Search results for: self bias scheme

Authors: N. Nelasov, D. Safonov, M. Babaev, E. Mirzojan, O. Eroshenko, M. Morgunov, A. Erofeeva

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We have shown previously that reflected high intensity motion signals (RIMS) can be used for detection of left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction (DD). It is also well known, that left atrial (LA) dimension can be used as a marker of DD. In this study we decided to analyze the diagnostic role of new echocardiographic morphofunctional diastolic index (MFDI) in differentiation of normal filling of LV from pseudonormal and restrictive. MFDI includes LA dimension and velocity of early diastolic component ea of RIMS (MFDI = LA/ea).  

343 healthy subjects and patients with various cardiac pathology underwent dopplerechocardiographic exam. According to the criteria of "Don" classification scheme 155 subjects had signs of normal LV filling (N) and 55 - of pseudonormal and restrictive filling (PN + R). LA dimension was performed in standard manner. RIMS were registered by conventional pulsed wave Doppler from apical 4-chamber view, when the sample volume was positioned between the tips of mitral leaflets. The velocity of early diastolic component of RIMS was measured. After calculation of MFDI mean values of this index in two groups (N and PN + R) were compared. The cutoff value of MFDI for differentiation of patients with N and PN + R was determined.

Mean value of MFDI in subjects with normal filling was 1.38+0.33 and in patients with pseudonormal and restrictive filling 2.43+0.43; p<0.0001. The cutoff value of MFDI > 2.0 separated subjects with normal LV filling from subjects with pseudonormal and restrictive filling with sensitivity 89.1% and specificity 97.4%.

Keywords: Dopplerechocardiography, diastolic dysfunction, left atrium, reflected high intensity motion signals.

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Authors: Yash Pal, A.Swarup, Bhim Singh

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This paper presents a novel control strategy of a threephase four-wire Unified Power Quality (UPQC) for an improvement in power quality. The UPQC is realized by integration of series and shunt active power filters (APFs) sharing a common dc bus capacitor. The shunt APF is realized using a thee-phase, four leg voltage source inverter (VSI) and the series APF is realized using a three-phase, three leg VSI. A control technique based on unit vector template technique (UTT) is used to get the reference signals for series APF, while instantaneous sequence component theory (ISCT) is used for the control of Shunt APF. The performance of the implemented control algorithm is evaluated in terms of power-factor correction, load balancing, neutral source current mitigation and mitigation of voltage and current harmonics, voltage sag and swell in a three-phase four-wire distribution system for different combination of linear and non-linear loads. In this proposed control scheme of UPQC, the current/voltage control is applied over the fundamental supply currents/voltages instead of fast changing APFs currents/voltages, there by reducing the computational delay and the required sensors. MATLAB/Simulink based simulations are obtained, which support the functionality of the UPQC. MATLAB/Simulink based simulations are obtained, which support the functionality of the UPQC.

Keywords: Power Quality, UPQC, Harmonics, Load Balancing, Power Factor Correction, voltage harmonic mitigation, currentharmonic mitigation, voltage sag, swell

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Authors: Bahram Khan, Anderson Rocha Ramos, Rui R. Paulo, Fernando J. Velez

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With the growing demand for a new blend of applications, the users dependency on the internet is increasing day by day. Mobile internet users are giving more attention to their own experiences, especially in terms of communication reliability, high data rates and service stability on move. This increase in the demand is causing saturation of existing radio frequency bands. To address these challenges, researchers are investigating the best approaches, Carrier Aggregation (CA) is one of the newest innovations, which seems to fulfill the demands of the future spectrum, also CA is one the most important feature for Long Term Evolution - Advanced (LTE-Advanced). For this purpose to get the upcoming International Mobile Telecommunication Advanced (IMT-Advanced) mobile requirements (1 Gb/s peak data rate), the CA scheme is presented by 3GPP, which would sustain a high data rate using widespread frequency bandwidth up to 100 MHz. Technical issues such as aggregation structure, its implementations, deployment scenarios, control signal techniques, and challenges for CA technique in LTE-Advanced, with consideration of backward compatibility, are highlighted in this paper. Also, performance evaluation in macro-cellular scenarios through a simulation approach is presented, which shows the benefits of applying CA, low-complexity multi-band schedulers in service quality, system capacity enhancement and concluded that enhanced multi-band scheduler is less complex than the general multi-band scheduler, which performs better for a cell radius longer than 1800 m (and a PLR threshold of 2%).

Keywords: Component carrier, carrier aggregation, LTE-Advanced, scheduling, spectrum management.

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Authors: M. Aghili, S. Tabarestani, C. Freytes, M. Shojaie, M. Cabrerizo, A. Barreto, N. Rishe, R. E. Curiel, D. Loewenstein, R. Duara, M. Adjouadi

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A major challenge in medical studies, especially those that are longitudinal, is the problem of missing measurements which hinders the effective application of many machine learning algorithms. Furthermore, recent Alzheimer's Disease studies have focused on the delineation of Early Mild Cognitive Impairment (EMCI) and Late Mild Cognitive Impairment (LMCI) from cognitively normal controls (CN) which is essential for developing effective and early treatment methods. To address the aforementioned challenges, this paper explores the potential of using the eXtreme Gradient Boosting (XGBoost) algorithm in handling missing values in multiclass classification. We seek a generalized classification scheme where all prodromal stages of the disease are considered simultaneously in the classification and decision-making processes. Given the large number of subjects (1631) included in this study and in the presence of almost 28% missing values, we investigated the performance of XGBoost on the classification of the four classes of AD, NC, EMCI, and LMCI. Using 10-fold cross validation technique, XGBoost is shown to outperform other state-of-the-art classification algorithms by 3% in terms of accuracy and F-score. Our model achieved an accuracy of 80.52%, a precision of 80.62% and recall of 80.51%, supporting the more natural and promising multiclass classification.

Keywords: eXtreme Gradient Boosting, missing data, Alzheimer disease, early mild cognitive impairment, late mild cognitive impairment, multiclass classification, ADNI, support vector machine, random forest.

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Authors: Akinola Ikudayisi, Josiah Adeyemo

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The correct estimation of reference evapotranspiration (ETₒ) is required for effective irrigation water resources planning and management. However, there are some variables that must be considered while estimating and modeling ETₒ. This study therefore determines the multivariate analysis of correlated variables involved in the estimation and modeling of ETₒ at Vaalharts irrigation scheme (VIS) in South Africa using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) technique. Weather and meteorological data between 1994 and 2014 were obtained both from South African Weather Service (SAWS) and Agricultural Research Council (ARC) in South Africa for this study. Average monthly data of minimum and maximum temperature (°C), rainfall (mm), relative humidity (%), and wind speed (m/s) were the inputs to the PCA-based model, while ETₒ is the output. PCA technique was adopted to extract the most important information from the dataset and also to analyze the relationship between the five variables and ETₒ. This is to determine the most significant variables affecting ETₒ estimation at VIS. From the model performances, two principal components with a variance of 82.7% were retained after the eigenvector extraction. The results of the two principal components were compared and the model output shows that minimum temperature, maximum temperature and windspeed are the most important variables in ETₒ estimation and modeling at VIS. In order words, ETₒ increases with temperature and windspeed. Other variables such as rainfall and relative humidity are less important and cannot be used to provide enough information about ETₒ estimation at VIS. The outcome of this study has helped to reduce input variable dimensionality from five to the three most significant variables in ETₒ modelling at VIS, South Africa.

Keywords: Irrigation, principal component analysis, reference evapotranspiration, Vaalharts.

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Authors: Muhammad Rehan Khalid, Muhammad Haroon Siddiqui, Danish Ilyas

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This paper explores the implementation of adaptive coding and modulation schemes for Multiple-Input Multiple-Output Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) feedback systems. Adaptive coding and modulation enables robust and spectrally-efficient transmission over time-varying channels. The basic premise is to estimate the channel at the receiver and feed this estimate back to the transmitter, so that the transmission scheme can be adapted relative to the channel characteristics. Two types of codebook based channel feedback techniques are used in this work. The longterm and short-term CSI at the transmitter is used for efficient channel utilization. OFDM is a powerful technique employed in communication systems suffering from frequency selectivity. Combined with multiple antennas at the transmitter and receiver, OFDM proves to be robust against delay spread. Moreover, it leads to significant data rates with improved bit error performance over links having only a single antenna at both the transmitter and receiver. The coded modulation increases the effective transmit power relative to uncoded variablerate variable-power MQAM performance for MIMO-OFDM feedback system. Hence proposed arrangement becomes an attractive approach to achieve enhanced spectral efficiency and improved error rate performance for next generation high speed wireless communication systems.

Keywords: Adaptive Coded Modulation, MQAM, MIMO, OFDM, Codebooks, Feedback.

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Authors: A. Benaiche

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In the current situation, the automobile has become the main means of locomotion. It allows traveling long distances, encouraging urban sprawl. To counteract this trend, the train is often proposed as an alternative to the car. Simultaneously, the favoring of urban development around public transport nodes such as railway stations is one of the main issues of the coordination between urban planning and transportation and the keystone of the sustainable urban development implementation. In this context, this paper focuses on the study of the spatial structuring dynamics around the railway. Specifically, it is a question of studying the demographic dynamics in rail corridors of Nantes, Angers and Le Mans (Western France) basing on the radiation of railway stations. Consequently, the methodology is concentrated on the knowledge of demographic weight and gains of these corridors, the index of urban intensity and the mobility behaviors (workers’ travels, scholars' travels, modal practices of travels). The perimeter considered to define the rail corridors includes the communes of urban area which have a railway station and communes with an access time to the railway station is less than fifteen minutes by car (time specified by the Regional Transport Scheme of Travelers). The main tools used are the statistical data from the census of population, the basis of detailed tables and databases on mobility flows. The study reveals that the population is not tightened along rail corridors and train use is minimal despite the presence of a nearby railway station. These results lead to propose guidelines to make the train, a real vector of mobility across the rail corridors.

Keywords: Coordination between urban planning and transportation, Rail corridors, Railway stations, Travels.

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Authors: Tamanna Siddiqui, M. Afshar Alam

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Automated discovery of Rule is, due to its applicability, one of the most fundamental and important method in KDD. It has been an active research area in the recent past. Hierarchical representation allows us to easily manage the complexity of knowledge, to view the knowledge at different levels of details, and to focus our attention on the interesting aspects only. One of such efficient and easy to understand systems is Hierarchical Production rule (HPRs) system. A HPR, a standard production rule augmented with generality and specificity information, is of the following form: Decision If < condition> Generality Specificity . HPRs systems are capable of handling taxonomical structures inherent in the knowledge about the real world. This paper focuses on the issue of mining Quantified rules with crisp hierarchical structure using Genetic Programming (GP) approach to knowledge discovery. The post-processing scheme presented in this work uses Quantified production rules as initial individuals of GP and discovers hierarchical structure. In proposed approach rules are quantified by using Dempster Shafer theory. Suitable genetic operators are proposed for the suggested encoding. Based on the Subsumption Matrix(SM), an appropriate fitness function is suggested. Finally, Quantified Hierarchical Production Rules (HPRs) are generated from the discovered hierarchy, using Dempster Shafer theory. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithm.

Keywords: Knowledge discovery in database, quantification, dempster shafer theory, genetic programming, hierarchy, subsumption matrix.

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Authors: M. Pasbani Khiavi, A. R. M. Gharabaghi, K. Abedi

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The mechanical behavior of porous media is governed by the interaction between its solid skeleton and the fluid existing inside its pores. The interaction occurs through the interface of gains and fluid. The traditional analysis methods of porous media, based on the effective stress and Darcy's law, are unable to account for these interactions. For an accurate analysis, the porous media is represented in a fluid-filled porous solid on the basis of the Biot theory of wave propagation in poroelastic media. In Biot formulation, the equations of motion of the soil mixture are coupled with the global mass balance equations to describe the realistic behavior of porous media. Because of irregular geometry, the domain is generally treated as an assemblage of fmite elements. In this investigation, the numerical formulation for the field equations governing the dynamic response of fluid-saturated porous media is analyzed and employed for the study of transient wave motion. A finite element model is developed and implemented into a computer code called DYNAPM for dynamic analysis of porous media. The weighted residual method with 8-node elements is used for developing of a finite element model and the analysis is carried out in the time domain considering the dynamic excitation and gravity loading. Newmark time integration scheme is developed to solve the time-discretized equations which are an unconditionally stable implicit method Finally, some numerical examples are presented to show the accuracy and capability of developed model for a wide variety of behaviors of porous media.

Keywords: Dynamic analysis, Interaction, Porous media, time domain

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Authors: Justinian Anatory

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power-line networks are promise infrastructure for broadband services provision to end users. However, the network performance is affected by stochastic channel changing which is due to load impedances, number of branches and branched line lengths. It has been proposed that multi-carrier modulations techniques such as orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), Multi-Carrier Spread Spectrum (MC-SS), wavelet OFDM can be used in such environment. This paper investigates the performance of different indoor topologies of power-line networks that uses MC-SS modulation scheme.It is observed that when a branch is added in the link between sending and receiving end of an indoor channel an average of 2.5dB power loss is found. In additional, when the branch is added at a node an average of 1dB power loss is found. Additionally when the terminal impedances of the branch change from line characteristic impedance to impedance either higher or lower values the channel performances were tremendously improved. For example changing terminal load from characteristic impedance (85 .) to 5 . the signal to noise ratio (SNR) required to attain the same performances were decreased from 37dB to 24dB respectively. Also, changing the terminal load from channel characteristic impedance (85 .) to very higher impedance (1600 .) the SNR required to maintain the same performances were decreased from 37dB to 23dB. The result concludes that MC-SS performs better compared with OFDM techniques in all aspects and especially when the channel is terminated in either higher or lower impedances.

Keywords: Communication channel model; Broadband Powerlinecommunication; Branched network; OFDM; Delay Spread, MCSS;impulsive noise; load impedance

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Authors: Yahia Salah, Med Lassaad Kaddachi, Rached Tourki

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This paper presents the design, implementation and evaluation of a micro-network, or Network-on-Chip (NoC), based on a generic pipeline router architecture. The router is designed to efficiently support traffic generated by multimedia applications on embedded multi-core systems. It employs a simplest routing mechanism and implements the round-robin scheduling strategy to resolve output port contentions and minimize latency. A virtual channel flow control is applied to avoid the head-of-line blocking problem and enhance performance in the NoC. The hardware design of the router architecture has been implemented at the register transfer level; its functionality is evaluated in the case of the two dimensional Mesh/Torus topology, and performance results are derived from ModelSim simulator and Xilinx ISE 9.2i synthesis tool. An example of a multi-core image processing system utilizing the NoC structure has been implemented and validated to demonstrate the capability of the proposed micro-network architecture. To reduce complexity of the image compression and decompression architecture, the system use image processing algorithm based on classical discrete cosine transform with an efficient zonal processing approach. The experimental results have confirmed that both the proposed image compression scheme and NoC architecture can achieve a reasonable image quality with lower processing time.

Keywords: Generic Pipeline Network-on-Chip Router Architecture, JPEG Image Compression, FPGA Hardware Implementation, Performance Evaluation.

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Authors: Cleopatra Gittens

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It has been recognized that some social security and national insurance systems in the Eastern Caribbean are experiencing ageing populations and economic and other crises that will present a financial challenge of being unable to pay pension benefits in fifteen to twenty years. This has implications for the fiscal and economic positions of the countries themselves. Hence, organizations would need to address the issue urgently. The study adds to the body of knowledge on social security systems and social security reforms in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). It also makes recommendations for the types of reforms that social security systems in other SIDS can implement given their special circumstances. Secondary research is used to gather financial and other related information on three social security schemes in the Eastern Caribbean. Actuarial and financial reports and other documents of the social security systems are analysed to obtain financial and static data on each of the schemes. The findings show that the three schemes studied are experiencing steady increases in benefit expenditure versus contributions and increasing pensioner to insured ratios. The schemes will deplete their reserves between 2038 and 2050. Two of the schemes have increased their retirement age while the other has not embarked on any reforms. One scheme has made changes to its contribution percentages. Due to their small size, small populations and other unique circumstances, the social security schemes in the identified territories are not likely to be able to take advantage of all of the reform initiatives that the developed world embarked on when faced with similar problems. These schemes will need to make incremental changes that align with the timeframes recommended by the actuarial studies.

Keywords: Pension benefits, pension, Small Island Developing States, Social Security Reform.

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Authors: Chao Yi, Cunyue Lu, Lingwei Quan

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Piezoelectric linear motors have the characteristics of great electromagnetic compatibility, high positioning accuracy, compact structure and no deceleration mechanism, which make it promising to applicate in micro-miniature precision drive systems. However, most piezoelectric motors are employed by flexible clamping, which has insufficient rigidity and is difficult to use in rapid positioning. Another problem is that this clamping method seriously affects the vibration efficiency of the vibrating unit. In order to solve these problems, this paper proposes a piezoelectric stack linear motor based on double-end rigid clamping. First, a piezoelectric linear motor with a length of only 35.5 mm is designed. This motor is mainly composed of a motor stator, a driving foot, a ceramic friction strip, a linear guide, a pre-tightening mechanism and a base. This structure is much simpler and smaller than most similar motors, and it is easy to assemble as well as to realize precise control. In addition, the properties of piezoelectric stack are reviewed and in order to obtain the elliptic motion trajectory of the driving head, a driving scheme of the longitudinal-shear composite stack is innovatively proposed. Finally, impedance analysis and speed performance testing were performed on the piezoelectric linear motor prototype. The motor can measure speed up to 25.5 mm/s under the excitation of signal voltage of 120 V and frequency of 390 Hz. The result shows that the proposed piezoelectric stacked linear motor obtains great performance. It can run smoothly in a large speed range, which is suitable for various precision control in medical images, aerospace, precision machinery and many other fields.

Keywords: Elliptical trajectory, linear motor, piezoelectric stack, rigid clamping.

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Authors: M. Suresh Kumar, K. Ramani

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This paper proposed the comparison made between Multi-Carrier Pulse Width Modulation, Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation and Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation technique for minimization of Total Harmonic Distortion in Cascaded H-Bridge Multi-Level Inverter. In Multicarrier Pulse Width Modulation method by using Alternate Position of Disposition scheme for switching pulse generation to Multi-Level Inverter. Another carrier based approach; Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation method is also implemented to define the switching pulse generation system in the multi-level inverter. In Selective Harmonic Elimination method using Genetic Algorithm and Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm for define the required switching angles to eliminate low order harmonics from the inverter output voltage waveform and reduce the total harmonic distortion value. So, the results validate that the Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation method does capably eliminate a great number of precise harmonics and minimize the Total Harmonic Distortion value in output voltage waveform in compared with Multi-Carrier Pulse Width Modulation method, Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation method. In this paper, comparison of simulation results shows that the Selective Harmonic Elimination method can attain optimal harmonic minimization solution better than Multi-Carrier Pulse Width Modulation method, Sinusoidal Pulse Width Modulation method.

Keywords: Multi-level inverter, Selective Harmonic Elimination Pulse Width Modulation, Multi-Carrier Pulse Width Modulation, Total Harmonic Distortion, Genetic Algorithm.

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Authors: Rihab Hamdi, Amel Hadri Hamida, Fatiha Khelili, Sakina Zerouali, Ouafae Bennis

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This paper features a comparative study performance of sliding mode controller (SMC) for closed-loop voltage control of direct current to direct current (DC-DC) three-cells buck converter connected in parallel, operating in continuous conduction mode (CCM), based on pulse-width modulation (PWM) with SMC based on hysteresis modulation (HM) where an adaptive feedforward technique is adopted. On one hand, for the PWM-based SM, the approach is to incorporate a fixed-frequency PWM scheme which is effectively a variant of SM control. On the other hand, for the HM-based SM, oncoming an adaptive feedforward control that makes the hysteresis band variable in the hysteresis modulator of the SM controller in the aim to restrict the switching frequency variation in the case of any change of the line input voltage or output load variation are introduced. The results obtained under load change, input change and reference change clearly demonstrates a similar dynamic response of both proposed techniques, their effectiveness is fast and smooth tracking of the desired output voltage. The PWM-based SM technique has greatly improved the dynamic behavior with a bit advantageous compared to the HM-based SM technique, as well as provide stability in any operating conditions. Simulation studies in MATLAB/Simulink environment have been performed to verify the concept.

Keywords: Sliding mode control, pulse-width modulation, hysteresis modulation, DC-DC converter, parallel multi-cells converter, robustness.

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Authors: Ahmad Aljaafreh

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This paper proposes a hierarchical hidden Markov model (HHMM) to model the detection of M vehicles in a wireless sensor network (WSN). The HHMM model contains an extra level of hidden Markov model to model the temporal transitions of each state of the first HMM. By modeling the temporal transitions, only those hypothesis with nonzero transition probabilities needs to be tested. Thus, this method efficiently reduces the computation load, which is preferable in WSN applications.This paper integrates several techniques to optimize the detection performance. The output of the states of the first HMM is modeled as Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), where the number of states and the number of Gaussians are experimentally determined, while the other parameters are estimated using Expectation Maximization (EM). HHMM is used to model the sequence of the local decisions which are based on multiple hypothesis testing with maximum likelihood approach. The states in the HHMM represent various combinations of vehicles of different types. Due to the statistical advantages of multisensor data fusion, we propose a heuristic based on fuzzy weighted majority voting to enhance cooperative classification of moving vehicles within a region that is monitored by a wireless sensor network. A fuzzy inference system weighs each local decision based on the signal to noise ratio of the acoustic signal for target detection and the signal to noise ratio of the radio signal for sensor communication. The spatial correlation among the observations of neighboring sensor nodes is efficiently utilized as well as the temporal correlation. Simulation results demonstrate the efficiency of this scheme.

Keywords: Classification, decision fusion, fuzzy logic, hidden Markov model

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Authors: Souvik Bhattacharyya, Gautam Sanyal

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Over last two decades, due to hostilities of environment over the internet the concerns about confidentiality of information have increased at phenomenal rate. Therefore to safeguard the information from attacks, number of data/information hiding methods have evolved mostly in spatial and transformation domain.In spatial domain data hiding techniques,the information is embedded directly on the image plane itself. In transform domain data hiding techniques the image is first changed from spatial domain to some other domain and then the secret information is embedded so that the secret information remains more secure from any attack. Information hiding algorithms in time domain or spatial domain have high capacity and relatively lower robustness. In contrast, the algorithms in transform domain, such as DCT, DWT have certain robustness against some multimedia processing.In this work the authors propose a novel steganographic method for hiding information in the transform domain of the gray scale image.The proposed approach works by converting the gray level image in transform domain using discrete integer wavelet technique through lifting scheme.This approach performs a 2-D lifting wavelet decomposition through Haar lifted wavelet of the cover image and computes the approximation coefficients matrix CA and detail coefficients matrices CH, CV, and CD.Next step is to apply the PMM technique in those coefficients to form the stego image. The aim of this paper is to propose a high-capacity image steganography technique that uses pixel mapping method in integer wavelet domain with acceptable levels of imperceptibility and distortion in the cover image and high level of overall security. This solution is independent of the nature of the data to be hidden and produces a stego image with minimum degradation.

Keywords: Cover Image, Pixel Mapping Method (PMM), StegoImage, Integer Wavelet Tranform.

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Authors: Gorazd Karer

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When performing a diagnostic procedure or surgery in general anesthesia (GA), a proper introduction and dosing of anesthetic agents is one of the main tasks of the anesthesiologist. That being said, depth of anesthesia (DoA) also seems to be a suitable process for closed-loop control implementation. To implement such a system, one must be able to acquire the relevant signals online and in real-time, as well as stream the calculated control signal to the infusion pump. However, during a procedure, patient monitors and infusion pumps are purposely unable to connect to an external (possibly medically unapproved) device for safety reasons, thus preventing closed-loop control. This paper proposes a conceptual solution to the aforementioned problem. First, it presents some important aspects of contemporary clinical practice. Next, it introduces the closed-loop-control-system structure and the relevant information flow. Focusing on transferring the data from the patient to the computer, it presents a non-invasive image-based system for signal acquisition from a patient monitor for online depth-of-anesthesia assessment. Furthermore, it introduces a User-Datagram-Protocol-based (UDP-based) communication method that can be used for transmitting the calculated anesthetic inflow to the infusion pump. The proposed system is independent of medical-device manufacturer and is implemented in MATLAB-Simulink, which can be conveniently used for DoA control implementation. The proposed scheme has been tested in a simulated GA setting and is ready to be evaluated in an operating theatre. However, the proposed system is only a step towards a proper closed-loop control system for DoA, which could routinely be used in clinical practice.

Keywords: Closed-loop control, Depth of Anesthesia, DoA, optical signal acquisition, Patient State index, PSi, UDP communication protocol.

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Authors: Hanan Yousef, Nisreen Naji Al-Khawaldeh

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The present study investigates the use of the expression of refusal by native speakers of Jordanian Arabic (NSsJA) in different social situations (i.e. invitations, suggestions, and offers). It also investigates the influence of gender on the refusal realization patterns within the Jordanian culture to provide a better insight into the relation between situations, strategies and gender in the Jordanian culture. To that end, a group of 70 participants, including 35 male and 35 female students from different departments at the Hashemite University (HU) participated in this study using mixed methods (i.e. Discourse Completion Test (DCT), interviews and naturally occurring data). Data were analyzed in light of a developed coding scheme. The results showed that NSsJA preferred indirect strategies which mitigate the interaction such as "excuse, reason and, explanation" strategy more than other strategies which aggravate the interaction such as "face-threatening" strategy. Moreover, the analysis of this study has revealed a considerable impact of gender on the use of linguistic forms expressing refusal among NSsJA. Significant differences in the results of the Chi-square test relating the effect of participants' gender indicate that both males and females were conscious of the gender of their interlocutors. The findings provide worthwhile insights into the relation amongst types of communicative acts and the rapport between people in social interaction. They assert that refusal should not be labeled as face threatening act since it does not always pose a threat in some cases especially where refusal is expressed among friends, relatives and family members. They highlight some distinctive culture-specific features of the communicative acts of refusal.

Keywords: Speech act, refusals, semantic formulas, politeness, Jordanian Arabic, mixed methodology, gender.

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Authors: K. Rajasekaran, Kannan Balasubramanian

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A sensory network consists of multiple detection locations called sensor nodes, each of which is tiny, featherweight and portable. A single path routing protocols in wireless sensor network can lead to holes in the network, since only the nodes present in the single path is used for the data transmission. Apart from the advantages like reduced computation, complexity and resource utilization, there are some drawbacks like throughput, increased traffic load and delay in data delivery. Therefore, multipath routing protocols are preferred for WSN. Distributing the traffic among multiple paths increases the network lifetime. We propose a scheme, for the data to be transmitted through a dominant path to save energy. In order to obtain a high delivery ratio, a basic route reconstruction protocol is utilized to reconstruct the path whenever a failure is detected. A basic reconstruction routing (BRR) algorithm is proposed, in which a node can leap over path failure by using the already existing routing information from its neighbourhood while the composed data is transmitted from the source to the sink. In order to save the energy and attain high data delivery ratio, data is transmitted along a multiple path, which is achieved by BRR algorithm whenever a failure is detected. Further, the analysis of how the proposed protocol overcomes the drawback of the existing protocols is presented. The performance of our protocol is compared to AOMDV and energy efficient node-disjoint multipath routing protocol (EENDMRP). The system is implemented using NS-2.34. The simulation results show that the proposed protocol has high delivery ratio with low energy consumption.

Keywords: Multipath routing, WSN, energy efficient routing, alternate route, assured data delivery.

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Authors: Jay M. Joshi, Upena D. Dalal

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Multimedia information availability has increased dramatically with the advent of video broadcasting on handheld devices. But with this availability comes problems of maintaining the security of information that is displayed in public. ISMA Encryption and Authentication (ISMACryp) is one of the chosen technologies for service protection in DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting- Handheld), the TV system for portable handheld devices. The ISMACryp is encoded with H.264/AVC (advanced video coding), while leaving all structural data as it is. Two modes of ISMACryp are available; the CTR mode (Counter type) and CBC mode (Cipher Block Chaining) mode. Both modes of ISMACryp are based on 128- bit AES algorithm. AES algorithms are more complex and require larger time for execution which is not suitable for real time application like live TV. The proposed system aims to gain a deep understanding of video data security on multimedia technologies and to provide security for real time video applications using selective encryption for H.264/AVC. Five level of security proposed in this paper based on the content of NAL unit in Baseline Constrain profile of H.264/AVC. The selective encryption in different levels provides encryption of intra-prediction mode, residue data, inter-prediction mode or motion vectors only. Experimental results shown in this paper described that fifth level which is ISMACryp provide higher level of security with more encryption time and the one level provide lower level of security by encrypting only motion vectors with lower execution time without compromise on compression and quality of visual content. This encryption scheme with compression process with low cost, and keeps the file format unchanged with some direct operations supported. Simulation was being carried out in Matlab.

Keywords: AES-128, CAVLC, H.264, ISMACryp

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Authors: Yao Jie, Yeo Khoon Seng

Abstract:

In recent decades, flapping wing aerodynamics has attracted great interest. Understanding the physics of biological flyers such as birds and insects can help improve the performance of micro air vehicles. The present research focuses on the aerodynamics of insect-like flapping wing flight with the approach of numerical computation. Insect model of hawkmoth is adopted in the numerical study with rigid wing assumption currently. The numerical model integrates the computational fluid dynamics of the flow and active control of wing kinematics to achieve stable flight. The computation grid is a hybrid consisting of background Cartesian nodes and clouds of mesh-free grids around immersed boundaries. The generalized finite difference method is used in conjunction with single value decomposition (SVD-GFD) in computational fluid dynamics solver to study the dynamics of a free hovering hummingbird hawkmoth. The longitudinal dynamics of the hovering flight is governed by three control parameters, i.e., wing plane angle, mean positional angle and wing beating frequency. In present work, a PID controller works out the appropriate control parameters with the insect motion as input. The controller is adjusted to acquire desired maneuvering of the insect flight. The numerical scheme in present study is proven to be accurate and stable to simulate the flight of the hummingbird hawkmoth, which has relatively high Reynolds number. The PID controller is responsive to provide feedback to the wing kinematics during the hovering flight. The simulated hovering flight agrees well with the real insect flight. The present numerical study offers a promising route to investigate the free flight aerodynamics of insects, which could overcome some of the limitations of experiments.

Keywords: Aerodynamics, flight control, computational fluid dynamics, flapping-wing flight.

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Authors: J. F. Pollo Gaspary, F. Peron Gaspary, E. M. Simão, R. Concatto Beltrame, G. Orengo de Oliveira, M. S. Ristow Ferreira, J.C. Mairesse Siluk, I. F. Minello, F. dos Santos de Oliveira

Abstract:

Background: Although palliative care policies and services have been developed, research in this area continues to lag. An integrated model of palliative care is suggested, which includes complementary and alternative services aimed at improving the well-being of patients and their families. The palliative aquatics care multi-device (AuBento) uses several electromagnetic techniques to decrease pain and promote well-being through relaxation and interaction among patients, specialists, and family members. Aim: The scope of this paper is to present a preliminary design study of a device capable of exploring the various existing theories on the biomedical application of magnetic fields. This will be achieved by standardizing clinical data collection with sensory integration, and adding new therapeutic options to develop an advanced palliative aquatics care, innovating in symptom and pain management. Methods: The research methodology was based on the Work Package Methodology for the development of projects, separating the activities into seven different Work Packages. The theoretical basis was carried out through an integrative literature review according to the specific objectives of each Work Package and provided a broad analysis, which, together with the multiplicity of proposals and the interdisciplinarity of the research team involved, generated consistent and understandable complex concepts in the biomedical application of magnetic fields for palliative care. Results: Aubento ambience was idealized with restricted electromagnetic exposure (avoiding data collection bias) and sensory integration (allowing relaxation associated with hydrotherapy, music therapy, and chromotherapy or like floating tank). This device has a multipurpose configuration enabling classic or exploratory options on the use of the biomedical application of magnetic fields at the researcher's discretion. Conclusions: Several patients in diverse therapeutic contexts may benefit from the use of magnetic fields or fluids, thus validating the stimuli to clinical research in this area. A device in controlled and multipurpose environments may contribute to standardizing research and exploring new theories. Future research may demonstrate the possible benefits of the aquatics care multi-device AuBento to improve the well-being and symptom control in palliative care patients and their families.

Keywords: Advanced palliative aquatics care, magnetic field therapy, medical device, research design.

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Authors: Lim Chen Kim, Tan Kian Lam, Chan Yi Chee

Abstract:

This research presents a multi-modal simulation in the reconstruction of the past and the construction of present in digital cultural heritage on mobile platform. In bringing the present life, the virtual environment is generated through a presented scheme for rapid and efficient construction of 360° panoramic view. Then, acoustical heritage model and crowd model are presented and improvised into the 360° panoramic view. For the reconstruction of past life, the crowd is simulated and rendered in an old trading port. However, the keystone of this research is in a virtual walkthrough that shows the virtual present life in 2D and virtual past life in 3D, both in an environment of virtual heritage sites in George Town through mobile device. Firstly, the 2D crowd is modelled and simulated using OpenGL ES 1.1 on mobile platform. The 2D crowd is used to portray the present life in 360° panoramic view of a virtual heritage environment based on the extension of Newtonian Laws. Secondly, the 2D crowd is animated and rendered into 3D with improved variety and incorporated into the virtual past life using Unity3D Game Engine. The behaviours of the 3D models are then simulated based on the enhancement of the classical model of Boid algorithm. Finally, a demonstration system is developed and integrated with the models, techniques and algorithms of this research. The virtual walkthrough is demonstrated to a group of respondents and is evaluated through the user-centred evaluation by navigating around the demonstration system. The results of the evaluation based on the questionnaires have shown that the presented virtual walkthrough has been successfully deployed through a multi-modal simulation and such a virtual walkthrough would be particularly useful in a virtual tour and virtual museum applications.

Keywords: Boid algorithm, crowd simulation, mobile platform, Newtonian laws, virtual heritage.

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Authors: Sanjeev Kumar Appicharla

Abstract:

This paper presents the results of the modelling and analysis of the European Railway Traffic Management (ERTMS) safety critical incident to raise awareness of biases in systems engineering process on the Cambrian Railway in the UK using the RAIB 17/2019 as a primary input. The RAIB, the UK independent accident investigator, published the Report- RAIB 17/2019 giving the details of their investigation of the focal event in the form of immediate cause, causal factors and underlying factors and recommendations to prevent a repeat of the safety-critical incident on the Cambrian Line. The Systems for Investigation of Railway Interfaces (SIRI) is the Methodology used to model and analyse the safety-critical incident. The SIRI Methodology uses the Swiss Cheese Model to model the incident and identify latent failure conditions (potentially less than adequate conditions) by means of the Management Oversight and Risk Tree technique. The benefits of the SIRI Methodology are threefold: first is that it incorporates “Heuristics and Biases” approach, in the Management Oversight and Risk Tree technique to identify systematic errors. Civil engineering and programme management railway professionals are aware of role “optimism bias” plays in programme cost overruns and are aware of bow tie (fault and event tree) model-based safety risk modelling technique. However, the role of systematic errors due to “Heuristics and Biases” is not appreciated as yet. This overcomes the problems of omission of human and organisational factors from accident analysis. Second, the scope of the investigation includes all levels of the socio-technical system, including government, regulatory, railway safety bodies, duty holders, signalling firms and transport planners, and front-line staff such that lessons learned at the decision making and implementation level as well. Third, the author’s past accident case studies are supplemented with research pieces of evidence drawn from the practitioner’s and academic researchers’ publications as well. This is to discuss the role of system thinking to improve the decision making and risk management processes and practices in the IEC 15288 Systems Engineering standard, and in the industrial context such as the GB railways and Artificial Intelligence (AI) contexts as well.

Keywords: Accident analysis, AI algorithm internal audit, bounded rationality, Byzantine failures, heuristics and biases approach.

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Authors: Mohamed Elghorab, Vendra C. Madhav Rao, Jennifer X. Wen

Abstract:

Turbulence modelling is still evolving, and efforts are on to improve and develop numerical methods to simulate the real turbulence structures by using the empirical and experimental information. The monotonically integrated large eddy simulation (MILES) is an attractive approach for modelling turbulence in high Re flows, which is based on the solving of the unfiltered flow equations with no explicit sub-grid scale (SGS) model. In the current work, this approach has been used, and the action of the SGS model has been included implicitly by intrinsic nonlinear high-frequency filters built into the convection discretization schemes. The MILES solver is developed using the opensource CFD OpenFOAM libraries. The role of flux limiters schemes namely, Gamma, superBee, van-Albada and van-Leer, is studied in predicting turbulent statistical quantities for a fully developed channel flow with a friction Reynolds number, Re_T = 180, and compared the numerical predictions with the well-established Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) results for studying the wall generated turbulence. It is inferred from the numerical predictions that Gamma, van-Leer and van-Albada limiters produced more diffusion and overpredicted the velocity profiles, while superBee scheme reproduced velocity profiles and turbulence statistical quantities in good agreement with the reference DNS data in the streamwise direction although it deviated slightly in the spanwise and normal to the wall directions. The simulation results are further discussed in terms of the turbulence intensities and Reynolds stresses averaged in time and space to draw conclusion on the flux limiter schemes performance in OpenFOAM context.

Keywords: Flux limiters, MILES, OpenFOAM, turbulence structures, TVD schemes.

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Authors: Arash Parehkar, S. Jamshid Mousavi, Shoubo Bayazidi, Vahid Karami, Laleh Shahidi, Arash Azaranfar, Ali Moridi, M. Shabakhti, Tayebeh Ariyan, Mitra Tofigh, Kaveh Masoumi, Alireza Motahari

Abstract:

Water resource systems modeling has constantly been a challenge through history for human beings. As the innovative methodological development is evolving alongside computer sciences on one hand, researches are likely to confront more complex and larger water resources systems due to new challenges regarding increased water demands, climate change and human interventions, socio-economic concerns, and environment protection and sustainability. In this research, an automatic calibration scheme has been applied on the Gilan’s large-scale water resource model using mathematical programming. The water resource model’s calibration is developed in order to attune unknown water return flows from demand sites in the complex Sefidroud irrigation network and other related areas. The calibration procedure is validated by comparing several gauged river outflows from the system in the past with model results. The calibration results are pleasantly reasonable presenting a rational insight of the system. Subsequently, the unknown optimized parameters were used in a basin-scale linear optimization model with the ability to evaluate the system’s performance against a reduced inflow scenario in future. Results showed an acceptable match between predicted and observed outflows from the system at selected hydrometric stations. Moreover, an efficient operating policy was determined for Sefidroud dam leading to a minimum water shortage in the reduced inflow scenario.

Keywords: Auto-calibration, Gilan, Large-Scale Water Resources, Simulation.

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Authors: Liqiang Duan, Ma Jingkai, Lv Zhipeng, Haifan Cai

Abstract:

The integrated solar combined cycle (ISCC) system has a series of advantages such as increasing the system power generation, reducing the cost of solar power generation, less pollutant and CO₂ emission. In this paper, the parabolic trough collectors with direct steam generation (DSG) technology are considered to replace the heat load of heating surfaces in heat regenerator steam generation (HRSG) of a conventional natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) system containing a PG9351FA gas turbine and a triple pressure HRSG with reheat. The detailed model of the NGCC system is built in ASPEN PLUS software and the parabolic trough collectors with DSG technology is modeled in EBSILON software. ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of single, two, three and four heating surfaces are studied in this paper. Results show that: (1) the ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement heat load of HPB, HPB+LPE, HPE2+HPB+HPS, HPE1+HPE2+ HPB+HPS are the best integration schemes when single, two, three and four stages of heating surfaces are partly replaced by the parabolic trough solar energy collectors with DSG technology. (2) Both the changes of feed water flow and the heat load of the heating surfaces in ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of multi-stage heating surfaces are smaller than those in ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of single heating surface. (3) ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of HPB+LPE heating surfaces can increase the solar power output significantly. (4) The ISCC-DSG systems with the replacement of HPB heating surfaces has the highest solar-thermal-to-electricity efficiency (47.45%) and the solar radiation energy-to-electricity efficiency (30.37%), as well as the highest exergy efficiency of solar field (33.61%).

Keywords: HRSG, integration scheme, parabolic trough collectors with DSG technology, solar power generation.

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Authors: I. Gupta, B. Karmakar

Abstract:

Bengal has a long history (8^th century A.D. onwards) of decorating the wall of brick-built temples with curved terracotta plaques on a diverse range of subjects. These could be considered as one of the most significant visual archives to understand the various facets of the then contemporary societies. The temples under focus include Char-bangla temple complex (circa 1755 A.D.), Bhavanishvara temple (circa 1755 A.D.) and the Gangeshvara Shiva Jor-bangla temple (circa 1753 A.D.), located within a part of the river Bhagirathi basin in Baranagar, Murshidabad, West Bengal, India. Though, a diverse range of subjects have been intricately carved mainly on the front façades of the Baranagar temple cluster, the study specifically concentrates on depictions related to religious and non-religious acts performed by practitioners of various religious sects of late medieval Bengal with the intention to acquire knowledge about the various facets of their life. Apart from this, the paper also mapped the spatial location of these religious performers on the temples’ façades to examine if any systematic plan or arrangement had been employed for connoting a particular idea. Further, an attempt is made to provide a commentary on the attire worn by followers of various religious sects of late medieval Bengal. The primary materials for the study comprise the depictions which denote religious activities carved on the terracotta plaques. The secondary material has been collected from published and unpublished theses, journals and books. These data have been further supplemented with photographic documentation, some useful line-drawings and descriptions in table format to get a clear understanding of the concerned issues.

Keywords: Attire, scheme of allocation, terracotta temple, various religious sect.

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Authors: Y. P. Wang, J. K. Chen, C. H. Lee, G. H. Huang, M. C. Wang, S. W. Chen, Y. T. Kuan, H. C. Lin, C. Y. Huang, W. H. Liang, W. C. Lin, H. C. Yu

Abstract:

The hi-tech industries in the Science Park at southern Taiwan were heavily damaged by a strong earthquake early 2016. The financial loss in this event was attributed primarily to the automated stocker system handling fully processed products, and recovery of the automated stocker system from the aftermath proved to contribute major lead time. Therefore, development of effective means for protection of stockers against earthquakes has become the highest priority for risk minimization and business continuity. This study proposes to mitigate the seismic response of the stockers by introducing viscous fluid dampers in between the ceiling and the top of the stockers. The stocker is expected to vibrate less violently with a passive control force on top. Linear damper is considered in this application with an optimal damping coefficient determined from a preliminary parametric study. The damper is small in size in comparison with those adopted for building or bridge applications. Component test of the dampers has been carried out to make sure they meet the design requirement. Shake table tests have been further conducted to verify the proposed scheme under realistic earthquake conditions. Encouraging results have been achieved by effectively reducing the seismic responses of up to 60% and preventing the FOUPs from falling off the shelves that would otherwise be the case if left unprotected. Effectiveness of adopting a viscous fluid damper for seismic control of the stocker on top against the ceiling has been confirmed. This technique has been adopted by Macronix International Co., LTD for seismic retrofit of existing stockers. Demonstrative projects on the application of the proposed technique are planned underway for other companies in the display industry as well.

Keywords: Hi-tech industries, seismic protection, automated stocker system, viscous fluid damper.

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