Search results for: distributed energy resources

Authors: Davide D’Aria, Paolo Falcone, Luigi Maggi, Aldo Cero, Giovanni Amoroso

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The paper presents a methodology for real-time structural health monitoring and geophysical applications. The key elements of the system are a high performance MIMO RADAR sensor, an optical camera and a dedicated set of software algorithms encompassing interferometry, tomography and photogrammetry. The MIMO Radar sensor proposed in this work, provides an extremely high sensitivity to displacements making the system able to react to tiny deformations (up to tens of microns) with a time scale which spans from milliseconds to hours. The MIMO feature of the system makes the system capable of providing a set of two-dimensional images of the observed scene, each mapped on the azimuth-range directions with noticeably resolution in both the dimensions and with an outstanding repetition rate. The back-scattered energy, which is distributed in the 3D space, is projected on a 2D plane, where each pixel has as coordinates the Line-Of-Sight distance and the cross-range azimuthal angle. At the same time, the high performing processing unit allows to sense the observed scene with remarkable refresh periods (up to milliseconds), thus opening the way for combined static and dynamic structural health monitoring. Thanks to the smart TX/RX antenna array layout, the MIMO data can be processed through a tomographic approach to reconstruct the three-dimensional map of the observed scene. This 3D point cloud is then accurately mapped on a 2D digital optical image through photogrammetric techniques, allowing for easy and straightforward interpretations of the measurements. Once the three-dimensional image is reconstructed, a 'repeat-pass' interferometric approach is exploited to provide the user of the system with high frequency three-dimensional motion/vibration estimation of each point of the reconstructed image. At this stage, the methodology leverages consolidated atmospheric correction algorithms to provide reliable displacement and vibration measurements.

Keywords: Interferometry, MIMO RADAR, SAR, tomography.

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Authors: Farnaz Amin Salehi, David Edward.Cotton, Mohammad Ali Abdoli, Kambiz Rezapour

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The daily increase of organic waste materials resulting from different activities in the country is one of the main factors for the pollution of environment. Today, with regard to the low level of the output of using traditional methods, the high cost of disposal waste materials and environmental pollutions, the use of modern methods such as anaerobic digestion for the production of biogas has been prevailing. The collected biogas from the process of anaerobic digestion, as a renewable energy source similar to natural gas but with a less methane and heating value is usable. Today, with the help of technologies of filtration and proper preparation, access to biogas with features fully similar to natural gas has become possible. At present biogas is one of the main sources of supplying electrical and thermal energy and also an appropriate option to be used in four stroke engine, diesel engine, sterling engine, gas turbine, gas micro turbine and fuel cell to produce electricity. The use of biogas for different reasons which returns to socio-economic and environmental advantages has been noticed in CHP for the production of energy in the world. The production of biogas from the technology of anaerobic digestion and its application in CHP power plants in Iran can not only supply part of the energy demands in the country, but it can materialize moving in line with the sustainable development. In this article, the necessity of the development of CHP plants with biogas fuels in the country will be dealt based on studies performed from the economic, environmental and social aspects. Also to prove the importance of the establishment of these kinds of power plants from the economic point of view, necessary calculations has been done as a case study for a CHP power plant with a biogas fuel.

Keywords: Anaerobic Digestion, Biogas, CHP, Organic Wastes

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Authors: M. Ilyas, M. W. Siddiqi

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This study employs auto-regressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds approach to cointegration for long run and errorcorrection modeling (ECM) for short run analysis to examine the relationship between revenue gap and economic growth for Pakistan using annual time series data over the period 1980 to 2008. The short and long run results indicate that revenue gap is statistical significant and negatively effect economic growth. The significant and negative coefficient of error correction term in ECM indicates that after a shock, the long rum equilibrium will again converge towards equilibrium about 10.406 percent within a year.

Keywords: ARDL cointegration, Economic Growth, RevenueGap, Pakistan.

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Authors: Aktan Ozsoy, Ali Fırat Cabalar, Eyyub Karakan

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Climate change is one of the biggest issues facing communities. Increasing population, growing economies, rapid industrialization are the main factors triggering it. On the other hand, the millions of tons of waste have generated by the period of rapid global growth not only harm to the environment but also lead to the use of valuable lands around the world as landfill sites. Moreover, it is rapidly consuming our resources and this forces the human population and wildlife to share increasingly shrinking space. In this direction, it is vital to reuse waste materials with a sustainability philosophy. This study was carried out to contribute to the combat against climate change, conserve our natural resources and the environment. An oedometer (consolidation) test was performed on two waste materials combined in certain proportions to evaluate their sustainable usage. Crushed brick dust (BD) was mixed with rock powder (RP) in 0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50% (dry weight of soil). The results obtained revealed the importance of the gradation of the material used in the consolidation test. It was found that there was a negligible difference between the initial and final void ratio of mixtures with BD added.

Keywords: Waste material, oedometer test, environmental geotechnics, sustainability, crushed brick dust, rock powder.

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Authors: Fatma Khaled, Khaoula Hidouri, Bechir Chaouachi

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Desalination using solar energy coupled with membrane techniques such as vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) is considered as an interesting alternative for the production of pure water. During this work, a developed model of a polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) hollow fiber membrane module of a VMD unit of seawater was carried out. This simulation leads to establishing a comparison between the effects of two different equations of the vaporization latent heat on the membrane surface temperature and on the unit productivity. Besides, in order to study the effect of putting membrane modules in series on the outlet fluid temperature and on the productivity of the process, a simulation was executed.

Keywords: Vacuum membrane distillation, membrane module, membrane temperature, productivity.

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Authors: Maged A. Mossallam

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The objective from this paper is to design a solar thermal engine for space vehicles orbital control and electricity generation. A computational model is developed for the prediction of the solar thermal engine performance for different design parameters and conditions in order to enhance the engine efficiency. The engine is divided into two main subsystems. First, the concentrator dish which receives solar energy from the sun and reflects them to the cavity receiver. The second one is the cavity receiver which receives the heat flux reflected from the concentrator and transfers heat to the fluid passing over. Other subsystems depend on the application required from the engine. For thrust application, a nozzle is introduced to the system for the fluid to expand and produce thrust. Hydrogen is preferred as a working fluid in the thruster application. Results model developed is used to determine the thrust for a concentrator dish 4 meters in diameter (provides 10 kW of energy), focusing solar energy to a 10 cm aperture diameter cavity receiver. The cavity receiver outer length is 50 cm and the internal cavity is 47 cm in length. The suggested design material of the internal cavity is tungsten to withstand high temperature. The thermal model and analysis shows that the hydrogen temperature at the plenum reaches 2000oK after about 250 seconds for hot start operation for a flow rate of 0.1 g/sec.Using solar thermal engine as an electricity generation device on earth is also discussed. In this case a compressor and turbine are used to convert the heat gained by the working fluid (air) into mechanical power. This mechanical power can be converted into electrical power by using a generator.

Keywords: Concentrated Solar Energy, Orbital Control, Power Generation, Solar Thermal Engine, Space Vehicles Propulsion

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Authors: Mehran Jamshidi, Naghmeh Yazdanfar, Masoud Nasri

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In general architecture means the art of creating the space. Comprehensive and complete body which is created by a creative and purposeful thought to respond the human needs. Professionally, architecture is the are of designing and comprehensive planning of physical spaces that is created for human-s productivity. The purpose of architectural design is to respond the human needs which is appeared in physical frame. Human in response to his needs is always looking to achieve comfort. Throughout history of human civilization this relative comfort has been inspired by nature and assimilating the facility and natural achievement in the format of artifact patterns base on the nature, so that it is achieved in this comfort level and invention of these factors. All physical factors like regional, social and economical factors are made available to human in order to achieve a specific goal and are made to gain an ideal architecture to respond the functional needs and consider the aesthetics and elemental principles and pay attention to residents- comfort. In this study the Persian architecture with exploiting and transforming the energies into the requisite energies of architecture spaces and importing fuel products, utilities, etc, in order to achieve a relative comfort level will be investigated. In this paper the study of structural and physical specialties of traditional houses in desert regions and Central Plateau of Iran gave us this opportunity to being more familiar with important specialties of energy productivity in architecture body of traditional houses in these regions specially traditional houses of Kashan and in order to use these principles to create modern architectures in these regions.

Keywords: architecture principles, stable architecture, management, energy productivity, body, energy

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Authors: Edelyn Alicar-Cadorna

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This study assessed the productivity and performance of the barangays in the Heritage City of Vigan in terms of the barangays- resource requirements, management of resources, produced goods and services, and outcomes of service delivery. The descriptive research design was used in the study employing the input-process-output-outcomes model. Findings of this study showed that the barangays were strong in terms of resource requirements which enabled them to produce goods and services. The barangays were also strong in terms of management of resources in development planning. They also showed great potential along fiscal administration, and had a moderately high capability in organization and management. However, the barangays appeared to be most wanting in the area of barangay legislation, but they were strong in community mobilization and they had strong linkages with POs, NGOs and educational institutions. In the delivery of social services, the barangays favored the maintenance of day care centers. However, the barangays seem to be weak in the delivery of economic services. They fared well along providing protective services such as in establishing a Barangay Disaster Coordinating Council and organizing a group of Barangay Tanod. In terms of environmental services, the barangays performed garbage collection and disposal; however, garbage still found their way in the streets in some barangays. The services delivered had effected an improved status of the barangays. However, the barangays are still facing some problems.

Keywords: Barangays, Performance and Productivity.

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Authors: Ladan Darougaran, Hossein Shahinzadeh, Hajar Ghotb, Leila Ramezanpour

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In ad hoc networks, the main issue about designing of protocols is quality of service, so that in wireless sensor networks the main constraint in designing protocols is limited energy of sensors. In fact, protocols which minimize the power consumption in sensors are more considered in wireless sensor networks. One approach of reducing energy consumption in wireless sensor networks is to reduce the number of packages that are transmitted in network. The technique of collecting data that combines related data and prevent transmission of additional packages in network can be effective in the reducing of transmitted packages- number. According to this fact that information processing consumes less power than information transmitting, Data Aggregation has great importance and because of this fact this technique is used in many protocols [5]. One of the Data Aggregation techniques is to use Data Aggregation tree. But finding one optimum Data Aggregation tree to collect data in networks with one sink is a NP-hard problem. In the Data Aggregation technique, related information packages are combined in intermediate nodes and form one package. So the number of packages which are transmitted in network reduces and therefore, less energy will be consumed that at last results in improvement of longevity of network. Heuristic methods are used in order to solve the NP-hard problem that one of these optimization methods is to solve Simulated Annealing problems. In this article, we will propose new method in order to build data collection tree in wireless sensor networks by using Simulated Annealing algorithm and we will evaluate its efficiency whit Genetic Algorithm.

Keywords: Data aggregation, wireless sensor networks, energy efficiency, simulated annealing algorithm, genetic algorithm.

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Authors: Thomas M. Prinz Wilhelm R. Rossak, Kai Gebhardt

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A straightforward and intuitive combination of single simulations into an aggregated master-simulation is not trivial. There are lots of problems, which trigger-specific difficulties during the modeling and execution of such a simulation. In this paper we identify these problems and aim to solve them by mapping the task to the field of multi agent systems. The solution is a new meta-model named AGENTMAP, which is able to mitigate most of the problems and to support intuitive modeling at the same time. This meta-model will be introduced and explained on basis of an example from the e-commerce domain.

Keywords: Multi Agent System, Agent-based Simulation, Distributed Systems, Meta-models.

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Authors: Dhiflaoui Hafedh, Khlifi Kaouthar, Ben Cheikh Larbi Ahmed

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These Monolayer and multilayer coatings of CrN and AlCrN deposited on 100Cr6 (AISI 52100) substrate by PVD magnetron sputtering system. The microstructures of the coatings were characterized using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The AFM analysis revealed the presence of domes and craters that are uniformly distributed over all surfaces of the various layers. Nanoindentation measurement of CrN coating showed maximum hardness (H) and modulus (E) of 14 GPa and 190 GPa, respectively. The measured H and E values of AlCrN coatings were found to be 30 GPa and 382 GPa, respectively. The improved hardness in both the coatings was attributed mainly to a reduction in crystallite size and decrease in surface roughness. The incorporation of Al into the CrN coatings has improved both hardness and Young’s modulus.

Keywords: CrN/AlCrN, coatings, hardness, nano-indentation.

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Authors: Khin Thanda Soe

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A model to identify the lifetime of target tracking wireless sensor network is proposed. The model is a static clusterbased architecture and aims to provide two factors. First, it is to increase the lifetime of target tracking wireless sensor network. Secondly, it is to enable good localization result with low energy consumption for each sensor in the network. The model consists of heterogeneous sensors and each sensing member node in a cluster uses two operation modes–active mode and sleep mode. The performance results illustrate that the proposed architecture consumes less energy and increases lifetime than centralized and dynamic clustering architectures, for target tracking sensor network.

Keywords: Network lifetime, Target Localization, TargetTracking, Wireless Sensor Networks.

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Authors: K. Kalaikumar, E. Baburaj

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One of the problems to be addressed in wireless sensor networks is the issues related to cross layer communication. Cross layer architecture shares the information across the layer, ensuring Quality of Services (QoS). With this shared information, MAC protocol adapts effective functionality maintenance such as route selection on changeable sensor network environment. However, time slot assignment and neighbour route selection time duration for cross layer have not been carried out. The time varying physical layer communication over cross layer causes high traffic load in the sensor network. Though, the traffic load was reduced using cross layer optimization procedure, the computational cost is high. To improve communication efficacy in the sensor network, a self-determined time slot based Cross-Layered Neighbour Route Discovery (C-LNRD) method is presented in this paper. In the presented work, the initial process is to discover the route in the sensor network using Dynamic Source Routing based Medium Access Control (MAC) sub layers. This process considers MAC layer operation with dynamic route neighbour table discovery. Then, the discovered route path for packet communication employs Broad Route Distributed Time Slot Assignment method on Cross-Layered Sensor Network system. Broad Route means time slotting on varying length of the route paths. During packet communication in this sensor network, transmission of packets is adjusted over the different time with varying ranges for controlling the traffic rate. Finally, Rayleigh fading model is developed in C-LNRD to identify the performance of the sensor network communication structure. The main task of Rayleigh Fading is to measure the power level of each communication under MAC sub layer. The minimized power level helps to easily reduce the computational cost of packet communication in the sensor network. Experiments are conducted on factors such as power factor, on packet communication, neighbour route discovery time, and information (i.e., packet) propagation speed.

Keywords: Medium access control, neighbour route discovery, wireless sensor network, Rayleigh fading, distributed time slot assignment

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Authors: Ghada Elshafei, Abdelazim Negm

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Life cycle assessment is a technique to assess the environmental aspects and potential impacts associated with a product, process, or service, by compiling an inventory of relevant energy and material inputs and environmental releases; evaluating the potential environmental impacts associated with identified inputs and releases; and interpreting the results to help you make a more informed decision. In this paper, the life cycle assessment of aluminum and beech wood as two commonly used materials in Egypt for window frames are heading, highlighting their benefits and weaknesses. Window frames of the two materials have been assessed on the basis of their production, energy consumption and environmental impacts. It has been found that the climate change of the windows made of aluminum and beech wood window, for a reference window (1.2m×1.2m), are 81.7 mPt and -52.5 mPt impacts respectively. Among the most important results are: fossil fuel consumption, potential contributions to the green building effect and quantities of solid waste tend to be minor for wood products compared to aluminum products; incineration of wood products can cause higher impacts of acidification and eutrophication than aluminum, whereas thermal energy can be recovered.

Keywords: Aluminum window, beech wood window, green building, life cycle assessment, life cycle analysis, SimaPro software, window frame.

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Authors: A. Kerfah, K. Taïbi, S. Omeiri, M. Trari.

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New lead-free ferroelectric relaxor ceramics were prepared by conventional solid-state synthesis in the BaTiO3-Bi2O3- Y2O3 systems. Some of these ceramics present a ferroelectric relaxor with transition temperature close to room temperature. These new materials are very interesting for applications and can replace leadbased ceramic to prevent the toxic pollutions during the preparation state. In the other hand, the energy band diagram shows the potentiality of these compounds for the solar energy conversion. Thus, some compositions have been tested successfully for H2 production upon visible light. The best activity occurs in alkaline media with a rate evolution of about 0.15 mL g-1 mn-1 and a quantum yield of 1% under polychromatic light.

Keywords: Ferroelectric, Hydrogen production, Lead-free, Photocatalysis.

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Authors: Wei Lifan, Zhang Huaiyu, Yang Yunbin, Li Jia

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Through the analysis of the process digital design based on digital mockup, the fact indicates that a distributed cooperative supporting environment is the foundation conditions to adopt design approach based on DMU. Data access authorization is concerned firstly because the value and sensitivity of the data for the enterprise. The access control for administrators is often rather weak other than business user. So authors established an enhanced system to avoid the administrators accessing the engineering data by potential approach and without authorization. Thus the data security is improved.

Keywords: access control, DMU, PLM, virtual prototype.

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Authors: Wilson Handoko, Farshid Pahlevani, Isha Singla, Himanish Kumar, Veena Sahajwalla

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Aluminium bronze alloys are well known for their superior abrasion, tensile strength and non-magnetic properties, due to the co-presence of iron (Fe) and aluminium (Al) as alloying elements and have been commonly used in many industrial applications. However, continuous exposure to the marine environment will accelerate the risk of a tendency to Al bronze alloys parts failures. Although a higher level of corrosion resistance properties can be achieved by modifying its elemental composition, it will come at a price through the complex manufacturing process and increases the risk of reducing the ductility of Al bronze alloy. In this research, the use of ironmaking slag and waste plastic as the input source for surface modification of Al bronze alloy was implemented. Microstructural analysis conducted using polarised light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) that is equipped with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). An electrochemical corrosion test was carried out through Tafel polarisation method and calculation of protection efficiency against the base-material was determined. Results have indicated that uniform modified surface which is as the result of selective diffusion process, has enhanced corrosion resistance properties up to 12.67%. This approach has opened a new opportunity to access various industrial utilisations in commercial scale through minimising the dependency on natural resources by transforming waste sources into the protective coating in environmentally friendly and cost-effective ways.

Keywords: Aluminium bronze, waste-based surface modification, Tafel polarisation, corrosion resistance.

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Authors: E. Doğan, B. Kekezoğlu

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Voltage level must be raised in order to deliver the produced energy to the consumption zones with less loss and less cost. Power transformers used to raise or lower voltage are important parts of the energy transmission system. Power transformers used in switchgear and power generation plants stay in human's intensive habitat zones as a result of expanding cities. Accordingly, noise levels produced by power transformers have begun more and more important and they have established itself as one of the research field. In this research, the noise cause on transformers has been investigated, it's causes has been examined and noise measurement techniques have been introduced. Examples of transformer noise test results are submitted and precautions to be taken were discussed for the purpose of decreasing of the noise which will occurred by transformers.

Keywords: Power transformer, noise measurement, core noise, load noise, fan-pump noise.

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Authors: Guenther Schuh, Christina Koenig, Nico Schoen, Markus Wellensiek

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Identification and selection of appropriate product and manufacturing technologies are key factors for competitiveness and market success of technology-based companies. Therefore, many companies perform technology intelligence (TI) activities to ensure the identification of evolving technologies at the right time. Technology monitoring is one of the three base activities of TI, besides scanning and scouting. As the technological progress is accelerating, more and more technologies are being developed. Against the background of limited resources it is therefore necessary to focus TI activities. In this paper we propose a concept for defining appropriate search fields for technology monitoring. This limitation of search space leads to more concentrated monitoring activities. The concept will be introduced and demonstrated through an anonymized case study conducted within an industry project at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology IPT. The described concept provides a customized monitoring approach, which is suitable for use in technology-oriented companies. It is shown in this paper that the definition of search fields and search tasks are suitable methods to define topics of interest and thus to align monitoring activities. Current as well as planned product, production and material technologies and existing skills, capabilities and resources form the basis for derivation of relevant search areas. To further improve the concept of technology monitoring the proposed concept should be extended during future research e.g. by the definition of relevant monitoring parameters.

Keywords: Monitoring radar, search field, technology intelligence, technology monitoring.

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Authors: Yalda Safaralipour, Seyed Ahmad Shahgoli

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Nowadays over-consumption of fossil energy in buildings especially in residential buildings and also considering the increase in populations, the crisis of energy shortage in a near future is predictable. The recent performance of developed countries in construction with the aim of decreasing fossil energies shows that these countries have understood the incoming crisis and has taken reasonable and basic actions in this regard. However, Iranian architecture, with several thousands years of history, has acquired and executed invaluable experiences in designing, adapting and coordinating with the nature. Architectural studies during the recent decades show that imitating modern western architecture results in high energy wastage beside the fact that it not reasonably adaptable and corresponded with the habits and customs of people unlike the architecture in the past which was compatible and adaptable with the climatic conditions and this necessitates optimal using of renewable energies more than ever. This paper studies problems of design, execution and living in today's houses and reviews the characteristics of climatic elements paying special attention to the performance of trombe wall and solar greenhouse in traditional houses and offers some suggestions for combining these two elements and a climatic strategy.

Keywords: Climatic Designing, Housing in Hot & Dry Area, Solar Greenhouse, Trombe Wall.

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Authors: Visit Hirankitti, Vuong Tran Xuan

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Multi-agent communication of Semantic Web information cannot be realized without the need to reason with ontology and agent locations. This is because for an agent to be able to reason with an external semantic web ontology, it must know where and how to access to that ontology. Similarly, for an agent to be able to communicate with another agent, it must know where and how to send a message to that agent. In this paper we propose a framework of an agent which can reason with ontology and agent locations in order to perform reasoning with multiple distributed ontologies and perform communication with other agents on the semantic web. The agent framework and its communication mechanism are formulated entirely in meta-logic.

Keywords: Semantic Web, agent communication, ontologies.

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Authors: Manfred Szerencsits, Christine Weinberger, Maximilian Kuderna, Franz Feichtinger, Eva Erhart, Stephan Maier

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Cover or catch crops have beneficial effects for soil, water, erosion, etc. If harvested, they also provide feedstock for biogas without competition for arable land in regions, where only one main crop can be produced per year. On average gross energy yields of approx. 1300 m³ methane (CH₄) ha^-1 can be expected from 4.5 tonnes (t) of cover crop dry matter (DM) in Austria. Considering the total energy invested from cultivation to compression for biofuel use a net energy yield of about 1000 m³ CH₄ ha^-1 is remaining. With the straw of grain maize or Corn Cob Mix (CCM) similar energy yields can be achieved. In comparison to catch crops remaining on the field as green manure or to complete fallow between main crops the effects on soil, water and climate can be improved if cover crops are harvested without soil compaction and digestate is returned to the field in an amount equivalent to cover crop removal. In this way, the risk of nitrate leaching can be reduced approx. by 25% in comparison to full fallow. The risk of nitrous oxide emissions may be reduced up to 50% by contrast with cover crops serving as green manure. The effects on humus content and erosion are similar or better than those of cover crops used as green manure when the same amount of biomass was produced. With higher biomass production the positive effects increase even if cover crops are harvested and the only digestate is brought back to the fields. The ecological footprint of arable farming can be reduced by approx. 50% considering the substitution of natural gas with CH₄ produced from cover crops.

Keywords: Biogas, cover crops, catch crops, land use competition, sustainable agriculture.

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Authors: Wann-Ming Wey

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In recent years, the problems of global climate change and natural disasters have induced the concerns and attentions of environmental sustainability issues for the public. Aside from the environmental planning efforts done for human environment, Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) has been widely used as one of the future solutions for the sustainable city development. In order to be more consistent with the urban sustainable development, the development of the built environment planning based on the concept of Green TOD which combines both TOD and Green Urbanism is adapted here. The connotation of the urban development under the green TOD including the design toward environment protect, the maximum enhancement resources and the efficiency of energy use, use technology to construct green buildings and protected areas, natural ecosystems and communities linked, etc. Green TOD is not only to provide the solution to urban traffic problems, but to direct more sustainable and greener consideration for future urban development planning and design. In this study, we use both the TOD and Green Urbanism concepts to proceed to the study of the built environment planning and design. Fuzzy Delphi Technique (FDT) is utilized to screen suitable criteria of the green TOD. Furthermore, Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) were then developed to evaluate the criteria and prioritize the alternatives. The study results can be regarded as the future guidelines of the built environment planning and designing under green TOD development in Taiwan.

Keywords: Green transit-oriented development, built environment, fuzzy Delphi technique, quality function deployment, fuzzy analytic network process.

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Authors: B. R. Tapas Bapu, K. Thanigaivelu, A. Rajkumar

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Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have wide variety of applications and provide limitless future potentials. Nodes in WSNs are prone to failure due to energy depletion, hardware failure, communication link errors, malicious attacks, and so on. Therefore, fault tolerance is one of the critical issues in WSNs. We study how fault tolerance is addressed in different applications of WSNs. Fault tolerant routing is a critical task for sensor networks operating in dynamic environments. Many routing, power management, and data dissemination protocols have been specifically designed for WSNs where energy awareness is an essential design issue. The focus, however, has been given to the routing protocols which might differ depending on the application and network architecture.

Keywords: Resiliency, Self-diagnosis, Smart Grid, TinyOS, WSANs.

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Authors: Zhengnan Shi

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In the self-stabilizing algorithmic paradigm, each node has a local view of the system, in a finite amount of time the system converges to a global state with desired property. In a graph G = (V, E), a subset S C V is a 2-packing if Vi c V: IN[i] n SI <1. In this paper, an ID-based, constant space, self-stabilizing algorithm that stabilizes to a maximal 2-packing in an arbitrary graph is proposed. It is shown that the algorithm stabilizes in 0(n3) moves under any scheduler (daemon). Specifically, it is shown that the algorithm stabilizes in linear time-steps under a synchronous daemon where every privileged node moves at each time-step.

Keywords: self-stabilization, 2-packing, distributed computing, fault tolerance, graph algorithms

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Authors: R. Kenova, K. Anguelov, R. Nikolova

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The human factor plays a major role in boosting the competitive capacity of logistic enterprises. This is of particular importance when it comes to logistic companies. On the one hand they should be strictly compliant with legislation; on the other hand, they should be competitive in terms of pricing and of delivery timelines. Moreover, their policies should allow them to be as flexible as possible. All these circumstances are reason for very serious challenges for the qualification, motivation and experience of the human resources, working in logistic companies or in logistic departments of trade and industrial enterprises. The geographic place of Bulgaria puts it in position of a country with some specific competitive advantages in the goods transport from Europe to Asia and back. Along with it, there is a number of logistic companies, that operate in this sphere in Bulgaria. In the current paper, the authors aim to establish the condition of the administrative capacity and human resources in the logistic companies and logistic departments of trade and industrial companies in Bulgaria in order to propose some guidelines for improving of their effectiveness. Due to independent empirical research, conducted in Bulgarian logistic, trade and industrial enterprises, the authors investigate both the impact degree and the interdependence of various factors that characterize the administrative capacity. The study is conducted with a prepared questionnaire, in format of direct interview with the respondents. The volume of the poll is 50 respondents, representatives of: general managers of industrial or trade enterprises; logistic managers of industrial or trade enterprises; general managers of forwarding companies – either with own or with hired transport; experts from Bulgarian association of logistics; logistic lobbyist and scientists of the relevant area. The data are gathered for 3 months, then arranged by a specialized software program and analyzed by preset criteria. Based on the results of this methodological toolbox, it can be claimed that there is a correlation between the individual criteria. Also, a commitment between the administrative capacity and other factors that determine the competitiveness of the studied companies is established. In this paper, the authors present results of the empirical research that concerns the number and the workload in the logistic departments of the enterprises. Also, what is commented is the experience, related to logistic processes management and human resources competence. Moreover, the overload level of the logistic specialists is analyzed as one of the main threats for making mistakes and losing clients. The paper stands behind the thesis that there is indispensability of forming an effective and efficient administrative capacity, based on the number, qualification, experience and motivation of the staff in the logistic companies. The paper ends with recommendations about the qualification and experience of the specialists in logistic departments; providing effective and efficient administrative capacity in the logistic departments; interdependence of the human factor and the other factors that influence the enterprise competitiveness.

Keywords: Administrative capacity, human resources, logistic competitiveness, staff qualification.

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Authors: H. Siswoyo Jo, N. Mir-Nasiri, E. Jayamani

Abstract:

This paper presents a new type of mechanism and trajectory planning strategy for bipedal walking robot. The newly designed mechanism is able to improve the performance of bipedal walking robot in terms of energy efficiency and weight reduction by utilizing minimum number of actuators. The usage of parallelogram mechanism eliminates the needs of having an extra actuator at the knee joint. This mechanism works together with the joint space trajectory planning in order to realize straight legged walking which cannot be achieved by conventional inverse kinematics trajectory planning due to the singularity. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is confirmed by computer simulation results.

Keywords: Bipedal robot, Energy efficiency, Straight legged walking, Trajectory planning.

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Authors: SunWoo Lee, TaeBum Lee, YoonHwa Park, YooJeong Kim

Abstract:

Solar lentigines appear predominantly on chronically sun-exposed areas of skin, such as the face and the back of the hands. Among the several ways to lentigines treatment, quality-switched lasers are well-known effective treatment for removing solar lentigines. The present pilot study was therefore designed to assess the efficacy of quality-switched ruby laser treatment of such lentigines compare between pretreatment and posttreatment of skin brightness. Twenty-two adults with chronic sun-damaged skin (mean age 52.8 years, range 37–74 years) were treated at the Korean site. A 694 nm Q-switched ruby laser was used, with the energy density set from 1.4 to 12.5 J/cm2, to treat solar lentigines. Average brightness of skin color before ruby laser treatment was 137.3 and its skin color was brightened after ruby laser treatment by 150.5. Also, standard deviation of skin color was decreased from 17.8 to 16.4. Regarding the multivariate model, age and energy were identified as significant factors for skin color brightness change in lentigo depigmentation by ruby laser treatment. Their respective odds ratios were 1.082 (95% CI, 1.007–1.163), and 1.431 (95% CI, 1.051–1.946). Lentigo depigmentation treatment using ruby lasers resulted in a high performance in skin color brightness. Among the relative factors involve with ruby laser treatment, age and energy were the most effective factors which skin color change to brighter than pretreatment.

Keywords: Depigmentation, lentigo, quality switched ruby laser, skin color.

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Authors: Gitanjali Devi, Kandarpa Kumar Sarma, Pranayee Datta, Anjana Kakoti Mahanta

Abstract:

Artificial Neural Network (ANN)s can be modeled for High Energy Particle analysis with special emphasis on shower core location. The work describes the use of an ANN based system which has been configured to predict locations of cores of showers in the range 1010.5 to 1020.5 eV. The system receives density values as inputs and generates coordinates of shower events recorded for values captured by 20 core positions and 80 detectors in an area of 100 meters. Twenty ANNs are trained for the purpose and the positions of shower events optimized by using cooperative ANN learning. The results derived with variations of input upto 50% show success rates in the range of 90s.

Keywords: EAS, Shower, Core, ANN, Location.

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Authors: Luís Pina

Abstract:

The conservation of marine biodiversity keeps ecosystems in balance and ensures the sustainable use of resources. In this context, technological resources have been used for monitoring marine species to allow biologists to obtain data in real-time. There are different mobile applications developed for data collection for monitoring purposes, but these systems are designed to be utilized only on third-generation (3G) phones or smartphones with Internet access and in rural parts of the developing countries, Internet services and smartphones are scarce. Thus, the objective of this work is to develop a system to monitor marine turtles using Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), which users can access through basic mobile phones. The system aims to improve the data collection mechanism and enhance the effectiveness of current systems in monitoring sea turtles using any type of mobile device without Internet access. The system will be able to report information related to the biological activities of marine turtles. Also, it will be used as a platform to assist marine conservation entities to receive reports of illegal sales of sea turtles. The system can also be utilized as an educational tool for communities, providing knowledge and allowing the inclusion of communities in the process of monitoring marine turtles. Therefore, this work may contribute with information to decision-making and implementation of contingency plans for marine conservation programs.

Keywords: GSM, marine biology, marine turtles, USSD.

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