Search results for: nonlinear systems.

Authors: Othman Maklouf, Abdurazag Ghila, Ahmed Abdulla, Ameer Yousef

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Land vehicle navigation system technology is a subject of great interest today. Global Positioning System (GPS) is a common choice for positioning in such systems. However, GPS alone is incapable of providing continuous and reliable positioning, because of its inherent dependency on external electromagnetic signals. Inertial Navigation is the implementation of inertial sensors to determine the position and orientation of a vehicle. As such, inertial navigation has unbounded error growth since the error accumulates at each step. Thus in order to contain these errors some form of external aiding is required. The availability of low cost Micro-Electro-Mechanical-System (MEMS) inertial sensors is now making it feasible to develop Inertial Navigation System (INS) using an inertial measurement unit (IMU), in conjunction with GPS to fulfill the demands of such systems. Typically IMU’s are very expensive systems; however this INS will use “low cost” components. Unfortunately with low cost also comes low performance and is the main reason for the inclusion of GPS and Kalman filtering into the system. The aim of this paper is to develop a GPS/MEMS INS integrated system, which is able to provide a navigation solution with accuracy levels appropriate for land vehicle navigation. The primary piece of equipment used was a MEMS-based Crista IMU (from Cloud Cap Technology Inc.) and a Garmin GPS 18 PC (which is both a receiver and antenna). The integration of GPS with INS can be implemented using a Kalman filter in loosely coupled mode. In this integration mode the INS error states, together with any navigation state (position, velocity, and attitude) and other unknown parameters of interest, are estimated using GPS measurements. All important equations regarding navigation are presented along with discussion.

Keywords: GPS, IMU, Kalman Filter.

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Authors: Nemat Abazari, Ilgin Sager

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In this paper smooth trajectories are computed in the Lie group SO(2, 1) as a motion planning problem by assigning a Frenet frame to the rigid body system to optimize the cost function of the elastic energy which is spent to track a timelike curve in Minkowski space. A method is proposed to solve a motion planning problem that minimizes the integral of the Lorentz inner product of Darboux vector of a timelike curve. This method uses the coordinate free Maximum Principle of Optimal control and results in the theory of integrable Hamiltonian systems. The presence of several conversed quantities inherent in these Hamiltonian systems aids in the explicit computation of the rigid body motions.

Keywords: Optimal control, Hamiltonian vector field, Darboux vector, maximum principle, lie group, rigid body motion, Lorentz metric.

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Authors: Tasneem Halawani, Yamen Khateeb

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With customers’ ever-increasing expectations for fast services provisioning for all their business needs, information technology (IT) organizations, as business partners, have to cope with this demanding environment and deliver their services in the most effective and efficient way. The purpose of this paper is to identify optimization and automation opportunities for the top requested IT services in a heterogenic digital environment and widely spread customer base. In collaboration with systems, processes, and subject matter experts (SMEs), the processes in scope were approached by analyzing four-year related historical data, identifying and surveying stakeholders, modeling the as-is processes, and studying systems integration/automation capabilities. This effort resulted in identifying several pain areas, including standardization, unnecessary customer and IT involvement, manual steps, systems integration, and performance measurement. These pain areas were addressed by standardizing the top five requested IT services, eliminating/automating 43 steps, and utilizing a single platform for end-to-end process execution. In conclusion, the optimization of IT service request processes in a heterogenic digital environment and widely spread customer base is challenging, yet achievable without compromising the service quality and customers’ added value. Further studies can focus on measuring the value of the eliminated/automated process steps to quantify the enhancement impact. Moreover, a similar approach can be utilized to optimize other IT service requests, with a focus on business criticality.

Keywords: Automation, customer value, heterogenic, integration, IT services, optimization, processes.

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Authors: Selma Sbit, Mohamed Bechir Dadi, Belgacem Chibani Rhaimi

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This work aims to compare various techniques used in order to mitigate Inter-Cell Interference (ICI) in Long Term Evolution (LTE) and LTE-Advanced systems. For that, we will evaluate the performance of each one. In mobile communication networks, systems are limited by ICI particularly caused by deployment of small cells in conventional cell’s implementation. Therefore, various mitigation techniques, named Inter-Cell Interference Coordination techniques (ICIC), enhanced Inter-Cell Interference Coordination (eICIC) techniques and Coordinated Multi-Point transmission and reception (CoMP) are proposed. This paper presents a comparative study of these strategies. It can be concluded that CoMP techniques can ameliorate SINR and capacity system compared to ICIC and eICIC. In fact, SINR value reaches 15 dB for a distance of 0.5 km between user equipment and servant base station if we use CoMP technology whereas it cannot exceed 12 dB and 9 dB for eICIC and ICIC approaches respectively as reflected in simulations.

Keywords: 4th generation, interference, coordination, ICIC.

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Authors: N. F. F. Ebecken, G. C. Pereira

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Ecological systems are exposed and are influenced by various natural and anthropogenic disturbances. They produce various effects and states seeking response symmetry to a state of global phase coherence or stability and balance of their food webs. This research project addresses the development of a computational methodology for modeling plankton food webs. The use of algorithms to establish connections, the generation of representative fuzzy multigraphs and application of technical analysis of complex networks provide a set of tools for defining, analyzing and evaluating community structure of coastal aquatic ecosystems, beyond the estimate of possible external impacts to the networks. Thus, this study aims to develop computational systems and data models to assess how these ecological networks are structurally and functionally organized, to analyze the types and degree of compartmentalization and synchronization between oscillatory and interconnected elements network and the influence of disturbances on the overall pattern of rhythmicity of the system.

Keywords: Ecological networks, plankton food webs, fuzzy multigraphs, dynamic of networks.

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Authors: Sahar S. Tabrizi, Dogan Ibrahim

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Cloud Computing is a convenient model for on-demand networks that uses shared pools of virtual configurable computing resources, such as servers, networks, storage devices, applications, etc. The cloud serves as an environment for companies and organizations to use infrastructure resources without making any purchases and they can access such resources wherever and whenever they need. Cloud computing is useful to overcome a number of problems in various Information Technology (IT) domains such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS), Scientific Research, e-Governance Systems, Decision Support Systems, ERP, Web Application Development, Mobile Technology, etc. Companies can use Cloud Computing services to store large amounts of data that can be accessed from anywhere on Earth and also at any time. Such services are rented by the client companies where the actual rent depends upon the amount of data stored on the cloud and also the amount of processing power used in a given time period. The resources offered by the cloud service companies are flexible in the sense that the user companies can increase or decrease their storage requirements or the processing power requirements at any time, thus minimizing the overall rental cost of the service they receive. In addition, the Cloud Computing service providers offer fast processors and applications software that can be shared by their clients. This is especially important for small companies with limited budgets which cannot afford to purchase their own expensive hardware and software. This paper is an overview of the Cloud Computing, giving its types, principles, advantages, and disadvantages. In addition, the paper gives some example engineering applications of Cloud Computing and makes suggestions for possible future applications in the field of engineering.

Keywords: Cloud computing, cloud services, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS, IoT.

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Authors: Daniel Y. Abebe, Jaehyouk Choi

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The idea of adding metallic energy dissipaters to a structure to absorb a large part of the seismic energy began four decades ago. There are several types of metal-based devices conceived as dampers for the seismic energy absorber whereby damages to the major structural components could be minimized for both new and existing structures. This paper aimed to develop and evaluate structural performance of both stiffened and non stiffened circular shear panel damper for passive seismic energy protection by inelastic deformation. Structural evaluation was done using commercially available nonlinear FE simulation program. Diameter-to-thickness ratio is employed as main parameter to investigate the hysteresis performance of stiffened and unstiffened circular shear panel. Depending on these parameters three different buckling mode and hysteretic behavior was found: yielding prior to buckling without strength degradation, yielding prior to buckling with strength degradation and yielding with buckling and strength degradation which forms pinching at initial displacement. Hence, the hysteresis behavior is identified, specimens which deform without strength degradation so it will be used as passive energy dissipating device in civil engineering structures.

Keywords: Circular shear panel damper, FE analysis, Hysteretic behavior, Large deformation.

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Authors: George Eleftherakis, Petros Kefalas, Anna Sotiriadou, Evangelos Kehris

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Recent advances in both the testing and verification of software based on formal specifications of the system to be built have reached a point where the ideas can be applied in a powerful way in the design of agent-based systems. The software engineering research has highlighted a number of important issues: the importance of the type of modeling technique used; the careful design of the model to enable powerful testing techniques to be used; the automated verification of the behavioural properties of the system; the need to provide a mechanism for translating the formal models into executable software in a simple and transparent way. This paper introduces the use of the X-machine formalism as a tool for modeling biology inspired agents proposing the use of the techniques built around X-machine models for the construction of effective, and reliable agent-based software systems.

Keywords: Biology inspired agent, formal methods, x-machines.

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Authors: Bernd Scholz-Reiter, Christian Toonen, Jan Topi Tervo, Dennis Lappe

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Time series analysis often requires data that represents the evolution of an observed variable in equidistant time steps. In order to collect this data sampling is applied. While continuous signals may be sampled, analyzed and reconstructed applying Shannon-s sampling theorem, time-discrete signals have to be dealt with differently. In this article we consider the discrete-event simulation (DES) of job-shop-systems and study the effects of different sampling rates on data quality regarding completeness and accuracy of reconstructed inventory evolutions. At this we discuss deterministic as well as non-deterministic behavior of system variables. Error curves are deployed to illustrate and discuss the sampling rate-s impact and to derive recommendations for its wellfounded choice.

Keywords: discrete-event simulation, job-shop-system, sampling rate.

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Authors: A. Bagheri Garmarudi, M. Khanmohammadi, N. Khoddami, K. Shabani

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Determination of nano particle size is substantial since the nano particle size exerts a significant effect on various properties of nano materials. Accordingly, proposing non-destructive, accurate and rapid techniques for this aim is of high interest. There are some conventional techniques to investigate the morphology and grain size of nano particles such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffractometry (XRD). Vibrational spectroscopy is utilized to characterize different compounds and applied for evaluation of the average particle size based on relationship between particle size and near infrared spectra [1,4] , but it has never been applied in quantitative morphological analysis of nano materials. So far, the potential application of nearinfrared (NIR) spectroscopy with its ability in rapid analysis of powdered materials with minimal sample preparation, has been suggested for particle size determination of powdered pharmaceuticals. The relationship between particle size and diffuse reflectance (DR) spectra in near infrared region has been applied to introduce a method for estimation of particle size. Back propagation artificial neural network (BP-ANN) as a nonlinear model was applied to estimate average particle size based on near infrared diffuse reflectance spectra. Thirty five different nano TiO2 samples with different particle size were analyzed by DR-FTNIR spectrometry and the obtained data were processed by BP- ANN.

Keywords: near infrared, particle size, chemometrics, neuralnetwork, nano structure.

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Authors: Chia-Yu Yao

Abstract:

This paper presents experimental results on testing the symbol-error-rate (SER) performance of quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) systems employing symmetric pulse-shaping square-root (SR) filters designed by minimizing the roughness function and by minimizing the peak-to-average power ratio (PAR). The device used in the experiments is the 'bladeRF' software-defined-radio platform. PAR is a well-known measurement, whereas the roughness function is a concept for measuring the jitter-induced interference. The experimental results show that the system employing minimum-roughness pulse-shaping SR filters outperforms the system employing minimum-PAR pulse-shaping SR filters in the sense of SER performance.

Keywords: Pulse-shaping filters, jitter, inter-symbol interference, symmetric FIR filters, QAM

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Authors: A. Harmse, R. Goede

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Students with high level skills are in demand, especially in scare skill environments. If universities wish to be successful and competitive, its students need to be adequately equipped with the necessary tools. Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is an essential component of the education of a student. The relevance of higher education should be assessed in terms of how it meets the needs of society and the world of work in a global economy. This paper demonstrates how to use Habermas's theory of communicative action to reflect on students- perceptions on their integration in the work environment to achieve social integration and financial justification. Interpretive questionnaires are used to determine the students- view of how they are integrated into society, and contributing to the economy. This paper explores the use of Habermas-s theory of communicative action to give theoretical and methodological guidance for the practice of social findings obtained in this inquiry.

Keywords: Discourse, Habermas, Information Systems Education, Theory of Communicative Action, Work Integrated Learning.

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Authors: H. Golchoobian, M. H. Taheri, S. Saedodin, A. Sarafraz

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This paper investigates the possibility of using three systems of organic Rankine auxiliary power generation, ejector refrigeration and absorption to recover energy from a diesel car. The analysis is done for both urban and suburban driving modes that vary from 60 to 120 km/h. Various refrigerants have also been used for organic Rankine and Ejector refrigeration cycles. The capacity was evaluated by Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system in both urban and suburban conditions for cyclopentane and ammonia as refrigerants. Also, for these two driving plans, produced cooling by absorption refrigeration system under variable ambient temperature conditions and in ejector refrigeration system for R123, R134a and R141b refrigerants were investigated.

Keywords: Absorption system, diesel engine, ejector refrigeration, energy recovery, organic Rankine cycle.

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Authors: R. Srinivasa Rao, S. V. L. Narasimham

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This paper presents a novel approach for optimal reconfiguration of radial distribution systems. Optimal reconfiguration involves the selection of the best set of branches to be opened, one each from each loop, such that the resulting radial distribution system gets the desired performance. In this paper an algorithm is proposed based on simple heuristic rules and identified an effective switch status configuration of distribution system for the minimum loss reduction. This proposed algorithm consists of two parts; one is to determine the best switching combinations in all loops with minimum computational effort and the other is simple optimum power loss calculation of the best switching combination found in part one by load flows. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm, computer simulations are carried out on 33-bus system. The results show that the performance of the proposed method is better than that of the other methods.

Keywords: Distribution system, network reconfiguration, powerloss reduction, radial network, heuristic technique.

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Authors: Aziz Sezgin

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We consider the problem of stabilization of an unstable heat equation in a 2-D, 3-D and generally n-D domain by deriving a generalized backstepping boundary control design methodology. To stabilize the systems, we design boundary backstepping controllers inspired by the 1-D unstable heat equation stabilization procedure. We assume that one side of the boundary is hinged and the other side is controlled for each direction of the domain. Thus, controllers act on two boundaries for 2-D domain, three boundaries for 3-D domain and ”n” boundaries for n-D domain. The main idea of the design is to derive ”n” controllers for each of the dimensions by using ”n” kernel functions. Thus, we obtain ”n” controllers for the ”n” dimensional case. We use a transformation to change the system into an exponentially stable ”n” dimensional heat equation. The transformation used in this paper is a generalized Volterra/Fredholm type with ”n” kernel functions for n-D domain instead of the one kernel function of 1-D design.

Keywords: Backstepping, boundary control, 2-D, 3-D, n-D heat equation, distributed parameter systems.

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Authors: Sudhina H. K, Ravi M. Yadahalli, N. M. Shetti

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Reconfigurable antennas represent a recent innovation in antenna design that changes from classical fixed-form, fixed function antennas to modifiable structures that can be adapted to fit the requirements of a time varying system.

The ability to control the operating band of an antenna system can have many useful applications. Systems that operate in an acquire-and-track configuration would see a benefit from active bandwidth control. In such systems a wide band search mode is first employed to find a desired signal then a narrow band track mode is used to follow only that signal. Utilizing active antenna bandwidth control, a single antenna would function for both the wide band and narrow band configurations providing the rejection of unwanted signals with the antenna hardware. This ability to move a portion of the RF filtering out of the receiver and onto the antenna itself will also aid in reducing the complexity of the often expensive RF processing subsystems.

Keywords: Designing methods, MEMS, stack, reconfigurable elements.

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Authors: Amira Abbes Kheriji, Faouzi Bouani, Mekki Ksouri, Mohamed Ben Ahmed

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Model Predictive Control (MPC) is increasingly being proposed for real time applications and embedded systems. However comparing to PID controller, the implementation of the MPC in miniaturized devices like Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) and microcontrollers has historically been very small scale due to its complexity in implementation and its computation time requirement. At the same time, such embedded technologies have become an enabler for future manufacturing enterprises as well as a transformer of organizations and markets. Recently, advances in microelectronics and software allow such technique to be implemented in embedded systems. In this work, we take advantage of these recent advances in this area in the deployment of one of the most studied and applied control technique in the industrial engineering. In fact in this paper, we propose an efficient framework for implementation of Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) in the performed STM32 microcontroller. The STM32 keil starter kit based on a JTAG interface and the STM32 board was used to implement the proposed GPC firmware. Besides the GPC, the PID anti windup algorithm was also implemented using Keil development tools designed for ARM processor-based microcontroller devices and working with C/Cµ langage. A performances comparison study was done between both firmwares. This performances study show good execution speed and low computational burden. These results encourage to develop simple predictive algorithms to be programmed in industrial standard hardware. The main features of the proposed framework are illustrated through two examples and compared with the anti windup PID controller.

Keywords: Embedded systems, Model Predictive Control, microcontroller, Keil tool.

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Authors: Ngoc Dang Khoa Nguyen, Imran Ali

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The cloud customer relationship management (CRM) has emerged as an innovative tool to augment the customer satisfaction and performance of banking systems. Cloud CRM allows to collect, analyze and utilize customer-associated information and update the systems, thereby offer superior customer service. Cloud technologies have invaluable potential to ensure innovative customer experiences, successful collaboration, enhanced speed to marketplace and IT effectiveness. As such, many leading banks have been attracted towards adoption of such innovative and customer-driver solutions to revolutionize their existing business models. Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are already implemented or in the process of implementation of cloud CRM. However, many organizations are still reluctant to take such initiative due to the lack of information on the factors influencing its implementation. This paper, therefore, aims to delve into the strategies, benefits and challenges intertwined in the implementation of cloud CRM in banking sector and provide reliable solutions.

Keywords: Banking sector, cloud computing, cloud CRM, strategy.

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Authors: M. Chitsazi, B. Maraghechi, M. H. Rouhani

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Three-dimensional simulation of harmonic up generation in free electron laser amplifier operating simultaneously with a cold and relativistic electron beam is presented in steady-state regime where the slippage of the electromagnetic wave with respect to the electron beam is ignored. By using slowly varying envelope approximation and applying the source-dependent expansion to wave equations, electromagnetic fields are represented in terms of the Hermit Gaussian modes which are well suited for the planar wiggler configuration. The electron dynamics is described by the fully threedimensional Lorentz force equation in presence of the realistic planar magnetostatic wiggler and electromagnetic fields. A set of coupled nonlinear first-order differential equations is derived and solved numerically. The fundamental and third harmonic radiation of the beam is considered. In addition to uniform beam, prebunched electron beam has also been studied. For this effect of sinusoidal distribution of entry times for the electron beam on the evolution of radiation is compared with uniform distribution. It is shown that prebunching reduces the saturation length substantially. For efficiency enhancement the wiggler is set to decrease linearly when the radiation of the third harmonic saturates. The optimum starting point of tapering and the slope of radiation in the amplitude of wiggler are found by successive run of the code.

Keywords: Free electron laser, Prebunching, Undulator, Wiggler.

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Authors: Marshal D. Kafle, Jun H. Kim, Hyun W. Been, Kyoung M. Min, Sung H. Kim

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Fluid viscous damping systems are well suited for many air vehicles subjected to shock and vibration. These damping system work with the principle of viscous fluid throttling through the orifice to create huge pressure difference between compression and rebound chamber and obtain the required damping force. One application of such systems is its use in aircraft door system to counteract the door’s velocity and safely stop it. In exigency situations like crash or emergency landing where the door doesn’t open easily, possibly due to unusually tilting of fuselage or some obstacles or intrusion of debris obstruction to move the parts of the door, such system can be combined with other systems to provide needed force to forcefully open the door and also securely stop it simultaneously within the required time i.e. less than 8 seconds. In the present study, a hydraulic system called snubber along with other systems like actuator, gas bottle assembly which together known as emergency power assist system (EPAS) is designed, built and experimentally studied to check the magnitude of angular velocity, damping force and time required to effectively open the door. Whenever needed, the gas pressure from the bottle is released to actuate the actuator and at the same time pull the snubber’s piston to operate the emergency opening of the door. Such EPAS installed in the suspension arm of the aircraft door is studied explicitly changing parameters like orifice size, oil level, oil viscosity and bypass valve gap and its spring of the snubber at varying temperature to generate the optimum design case. Comparative analysis of the EPAS at several cases is done and conclusions are made. It is found that during emergency condition, the system opening time and angular velocity, when snubber with 0.3mm piston and shaft orifice and bypass valve gap of 0.5 mm with its original spring is used, shows significant improvement over the old ones.

Keywords: Aircraft Door Damper, Bypass Valve, Emergency Power Assist System, Hydraulic Damper, Oil viscosity.

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Authors: Valeri A. Makarov, Nazareth P. Castellanos, Manuel G. Velarde

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In order to answer the general question: “What does a simple agent with a limited life-time require for constructing a useful representation of the environment?" we propose a robot platform including the simplest probabilistic sensory and motor layers. Then we use the platform as a test-bed for evaluation of the navigational capabilities of the robot with different “brains". We claim that a protocognitive behavior is not a consequence of highly sophisticated sensory–motor organs but instead emerges through an increment of the internal complexity and reutilization of the minimal sensory information. We show that the most fundamental robot element, the short-time memory, is essential in obstacle avoidance. However, in the simplest conditions of no obstacles the straightforward memoryless robot is usually superior. We also demonstrate how a low level action planning, involving essentially nonlinear dynamics, provides a considerable gain to the robot performance dynamically changing the robot strategy. Still, however, for very short life time the brainless robot is superior. Accordingly we suggest that small organisms (or agents) with short life-time does not require complex brains and even can benefit from simple brain-like (reflex) structures. To some extend this may mean that controlling blocks of modern robots are too complicated comparative to their life-time and mechanical abilities.

Keywords: Neural network, probabilistic control, robot navigation.

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Authors: Volker Lange, Stephanie Moede, Christiane Auffermann

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From an economic standpoint the current and future road traffic situation in urban areas is a cost factor. Traffic jams and congestion prolong journey times and tie up resources in trucks and personnel. Many discussions about imposing charges or tolls for cities in Europe in order to reduce traffic congestion are currently in progress. Both of these effects lead – directly or indirectly - to additional costs for the urban distribution systems in retail companies. One approach towards improving the efficiency of retail distribution systems, and thus towards avoiding negative environmental factors in urban areas, is horizontal collaboration for deliveries to retail outlets – Urban Retail Logistics. This paper presents a classification system to help reveal where cooperation between retail companies is possible and makes sense for deliveries to retail outlets in urban areas.

Keywords: City Logistics, Horizontal Collaboration, Urban Freight Transport, Urban Retail Logistics.

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Authors: Balsam Mustafa, Safaai Deris

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Requirements are critical to system validation as they guide all subsequent stages of systems development. Inadequately specified requirements generate systems that require major revisions or cause system failure entirely. Use Cases have become the main vehicle for requirements capture in many current Object Oriented (OO) development methodologies, and a means for developers to communicate with different stakeholders. In this paper we present the results of a laboratory experiment that explored whether different types of use case format are equally effective in facilitating high knowledge user-s understanding. Results showed that the provision of diagrams along with the textual use case descriptions significantly improved user comprehension of system requirements in both familiar and unfamiliar application domains. However, when comparing groups that received models of textual description accompanied with diagrams of different level of details (simple and detailed) we found no significant difference in performance.

Keywords: Prior knowledge, requirement specification, usecase format, user understanding.

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Authors: K. N. C. Njoku, Chinwendu Best Eleje, Christian Chukwuemeka Nwandu

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One of the problems facing most insurance companies is how best the burden of paying claims to its policy holders can be managed whenever need arises. Hence there is need for the insurer to buy a reinsurance contract in order to reduce risk which will enable the insurer to share the financial burden with the reinsurer. In this paper, the insurer’s and reinsurer’s strategy is investigated under the modified constant elasticity of variance (M-CEV) process and proportional administrative charges. The insurer considered investment in one risky asset and one risk free asset where the risky asset is modeled based on the M-CEV process which is an extension of constant elasticity of variance (CEV) process. Next, a nonlinear partial differential equation in the form of Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equation is obtained by dynamic programming approach. Using power transformation technique and variable change, the explicit solutions of the optimal investment strategy and optimal reinsurance strategy are obtained. Finally, some numerical simulations of some sensitive parameters were obtained and discussed in details where we observed that the modification factor only affects the optimal investment strategy and not the reinsurance strategy for an insurer with exponential utility function.

Keywords: Reinsurance strategy, Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equation, power transformation, M-CEV process, exponential utility.

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Authors: Roslina Ibrahim, Azizah Jaafar

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Educational games (EG) seem to have lots of potential due to digital games popularity and preferences of our younger generations of learners. However, most studies focus on game design and its effectiveness while little has been known about the factors that can affect users to accept or to reject EG for their learning. User acceptance research try to understand the determinants of information systems (IS) adoption among users by investigating both systems factors and users factors. Upon the lack of knowledge on acceptance factors for educational games, we seek to understand the issue. This study proposed a model of acceptance factors based on Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT). We use original model (performance expectancy, effort expectancy and social influence) together with two new determinants (learning opportunities and enjoyment). We will also investigate the effect of gender and gaming experience that moderate the proposed factors.

Keywords: educational games, games acceptance, user acceptance model, UTAUT

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Authors: Kamalendu Pal

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Supply chains are the backbone of trade and commerce. Their logistics use different transport corridors on regular basis for operational purpose. The international supply chain transport corridors include different infrastructure elements (e.g. weighbridge, package handling equipments, border clearance authorities, and so on). This paper presents the use of multi-agent systems (MAS) to model and simulate some aspects of transportation corridors, and in particular the area of weighbridge resource optimization for operational profit. An underlying multi-agent model provides a means of modeling the relationships among stakeholders in order to enable coordination in a transport corridor environment. Simulations of the costs of container unloading, reloading, and waiting time for queuing up tracks have been carried out using data sets. Results of the simulation provide the potential guidance in making decisions about optimal service resource allocation in a trade corridor.

Keywords: Multi-agent systems, simulation, supply chain, transport corridor, weighbridge.

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Authors: M. Zerikat, M. Bendjebbar, N. Benouzza

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In this paper, a novel approach for robust trajectory tracking of induction motor drive is presented. By combining variable structure systems theory with fuzzy logic concept and neural network techniques, a new algorithm is developed. Fuzzy logic was used for the adaptation of the learning algorithm to improve the robustness of learning and operating of the neural network. The developed control algorithm is robust to parameter variations and external influences. It also assures precise trajectory tracking with the prescribed dynamics. The algorithm was verified by simulation and the results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of the designed controller of induction motor drives which considered as highly non linear dynamic complex systems and variable characteristics over the operating conditions.

Keywords: Induction motor, fuzzy-logic control, neural network control, indirect field oriented control.

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Authors: Adinarayanane Ramamurthy, Monsingh D. Devadas

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Cities denote instantaneously a challenge and an opportunity for climate change policy. Cities are the place where most energy services are needed because urbanization is closely linked to high population densities and concentration of economic activities and production (Urban energy demand). Consequently, it is critical to explain about the role of cities within the world-s energy systems and its correlation with the climate change issue. With more than half of the world-s population already living in urban areas, and that percentage expected to rise to 75 per cent by 2050, it is clear that the path to sustainable development must pass through cities. Cities expanding in size and population pose increased challenges to the environment, of which energy is part as a natural resource, and to the quality of life. Nowadays, most cities have already understood the importance of sustainability, both at their local scale as in terms of their contribution to sustainability at higher geographical scales. It requires the perception of a city as a complex and dynamic ecosystem, an open system, or cluster of systems, where the energy as well as the other natural resources is transformed to satisfy the needs of the different urban activities. In fact, buildings and transportation generally represent most of cities direct energy demand, i.e., between 60 per cent and 80 per cent of the overall consumption. Buildings, both residential and services are usually influenced by the local physical and social conditions. In terms of transport, the energy demand is also strongly linked with the specific characteristics of a city (urban mobility).The concept of a “smart city" builds on statistics as seven key axes of a city-s success in moving towards common platform (brain nerve)of sustainable urban energy systems. With the aforesaid knowledge, the authors have suggested a frame work to role of cities, as energy actors for smart city management. The authors have discusses the potential elements needed for energy in smart cities and also identified potential energy actions and relevant barriers. Furthermore, three levels of city smartness in cities actions to overcome market /institutional failures with a local approach are distinguished. The authors have made an attempt to conceive and implement concepts of city smartness by adopting the city or local government as nerve center through an integrated planning approach. Finally, concluding with recommendations for the organization of the Smart Sustainable Cities for positive changes of urban India.

Keywords: Urbanization, Urban Energy Demand, Sustainable Urban Energy Systems, Integrated Planning Approach, Smart Sustainable City.

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Authors: Anne M. Sørebø, Øystein Sørebø, Maung K. Sein

Abstract:

The search for factors that influence user behavior has remained an important theme for both the academic and practitioner Information Systems Communities. In this paper we examine relevant user behaviors in the phase after adoption and investigate two factors that are expected to influence such behaviors, namely User Involvement (UI) and Personal Innovativeness in IT (PIIT). We conduct a field study to examine how these factors influence postadoption behavior and how they are interrelated. Building on theoretical premises and prior empirical findings, we propose and test two alternative models of the relationship between these factors. Our results reveal that the best explanation of post-adoption behavior is provided by the model where UI and PIIT independently influence post-adoption behavior. Our findings have important implications for research and practice. To that end, we offer directions for future research.

Keywords: User involvement, personal innovativeness in IT, use of systems, user support, post-adoption behavior.

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Authors: D. Uma Devi, P. Seetha Ramaiah

Abstract:

Voting algorithms are extensively used to make decisions in fault tolerant systems where each redundant module gives inconsistent outputs. Popular voting algorithms include majority voting, weighted voting, and inexact majority voters. Each of these techniques suffers from scenarios where agreements do not exist for the given voter inputs. This has been successfully overcome in literature using fuzzy theory. Our previous work concentrated on a neuro-fuzzy algorithm where training using the neuro system substantially improved the prediction result of the voting system. Weight training of Neural Network is sub-optimal. This study proposes to optimize the weights of the Neural Network using Artificial Bee Colony algorithm. Experimental results show the proposed system improves the decision making of the voting algorithms.

Keywords: Voting algorithms, Fault tolerance, Fault masking, Neuro-Fuzzy System (NFS), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC)

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