Search results for: Systems Analysis and Design

Authors: Abdulla Rahil, Rupert Gammon, Neil Brown

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The rapid growth of renewable energy sources and their integration into the grid have been motivated by the depletion of fossil fuels and environmental issues. Unfortunately, the grid is unable to cope with the predicted growth of renewable energy which would lead to its instability. To solve this problem, energy storage devices could be used. Electrolytic hydrogen production from an electrolyser is considered a promising option since it is a clean energy source (zero emissions). Choosing flexible operation of an electrolyser (producing hydrogen during the off-peak electricity period and stopping at other times) could bring about many benefits like reducing the cost of hydrogen and helping to balance the electric systems. This paper investigates the price of hydrogen during flexible operation compared with continuous operation, while serving the customer (hydrogen filling station) without interruption. The optimization algorithm is applied to investigate the hydrogen station in both cases (flexible and continuous operation). Three different scenarios are tested to see whether the off-peak electricity price could enhance the reduction of the hydrogen cost. These scenarios are: Standard tariff (1 tier system) during the day (assumed 12 p/kWh) while still satisfying the demand for hydrogen; using off-peak electricity at a lower price (assumed 5 p/kWh) and shutting down the electrolyser at other times; using lower price electricity at off-peak times and high price electricity at other times. This study looks at Derna city, which is located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea (32° 46′ 0 N, 22° 38′ 0 E) with a high potential for wind resource. Hourly wind speed data which were collected over 24½ years from 1990 to 2014 were in addition to data on hourly radiation and hourly electricity demand collected over a one-year period, together with the petrol station data.

Keywords: Hydrogen filling station off-peak electricity, renewable energy, off-peak electricity, electrolytic hydrogen.

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Authors: Charifa Fergani, Adiba El Bouzekri El Idrissi, Suzanne Marcotte, Abdelowahed Hajjaji

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Over the last years, a new paradigm known as Physical Internet has been developed, and studied in logistics management. The purpose of this global and open system is to deal with logistics grand challenge by setting up an efficient and sustainable Logistics Web. The purpose of this paper is to review scientific articles dedicated to Physical Internet topic, and to provide a clustering strategy enabling to classify the literature on the Physical Internet, to follow its evolution, as well as to criticize it. The classification is based on three factors: Logistics Web, organization, and resources. Several papers about Physical Internet have been classified and analyzed along the Logistics Web, resources and organization views at a strategic, tactical and operational level, respectively. A developed cluster analysis shows which topics of the Physical Internet that are the less covered actually. Future researches are outlined for these topics.

Keywords: Logistics web, Physical Internet, PI characterization, taxonomy.

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Authors: Elisa Pautasso, Matteo Castagno, Michele Osella

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In the last decade the emergence of new social needs as an effect of the economic crisis has stimulated the flourishing of business endeavours characterised by explicit social goals. Social start-ups, social enterprises or Corporate Social Responsibility operations carried out by traditional companies are quintessential examples in this regard. This paper analyses these kinds of initiatives in order to discover the main characteristics of social business models and to provide insights to social entrepreneurs for developing or improving their strategies. The research is conducted through the integration of literature review and case study analysis and, thanks to the recognition of the importance of both profits and social impacts as the key success factors for a social business model, proposes a framework for identifying indicators suitable for measuring the social impacts generated.

Keywords: Business model, case study, impacts, social business.

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Authors: Tanuj Kumar, Rakesh Kumar Bajaj

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In the present paper, we analyze the vague reliability of k-out-of-n : G system (particularly, series and parallel system) with independent and non-identically distributed components, where the reliability of the components are unknown. The reliability of each component has been estimated using statistical confidence interval approach. Then we converted these statistical confidence interval into triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers. Based on these triangular intuitionistic fuzzy numbers, the reliability of the k-out-of-n : G system has been calculated. Further, in order to implement the proposed methodology and to analyze the results of k-out-of-n : G system, a numerical example has been provided.

Keywords: Vague set, vague reliability, triangular intuitionistic fuzzy number, k-out-of-n : G system, series and parallel system.

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Authors: Mary Gouva, Elena Dragioti, Evangelia Kotrsotsiou

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Family identification has the potential to play a very decisive role in psychopathology. In this study we aimed to investigate the impact of family identifications on female psychopathology. A community sample of 101 women (mean age 20.81 years, SD = 0.91 ranged 20-25) participated to the present study. The girls completed a) the Symptom Check-List Revised (SCL-90) and b) questionnaire concerning socio-demographic information and questions for family identifications. The majority of women reported that they matched to the father in terms of identifications (47.1%). Age and birth order were not contributed on family identifications (F(5) =2.188, p=.062 and F(3)=1.244, p=.299 respectively). Multivariate analysis by using MANCOVA found statistical significant associations between family identifications and domains of psychopathology as provided by SCL-90 (P<05). Our results highlight the role of identifications especially on father and female psychopathology as well as replicate the Freudian perception about the female Oedipus complex.

Keywords: Family Identification, Psychoanalysis, Psychopathology, Women.

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Authors: Linh Thi Truc Doan, Yousef Amer, Sang-Heon Lee, Phan Nguyen Ky Phuc

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During the last few decades, with the high-speed upgrade of electronic products, electronic waste (e-waste) has become one of the fastest growing wastes of the waste stream. In this context, more efforts and concerns have already been placed on the treatment and management of this waste. To mitigate their negative influences on the environment and society, it is necessary to establish appropriate strategies for e-waste management. Hence, this paper aims to review and analysis some useful strategies which have been applied in several countries to handle e-waste. Future perspectives on e-waste management are also suggested. The key findings found that, to manage e-waste successfully, it is necessary to establish effective reverse supply chains for e-waste, and raise public awareness towards the detrimental impacts of e-waste. The result of the research provides valuable insights to governments, policymakers in establishing e-waste management in a safe and sustainable manner.

Keywords: E-waste, e-waste management, life cycle assessment, recycling regulations.

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Authors: Md. Ashraful Islam, Rahat Sharif

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Chittagong is the Commercial Capital of Bangladesh. The study area at GEC in Chittagong is one of the most commercial activity centers of Chittagong. This paper first analyzes the parking demand of the commercial centers, based on the parking survey. Further, it analyzes the relationship between the parking demand of the commercial buildings and the public transport accessibility. The conclusion is that the parking demand rate of the shopping centre and supermarkets decreases with the increasing of the public transport accessibility. This paper also provides the parking demand rate under the different levels of the public transport accessibility and the parking demand model with the accessibility. The conclusions are valuable for the researches on the parking demand and the making of the parking index for the commercial buildings.

Keywords: Parking, accumulation, inventory, demand, supply, occupancy.

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Authors: A. J. Regan, F. J. Lidgey, M. Betteridge, P. Georgiou, C. Toumazou, K. Hayatleh, J. R. Dibble

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Our goal is development of an algorithm capable of predicting the directional trend of the Standard and Poor’s 500 index (S&P 500). Extensive research has been published attempting to predict different financial markets using historical data testing on an in-sample and trend basis, with many authors employing excessively complex mathematical techniques. In reviewing and evaluating these in-sample methodologies, it became evident that this approach was unable to achieve sufficiently reliable prediction performance for commercial exploitation. For these reasons, we moved to an out-ofsample strategy based on linear regression analysis of an extensive set of financial data correlated with historical closing prices of the S&P 500. We are pleased to report a directional trend accuracy of greater than 55% for tomorrow (t+1) in predicting the S&P 500.

Keywords: Financial algorithm, GPU, S&P 500, stock market prediction.

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Authors: Mojtaba Ghodsi, Hamidreza Ziaifar, Morteza Mohammadzaheri, Payam Soltani

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In this paper, the performance of a medium power (25 kW/25 kHz) hybrid inverter with a reactive transformer is investigated. To analyze the sensitivity of the inverster, the RSM technique is employed to manifest the effective factors in the inverter to minimize current passing through the Insulated Bipolar Gate Transistors (IGBTs) (current stress). It is revealed that the ratio of the axillary inductor to the effective inductance of resonant inverter (N), is the most effective parameter to minimize the current stress in this type of inverter. In practice, proper selection of N mitigates the current stress over IGBTs by five times. This reduction is very helpful to keep the IGBTs at normal temperatures.

Keywords: Analytical analysis, hybrid resonant inverter, reactive transformer, response surface method.

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Authors: Young-Seok Choi

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This paper provides a quantitative measure of the time-varying multiunit neuronal spiking activity using an entropy based approach. To verify the status embedded in the neuronal activity of a population of neurons, the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) is used to isolate the inherent spiking activity of MUA. Due to the de-correlating property of DWT, the spiking activity would be preserved while reducing the non-spiking component. By evaluating the entropy of the wavelet coefficients of the de-noised MUA, a multiresolution Shannon entropy (MRSE) of the MUA signal is developed. The proposed entropy was tested in the analysis of both simulated noisy MUA and actual MUA recorded from cortex in rodent model. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the dynamics of a population can be quantified by using the proposed entropy.

Keywords: Discrete wavelet transform, Entropy, Multiresolution, Multiunit activity.

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Authors: Jin-Lung Guan, Jyh-Cherng Gu, Ming-Ta Yang, Hsin-Hung Chang, Chun-Wei Huang, Shao-Yu Huang

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One of the most important power quality issues is voltage flicker. Nowadays this issue also impacts the power system all over the world. The fact of the matter is that the more and the larger capacity of wind generator has been installed. Under unstable wind power situation, the variation of output current and voltage have caused trouble to voltage flicker. Hence, the major purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of wind generator on voltage flicker of power system. First of all, digital simulation and analysis are carried out based on wind generator operating under various system short circuit capacity, impedance angle, loading, and power factor of load. The simulation results have been confirmed by field measurements.

Keywords: Wind Generator, Voltage Flicker

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Authors: Hiroshi Katanoda, Mohd Hazwan bin Yusof

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A theoretical investigation from the view point of gas-dynamics and thermodynamics was carried out, in order to clarify the energy separation mechanism in a viscous compressible vortex, as a primary flow element in a uni-flow vortex tube. The mathematical solutions of tangential velocity, density and temperature in a viscous compressible vortical flow were used in this study.It is clear that a total temperature in the vortex core falls well below that distant from the vortex core in the radial direction, causing aregion with higher total temperature,compared to the distant region,peripheral to the vortex core.

Keywords: Energy separation mechanism, theoretical analysis, vortex tube, vortical flow.

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Authors: Wen Po Cheng, Chia Yun Chung, Ruey Fang Yu, Chao Feng Chen

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The main objective of this research was to study the differences of aluminum hydrolytic products between two PACl preparation methods. These two methods were the acidification process of freshly formed amorphous Al(OH)₃ and the conventional alkalization process of aluminum chloride solution. According to Ferron test and ²⁷Al NMR analysis of those two PACl preparation procedures, the reaction rate constant (k) values and Al₁₃ percentage of acid addition process at high basicity value were both lower than those values of the alkaline addition process. The results showed that the molecular structure and size distribution of the aluminum species in both preparing methods were suspected to be significantly different at high basicity value.

Keywords: Polyaluminum chloride, Al13, amorphous aluminum hydroxide, Ferron test.

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Authors: Rosziati Ibrahim, Tiu Kian Yong

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Reverse Engineering is a very important process in Software Engineering. It can be performed backwards from system development life cycle (SDLC) in order to get back the source data or representations of a system through analysis of its structure, function and operation. We use reverse engineering to introduce an automatic tool to generate system requirements from its program source codes. The tool is able to accept the Cµ programming source codes, scan the source codes line by line and parse the codes to parser. Then, the engine of the tool will be able to generate system requirements for that specific program to facilitate reuse and enhancement of the program. The purpose of producing the tool is to help recovering the system requirements of any system when the system requirements document (SRD) does not exist due to undocumented support of the system.

Keywords: System Requirements, Reverse Engineering, SourceCodes.

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Authors: M. Annie Jenifer, Carolin Arul

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Groundwater has become the most dependable source of fresh water for agriculture, domestic and industrial uses in the past few decades. This wide use of groundwater if left uncontrolled and unseen will lead to overexploitation causing sea water intrusion in the coastal areas and illegal water marketing. Several Policies and Acts have been enacted to regulate and manage the use of this valuable resource. In spite of this the over extraction of groundwater beyond the recharging capacity of aquifers and depletion in the quality of groundwater is continuing. The current study aims at reviewing the Acts and Policies existing in the State of Tamil Nadu and in the National level regarding groundwater regulation and management. Further an analysis is made on the rights associated with the usage of groundwater resources and the gaps in these policies have been analyzed. Some suggestions are made to reform the existing groundwater policies for better management and regulation of the resource.

Keywords: Act, groundwater, policy, reform

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Authors: Mansoureh Naderipour, Susan Bastani, Mohammad Fazel Zarandi

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Predicting links that may occur in the future and missing links in social networks is an attractive problem in social network analysis. Granular computing can help us to model the relationships between human-based system and social sciences in this field. In this paper, we present a model based on granular computing approach and Type-2 fuzzy logic to predict links regarding nodes’ activity and the relationship between two nodes. Our model is tested on collaboration networks. It is found that the accuracy of prediction is significantly higher than the Type-1 fuzzy and crisp approach.

Keywords: Social Network, link prediction, granular computing, Type-2 fuzzy sets.

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Authors: Mehmet Sagbas, Kemal Fidanboylu, Mehmet C. Bayram

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A new current-mode multifunction filter using minimum number of passive elements is proposed. The proposed filter has single-input and four high-impedance outputs. It uses four passive elements (two capacitors and two resistors) and four dual output second generation current conveyors. Each output provides a different filter response, namely, low-pass, high-pass, band-pass and band-reject. The sensitivity analysis is also carried out on both ideal and non-ideal filter configurations. The validity of the proposed filter is verified through PSPICE simulations.

Keywords: Active filter, Universal filter, Currentconveyors.

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Authors: Ergin Kosa, Ali Göksenli

Abstract:

Erosion and abrasion are wear mechanisms reducing the lifetime of machine elements like valves, pump and pipe systems. Both wear mechanisms are acting at the same time, causing a “Synergy” effect, which leads to a rapid damage of the surface. Different parameters are effective on erosive abrasive wear rate. In this study effect of particle impact angle on wear rate and wear mechanism of ductile and brittle materials was investigated. A new slurry pot was designed for experimental investigation. As abrasive particle, silica sand was used. Particle size was ranking between 200- 500 μm. All tests were carried out in a sand-water mixture of 20% concentration for four hours. Impact velocities of the particles were 4.76 m/s. As ductile material steel St 37 with Vickers Hardness Number (VHN) of 245 and quenched St 37 with 510 VHN was used as brittle material. After wear tests, morphology of the eroded surfaces were investigated for better understanding of the wear mechanisms acting at different impact angles by using Scanning Electron Microscope. The results indicated that wear rate of ductile material was higher than brittle material. Maximum wear rate was observed by ductile material at a particle impact angle of 300 and decreased further by an increase in attack angle. Maximum wear rate by brittle materials was by impact angle of 450 and decreased further up to 900. Ploughing was the dominant wear mechanism by ductile material. Microcracks on the surface were detected by ductile materials, which are nucleation centers for crater formation. Number of craters decreased and depth of craters increased by ductile materials by attack angle higher than 300. Deformation wear mechanism was observed by brittle materials. Number and depth of pits decreased by brittle materials by impact angles higher than 450. At the end it is concluded that wear rate could not be directly related to impact angle of particles due to the different reaction of ductile and brittle materials.

Keywords: Erosive wear, particle impact angle, silica sand, wear rate, ductile-brittle material.

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Authors: L.C. Kgomari, R.K.K.Mbaya

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This research was conducted to develop a correlation between microstructure of HSLA steel and the mechanical properties that occur as a result of both laser and mechanical forming processes of the metal. The technique of forming flat metals by applying laser beams is a relatively new concept in the manufacturing industry. However, the effects of laser energy on the stability of metal alloy phases have not yet been elucidated in terms of phase transformations and microhardness. In this work, CO2 laser source was used to irradiate the surface of a flat metal then the microstructure and microhardness of the metal were studied on the formed specimen. The extent to which the microstructure changed depended on the heat inputs of up to 1000 J/cm2 with cooling rates of about 4.8E+02 K/s. Experimental results revealed that the irradiated surface of a HSLA steel had transformed to austenitic structure during the heating process.

Keywords: Laser, Forming, Microstructure

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Authors: Veruska C. Dutra, Mary L. G. S. Senna

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The development of tourism is on the use of landscapes, natural or constructed, which involves a number of factors that contribute to the deterioration of nature. Tourist activity coupled with sustainable development has led to the emergence of many questions about these terms, since they are not well defined in this sense through literature searches. The present study was to analyze the main concepts and discussions involving sustainable tourism, providing reflections that can cause answers about one of the main questions in today's activity sector on whether its sustainability is a myth or reality. The methodology of this study is discussions, theoretical studies and bibliographic research. The results showed that the scholars who address the issue, often leave uncertainty about some discussions that demonstrate that there are still many studies to be conducted in order to prove that the claims so as to form the basis of what will be Tourism sustainable.

Keywords: Tourism, sustainability, development, discussions.

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Authors: M. F. Wu, F. T. Cheng, C. S. Wu, M. C. Tan

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It is a critical time to upgrade technology and increase value added with manufacturing skills developing and management strategies that will highly satisfy the customers need in the precision machinery global market. In recent years, the supply side, each precision machinery manufacturers in each country are facing the pressures of price reducing from the demand side voices that pushes the high-end precision machinery manufacturers adopts low-cost and high-quality strategy to retrieve the market. Because of the trend of the global market, the manufacturers must take price reducing strategies and upgrade technology of low-end machinery for differentiations to consolidate the market.By using six key success factors (KSFs), customer perceived value, customer satisfaction, customer service, product design, product effectiveness and machine structure quality are causal conditions to explore the impact of competitive advantage of the enterprise, such as overall profitability and product pricing power. This research uses key success paths (KSPs) approach and f/s QCA software to explore various combinations of causal relationships, so as to fully understand the performance level of KSFs and business objectives in order to achieve competitive advantage. In this study, the combination of a causal relationships, are called Key Success Paths (KSPs). The key success paths guide the enterprise to achieve the specific outcomes of business. The findings of this study indicate that there are thirteen KSPs to achieve the overall profitability, sixteen KSPs to achieve the product pricing power and seventeen KSPs to achieve both overall profitability and pricing power of the enterprise. The KSPs provide the directions of resources integration and allocation, improve utilization efficiency of limited resources to realize the continuous vision of the enterprise.

Keywords: Precision Machinery Industry, Key Success Factors (KSPs), Key Success Paths (KSPs), Overall Profitability, Product Pricing Power, Competitive Advantages.

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Authors: Mohammad H. Fattahi

Abstract:

Chaotic analysis has been performed on the river flow time series before and after applying the wavelet based de-noising techniques in order to investigate the noise content effects on chaotic nature of flow series. In this study, 38 years of monthly runoff data of three gauging stations were used. Gauging stations were located in Ghar-e-Aghaj river basin, Fars province, Iran. Noise level of time series was estimated with the aid of Gaussian kernel algorithm. This step was found to be crucial in preventing removal of the vital data such as memory, correlation and trend from the time series in addition to the noise during de-noising process.

Keywords: Chaotic behavior, wavelet, noise reduction, river flow.

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Authors: Hadi Firouzi, Majid Nili Ahmadabadi, Babak N. Araabi

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Conceptualization strengthens intelligent systems in generalization skill, effective knowledge representation, real-time inference, and managing uncertain and indefinite situations in addition to facilitating knowledge communication for learning agents situated in real world. Concept learning introduces a way of abstraction by which the continuous state is formed as entities called concepts which are connected to the action space and thus, they illustrate somehow the complex action space. Of computational concept learning approaches, action-based conceptualization is favored because of its simplicity and mirror neuron foundations in neuroscience. In this paper, a new biologically inspired concept learning approach based on the probabilistic framework is proposed. This approach exploits and extends the mirror neuron-s role in conceptualization for a reinforcement learning agent in nondeterministic environments. In the proposed method, instead of building a huge numerical knowledge, the concepts are learnt gradually from rewards through interaction with the environment. Moreover the probabilistic formation of the concepts is employed to deal with uncertain and dynamic nature of real problems in addition to the ability of generalization. These characteristics as a whole distinguish the proposed learning algorithm from both a pure classification algorithm and typical reinforcement learning. Simulation results show advantages of the proposed framework in terms of convergence speed as well as generalization and asymptotic behavior because of utilizing both success and failures attempts through received rewards. Experimental results, on the other hand, show the applicability and effectiveness of the proposed method in continuous and noisy environments for a real robotic task such as maze as well as the benefits of implementing an incremental learning scenario in artificial agents.

Keywords: Concept learning, probabilistic decision making, reinforcement learning.

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Authors: M. Karami Khorramabadi, A. R. Nezamabadi

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Stability of functionally graded beams with piezoelectric layers subjected to axial compressive load that is simply supported at both ends is studied in this paper. The displacement field of beam is assumed based on first order shear deformation beam theory. Applying the Hamilton's principle, the governing equation is established. The influences of applied voltage, dimensionless geometrical parameter, functionally graded index and piezoelectric thickness on the critical buckling load of beam are presented. To investigate the accuracy of the present analysis, a compression study is carried out with a known data.

Keywords: Stability, Functionally graded beam, First order shear deformation theory, Piezoelectric layer.

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Authors: Xin Wang, Yuanzhong Wang

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Pipa is one of the most important Chinese traditional plucked instruments, but its directivity has never been measured systematically. In western, directivity of loudness for western instruments is deeply researched through analysis of sound pressure level, whereas the directivity of timbre is seldom studied. In this paper, a new method for directivity of timbre was proposed, and horizontal directivity patterns of loudness and timbre of Pipa were measured. Directivity of Pipa radiation was measured in an anechoic room. The sound of Pipa played by a musician was recorded simultaneously by 32 microphones with Pipa in the center. The measuring results were examined through listening test. According to the measurement of Pipa directivity radiation, we put forward the best localization of Pipa in the Chinese traditional orchestra and the optimal recording region.

Keywords: Directivity, Pipa, Roughness, Listening test.

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Authors: H. Elbehiery, A. Hefnawy, M. Elewa

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Quality control in ceramic tile manufacturing is hard, labor intensive and it is performed in a harsh industrial environment with noise, extreme temperature and humidity. It can be divided into color analysis, dimension verification, and surface defect detection, which is the main purpose of our work. Defects detection is still based on the judgment of human operators while most of the other manufacturing activities are automated so, our work is a quality control enhancement by integrating a visual control stage using image processing and morphological operation techniques before the packing operation to improve the homogeneity of batches received by final users.

Keywords: Quality control, Defects detection, Visual control, Image processing, Morphological operation

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Authors: Ahmed R. Z. Baghdadi, Amira A. A. Abdallah

Abstract:

Background: With the perceived pain and poor function experienced following knee arthroplasty, patients usually feel un-satisfied. Yet, a controversy still persists on the appropriate operative technique that doesn’t affect proprioception much.

Purpose: This study compared the effects of Cruciate Retaining (CR) and Posterior Stabilized (PS) total knee arthroplasty (TKA) and uni-compartmental knee arthroplasty (UKA) on dynamic balance, pain and functional performance following rehabilitation.

Methods: Fifteen patients with CRTKA (group I), fifteen with PSTKA (group II), fifteen with UKA (group III) and fifteen indicated for arthroplasty but weren’t operated on yet (group IV) participated in the study. The mean age was 54.53±3.44, 55.13±3.48, 52.8±1.93 and 55.33±2.32 years and BMI 35.7±3.03, 35.7±1.99, 35.6±1.88 and 35.73±1.03 kg/m² for group I, II, III and IV respectively. The Berg Balance Scale (BBS), WOMAC pain subscale and Timed Up-and-Go (TUG) and Stair-Climbing (SC) tests were used for assessment. Assessments were conducted four and eight weeks pre- and post-operatively with the control group being assessed at the same time intervals. The post-operative rehabilitation involved hospitalization (1^st week), home-based (2^nd-4^th weeks), and outpatient clinic (5^th-8^th weeks) programs.

Results: The Mixed design MANOVA revealed that group III had significantly higher BBS scores, and lower pain scores and TUG and SC time than groups I and II four and eight weeks post-operatively. In addition, group I had significantly lower pain scores and SC time compared with group II eight weeks post-operatively. Moreover, the BBS scores increased significantly and the pain scores and TUG and SC time decreased significantly eight weeks post-operatively compared with the three other assessments in group I, II and III with the opposite being true four weeks post-operatively.

Interpretation/Conclusion: CRTKA is preferable to PSTKA with UKA being generally superior to TKA, possibly due to the preserved human proprioceptors in the un-excised compartmental articular surface.

Keywords: Dynamic Balance, Functional Performance, Knee Arthroplasty, Pain.

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Authors: Ilze Beitane, Inga Ciprovica

Abstract:

The influence of lactulose and inulin on rheological properties of fermented milk during storage was studied.Pasteurized milk, freeze-dried starter culture Bb-12 (Bifidobacterium lactis, Chr. Hansen, Denmark), inulin – RAFTILINE®HP (ORAFI, Belgium) and syrup of lactulose (Duphalac®, the Netherlands) were used for experiments. The fermentation process was realized at 37 oC for 16 hours and the storage of products was provided at 4 oC for 7 days. Measurements were carried out by BROOKFIELD standard methods and the flow curves were described by Herschel-Bulkley model. The results of dispersion analysis have shown that both the concentration of prebiotics (p=0.04<0.05) and shelf life (p=0.003<0.05) have a significant influence on the apparent viscosity of the product.

Keywords: Apparent viscosity, B.lactis, consistency coefficient, flow behavior index, prebiotics.

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Authors: SangWon Han, MuWook Pyeon, Sujung Moon, DaeKyo Seo

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Recently, technologies based on three-dimensional (3D) space information are being developed and quality of life is improving as a result. Research on real-time digital map (RDM) is being conducted now to provide 3D space information. RDM is a service that creates and supplies 3D space information in real time based on location/shape detection. Research subjects on RDM include the construction of 3D space information with matching image data, complementing the weaknesses of image acquisition using multi-source data, and data collection methods using big data. Using RDM will be effective for space analysis using 3D space information in a U-City and for other space information utilization technologies.

Keywords: RDM, multi-source data, big data, U-City.

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Authors: Esmeralda Hysenbelliu

Abstract:

The aim of this paper is to present the QoE (Quality of Experience) IPTV SDN-based media streaming server enhanced architecture for configuring, controlling, management and provisioning the improved delivery of IPTV service application with low cost, low bandwidth, and high security. Furthermore, it is given a virtual QoE IPTV SDN-based topology to provide an improved IPTV service based on QoE Control and Management of multimedia services functionalities. Inside OpenFlow SDN Controller there are enabled in high flexibility and efficiency Service Load-Balancing Systems; based on the Loading-Balance module and based on GeoIP Service. This two Load-balancing system improve IPTV end-users Quality of Experience (QoE) with optimal management of resources greatly. Through the key functionalities of OpenFlow SDN controller, this approach produced several important features, opportunities for overcoming the critical QoE metrics for IPTV Service like achieving incredible Fast Zapping time (Channel Switching time) < 0.1 seconds. This approach enabled Easy and Powerful Transcoding system via FFMPEG encoder. It has the ability to customize streaming dimensions bitrates, latency management and maximum transfer rates ensuring delivering of IPTV streaming services (Audio and Video) in high flexibility, low bandwidth and required performance. This QoE IPTV SDN-based media streaming architecture unlike other architectures provides the possibility of Channel Exchanging between several IPTV service providers all over the word. This new functionality brings many benefits as increasing the number of TV channels received by end –users with low cost, decreasing stream failure time (Channel Failure time < 0.1 seconds) and improving the quality of streaming services.

Keywords: Improved QoE, OpenFlow SDN controller, IPTV service application, softwarization.

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