Search results for: Manufacturing Systems

Authors: Junko Hara, Yoshishige Kawabe, Takeshi Komai, Chihiro Inoue

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The chemical degradation of dieldrin in ferric sulfide and iron powder aqueous suspension was investigated in laboratory batch type experiments. To identify the reaction mechanism, reduced copper was used as reductant. More than 90% of dieldrin was degraded using both reaction systems after 29 days. Initial degradation rate of the pesticide using ferric sulfide was superior to that using iron powder. The reaction schemes were completely dissimilar even though the ferric ion plays an important role in both reaction systems. In the case of metallic iron powder, dieldrin undergoes partial dechlorination. This reaction proceeded by reductive hydrodechlorination with the generation of H+, which arise by oxidation of ferric iron. This reductive reaction was accelerated by reductant but mono-dechlorination intermediates were accumulated. On the other hand, oxidative degradation was observed in the reaction with ferric sulfide, and the stable chemical structure of dieldrin was decomposed into water-soluble intermediates. These reaction intermediates have no chemical structure of drin class. This dehalogenation reaction assumes to occur via the adsorbed hydroxyl radial generated on the surface of ferric sulfide.

Keywords: Dieldrin, kinetics, pesticide residue, soil remediation

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Authors: Elmi Abu Bakar, Tetsuo Miyake, Zhong Zhang, Takashi Imamura

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Knowing the geometrical object pose of products in manufacturing line before robot manipulation is required and less time consuming for overall shape measurement. In order to perform it, the information of shape representation and matching of objects is become required. Objects are compared with its descriptor that conceptually subtracted from each other to form scalar metric. When the metric value is smaller, the object is considered closed to each other. Rotating the object from static pose in some direction introduce the change of value in scalar metric value of boundary information after feature extraction of related object. In this paper, a proposal method for indexing technique for retrieval of 3D geometrical models based on similarity between boundaries shapes in order to measure 3D CAD object pose using object shape feature matching for Computer Aided Testing (CAT) system in production line is proposed. In experimental results shows the effectiveness of proposed method.

Keywords: CAD, rendering, feature extraction, feature classification.

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Authors: R. Sharma, M. Gopal

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Markov games can be effectively used to design controllers for nonlinear systems. The paper presents two novel controller design algorithms by incorporating ideas from gametheory literature that address safety and consistency issues of the 'learned' control strategy. A more widely used approach for controller design is the H∞ optimal control, which suffers from high computational demand and at times, may be infeasible. We generate an optimal control policy for the agent (controller) via a simple Linear Program enabling the controller to learn about the unknown environment. The controller is facing an unknown environment and in our formulation this environment corresponds to the behavior rules of the noise modeled as the opponent. Proposed approaches aim to achieve 'safe-consistent' and 'safe-universally consistent' controller behavior by hybridizing 'min-max', 'fictitious play' and 'cautious fictitious play' approaches drawn from game theory. We empirically evaluate the approaches on a simulated Inverted Pendulum swing-up task and compare its performance against standard Q learning.

Keywords: Fictitious Play, Cautious Fictitious Play, InvertedPendulum, Controller, Markov Games, Mobile Robot.

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Authors: Sahira N. Muslim, Alaa N. Mohammed, Saba Saadoon Khazaal, Batool Kadham Salman, Israa M. S. AL-Kadmy, Sraa N. Muslim, Ahmed S. Dwaish, Sawsan Mohammed Kareem, Sarah N. Aziz, Ruaa A. Jasim

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Tannase has wide applications in food, beverage, brewing, cosmetics and chemical industries and one of the major applications of tannase is the production of gallic acid. Gallic acid is used for manufacturing of trimethoprim. In the present study, a local fungal strain of Penicillium expansum A₄ isolated from spoilt apple samples gave the highest production level of tannase. Tannase was partially purified with a recovery yield of 92.52% and 6.32 fold of purification by precipitation using ammonium sulfate at 50% saturation. Tannase led to increased antimicrobial activity of ceftazidime against Pseudomonas aeruginosa and S. aureus and had a synergism effect at low concentrations of ceftazidime, and thus, tannase may be a useful adjuvant agent for the treatment of many bacterial infections in combination with ceftazidime.

Keywords: Ceftazidime, Penicillium expansum, tannase, antimicrobial activity.

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Authors: Young-Jun You, Youn-Ju Jeong, Min-Su Park, Du-Ho Lee

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Due to a lot of limited conditions, a large box type floating structure is inevitably constructed by connecting many pontoons. When a floating structure is made with concrete, concrete shear key with saw-teeth shape is often used to carry shear force. Match casting for the shear key and precise construction on a sea are very important for making separated two pontoons as one body but those are not easy work and may increase construction time and cost. To solve this problem, one-way shear key is studied in this paper for a connected part where there is some difference between upward and downward shear force. It has only one inclined plane and can resist shear force in one direction. Big shear force is resisted by concrete which forms an inclined plane and small shear force is resisted by steel bar. This system can reduce manufacturing cost of individual pontoon and construction time and cost for constructing a floating structure on a sea. In this paper, the feasibility study about one-way shear key system is performed by comparing with design example.

Keywords: Connection, floating container terminal, pontoon, pre-stressing, shear key.

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Authors: Samee Ullah Khan, C. Ardil

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Fine-grained data replication over the Internet allows duplication of frequently accessed data objects, as opposed to entire sites, to certain locations so as to improve the performance of largescale content distribution systems. In a distributed system, agents representing their sites try to maximize their own benefit since they are driven by different goals such as to minimize their communication costs, latency, etc. In this paper, we will use game theoretical techniques and in particular auctions to identify a bidding mechanism that encapsulates the selfishness of the agents, while having a controlling hand over them. In essence, the proposed game theory based mechanism is the study of what happens when independent agents act selfishly and how to control them to maximize the overall performance. A bidding mechanism asks how one can design systems so that agents- selfish behavior results in the desired system-wide goals. Experimental results reveal that this mechanism provides excellent solution quality, while maintaining fast execution time. The comparisons are recorded against some well known techniques such as greedy, branch and bound, game theoretical auctions and genetic algorithms.

Keywords: Internet, data content replication, static allocation, mechanism design, equilibrium.

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Authors: Tahereh Talebi, Reza Ghomashchi, Pejman Talemi, Sima Aminorroaya

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A high quality crack-free film of Bi₂Te₃ material has been deposited for the first time using electrophoretic deposition (EPD) and microstructures of various films have been investigated. One of the most important thermoelectric (TE) applications is Bi₂Te₃ to manufacture TE generators (TEG) which can convert waste heat into electricity targeting the global warming issue. However, the high cost of the manufacturing process of TEGs keeps them expensive and out of reach for commercialization. Therefore, utilizing EPD as a simple and cost-effective method will open new opportunities for TEG’s commercialization. This method has been recently used for advanced materials such as microelectronics and has attracted a lot of attention from both scientists and industry. In this study, the effect of media of suspensions has been investigated on the quality of the deposited films as well as their microstructure. In summary, finding an appropriate suspension is a critical step for a successful EPD process and has an important effect on both the film’s quality and its future properties.

Keywords: Bi2Te3, electrical conductivity, electrophoretic deposition, thermoelectric materials, thick films.

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Authors: Gabriele Cecchetti, Anna Lina Ruscelli, Filippo Cugini, Piero Castoldi

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European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) is the European reference for interoperable and safer signaling systems to efficiently manage trains running. If implemented, it allows trains cross seamlessly intra-European national borders. ERTMS has defined a secure communication protocol, EURORADIO, based on open communication networks. Its RadioInfill function can improve the reaction of the signaling system to changes in line conditions, avoiding unnecessary braking: its advantages in terms of power saving and travel time has been analyzed. In this paper a software implementation of the EURORADIO protocol with RadioInfill for ERTMS Level 1 using GSM-R is illustrated as part of the SR-Secure Italian project. In this building-blocks architecture the EURORADIO layers communicates together through modular Application Programm Interfaces. Security coding rules and railway industry requirements specified by EN 50128 standard have been respected. The proposed implementation has successfully passed conformity tests and has been tested on a computer-based simulator.

Keywords: ERTMS, ETCS signalling, EURORADIO protocol, radio infill function.

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Authors: Hakan Gürkan, Ahmet Denker

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The Ministry of Defense (MoD) spends hundreds of millions of dollars on software to support its infrastructure, operate its weapons and provide command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (C4ISR) functions. These and other all new advanced systems have a common critical component is information technology. Defense and Aerospace environment is continuously striving to keep up with increasingly sophisticated Information Technology (IT) in order to remain effective in today-s dynamic and unpredictable threat environment. This makes it one of the largest and fastest growing expenses of Defense. Hundreds of millions of dollars spent a year on IT projects. But, too many of those millions are wasted on costly mistakes. Systems that do not work properly, new components that are not compatible with old once, trendily new applications that do not really satisfy defense needs or lost though poorly managed contracts. This paper investigates and compiles the effective strategies that aim to end exasperation with low returns and high cost of Information Technology Acquisition for defense; it tries to show how to maximize value while reducing time and expenditure.

Keywords: Iterative Process, Acquisition Management, Project management, Software Economics, Requirement analysis.

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Authors: Ahmed A. D. Sarhan, S. R. Besharaty, Javad Akbaria, M. Hamdi

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The capability of CNC gantry milling machines in manufacturing long components has caused the expanded use of such machines. On the other hand, the machines’ gantry rigidity can reduce under severe loads or vibration during operation. Indeed, the quality of machining is dependent on the machine’s dynamic behavior throughout the operating process. For this reason, these types of machines have always been used widely and are not efficient. Therefore, they can usually be employed for rough machining and may not produce adequate surface finishing. In this paper, a CNC gantry milling machine with the potential to produce good surface finish has been designed and analyzed. The lowest natural frequency of this machine is 202 Hz corresponding to 12000 rpm at all motion amplitudes with a full range of suitable frequency responses. Meanwhile, the maximum deformation under dead loads for the gantry machine is 0.565*m, indicating that this machine tool is capable of producing higher product quality.

Keywords: Finite element, frequency response, gantry design, gantry machine, static and dynamic analysis.

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Authors: Sitalakshmi Venkataraman

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Recent scientific investigations indicate that multimodal biometrics overcome the technical limitations of unimodal biometrics, making them ideally suited for everyday life applications that require a reliable authentication system. However, for a successful adoption of multimodal biometrics, such systems would require large heterogeneous datasets with complex multimodal fusion and privacy schemes spanning various distributed environments. From experimental investigations of current multimodal systems, this paper reports the various issues related to speed, error-recovery and privacy that impede the diffusion of such systems in real-life. This calls for a robust mechanism that caters to the desired real-time performance, robust fusion schemes, interoperability and adaptable privacy policies. The main objective of this paper is to present a framework that addresses the abovementioned issues by leveraging on the heterogeneous resource sharing capacities of Grid services and the efficient machine learning capabilities of artificial neural networks (ANN). Hence, this paper proposes a Grid-based neural network framework for adopting multimodal biometrics with the view of overcoming the barriers of performance, privacy and risk issues that are associated with shared heterogeneous multimodal data centres. The framework combines the concept of Grid services for reliable brokering and privacy policy management of shared biometric resources along with a momentum back propagation ANN (MBPANN) model of machine learning for efficient multimodal fusion and authentication schemes. Real-life applications would be able to adopt the proposed framework to cater to the varying business requirements and user privacies for a successful diffusion of multimodal biometrics in various day-to-day transactions.

Keywords: Back Propagation, Grid Services, MultimodalBiometrics, Neural Networks.

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Authors: Z. RahimAlipour, A. T. Haghighat

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detecting the deadlock is one of the important problems in distributed systems and different solutions have been proposed for it. Among the many deadlock detection algorithms, Edge-chasing has been the most widely used. In Edge-chasing algorithm, a special message called probe is made and sent along dependency edges. When the initiator of a probe receives the probe back the existence of a deadlock is revealed. But these algorithms are not problem-free. One of the problems associated with them is that they cannot detect some deadlocks and they even identify false deadlocks. A key point not mentioned in the literature is that when the process is waiting to obtain the required resources and its execution has been blocked, how it can actually respond to probe messages in the system. Also the question of 'which process should be victimized in order to achieve a better performance when multiple cycles exist within one single process in the system' has received little attention. In this paper, one of the basic concepts of the operating system - daemon - will be used to solve the problems mentioned. The proposed Algorithm becomes engaged in sending probe messages to the mandatory daemons and collects enough information to effectively identify and resolve multi-cycle deadlocks in distributed systems.

Keywords: Distributed system, distributed deadlock detectionand resolution, daemon, false deadlock.

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Authors: Khaled Elbehiery, Hussam Elbehiery

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Smart cities are a framework of technologies along with sustainable infrastructure to provide their citizens an improved quality of life, safer environment, affordability, and more, which in turn helps with the society's economic growth. The proposed research will focus on the primary building block of the smart city; the infrastructure of the house itself. The traditional method of building houses has been, for a long time, nothing but a costly manufacturing process, and consequently, buying a house becomes not an option for everyone anymore. The smart cities' Modular Houses are not using traditional building construction materials; the design reduces the common lengthy construction times and associated high costs. The Modular Houses are technological homes, low-cost and customizable based on a family's requirements. In addition, the Modular Houses are environmentally friendly and healthy enough to assist with the pandemic situation.

Keywords: Smart cities, modular houses, single-unit property, multi-unit property, mobility features, chain-supply, livable environment, carbon footprint.

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Authors: M. Madiajagan, B. Vijayakumar

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The ability of information systems to operate in conjunction with each other encompassing communication protocols, hardware, software, application, and data compatibility layers. There has been considerable work in industry on the development of component interoperability models, such as CORBA, (D)COM and JavaBeans. These models are intended to reduce the complexity of software development and to facilitate reuse of off-the-shelf components. The focus of these models is syntactic interface specification, component packaging, inter-component communications, and bindings to a runtime environment. What these models lack is a consideration of architectural concerns – specifying systems of communicating components, explicitly representing loci of component interaction, and exploiting architectural styles that provide well-understood global design solutions. The development of complex business applications is now focused on an assembly of components available on a local area network or on the net. These components must be localized and identified in terms of available services and communication protocol before any request. The first part of the article introduces the base concepts of components and middleware while the following sections describe the different up-todate models of communication and interaction and the last section shows how different models can communicate among themselves.

Keywords: Interoperability, component packaging, communication technology, heterogeneous platform, component interface, middleware.

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Authors: Agus Sahri, Cahya Putra Dinata, Faishal Andhi Rokhman

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Intersection is a critical area on a highway which is a place of conflict points and congestion due to the meeting of two or more roads. Conflicts that occur at the intersection include diverging, merging, weaving, and crossing. To deal with these conflicts, a crossing control system is needed, at a plot of intersection there are two control systems namely signal intersections and non-signalized intersections. The control system at a plot of intersection can affect the intersection performance. In Indonesia there are still many intersections with poor intersection performance. In analyzing the parameters to measure the performance of a plot of intersection in Indonesia, it is guided by the 1997 Indonesian Road Capacity Manual. For this reason, this study aims to develop laboratory diagnostics at plot intersections to analyze parameters that can affect the performance of an intersection. The research method used is research and development. The laboratory diagnosis includes anamnesis, differential diagnosis, inspection, diagnosis, prognosis, specimens, analysis and sample data analysts. It is expected that this research can encourage the development and application of laboratory diagnostics at a plot of intersection in Indonesia so that intersections can function optimally.

Keywords: Intersection, laboratory diagnostic, control systems, Indonesia.

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Authors: Kateřina Jurdová

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Hanging to the trapezoidal sheet by decking hanger is a very widespread solution used in civil engineering to lead the distribution of energy, sanitary, air distribution system etc. under the roof or floor structure. The trapezoidal decking hanger is usually a part of the whole installation system for specific distribution medium. The leading companies offer installation systems for each specific distribution e.g. pipe rings, sprinkler systems, installation channels etc. Every specific part is connected to the base connector which is decking hanger. The own connection has three main components: decking hanger, threaded bar with nuts and web of trapezoidal sheet. The aim of this contribution is determinate the failure mechanism of each component in connection. Load bearing capacity of most components in connection could be calculated by formulas in European codes. This contribution is focused on problematic of bearing resistance of threaded bar in web of trapezoidal sheet. This issue is studied by experimental research and numerical modelling. This contribution presented the initial results of experiment which is compared with numerical model of specimen.

Keywords: Decking hanger, concentrated load, connection, load bearing capacity, trapezoidal metal sheet.

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Authors: Morteza Talebi, Jianan Wang, Zhihua Qu

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The security of power systems against malicious cyberphysical data attacks becomes an important issue. The adversary always attempts to manipulate the information structure of the power system and inject malicious data to deviate state variables while evading the existing detection techniques based on residual test. The solutions proposed in the literature are capable of immunizing the power system against false data injection but they might be too costly and physically not practical in the expansive distribution network. To this end, we define an algebraic condition for trustworthy power system to evade malicious data injection. The proposed protection scheme secures the power system by deterministically reconfiguring the information structure and corresponding residual test. More importantly, it does not require any physical effort in either microgrid or network level. The identification scheme of finding meters being attacked is proposed as well. Eventually, a well-known IEEE 30-bus system is adopted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.

Keywords: Algebraic Criterion, Malicious Cyber-Physical Data Injection, Protection and Identification, Trustworthy Power System.

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Authors: Giulio Nisoli, Jonas Brüngger, Karin Hostettler, Nicole Stoller, Katrin Fischer

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Technical operators in the railway domain are experts responsible for the supervisory control of the railway power grid as well as of the railway tunnels. The technical systems used to master these demanding tasks are constantly increasing in their degree of automation. It becomes therefore difficult for technical operators to maintain the control over the technical systems and the processes of their job. In particular, the operators must have the necessary experience and knowledge in dealing with a malfunction situation or unexpected event. For this reason, it is of growing importance that the skills relevant for the execution of the job are maintained and further developed beyond the basic training they receive, where they are educated in respect of technical knowledge and the work with guidelines. Training methods aimed at improving the cognitive skills needed by technical operators are still missing and must be developed. Goals of the present study were to identify which are the relevant cognitive skills of technical operators in the railway domain and to define which topics should be addressed by the training of these skills. Observational interviews were conducted in order to identify the main tasks and the organization of the work of technical operators as well as the technical systems used for the execution of their job. Based on this analysis, the most demanding tasks of technical operators could be identified and described. The cognitive skills involved in the execution of these tasks are those, which need to be trained. In order to identify and analyze these cognitive skills a cognitive task analysis (CTA) was developed. CTA specifically aims at identifying the cognitive skills that employees implement when performing their own tasks. The identified cognitive skills of technical operators were summarized and grouped in training topics. For every training topic, specific goals were defined. The goals regard the three main categories; knowledge, skills and attitude to be trained in every training topic. Based on the results of this study, it is possible to develop specific training methods to train the relevant cognitive skills of the technical operators.

Keywords: Cognitive skills, cognitive task analysis, technical operators in the railway domain, training topics.

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Authors: Parvinder S. Sandhu, Hardeep Singh

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Automatic reusability appraisal could be helpful in evaluating the quality of developed or developing reusable software components and in identification of reusable components from existing legacy systems; that can save cost of developing the software from scratch. But the issue of how to identify reusable components from existing systems has remained relatively unexplored. In this paper, we have mentioned two-tier approach by studying the structural attributes as well as usability or relevancy of the component to a particular domain. Latent semantic analysis is used for the feature vector representation of various software domains. It exploits the fact that FeatureVector codes can be seen as documents containing terms -the idenifiers present in the components- and so text modeling methods that capture co-occurrence information in low-dimensional spaces can be used. Further, we devised Neuro- Fuzzy hybrid Inference System, which takes structural metric values as input and calculates the reusability of the software component. Decision tree algorithm is used to decide initial set of fuzzy rules for the Neuro-fuzzy system. The results obtained are convincing enough to propose the system for economical identification and retrieval of reusable software components.

Keywords: Clustering, ID3, LSA, Neuro-fuzzy System, SVD

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Authors: Pirada Techaratpong

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This research aims to study value-creation process of producing monk-s bowls, Thai traditional handicrafts, which is facing problems in adapting to the changing society. It also aims to identify problems and obstacles to value creation. This research is based on a case study of monk-s bowl manufactures from Ban-Baat Village, Bangkok. The conceptual framework is based on the model of value chain to analyze the process. The research methodology is qualitative. This research found that the value-creation process of monk-s bowls consists of eight activities contributing to adding value to the products and increasing profits to the producers in return. Five major problems and obstacles are found. The research suggests that these problems and obstacles limit the manufacturers- potential for creating more valued product and lead to business stagnation. These problems should be addressed and solved with collaboration among the government, the private sector and the manufacturers.

Keywords: Craft manufacturing, problems and obstacles, value chain, value creation.

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Authors: Mamoun Sqali, Mohamed Wassim Trojet

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The requirements analysis, modeling, and simulation have consistently been one of the main challenges during the development of complex systems. The scenarios and the state machines are two successful models to describe the behavior of an interactive system. The scenarios represent examples of system execution in the form of sequences of messages exchanged between objects and are a partial view of the system. In contrast, state machines can represent the overall system behavior. The automation of processing scenarios in the state machines provide some answers to various problems such as system behavior validation and scenarios consistency checking. In this paper, we propose a method for translating scenarios in state machines represented by Discreet EVent Specification and procedure to detect implied scenarios. Each induced DEVS model represents the behavior of an object of the system. The global system behavior is described by coupling the atomic DEVS models and validated through simulation. We improve the validation process with integrating formal methods to eliminate logical inconsistencies in the global model. For that end, we use the Z notation.

Keywords: Scenarios, DEVS, synthesis, validation and verification, simulation, formal verification, z notation.

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Authors: W. C. Lucas, S. Titus, M. E. M. Young

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Gymnastics is the umbrella term that represents seven different and unique disciplines of gymnastics. Men and women of all ages and abilities practice this sport, and participation in gymnastics can develop both gross and fine motor skills, strength, flexibility, coordination and balance. There are various social factors, such as a family’s socioeconomic status or accessibility to sports facilities that may play a role in affecting levels of participation. The aim of this study is to investigate the social factors that have an influence on gymnastics participation in the Western Cape. To this end, a qualitative approach is adopted to collect data. This study also adopts the ecological systems theory as the theoretical framework, and is used to analyze and interpret current social factors that directly or indirectly influence participation in gymnastics. The study’s objectives were to ascertain which social factors hinder participation, and which social factors promote participation, thus, coaches, parents and gymnasts participated in focus group discussions. Key informant interviews took place with experts in the field of gymnastics in the Western Cape. A thematic analysis was conducted on transcriptions from the focus group discussions and key informant interviews. Social factors investigated in this study occurred in the chronosystem, macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem, and microsystem, and had both a direct and indirect influence on the gymnast’s continued participation. These systems are defined as the environment of the individual, in which they grow and develop. The research findings of this paper are used to draw conclusions and make specific recommendations for practice and further research. The information gathered in this study can assist all stakeholders within the field of gymnastics, such as parents, judges, coaches, gymnasts, and the supporting community which surround the participating gymnast.

Keywords: Developing child, ecological systems theory, facilities, federation, gymnastics, influence, participation, social factors, socioeconomic status, sport.

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Authors: Louis Denis Kevin Catherine, Raja Aziz Raja Ma’arof, Azrina Arshad, Sangeeth Suresh

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Machining parameters are very important in determining the surface quality of any material. In the past decade, some new engineering materials were developed for the manufacturing industry which created a need to conduct an investigation on the impact of the said parameters on their surface roughness. Polyurethane (PU) block is widely used in the automotive industry to manufacture parts such as checking fixtures that are used to verify the dimensional accuracy of automotive parts. In this paper, the design of experiment (DOE) was used to investigate on the effect of the milling parameters on the PU block. Furthermore, an analysis of the machined surface chemical composition was done using scanning electron microscope (SEM). It was found that the surface roughness of the PU block is severely affected when PU undergoes a flood machining process instead of a dry condition. In addition the stepover and the silicon content were found to be the most significant parameters that influence the surface quality of the PU block.

Keywords: Polyurethane (PU), design of experiment (DOE), scanning electron microscope (SEM), surface roughness.

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Authors: Vladimir Veremey

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The paper describes the design and simulation of dual-polarization antennas that use the resonance and radiating properties of the H₀₀ mode of metal open waveguides. The proposed antennas are formed by two orthogonal slots in a finite conducting ground plane. The slots are backed by metal screens connected to the ground plane forming open waveguides. It has been shown that the antenna designs can be efficiently used in mm-wave bands. The antenna single mode operational bandwidth is higher than 10%. The antenna designs are very simple and low-cost. They allow flush installation and can be efficiently used in various communication and remote sensing devices on fast moving carriers. Mutual coupling between antennas of the proposed design is very low. Thus, multiple antenna structures with proposed antennas can be efficiently employed in multi-band and in multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) systems.

Keywords: Antenna, antenna arrays, multiple-input-multiple-output, MIMO, millimeter wave bands, slot antenna, flush installation, directivity, open waveguide, conformal antennas.

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Authors: Mansur Hamma-adama, Abdul-Basit Sa’eed Ahmad

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Construction Industry is evolving amid the fourth industrial revolution. Transportation, commerce, manufacturing and many other industries ripened the current technological advancement and are striving to utilise every development in the IT sector. The procurement of construction works is known to be very conventional and backward in the adoption of digitalisation. The construction industry's procurement and supply chain are blamed for the most inflated cost of construction projects, mainly attributed to a lack of transparency and trust between the industry stakeholders. This research explores the challenges of e-procurement adoption in the industry and identifies the potential opportunities for its usage. This investigation's data are acquired through interviews, and the data are analysed using qualitative content analysis. This study reveals compounding challenges (i.e., corruption and lack of commitment) that lead to the failure of such efforts in Nigeria and the potential prospects (i.e., transparency and efficiency). This study is essential in developing a more effective and transparent process of procurement so that the Nigerian construction industry is not be left behind in the fast-digitalising markets.

Keywords: Challenges, construction industry, corruption, e-procurement, Nigeria, opportunities.

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Authors: M. Sedighizadeh, A. Rezazadeh

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A self tuning PID control strategy using reinforcement learning is proposed in this paper to deal with the control of wind energy conversion systems (WECS). Actor-Critic learning is used to tune PID parameters in an adaptive way by taking advantage of the model-free and on-line learning properties of reinforcement learning effectively. In order to reduce the demand of storage space and to improve the learning efficiency, a single RBF neural network is used to approximate the policy function of Actor and the value function of Critic simultaneously. The inputs of RBF network are the system error, as well as the first and the second-order differences of error. The Actor can realize the mapping from the system state to PID parameters, while the Critic evaluates the outputs of the Actor and produces TD error. Based on TD error performance index and gradient descent method, the updating rules of RBF kernel function and network weights were given. Simulation results show that the proposed controller is efficient for WECS and it is perfectly adaptable and strongly robust, which is better than that of a conventional PID controller.

Keywords: Wind energy conversion systems, reinforcementlearning; Actor-Critic learning; adaptive PID control; RBF network.

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Authors: Osama A. Abdelaal, Saied M. Darwish

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Rapid prototyping (RP) techniques are a group of advanced manufacturing processes that can produce custom made objects directly from computer data such as Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data. Using RP fabrication techniques, constructs with controllable and complex internal architecture with appropriate mechanical properties can be achieved. One of the attractive and promising utilization of RP techniques is related to tissue engineering (TE) scaffold fabrication. Tissue engineering scaffold is a 3D construction that acts as a template for tissue regeneration. Although several conventional techniques such as solvent casting and gas forming are utilized in scaffold fabrication; these processes show poor interconnectivity and uncontrollable porosity of the produced scaffolds. So, RP techniques become the best alternative fabrication methods of TE scaffolds. This paper reviews the current state of the art in the area of tissue engineering scaffolds fabrication using advanced RP processes, as well as the current limitations and future trends in scaffold fabrication RP techniques.

Keywords: Biomanufacturing, Rapid prototyping, Solid FreeForm Fabrication, Scaffold Fabrication, Tissue Engineering

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Authors: S. Panda, S. K. Tomar, R. Prasad, C. Ardil

Abstract:

Reduction of Single Input Single Output (SISO) continuous systems into Reduced Order Model (ROM), using a conventional and an evolutionary technique is presented in this paper. In the conventional technique, the mixed advantages of Mihailov stability criterion and continued fraction expansions (CFE) technique is employed where the reduced denominator polynomial is derived using Mihailov stability criterion and the numerator is obtained by matching the quotients of the Cauer second form of Continued fraction expansions. In the evolutionary technique method Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is employed to reduce the higher order model. PSO method is based on the minimization of the Integral Squared Error (ISE) between the transient responses of original higher order model and the reduced order model pertaining to a unit step input. Both the methods are illustrated through numerical example.

Keywords: Reduced Order Modeling, Stability, Continued Fraction Expansions, Mihailov Stability Criterion, Particle Swarm Optimization, Integral Squared Error.

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Authors: Raymond K. Jonkers

Abstract:

The present study investigated approaches and techniques to enhance strategic management governance and decision making within the framework of a performance-based balanced scorecard. The review of best practices from strategic, program, process, and systems engineering management provided for a holistic approach toward effective outcome-based capability management. One technique, based on factorial experimental design methods, was used to develop an empirical model. This model predicted the degree of capability effectiveness and is dependent on controlled system input variables and their weightings. These variables represent business performance measures, captured within a strategic balanced scorecard. The weighting of these measures enhances the ability to quantify causal relationships within balanced scorecard strategy maps. The focus in this study was on the performance of tangible assets within the scorecard rather than the traditional approach of assessing performance of intangible assets such as knowledge and technology. Tangible assets are represented in this study as physical systems, which may be thought of as being aboard a ship or within a production facility. The measures assigned to these systems include project funding for upgrades against demand, system certifications achieved against those required, preventive maintenance to corrective maintenance ratios, and material support personnel capacity against that required for supporting respective systems. The resultant scorecard is viewed as complimentary to the traditional balanced scorecard for program and performance management. The benefits from these scorecards are realized through the quantified state of operational capabilities or outcomes. These capabilities are also weighted in terms of priority for each distinct system measure and aggregated and visualized in terms of overall state of capabilities achieved. This study proposes the use of interactive controls within the scorecard as a technique to enhance development of alternative solutions in decision making. These interactive controls include those for assigning capability priorities and for adjusting system performance measures, thus providing for what-if scenarios and options in strategic decision-making. In this holistic approach to capability management, several cross functional processes were highlighted as relevant amongst the different management disciplines. In terms of assessing an organization’s ability to adopt this approach, consideration was given to the P3M3 management maturity model.

Keywords: Outcome based management, performance management, lifecycle costs, balanced scorecard.

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Authors: T. Kritsana, P. Sawitri, P. Teeratas

Abstract:

This article aims to study the effect of pressure on rocket motor case by Finite Element Method simulation to select optimal material in rocket motor manufacturing process. In this study, cylindrical tubes with outside diameter of 122 mm and thickness of 3 mm are used for simulation. Defined rocket motor case materials are AISI4130, AISI1026, AISI1045, AL2024 and AL7075. Internal pressure used for the simulation is 22 MPa.

The result from Finite Element Method shows that at a pressure of 22 MPa rocket motor case produced by AISI4130, AISI1045 and AL7075 can be used. A comparison of the result between AISI4130, AISI1045 and AL7075 shows that AISI4130 has minimum principal stress and confirm the results of Finite Element Method by the used of calculation method found that, the results from Finite Element Method has good reliability.

Keywords: Rocket motor case, Finite Element Method, principal Stress.

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