Search results for: Database systems

Authors: Youngyoon Lee, Dahae Chong, Myungsoo Lee, Seongho Chae, Seokho Yoon

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This paper proposes two novel schemes for pilot-aided integer frequency offset (IFO) estimation in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM)-based digital video broadcastingterrestrial (DVB-T) systems. The conventional scheme proposed for estimating the IFO uses only partial information of combinations that pilots can provide, which stems from a rigorous assumption that the channel responses of pilots used for estimating the IFO change very rapidly. Thus, in this paper, we propose the novel IFO estimation schemes exploiting all information of combinations that pilots can provide to improve the performance of IFO estimation. The simulation results show that the proposed schemes are highly accurate in terms of the IFO detection probability.

Keywords: OFDM, DVB-T, pilot, IFO, estimation

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Authors: L. Salhi, M. Talbi, A. Cherif

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This paper presents a new strategy of identification and classification of pathological voices using the hybrid method based on wavelet transform and neural networks. After speech acquisition from a patient, the speech signal is analysed in order to extract the acoustic parameters such as the pitch, the formants, Jitter, and shimmer. Obtained results will be compared to those normal and standard values thanks to a programmable database. Sounds are collected from normal people and patients, and then classified into two different categories. Speech data base is consists of several pathological and normal voices collected from the national hospital “Rabta-Tunis". Speech processing algorithm is conducted in a supervised mode for discrimination of normal and pathology voices and then for classification between neural and vocal pathologies (Parkinson, Alzheimer, laryngeal, dyslexia...). Several simulation results will be presented in function of the disease and will be compared with the clinical diagnosis in order to have an objective evaluation of the developed tool.

Keywords: Formants, Neural Networks, Pathological Voices, Pitch, Wavelet Transform.

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Authors: HyunSu Seo, HoYoung Son, Sungjin Kim, WooYoung Jung

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In order to understand the seismic behavior of steel frame structure with infill FRP composite panel, simple models for simulation on the steel frame with the panel systems were developed in this study. To achieve the simple design method of the steel framed structure with the damping panel system, 2-D finite element analysis with the springs and dashpots models was conducted in ABAQUS. Under various applied spring stiffness and dashpot coefficient, the expected hysteretic energy responses of the steel frame with damping panel systems we investigated. Using the proposed simple design method which decides the stiffness and the damping, it is possible to decide the FRP and damping materials on a steel frame system.

Keywords: Interface damping layer, steel frame, seismic, FRP.

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Authors: Bongsoo Jeon, Jayoung Kim, Jihong Lee

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Methods for measuring or estimating ground shape by a laser range finder and a vision sensor (Exteroceptive sensors) have critical weaknesses in terms that these methods need a prior database built to distinguish acquired data as unique surface conditions for driving. Also, ground information by Exteroceptive sensors does not reflect the deflection of ground surface caused by the movement of UGVs. Therefore, this paper proposes a method of recognizing exact and precise ground shape using an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) as a proprioceptive sensor. In this paper, firstly this method recognizes the attitude of a robot in real-time using IMU and compensates attitude data of a robot with angle errors through analysis of vehicle dynamics. This method is verified by outdoor driving experiments of a real mobile robot.

Keywords: Inertial Measurement Unit, Laser Range Finder, Real-time recognition of the ground shape.

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Authors: Maleika Heenaye- Mamode Khan , Naushad Mamode Khan, Raja K.Subramanian

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Dorsal hand vein pattern is an emerging biometric which is attracting the attention of researchers, of late. Research is being carried out on existing techniques in the hope of improving them or finding more efficient ones. In this work, Principle Component Analysis (PCA) , which is a successful method, originally applied on face biometric is being modified using Cholesky decomposition and Lanczos algorithm to extract the dorsal hand vein features. This modified technique decreases the number of computation and hence decreases the processing time. The eigenveins were successfully computed and projected onto the vein space. The system was tested on a database of 200 images and using a threshold value of 0.9 to obtain the False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR). This modified algorithm is desirable when developing biometric security system since it significantly decreases the matching time.

Keywords: Dorsal hand vein pattern, PCA, Cholesky decomposition, Lanczos algorithm.

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Authors: Mecheri Zeid Belmecheri, Maamar Ahfir, Izzet Kale

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Automatic cardiac auscultation is still a subject of research in order to establish an objective diagnosis. Recorded heart sounds as Phonocardiogram (PCG) signals can be used for automatic segmentation into components that have clinical meanings. These are the first sound, S1, the second sound, S2, and the systolic and diastolic components, respectively. In this paper, an automatic method is proposed for the robust segmentation of heart sounds. This method is based on calculating an intermediate sawtooth-shaped signal from the length variation of the recorded PCG signal in the time domain and, using its positive derivative function that is a binary signal in training a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). Results obtained in the context of a large database of recorded PCGs with their simultaneously recorded Electrocardiograms (ECGs) from different patients in clinical settings, including normal and abnormal subjects, show on average a segmentation testing performance average of 76% sensitivity and 94% specificity.

Keywords: Heart sounds, PCG segmentation, event detection, Recurrent Neural Networks, PCG curve length.

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Authors: Young Sik Kim, Tae Kwon Ha

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Effect of Zn addition on the microstructure and mechanical properties of Mg-Zn alloys with Zn contents from 6 to 10 weight percent was investigated in this study. Through calculation of phase equilibria of Mg-Zn alloys, carried out by using FactSage® and FTLite database, solution treatment temperature was decided as temperatures from 300 to 400oC, where supersaturated solid solution can be obtained. Solid solution treatment of Mg-Zn alloys was successfully conducted at 380oC and supersaturated microstructure with all beta phase resolved into matrix was obtained. After solution treatment, hot rolling was successfully conducted by reduction of 60%. Compression and tension tests were carried out at room temperature on the samples as-cast, solution treated, hot-rolled and recrystallized after rolling. After solid solution treatment, each alloy was annealed at temperatures of 180 and 200oC for time intervals from 1 min to 48 hrs and hardness of each condition was measured by micro-Vickers method. Peak aging conditions were deduced as at the temperature of 200oC for 10 hrs. By addition of Zn by 10 weight percent, hardness and strength were enhanced.

Keywords: Mg-Zn alloy, Heat treatment, Microstructure, Mechanical properties, Hardness.

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Authors: C. Kalamani, S. Sowmiya, S. Dheivambigai, G. Harihara Sudhan

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Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is a blooming technology which uses radio frequency to track the objects. This technology transmits signals between tag and reader to fetch information from the tag with a unique serial identity. Generally, the drawbacks of RFID technology are high cost, high consumption of power and weak authentication systems between a reader and a tag. The proposed protocol utilizes less dynamic power using reversible truncated multipliers which are implemented in RFID tag-reader with mutual authentication protocol system to reduce both leakage and dynamic power consumption. The proposed system was simulated using Xilinx and Cadence tools.

Keywords: Mutual authentication, protocol, reversible gates, RFID.

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Authors: Siphiwe P. Mandina, Tinashe Shamuyashe

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Tourism has become a topical issue amongst academics and practitioners due to its potential to contribute significantly towards an economy’s GDP. The problem underpinning this research is the fact that the major attraction, Victoria Falls, is being marketed in neighboring countries like South Africa, Botswana and Zambia with tour operators providing just day trips to the Victoria Falls. This has deprived Zimbabwe of income from tourism with tourists making day trips and actually not spending nights in Zimbabwe. This therefore calls for cutting edge marketing strategies that are superior to or inimitable by competing nations such as South Africa and Zambia. This study proposes a shift towards an experience management paradigm in the tourism sector. A qualitative research was adopted for this study, and findings of this study were generalized across different tourism contexts, therefore making the survey based research design more appropriate. The target population for this study is tourists visiting Zimbabwe over the period 2016 and ZTA visitor database acquired from the Department of Immigration will form the sampling frame for the purposes of this study.

Keywords: Competitiveness, tourist arrivals, tourist experience, Zimbabwe.

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Authors: Adel A. Ghoneim

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In most existing buildings in hot climate, cooling loads lead to high primary energy consumption and consequently high CO2 emissions. These can be substantially decreased with integrated renewable energy systems. Kuwait is characterized by its dry hot long summer and short warm winter. Kuwait receives annual total radiation more than 5280 MJ/m2 with approximately 3347 h of sunshine. Solar energy systems consist of PV modules and parabolic trough collectors are considered to satisfy electricity consumption, domestic water heating, and cooling loads of an existing building. This paper presents the results of an extensive program of energy conservation and energy generation using integrated photovoltaic (PV) modules and Parabolic Trough Collectors (PTC). The program conducted on an existing institutional building intending to convert it into a Net-Zero Energy Building (NZEB) or near net Zero Energy Building (nNZEB). The program consists of two phases; the first phase is concerned with energy auditing and energy conservation measures at minimum cost and the second phase considers the installation of photovoltaic modules and parabolic trough collectors. The 2-storey building under consideration is the Applied Sciences Department at the College of Technological Studies, Kuwait. Single effect lithium bromide water absorption chillers are implemented to provide air conditioning load to the building. A numerical model is developed to evaluate the performance of parabolic trough collectors in Kuwait climate. Transient simulation program (TRNSYS) is adapted to simulate the performance of different solar system components. In addition, a numerical model is developed to assess the environmental impacts of building integrated renewable energy systems. Results indicate that efficient energy conservation can play an important role in converting the existing buildings into NZEBs as it saves a significant portion of annual energy consumption of the building. The first phase results in an energy conservation of about 28% of the building consumption. In the second phase, the integrated PV completely covers the lighting and equipment loads of the building. On the other hand, parabolic trough collectors of optimum area of 765 m2 can satisfy a significant portion of the cooling load, i.e about73% of the total building cooling load. The annual avoided CO2 emission is evaluated at the optimum conditions to assess the environmental impacts of renewable energy systems. The total annual avoided CO2 emission is about 680 metric ton/year which confirms the environmental impacts of these systems in Kuwait.

Keywords: Building integrated renewable systems, Net-Zero Energy Building, solar fraction, avoided CO2 emission.

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Authors: Chit Su Htwe, Win Htay

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The iris recognition technology is the most accurate, fast and less invasive one compared to other biometric techniques using for example fingerprints, face, retina, hand geometry, voice or signature patterns. The system developed in this study has the potential to play a key role in areas of high-risk security and can enable organizations with means allowing only to the authorized personnel a fast and secure way to gain access to such areas. The paper aim is to perform the iris region detection and iris inner and outer boundaries localization. The system was implemented on windows platform using Visual C# programming language. It is easy and efficient tool for image processing to get great performance accuracy. In particular, the system includes two main parts. The first is to preprocess the iris images by using Canny edge detection methods, segments the iris region from the rest of the image and determine the location of the iris boundaries by applying Hough transform. The proposed system tested on 756 iris images from 60 eyes of CASIA iris database images.

Keywords: Canny, C#, hough transform, image preprocessing.

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Authors: A. Sharahi, R. Tehrani, A. Mollajan

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The final step to complete the “Analytical Systems Engineering Process” is the “Allocated Architecture” in which all Functional Requirements (FRs) of an engineering system must be allocated into their corresponding Physical Components (PCs). At this step, any design for developing the system’s allocated architecture in which no clear pattern of assigning the exclusive “responsibility” of each PC for fulfilling the allocated FR(s) can be found is considered a poor design that may cause difficulties in determining the specific PC(s) which has (have) failed to satisfy a given FR successfully. The present study utilizes the Axiomatic Design method principles to mathematically address this problem and establishes an “Axiomatic Model” as a solution for reaching good alternatives for developing the allocated architecture. This study proposes a “loss Function”, as a quantitative criterion to monetarily compare non-ideal designs for developing the allocated architecture and choose the one which imposes relatively lower cost to the system’s stakeholders. For the case-study, we use the existing design of U. S. electricity marketing subsystem, based on data provided by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). The result for 2012 shows the symptoms of a poor design and ineffectiveness due to coupling among the FRs of this subsystem.

Keywords: Allocated Architecture, Analytical Systems Engineering Process, Functional Requirements (FRs), Physical Components (PCs), Responsibility of a Physical Component, System’s Stakeholders.

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Authors: Suraiya Jabin, Kamal K. Bharadwaj

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In the recent past Learning Classifier Systems have been successfully used for data mining. Learning Classifier System (LCS) is basically a machine learning technique which combines evolutionary computing, reinforcement learning, supervised or unsupervised learning and heuristics to produce adaptive systems. A LCS learns by interacting with an environment from which it receives feedback in the form of numerical reward. Learning is achieved by trying to maximize the amount of reward received. All LCSs models more or less, comprise four main components; a finite population of condition–action rules, called classifiers; the performance component, which governs the interaction with the environment; the credit assignment component, which distributes the reward received from the environment to the classifiers accountable for the rewards obtained; the discovery component, which is responsible for discovering better rules and improving existing ones through a genetic algorithm. The concatenate of the production rules in the LCS form the genotype, and therefore the GA should operate on a population of classifier systems. This approach is known as the 'Pittsburgh' Classifier Systems. Other LCS that perform their GA at the rule level within a population are known as 'Mitchigan' Classifier Systems. The most predominant representation of the discovered knowledge is the standard production rules (PRs) in the form of IF P THEN D. The PRs, however, are unable to handle exceptions and do not exhibit variable precision. The Censored Production Rules (CPRs), an extension of PRs, were proposed by Michalski and Winston that exhibit variable precision and supports an efficient mechanism for handling exceptions. A CPR is an augmented production rule of the form: IF P THEN D UNLESS C, where Censor C is an exception to the rule. Such rules are employed in situations, in which conditional statement IF P THEN D holds frequently and the assertion C holds rarely. By using a rule of this type we are free to ignore the exception conditions, when the resources needed to establish its presence are tight or there is simply no information available as to whether it holds or not. Thus, the IF P THEN D part of CPR expresses important information, while the UNLESS C part acts only as a switch and changes the polarity of D to ~D. In this paper Pittsburgh style LCSs approach is used for automated discovery of CPRs. An appropriate encoding scheme is suggested to represent a chromosome consisting of fixed size set of CPRs. Suitable genetic operators are designed for the set of CPRs and individual CPRs and also appropriate fitness function is proposed that incorporates basic constraints on CPR. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the performance of the proposed learning classifier system.

Keywords: Censored Production Rule, Data Mining, GeneticAlgorithm, Learning Classifier System, Machine Learning, PittsburgApproach, , Reinforcement learning.

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Authors: Hamidah Jantan, Abdul Razak Hamdan, Zulaiha Ali Othman

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Human Resource (HR) applications can be used to provide fair and consistent decisions, and to improve the effectiveness of decision making processes. Besides that, among the challenge for HR professionals is to manage organization talents, especially to ensure the right person for the right job at the right time. For that reason, in this article, we attempt to describe the potential to implement one of the talent management tasks i.e. identifying existing talent by predicting their performance as one of HR application for talent management. This study suggests the potential HR system architecture for talent forecasting by using past experience knowledge known as Knowledge Discovery in Database (KDD) or Data Mining. This article consists of three main parts; the first part deals with the overview of HR applications, the prediction techniques and application, the general view of Data mining and the basic concept of talent management in HRM. The second part is to understand the use of Data Mining technique in order to solve one of the talent management tasks, and the third part is to propose the potential HR system architecture for talent forecasting.

Keywords: HR Application, Knowledge Discovery inDatabase (KDD), Talent Forecasting.

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Authors: Tawiwat V., Phermsak S., Noppasit C.

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This paper deals with under actuator dynamic systems such as spring-mass-damper system when the number of control variable is less than the number of state variable. In order to apply optimal control, the controllability must be checked. There are many objective functions to be selected as the goal of the optimal control such as minimum energy, maximum energy and minimum jerk. As the objective function is the first priority, if one like to have the second goal to be applied; however, it could not fit in the objective function format and also avoiding the vector cost for the objective, this paper will illustrate the problem of under actuator dynamic systems with the easiest to deal with comparing between minimum energy and minimum jerk.

Keywords: Under actuator, Dynamic optimal control, Minimumjerk, Minimum energy.

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Authors: Kassem Saleh

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Decision Support System (DSS) are interactive software systems that are built to assist the management of an organization in the decision making process when faced with nonroutine problems in a specific application domain. Non-functional requirements (NFRs) for a DSS deal with the desirable qualities and restrictions that the DSS functionalities must satisfy. Unlike the functional requirements, which are tangible functionalities provided by the DSS, NFRs are often hidden and transparent to DSS users but affect the quality of the provided functionalities. NFRs are often overlooked or added later to the system in an ad hoc manner, leading to a poor overall quality of the system. In this paper, we discuss the development of NFRs as part of the requirements engineering phase of the system development life cycle of DSSs. To help eliciting NFRs, we provide a comprehensive taxonomy of NFRs for DSSs.

Keywords: Decision support system, Development, Elicitation, Non-functional requirements, Taxonomy

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Authors: J. Chakwizira, P. Bikam, T. A. Adeboyejo

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This paper seeks to illustrate the impact of rapid urbanization (in terms of both increase in people and vehicles) in the Gauteng region (which includes Johannesburg, Pretoria and Ekurhuleni). The impact that existing transport systems and options place on the capacity of residents from low income areas to travel and conduct various socio-economic activities is discussed. The findings are drawn from a 2013 analysis of a random transport household survey of 1550 households carried out in Gauteng province. 91.4% of the study respondents had access to public transport, while 8.6% had no access to public transport. Of the 91.4% who used public transport, the main reason used to explain this state of affairs was that it was affordable (54.3%), convenient (15.9%), Accessible (11.9%), lack of alternatives (6.4%) and reliable at 4.1%. Recommendations advanced revolve around the need to reverse land use and transportation effects of apartheid planning, growing and developing a sustainable critical mass of public transport interventions supported by appropriate transport systems that are environmentally sustainable through proper governance. 38.5% of the respondents indicated that developing compact, smart and integrated urban land spaces was key to reducing travel challenges in the study area. 23.4% indicated that the introduction and upgrading of BRT buses to cover all areas in the study area was a step in the right direction because it has great potential in shifting travel patterns to favor public modes of transport. 15.1% indicated that all open spaces should be developed so that fragmentation of land uses can be addressed. This would help to fight disconnected and fragmented space and trip making challenges in Gauteng. 13.4% indicated that improving the metro rail services was critical since this is a mass mover of commuters. 9.6% of the respondents highlighted that the bus subsidy policy has to be retained in the short to medium term since the spatial mismatches and challenges created by apartheid are yet to be fully reversed.

Keywords: Urbanisation, population, public, transport systems, Gauteng.

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Authors: S. Elnobi, Iman El-Zahaby, Amr M. Mahros

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In mobile communication systems, performance and capacity are affected by multi-path fading, delay spread and Co-Channel Interference (CCI). For this reason Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and adaptive antenna array are used is required. The goal of the OFDM is to improve the system performance against Inter-Symbol Interference (ISI). An array of adaptive antennas has been employed to suppress CCI by spatial technique. To suppress CCI in OFDM systems two main schemes the pre-FFT and the post-FFT have been proposed. In this paper, through a system level simulation, the behavior of the pre-FFT and post-FFT beamformers for OFDM system has been investigated based on two algorithms namely, Least Mean Squares (LMS) and Recursive Least Squares (RLS). The performance of the system is also discussed in multipath fading channel system specified by 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE).

Keywords: OFDM, Beamforming, Adaptive Antennas Array.

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Authors: Heshalini Rajagopal, Li Sze Chow, Raveendran Paramesran

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Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is one of the most important medical imaging modality. Subjective assessment of the image quality is regarded as the gold standard to evaluate MR images. In this study, a database of 210 MR images which contains ten reference images and 200 distorted images is presented. The reference images were distorted with four types of distortions: Rician Noise, Gaussian White Noise, Gaussian Blur and DCT compression. The 210 images were assessed by ten subjects. The subjective scores were presented in Difference Mean Opinion Score (DMOS). The DMOS values were compared with four FR-IQA metrics. We have used Pearson Linear Coefficient (PLCC) and Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient (SROCC) to validate the DMOS values. The high correlation values of PLCC and SROCC shows that the DMOS values are close to the objective FR-IQA metrics.

Keywords: Medical Resonance (MR) images, Difference Mean Opinion Score (DMOS), Full Reference Image Quality Assessment (FR-IQA).

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Authors: Nadjah Chergui, Narhimene Boustia

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Intrusion Detection Systems are an essential tool for network security infrastructure. However, IDSs have a serious problem which is the generating of massive number of alerts, most of them are false positive ones which can hide true alerts and make the analyst confused to analyze the right alerts for report the true attacks. The purpose behind this paper is to present a formalism model to perform correlation engine by the reduction of false positive alerts basing on vulnerability contextual information. For that, we propose a formalism model based on non-monotonic JClassicδє description logic augmented with a default (δ) and an exception (є) operator that allows a dynamic inference according to contextual information.

Keywords: Context, exception, default, IDS, Non-monotonic Description Logic JClassicδє, vulnerability.

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Authors: R. N. Patel, S. K. Sinha, R. Prasad

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In this work Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques like Fuzzy logic, Genetic Algorithms and Particle Swarm Optimization have been used to improve the performance of the Automatic Generation Control (AGC) system. Instead of applying Genetic Algorithms and Particle swarm optimization independently for optimizing the parameters of the conventional AGC with PI controller, an intelligent tuned Fuzzy logic controller (acting as the secondary controller in the AGC system) has been designed. The controller gives an improved dynamic performance for both hydrothermal and thermal-thermal power systems under a variety of operating conditions.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, Automatic generation control, Fuzzy control, Genetic Algorithm, Particle swarm optimization, Power systems.

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Authors: T. Kosáros, D. Gál, F. Pekár, Gy. Lakatos

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Periphyton development and composition were studied in three different treatments: (i) two fishpond units of wetland-type wastewater treatment pond systems, (ii) two fishponds in combined intensive-extensive fish farming systems and (iii) three traditional polyculture fishponds. Results showed that amounts of periphyton developed in traditional polyculture fishponds (iii) were different compared to the other treatments (i and ii), where the main function of ponds was stated wastewater treatment. Negative correlation was also observable between water quality parameters and periphyton production. The lower trophity, halobity and saprobity level of ponds indicated higher amount of periphyton. The dry matter content of periphyton was significantly higher in the samples, which were developed in traditional polyculture fishponds (2.84±3.02 g m-2 day-1, whereby the ash content in dry matter 74%), than samples taken from (i) (1.60±2.32 g m-2 day-1, 61%) and (ii) fishponds (0.65±0.45 g m-2 day-1, 81%).

Keywords: Artificial substrate, fishpond, periphyton, waterquality

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Authors: Paul B. Stone, Subhashini Ganapathy, Mary E. Fendley, Layla Akilan

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As notifications become more common through mobile devices, it is important to understand the impact of wearable devices for improved user experience of man-machine interfaces. This study examined the use of a wearable device for a real-time system using a computer simulated petrochemical system. The key research question was to determine how using information provided by the wearable device can improve human performance through measures of situational awareness and decision making. Results indicate that there was a reduction in response time when using the watch and there was no difference in situational awareness. Perception of using the watch was positive, with 83% of users finding value in using the watch and receiving haptic feedback.

Keywords: computer applications, haptic feedback, petrochemical systems, situational awareness, wearable technology

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Authors: M. Salehi, A. A. Motie Birjandi, F. Namdari

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Weak damping of low frequency oscillations is a frequent phenomenon in electrical power systems. These frequencies can be damped by power system stabilizers. Unified power flow controller (UPFC), as one of the most important FACTS devices, can be applied to increase the damping of power system oscillations and the more effect of this controller on increasing the damping of oscillations depends on its proper placement in power systems. In this paper, a technique based on controllability is proposed to select proper location of UPFC and the best input control signal in order to enhance damping of power oscillations. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is demonstrated in IEEE 9 bus power system.

Keywords: Unified power flow controller (UPFC), controllability, small signal analysis, eigenvalues.

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Authors: Ntokozo C. Mthembu

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The notion of sustainable chemistry has become significant in the discourse for a global post-colonial era, including South Africa, especially when it comes to access to the general health system and related policies in relation to disease or ease of human life. In view of the stubborn vestiges of coloniality in the daily lives of indigenous African people in general, the fundamentals of present Western medical and traditional medicine systems and related policies in the democratic era were examined in this study. The situation of traditional healers in relation to current policy was also reviewed. The advent of democracy in South Africa brought about a variety of development opportunities and limitations, particularly with respect to indigenous African knowledge systems such as traditional medicine. There were high hopes that the limitations of previous narrow cultural perspectives would be rectified in the democratic era through development interventions, but some sections of society, such as traditional healers, remain marginalised. The Afrocentric perspective was explored in dissecting government interventions related to traditional medicine. This article highlights that multiple medical systems should be adopted and that health policies should be aligned in order to guarantee mutual respect and to address the remnants of colonialism in South Africa, Africa and the broader global community.

Keywords: Traditional healing system, healers, pluralist healthcare system, post-colonial era.

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Authors: M. Kowalski, M. Kastek, M. Szustakowski

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Multispectral screening systems are becoming more popular because of their very interesting properties and applications. One of the most significant applications of multispectral screening systems is prevention of terrorist attacks. There are many kinds of threats and many methods of detection. Visual detection of objects hidden under clothing of a person is one of the most challenging problems of threats detection. There are various solutions of the problem; however, the most effective utilize multispectral surveillance imagers. The development of imaging devices and exploration of new spectral bands is a chance to introduce new equipment for assuring public safety. We investigate the possibility of long lasting detection of potentially dangerous objects covered with various types of clothing. In the article we present the results of comparative studies of passive imaging in three spectrums – visible, infrared and terahertz.

Keywords: Infrared, image processing, object detection, screening camera, terahertz.

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Authors: Fotis N. Koumboulis, Maria P. Tzamtzi

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A supervisory scheme is proposed that implements Stepwise Safe Switching Logic. The functionality of the supervisory scheme is organized in the following eight functional units: Step- Wise Safe Switching unit, Common controllers design unit, Experimentation unit, Simulation unit, Identification unit, Trajectory cruise unit, Operating points unit and Expert system unit. The supervisory scheme orchestrates both the off-line preparative actions, as well as the on-line actions that implement the Stepwise Safe Switching Logic. The proposed scheme is a generic tool, that may be easily applied for a variety of industrial control processes and may be implemented as an automation software system, with the use of a high level programming environment, like Matlab.

Keywords: Supervisory systems, safe switching, nonlinear systems.

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Authors: K. K. Yong, R. Mahmud, C. S. Woo

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Data mining and knowledge engineering have become a tough task due to the availability of large amount of data in the web nowadays. Validity and reliability of data also become a main debate in knowledge acquisition. Besides, acquiring knowledge from different languages has become another concern. There are many language translators and corpora developed but the function of these translators and corpora are usually limited to certain languages and domains. Furthermore, search results from engines with traditional 'keyword' approach are no longer satisfying. More intelligent knowledge engineering agents are needed. To address to these problems, a system known as Multilingual Word Semantic Network is proposed. This system adapted semantic network to organize words according to concepts and relations. The system also uses open source as the development philosophy to enable the native language speakers and experts to contribute their knowledge to the system. The contributed words are then defined and linked using lexical and semantic relations. Thus, related words and derivatives can be identified and linked. From the outcome of the system implementation, it contributes to the development of semantic web and knowledge engineering.

Keywords: Multilingual, semantic network, intelligent knowledge engineering.

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Authors: Irina Pyrlina

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Author presents the results of a study conducted to identify criteria of efficient information system (IS) with serviceoriented architecture (SOA) realization and proposes a ranking method to evaluate SOA information systems using a set of architecture quality criteria before the systems are implemented. The method is used to compare 7 SOA projects and ranking result for SOA efficiency of the projects is provided. The choice of SOA realization project depends on following criteria categories: IS internal work and organization, SOA policies, guidelines and change management, processes and business services readiness, risk management and mitigation. The last criteria category was analyzed on the basis of projects statistics.

Keywords: multiple criteria threshold algorithm, serviceoriented architecture, SOA operational risks, efficiency criteria for IS architecture, projects ranking.

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Authors: Kyoung Hoon Kim, Giman Kim

Abstract:

The cycles of the steam-injection gas-turbine systems are studied. The analyses of the parametric effects and the optimal operating conditions for the steam-injection gas-turbine (STIG) system and the regenerative steam-injection gas-turbine (RSTIG) system are investigated to ensure the maximum performance. Using the analytic model, the performance parameters of the system such as thermal efficiency, fuel consumption and specific power, and also the optimal operating conditions are evaluated in terms of pressure ratio, steam injection ratio, ambient temperature and turbine inlet temperature (TIT). It is shown that the computational results are presented to have a notable enhancement of thermal efficiency and specific power.

Keywords: gas turbine, RSTIG, steam injection, STIG, thermal efficiency.

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