringence of RPMG remains unchanged after CO2 laser annealing followed by slow cooling process, but reduced after fast cooling process (~5.6×10-5). After a series of annealing procedures with different cooling rates, the obtained results show that slower the cooling rate, higher the birefringence of RPMG. The volume, thermal expansion coefficient (TEC) and glass transition temperature (Tg) change of stress applying part in RPMG during cooling process are responsible for the birefringence change. Therefore, these findings are important to the RPMG sensor in high and dynamic temperature environment. The measuring accuracy, range and sensitivity of RPMG sensor is greatly affected by its birefringence value. This work also opens up a new application of CO2 laser for fiber annealing and birefringence modification.

Keywords: Birefringence, CO2 laser annealing, regenerated gratings, thermal stress.

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Authors: Gabriela-Andreea Despescu, Mădălina-Elena Mavrodin, Gheorghe Lăzăroiu, Florin Adrian Grădinaru

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The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the enhancement of a hydroelectric plant protection by coordinating protection measures / existing security and introducing new measures under a risk management process. In addition, plan identifies key critical elements of a hydroelectric plant, from its level vulnerabilities and threats it is subjected to in order to achieve the necessary protection measures to reduce the level of risk.

Keywords: Critical infrastructure, risk analysis, critical infrastructure protection, vulnerability, risk management, turbine, Impact analysis.

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Authors: Manvjeet Kaur, Mukhwinder Singh, Akshay Girdhar, Parvinder S. Sandhu

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Most fingerprint recognition techniques are based on minutiae matching and have been well studied. However, this technology still suffers from problems associated with the handling of poor quality impressions. One problem besetting fingerprint matching is distortion. Distortion changes both geometric position and orientation, and leads to difficulties in establishing a match among multiple impressions acquired from the same finger tip. Marking all the minutiae accurately as well as rejecting false minutiae is another issue still under research. Our work has combined many methods to build a minutia extractor and a minutia matcher. The combination of multiple methods comes from a wide investigation into research papers. Also some novel changes like segmentation using Morphological operations, improved thinning, false minutiae removal methods, minutia marking with special considering the triple branch counting, minutia unification by decomposing a branch into three terminations, and matching in the unified x-y coordinate system after a two-step transformation are used in the work.

Keywords: Biometrics, Minutiae, Crossing number, False Accept Rate (FAR), False Reject Rate (FRR).

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Authors: Abiodun M. Aibinu, Momoh J. E. Salami, Amir A. Shafie, Athaur Rahman Najeeb

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In this paper, novel techniques in increasing the accuracy and speed of convergence of a Feed forward Back propagation Artificial Neural Network (FFBPNN) with polynomial activation function reported in literature is presented. These technique was subsequently used to determine the coefficients of Autoregressive Moving Average (ARMA) and Autoregressive (AR) system. The results obtained by introducing sequential and batch method of weight initialization, batch method of weight and coefficient update, adaptive momentum and learning rate technique gives more accurate result and significant reduction in convergence time when compared t the traditional method of back propagation algorithm, thereby making FFBPNN an appropriate technique for online ARMA coefficient determination.

Keywords: Adaptive Learning rate, Adaptive momentum, Autoregressive, Modeling, Neural Network.

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Authors: J. Tonkonogij, A. Pedišius, A. Stankevičius

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The new semi-experimental method for simulation of the turbine flow meters rotation in the transitional flow has been developed. The method is based on the experimentally established exponential low of changing of dimensionless relative turbine gas meter rotation frequency and meter inertia time constant. For experimental evaluation of the meter time constant special facility has been developed. The facility ensures instant switching of turbine meter under test from one channel to the other channel with different flow rate and measuring the meter response. The developed method can be used for evaluation and predication of the turbine meters response and dynamic error in the transitional flow with any arbitrary law of flow rate changing. The examples of the method application are presented.

Keywords: Dynamic error, pulsing flow, numerical simulation, response, turbine gas meters.

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Authors: Petr V. Vasilev, Eduard V. Volkov, Alexej N. Godok, Alexej A, Grischschuk, Vitalij A. Rybalchenko

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Laser Doppler flowmetry is a modern method of noninvasive microcirculation investigation. The aim of our study was to use this method in the examination of patients with secondary lymphedema of the lower extremities and obliterating atherosclerosis of lower extremities. In the analysis of the amplitude-frequency spectrum of secondary lymphedema patients we have identified remarkable changes. To describe the changes we used a special amplitude rate. In both of patients groups this rate was significally (p<0.05) different with the control group. So the marker phenomena of the amplitude-frequency spectrum of the LDF signal were identified. It is suggested that there is a limfodynamics contribution to the formation of the output signal of laser Doppler flowmetry. These data have fundamental meaning and are interesting for practical medicine, as they give an opportunity to further developments for the use of laser Doppler flowmetry in the diagnostics and monitoring the effectiveness of the treatment.

Keywords: laser Doppler flowmetry, secondary lymphedema of the lower extremities, obliterating atherosclerosis, non-invasive diagnostics.

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Authors: Vince Scolaro, Lakshman Prasad, Ted Polley, Sanjivan Deshpande

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The LH Ford Bridge, built in the 1960’s, comprises 28 spans, is 800 m long and crosses the Macquarie River at Dubbo, NSW. The main bridge spans comprise three spans with a 63 m centre span (25 m drop-in section) supported by halving joints from the main cantilevers and back spans of 28 m. The main bridge spans were built using complex construction staging (first of this type in NSW). They comprise twin precast boxes, in-situ reinforced concrete infills, and cantilevered outriggers stressed both longitudinally and transversely. Since construction, this bridge has undergone significantly increased design vehicle loads and showed signs of excessive shrinkage and creep leading to significant sagging of the centre span with evidence of previous failure and remediation of the halving joints. A comprehensive load rating assessment was undertaken taking account of the original complex construction staging. Deficiencies identified included, inadequate capacity of the halving joints, failure of the bearings at the halving joints, inadequate shear capacity of the girder webs and inadequate girder flexural capacity to carry B-Double design vehicles. A strengthening system comprising two new piers (under each of the halving joints), new bearings and installation of external prestressing to the soffit of both drop-in-span and back spans was adopted. A portion of dead load had to be transferred from the superstructure to the new piers via innovative soft/stiff bearing combinations to reduce new locked in stresses resulting from the new pier supports. Significant temporary works comprised a precast concrete shell beam forming the pile cap/pier structure, addition of temporary suspended scaffold (without overstressing the existing superstructure) and installation of jacking stays for new bearing top and bottom plates. This paper presents how this existing historic and socially important bridge was strengthened and updated to increase its design life without the need for replacement.

Keywords: Strengthening, creep, construction, box girder.

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Authors: M. I. Equbal, R.K. Ohdar, B. Singh, P. Talukdar

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Micro-alloyed steel components are used in automotive industry for the necessity to make the manufacturing process cycles shorter when compared to conventional steel by eliminating heat treatment cycles, so an important saving of costs and energy can be reached by reducing the number of operations. Microalloying elements like vanadium, niobium or titanium have been added to medium carbon steels to achieve grain refinement with or without precipitation strengthening along with uniform microstructure throughout the matrix. Present study reports the applicability of medium carbon vanadium micro-alloyed steel in hot forging. Forgeability has been determined with respect to different cooling rates, after forging in a hydraulic press at 50% diameter reduction in temperature range of 900-11000C. Final microstructures, hardness, tensile strength, and impact strength have been evaluated. The friction coefficients of different lubricating conditions, viz., graphite in hydraulic oil, graphite in furnace oil, DF 150 (Graphite, Water-Based) die lubricant and dry or without any lubrication were obtained from the ring compression test for the above micro-alloyed steel. Results of ring compression tests indicate that graphite in hydraulic oil lubricant is preferred for free forging and dry lubricant is preferred for die forging operation. Exceptionally good forgeability and high resistance to fracture, especially for faster cooling rate has been observed for fine equiaxed ferrite-pearlite grains, some amount of bainite and fine precipitates of vanadium carbides and carbonitrides. The results indicated that the cooling rate has a remarkable effect on the microstructure and mechanical properties at room temperature.

Keywords: Cooling rate, Hot forging, Micro-alloyed, Ring compression.

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Authors: Chien-Wan Hun, Shao-Fu Chang, Chien-Chon Chen, Ker-Jer Huang

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This study presents how to use a high-efficiency process for producing cesium iodide (CsI) crystal columns by rapid heating method. In the past, the heating rate of the resistance wire heating furnace was relatively slow and excessive iodine and CsI vapors were therefore generated during heating. Because much iodine and CsI vapors are produced during heating process, the composition of CsI crystal columns is not correct. In order to enhance the heating rate, making CsI material in the heating process can quickly reach the melting point temperature. This study replaced the traditional type of external resistance heating furnace with halogen-type quartz heater, and then, CsI material can quickly reach the melting point. Eventually, CsI melt can solidify in the anodic aluminum template forming CsI crystal columns.

Keywords: Cesium iodide, high efficiency, vapor, rapid heating, crystal column.

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Authors: Abd El Hady N. Ebraheim

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This paper introduces a new generalization of the two parameter Weibull distribution. To this end, the quadratic rank transmutation map has been used. This new distribution is named exponentiated transmuted Weibull (ETW) distribution. The ETW distribution has the advantage of being capable of modeling various shapes of aging and failure criteria. Furthermore, eleven lifetime distributions such as the Weibull, exponentiated Weibull, Rayleigh and exponential distributions, among others follow as special cases. The properties of the new model are discussed and the maximum likelihood estimation is used to estimate the parameters. Explicit expressions are derived for the quantiles. The moments of the distribution are derived, and the order statistics are examined.

Keywords: Exponentiated, Inversion Method, Maximum Likelihood Estimation, Transmutation Map.

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Authors: Wittawat Wasusathien, Samran Santalunai, Thanaset Thosdeekoraphat, Chanchai Thongsopa

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This paper presents breast cancer detection by observing the specific absorption rate (SAR) intensity for identification tumor location, the tumor is identified in coordinates (x,y,z) system. We examined the frequency between 4-8 GHz to look for the most appropriate frequency. Results are simulated in frequency 4-8 GHz, the model overview include normal breast with 50 mm radian, 5 mm diameter of tumor, and ultra wideband (UWB) bowtie antenna. The models are created and simulated in CST Microwave Studio. For this simulation, we changed antenna to 5 location around the breast, the tumor can be detected when an antenna is close to the tumor location, which the coordinate of maximum SAR is approximated the tumor location. For reliable, we experiment by random tumor location to 3 position in the same size of tumor and simulation the result again by varying the antenna position in 5 position again, and it also detectable the tumor position from the antenna that nearby tumor position by maximum value of SAR, which it can be detected the tumor with precision in all frequency between 4-8 GHz.

Keywords: Specific absorption rate (SAR), ultra wideband (UWB), coordinates and cancer detection

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Authors: Japhet N. Mwambusi

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High tropical forests deforestation for solid wood furniture industry is among of climate change contributing agents. This pressure indirectly is caused by furniture joints failure due to poor gluing technology based on improper use of different glues to different wood species which lead to low quality and weak wood-glue joints. This study was carried in order to run performance tests of wood glues on different wood species used in wood workshops: Morogoro Tanzania whereby three popular wood species of C. lusitanica, T. glandis and E. maidenii were tested against five glues of Woodfix, Bullbond, Ponal, Fevicol and Coral found in the market. The findings were necessary on developing a guideline for proper glue selection for a particular wood species joining. Random sampling was employed to interview carpenters while conducting a survey on the background of carpenters like their education level and to determine factors that influence their glues choice. Monsanto Tensiometer was used to determine bonding strength of identified wood glues to different wood species in use under British Standard of testing wood shear strength (BS EN 205) procedures. Data obtained from interviewing carpenters were analyzed through Statistical Package of Social Science software (SPSS) to allow the comparison of different data while laboratory data were compiled, related and compared by the use of MS Excel worksheet software as well as Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Results revealed that among all five wood glues tested in the laboratory to three different wood species, Coral performed much better with the average shear strength 4.18 N/mm², 3.23 N/mm² and 5.42 N/mm² for Cypress, Teak and Eucalyptus respectively. This displays that for a strong joint to be formed to all tree wood species for soft wood and hard wood, Coral has a first priority in use. The developed table of guideline from this research can be useful to carpenters on proper glue selection to a particular wood species so as to meet glue-bond strength. This will secure furniture market as well as reduce pressure to the forests for furniture production because of the strong existing furniture due to their strong joints. Indeed, this can be a good strategy on reducing climate change speed in tropics which result from high deforestation of trees for furniture production.

Keywords: Climate change, deforestation, gluing technology, joint failure, wood-glue, wood species.

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Authors: Ammar S. M. Moohialdin, Bambang T. Suhariadi, Mohsin Siddiqui

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This paper addresses the application of physiological status monitoring (PSM) for assessing the impact of harsh weather conditions on sports activities in universities in Saudi Arabia. Real sports measurement was conducted during sports activities such that the physiological status (HR and BR) of five students were continuously monitored by using Zephyr BioHarness^TM 3.0 sensors in order to identify the physiological bonds and zones. These bonds and zones were employed as indicators of the associated physiological risks of the performed sports activities. Furthermore, a short yes/no questionnaire was applied to collect information on participants’ health conditions and opinions of the applied PSM sensors. The results show the absence of a warning system as a protective aid for the hazardous levels of extremely hot and humid weather conditions that may cause dangerous and fatal circumstances. The applied formulas for estimating maximum HR provides accurate estimations for Maximum Heart Rate (HR_max). The physiological results reveal that the performed activities by the participants are considered the highest category (90–100%) in terms of activity intensity. This category is associated with higher HR, BR and physiological risks including losing the ability to control human body behaviors. Therefore, there is a need for immediate intervention actions to reduce the intensity of the performed activities to safer zones. The outcomes of this study assist the safety improvement of sports activities inside universities and athletes performing their sports activities. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper to represent a special case of the application of PSM technology for assessing sports activities in universities considering the impacts of harsh weather conditions on students’ health and safety.

Keywords: PSM, heart rate, HR, breathing rate, BR.

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Authors: Mohammadreza Nezamirad, Sepideh Amirahmadian, Nasim Sabetpour, Azadeh Yazdi, Amirmasoud Hamedi

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Cavitation inside a diesel injector nozzle is investigated numerically in this study. The Reynolds Stress Navier Stokes set of equations (RANS) are utilized to investigate flow behavior inside the nozzle numerically. Moreover, K-ε turbulent model is found to be a better approach comparing to K-ω turbulent model. The Winklhofer rectangular shape nozzle is also simulated in order to verify the current numerical scheme, and with the mass flow rate approach, the current solution is verified. Afterward, a six-hole real size nozzle was simulated and it was found that among the different fuels used in this study with the same condition, diesel fuel provides the largest length of cavitation. Also, it was found that at the same boundary condition, rapeseed methyl ester (RME) fuel leads to the highest value of discharge coefficient and mass flow rate.

Keywords: cavitation, diesel fuel, CFD, real size nozzle, discharge coefficient

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Authors: E. I. Fandi, E. A. Alfandi, M. A. Alrabib

Abstract:

Implementing of a continues flow gas lift system for one vertical oil well producer in Wafa field was investigated under five reservoir pressures and their dependent parameters. Well 03 producers were responded positively to the gas lift system despite of the high well head operating pressures. However, the flowing bottom hole pressures were reduced by a ratio from 6 to 33 % in the case A3 for example, for the design runs conducted under the existing operating conditions for years 2003, 2006 and 2009. This reduction in FBHP has increased the production rate by a ratio from 12 to 22.5%. The results indicated that continues flow gas lift system is a good candidate as an artificial lift system to be considered for the one vertical producer covered by this study. Most significantly, timing for artificial lift by a gas lift system for this field is highly dependent on the amount of gas available at the time of implementation because of the high gas production rate from the top of the reservoir. 

Keywords: Gas lift, Wafa field, Ghadamis Basin, Artificial lift, Libya.

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Authors: Thanh Nguyen, Andrei Doncescu, Pierre Siegel

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Classification is an important data mining technique and could be used as data filtering in artificial intelligence. The broad application of classification for all kind of data leads to be used in nearly every field of our modern life. Classification helps us to put together different items according to the feature items decided as interesting and useful. In this paper, we compare two classification methods Naïve Bayes and ADTree use to detect spam e-mail. This choice is motivated by the fact that Naive Bayes algorithm is based on probability calculus while ADTree algorithm is based on decision tree. The parameter settings of the above classifiers use the maximization of true positive rate and minimization of false positive rate. The experiment results present classification accuracy and cost analysis in view of optimal classifier choice for Spam Detection. It is point out the number of attributes to obtain a tradeoff between number of them and the classification accuracy.

Keywords: Classification, data mining, spam filtering, naive Bayes, decision tree.

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Authors: Alina Badulescu, Mariana Vancea

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The paper investigates the main issues concerning the activity of mergers and acquisitions in Romania in the period 2000- 2004. As in the first decade after the failure of the socialist economy the market of M&A was living its infancy based exclusively on privatization transactions, after 2000 the market entered in a stage of maturity. We are investigated both the registered evolutions in terms of number and value of transactions, and some sectoral issues, concerning the most important industries affected by the M&A process.

Keywords: Mergers and acquisitions, Romania, 2000-2010 decade.

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Authors: Amir Hossein Ghaffari Nejad, Forouhar Ferdowsi, Reza Mashhadi

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In the interest-free banking system of Iran, the savings of society are in the form of bank deposits, and banks using the Islamic contracts, allocate the resources to applicants for obtaining facilities and credit. In the meantime, the central bank, with the aim of introducing monetary policy, determines the maximum interest rate on bank deposits in terms of macroeconomic requirements. But in recent years, the country's economic constraints with the stagflation and the consequence of the institutional weaknesses of the financial market of Iran have resulted in massive disturbances in the balance sheet of the banking system, resulting in a period of mismatch maturity in the banks' assets and liabilities and the implementation of a Ponzi game. This issue caused determination of the interest rate in long-term bank deposit contracts to be associated with non-observance of the maximum rate set by the central bank. The result of this condition was in the allocation of new sources of equipment to meet past commitments towards the old depositors and, as a result, a significant part of the supply of equipment was leaked out of the facilitating cycle and credit crunch emerged. The purpose of this study is to identify the most important factors affecting the occurrence of non-confirmatory financial banking behavior using data from 19 public and private banks of Iran. For this purpose, the causes of this non-confirmatory behavior of banks have been investigated using the panel vector autoregression method (PVAR) for the period of 2007-2015. Granger's causality test results suggest that the return of parallel markets for bank deposits, non-performing loans and the high share of the ratio of facilities to banks' deposits are all a cause of the formation of non-confirmatory behavior. Also, according to the results of impulse response functions and variance decomposition, NPL and the ratio of facilities to deposits have the highest long-term effect and also have a high contribution to explaining the changes in banks' non-confirmatory behavior in determining the interest rate on deposits.

Keywords: Non-conformity behavior, Ponzi game, panel vector autoregression, nonperforming loans.

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Authors: Rudy Bahouth, Farouk Benmeddour, Emmanuel Moulin, Jamal Assaad

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Guided ultrasonic waves are used in Non-Destructive Testing and Structural Health Monitoring for inspection and damage detection. Recently, wireless data transmission using ultrasonic waves in solid metallic channels has gained popularity in some industrial applications such as nuclear, aerospace and smart vehicles. The idea is to find a good substitute for electromagnetic waves since they are highly attenuated near metallic components due to Faraday shielding. The proposed solution is to use ultrasonic guided waves such as Lamb waves as an information carrier due to their capability of propagation for long distances. In addition to this, valuable information about the health of the structure could be extracted simultaneously. In this work, the reliable frequency bandwidth for communication is extracted experimentally from dispersion curves at first. Then, an experimental platform for wireless communication using Lamb waves is described and built. After this, coherent demodulation algorithm used in telecommunications is tested for Amplitude Shift Keying, On-Off Keying and Binary Phase Shift Keying modulation techniques. Signal processing parameters such as threshold choice, number of cycles per bit and Bit Rate are optimized. Experimental results are compared based on the average bit error percentage. Results has shown high sensitivity to threshold selection for Amplitude Shift Keying and On-Off Keying techniques resulting a Bit Rate decrease. Binary Phase Shift Keying technique shows the highest stability and data rate between all tested modulation techniques.

Keywords: Lamb Wave Communication, wireless communication, coherent demodulation, bit error percentage.

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Authors: M A Hannan, A. Hussain, S. A. Samad, K. A. Ishak, A. Mohamed

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This paper presents a general trainable framework for fast and robust upright human face and non-human object detection and verification in static images. To enhance the performance of the detection process, the technique we develop is based on the combination of fast neural network (FNN) and classical neural network (CNN). In FNN, a useful correlation is exploited to sustain high level of detection accuracy between input image and the weight of the hidden neurons. This is to enable the use of Fourier transform that significantly speed up the time detection. The combination of CNN is responsible to verify the face region. A bootstrap algorithm is used to collect non human object, which adds the false detection to the training process of the human and non-human object. Experimental results on test images with both simple and complex background demonstrate that the proposed method has obtained high detection rate and low false positive rate in detecting both human face and non-human object.

Keywords: Algorithm, detection of human and non-human object, FNN, CNN, Image training.

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Authors: D. Sujan, Z. Oo, M. E. Rahman, M. A. Maleque, C. K. Tan

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Particulate reinforced metal matrix composites (MMCs) are potential materials for various applications due to their advantageous of physical and mechanical properties. This paper presents a study on the performance of stir cast Al2O3 SiC reinforced metal matrix composite materials. The results indicate that the composite materials exhibit improved physical and mechanical properties, such as, low coefficient of thermal expansion, high ultimate tensile strength, high impact strength, and hardness. It has been found that with the increase of weight percentage of reinforcement particles in the aluminium metal matrix, the new material exhibits lower wear rate against abrasive wearing. Being extremely lighter than the conventional gray cast iron material, the Al-Al2O3 and Al-SiC composites could be potential green materials for applications in the automobile industry, for instance, in making car disc brake rotors.

Keywords: Metal Matrix Composite, Strength to Weight Ratio, Wear Rate

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Authors: Ze-Jun Hu, Ting-Zhu Huang, Ning-Bo Tan

Abstract:

To solve saddle point systems efficiently, several preconditioners have been published. There are many methods for constructing preconditioners for linear systems from saddle point problems, for instance, the relaxed dimensional factorization (RDF) preconditioner and the augmented Lagrangian (AL) preconditioner are used for both steady and unsteady Navier-Stokes equations. In this paper we compare the RDF preconditioner with the modified AL (MAL) preconditioner to show which is more effective to solve Navier-Stokes equations. Numerical experiments indicate that the MAL preconditioner is more efficient and robust, especially, for moderate viscosities and stretched grids in steady problems. For unsteady cases, the convergence rate of the RDF preconditioner is slightly faster than the MAL perconditioner in some circumstances, but the parameter of the RDF preconditioner is more sensitive than the MAL preconditioner. Moreover the convergence rate of the MAL preconditioner is still quite acceptable. Therefore we conclude that the MAL preconditioner is more competitive than the RDF preconditioner. These experiments are implemented with IFISS package. 

Keywords: Navier-Stokes equations, Krylov subspace method, preconditioner, dimensional splitting, augmented Lagrangian preconditioner.

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Authors: M. M. Pawade, S. S. Banwait

Abstract:

Electrical Discharge Machine (EDM) is especially used for the manufacturing of 3-D complex geometry and hard material parts that are extremely difficult-to-machine by conventional machining processes. In this paper authors review the research work carried out in the development of die-sinking EDM within the past decades for the improvement of machining characteristics such as Material Removal Rate, Surface Roughness and Tool Wear Ratio. In this review various techniques reported by EDM researchers for improving the machining characteristics have been categorized as process parameters optimization, multi spark technique, powder mixed EDM, servo control system and pulse discriminating. At the end, flexible machine controller is suggested for Die Sinking EDM to enhance the machining characteristics and to achieve high-level automation. Thus, die sinking EDM can be integrated with Computer Integrated Manufacturing environment as a need of agile manufacturing systems.

Keywords: Electrical Discharge Machine, Flexible Machine Controller, Material Removal Rate, Tool Wear Ratio.

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Authors: N. B. Mahesh Kumar, K. Premalatha

Abstract:

The inherent skin patterns created at the joints in the finger exterior are referred as finger knuckle-print. It is exploited to identify a person in a unique manner because the finger knuckle print is greatly affluent in textures. In biometric system, the region of interest is utilized for the feature extraction algorithm. In this paper, local and global features are extracted separately. Fast Discrete Orthonormal Stockwell Transform is exploited to extract the local features. Global feature is attained by escalating the size of Fast Discrete Orthonormal Stockwell Transform to infinity. Two features are fused to increase the recognition accuracy. A matching distance is calculated for both the features individually. Then two distances are merged mutually to acquire the final matching distance. The proposed scheme gives the better performance in terms of equal error rate and correct recognition rate.

Keywords: Hamming distance, Instantaneous phase, Region of Interest, Recognition accuracy.

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Authors: Thitiporn Supasri, Natanee Vorayos, Piriya Thongchiew

Abstract:

Electrification is a complex process and governed by various parameters.  Modeling of power plant’s target efficiency or target heat rate is often formulated and compared with the actual values. This comparison not only implies the performance of the power plant but also reflects the energy losses possibly inherited in some of related equipment and processes. The current modeling of Coal-fired Mae Moh power plant was formulated at the first commissioning. Some of equipments were replaced due to its life time. Relatively outdated for 20 years, the utilization of the model is not accomplished. This work has focused on the development of the performance analysis model of aforementioned power plant according to the most updated and current working conditions. The model is more appropriate and shows accuracy in its analysis.  Losses are detected and measures are introduced such that reduction in energy consumption, related cost, and also environment impacts can be anticipated.

Keywords: Performance analysis model, Power plant modeling, Target heat rate, Target efficiency.

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Authors: Avadhesh Yadav, V.K. Bajpai

Abstract:

A solar powered air heating system using one ended evacuated tubes is experimentally investigated. A solar air heater containing forty evacuated tubes is used for heating purpose. The collector surface area is about 4.44 m2. The length and outer diameters of the outer glass tube and absorber tube are 1500, 47 and 37 mm, respectively. In this experimental setup, we have a header (heat exchanger) of square shape (190 mm x 190 mm). The length of header is 1500 mm. The header consists of a hollow pipe in the center whose diameter is 60 mm through which the air is made to flow. The experimental setup contains approximately 108 liters of water. Water is working as heat collecting medium which collects the solar heat falling on the tubes. This heat is delivered to the air flowing through the header pipe. This heat flow is due to natural convection and conduction. The outlet air temperature depends upon several factors along with air flow rate and solar radiation intensity. The study has been done for both up-flow and down-flow of air in header in similar weather conditions, at different flow rates. In the present investigations the study has been made to find the effect of intensity of solar radiations and flow rate of air on the out let temperature of the air with time and which flow is more efficient. The obtained results show that the system is highly effective for the heating in this region. Moreover, it has been observed that system is highly efficient for the particular flow rate of air. It was also observed that downflow configuration is more effective than up-flow condition at all flow rates due to lesser losses in down-flow. The results show that temperature differences of upper head and lower head, both of water and surface of pipes on the respective ends is lower in down-flow.

Keywords: air flow direction, Evacuated tube solar collector, solar air heating, solar thermal utilization.

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