Search results for: Effectiveness Measurement.

Authors: Ramón Cruzat, Sergio F. Ochoa, Ignacio Casas, Luis A. Guerrero, José Bravo

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Patients under health treatments that involve long  stays at a hospital or health center (e.g. cancer, organ transplants and  severe burns), tend to get bored or depressed because of the lack of  social interaction with family and friends. Such a situation also  affects the evolution and effectiveness of their treatments. In many  cases, the solution to this problem involves extra challenges, since  many patients need to rest quietly (or remain in bed) to their being  contagious. Considering the weak health condition in which usually  are these kinds, keeping them motivated and quiet represents an  important challenge for nurses and caregivers. This article presents a  mobile ubiquitous game called MagicRace, which allows hospitalized  kinds to interact socially with one another without putting to risk  their sensitive health conditions. The game does not require a  communication infrastructure at the hospital, but instead, it uses a  mobile ad hoc network composed of the handheld devices used by  the kids to play. The usability and performance of this application  was tested in two different sessions. The preliminary results show  that users experienced positive feelings from this experience.

 

Keywords: Ubiquitous game, children's emotional support, social isolation, mobile collaborative interactions.

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Authors: Mohsin T. Mohammed, Zahid A. Khan, Arshad N. Siddiquee

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The field of biomedical materials plays an imperative requisite and a critical role in manufacturing a variety of biological artificial replacements in a modern world. Recently, titanium (Ti) materials are being used as biomaterials because of their superior corrosion resistance and tremendous specific strength, free- allergic problems and the greatest biocompatibility compared to other competing biomaterials such as stainless steel, Co-Cr alloys, ceramics, polymers, and composite materials. However, regardless of these excellent performance properties, Implantable Ti materials have poor shear strength and wear resistance which limited their applications as biomaterials. Even though the wear properties of Ti alloys has revealed some improvements, the crucial effectiveness of biomedical Ti alloys as wear components requires a comprehensive deep understanding of the wear reasons, mechanisms, and techniques that can be used to improve wear behavior. This review examines current information on the effect of thermal and thermomechanical processing of implantable Ti materials on the long-term prosthetic requirement which related with wear behavior. This paper focuses mainly on the evolution, evaluation and development of effective microstructural features that can improve wear properties of bio grade Ti materials using thermal and thermomechanical treatments.

Keywords: Wear Resistance, Heat Treatment, Thermomechanical Processing, Biomedical Titanium Materials.

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Authors: Claudineia Brazil, Elison Eduardo Jardim Bierhals, Luciane Teresa Salvi, Rafael Haag

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Renewable energy sources are dependent on climatic variability, so for adequate energy planning, observations of the meteorological variables are required, preferably representing long-period series. Despite the scientific and technological advances that meteorological measurement systems have undergone in the last decades, there is still a considerable lack of meteorological observations that form series of long periods. The reanalysis is a system of assimilation of data prepared using general atmospheric circulation models, based on the combination of data collected at surface stations, ocean buoys, satellites and radiosondes, allowing the production of long period data, for a wide gamma. The third generation of reanalysis data emerged in 2010, among them is the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) developed by the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP), these data have a spatial resolution of 0.50 x 0.50. In order to overcome these difficulties, it aims to evaluate the performance of solar radiation estimation through alternative data bases, such as data from Reanalysis and from meteorological satellites that satisfactorily meet the absence of observations of solar radiation at global and/or regional level. The results of the analysis of the solar radiation data indicated that the reanalysis data of the CFSR model presented a good performance in relation to the observed data, with determination coefficient around 0.90. Therefore, it is concluded that these data have the potential to be used as an alternative source in locations with no seasons or long series of solar radiation, important for the evaluation of solar energy potential.

Keywords: Climate, reanalysis, renewable energy, solar radiation.

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Authors: Sidhartha Panda, Narayana Prasad Padhy

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This paper presents a systematic procedure for modelling and simulation of a power system installed with a power system stabilizer (PSS) and a flexible ac transmission system (FACTS)-based controller. For the design purpose, the model of example power system which is a single-machine infinite-bus power system installed with the proposed controllers is developed in MATLAB/SIMULINK. In the developed model synchronous generator is represented by model 1.1. which includes both the generator main field winding and the damper winding in q-axis so as to evaluate the impact of PSS and FACTS-based controller on power system stability. The model can be can be used for teaching the power system stability phenomena, and also for research works especially to develop generator controllers using advanced technologies. Further, to avoid adverse interactions, PSS and FACTS-based controller are simultaneously designed employing genetic algorithm (GA). The non-linear simulation results are presented for the example power system under various disturbance conditions to validate the effectiveness of the proposed modelling and simultaneous design approach.

Keywords: Genetic algorithm, modelling and simulation, MATLAB/SIMULINK, power system stabilizer, thyristor controlledseries compensator, simultaneous design, power system stability.

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Authors: Bibhya Sharma, Jito Vanualailai, Ravindra Rai

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This research paper designs a unique motion planner of multiple platoons of nonholonomic car-like robots as a feasible solution to the lane changing/merging maneuvers. The decentralized planner with a leaderless approach and a path-guidance principle derived from the Lyapunov-based control scheme generates collision free avoidance and safe merging maneuvers from multiple lanes to a single lane by deploying a split/merge strategy. The fixed obstacles are the markings and boundaries of the road lanes, while the moving obstacles are the robots themselves. Real and virtual road lane markings and the boundaries of road lanes are incorporated into a workspace to achieve the desired formation and configuration of the robots. Convergence of the robots to goal configurations and the repulsion of the robots from specified obstacles are achieved by suitable attractive and repulsive potential field functions, respectively. The results can be viewed as a significant contribution to the avoidance algorithm of the intelligent vehicle systems (IVS). Computer simulations highlight the effectiveness of the split/merge strategy and the acceleration-based controllers.

Keywords: Lane merging, Lyapunov-based control scheme, path-guidance principle, split/merge strategy.

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Authors: Giovanni Cicceri, Roberta Maisano, Nathalie Morey, Salvatore Distefano

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The main goal of this paper is to present a solution for a water purification system based on an Environmental Internet of Things (EIoT) platform to monitor and control water quality and machine learning (ML) models to support decision making and speed up the processes of purification of water. A real case study has been implemented by deploying an EIoT platform and a network of devices, called Gramb meters and belonging to the Gramb project, on wastewater purification systems located in Calabria, south of Italy. The data thus collected are used to control the wastewater quality, detect anomalies and predict the behaviour of the purification system. To this extent, three different statistical and machine learning models have been adopted and thus compared: Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA), Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) autoencoder, and Facebook Prophet (FP). The results demonstrated that the ML solution (LSTM) out-perform classical statistical approaches (ARIMA, FP), in terms of both accuracy, efficiency and effectiveness in monitoring and controlling the wastewater purification processes.

Keywords: EIoT, machine learning, anomaly detection, environment monitoring.

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Authors: Thuy Thi Nguyen, Nguyen Dang Binh, Horst Bischof

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In this work, we present a novel active learning approach for learning a visual object detection system. Our system is composed of an active learning mechanism as wrapper around a sub-algorithm which implement an online boosting-based learning object detector. In the core is a combination of a bootstrap procedure and a semi automatic learning process based on the online boosting procedure. The idea is to exploit the availability of classifier during learning to automatically label training samples and increasingly improves the classifier. This addresses the issue of reducing labeling effort meanwhile obtain better performance. In addition, we propose a verification process for further improvement of the classifier. The idea is to allow re-update on seen data during learning for stabilizing the detector. The main contribution of this empirical study is a demonstration that active learning based on an online boosting approach trained in this manner can achieve results comparable or even outperform a framework trained in conventional manner using much more labeling effort. Empirical experiments on challenging data set for specific object deteciton problems show the effectiveness of our approach.

Keywords: Computer vision, object detection, online boosting, active learning, labeling complexity.

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Authors: Armando Cartenì, Ilaria Henke

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Recently, the Italian government has approved a new law for public contracts and has been laying the groundwork for restarting a planning phase. The government has adopted the indications given by the European Commission regarding the estimation of the external costs within the Cost-Benefit Analysis, and has been approved the ‘Guidelines for assessment of Investment Projects’. In compliance with the new Italian law, the aim of this research was to perform a feasibility study applying quantitative methods regarding the revamping of an Italian tourist railway line. A Cost-Benefit Analysis was performed starting from the quantification of the passengers’ demand potentially interested in using the revamped rail services. The benefits due to the external costs reduction were also estimated (quantified) in terms of variations (with respect to the not project scenario): climate change, air pollution, noises, congestion, and accidents. Estimations results have been proposed in terms of the Measure of Effectiveness underlying a positive Net Present Value equal to about 27 million of Euros, an Internal Rate of Return much greater the discount rate, a benefit/cost ratio equal to 2 and a PayBack Period of 15 years.

Keywords: Cost-benefit analysis, evaluation analysis, demand management, external cost, transport planning, quality.

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Authors: M. Bayareh, S. Mortazavi

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The migration of a deformable drop in simple shear flow at finite Reynolds numbers is investigated numerically by solving the full Navier-Stokes equations using a finite difference/front tracking method. The objectives of this study are to examine the effectiveness of the present approach to predict the migration of a drop in a shear flow and to investigate the behavior of the drop migration with different drop sizes and non-unity viscosity ratios. It is shown that the drop deformation depends strongly on the capillary number, so that; the proper non-dimensional number for the interfacial tension is the capillary number. The rate of migration increased with increasing the drop radius. In other words, the required time for drop migration to the centreline decreases. As the viscosity ratio increases, the drop rotates more slowly and the lubrication force becomes stronger. The increased lubrication force makes it easier for the drop to migrate to the centre of the channel. The migration velocity of the drop vanishes as the drop reaches the centreline under viscosity ratio of one and non-unity viscosity ratios. To validate the present calculations, some typical results are compared with available experimental and theoretical data.

Keywords: drop migration, shear flow, front-tracking method, finite difference method.

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Authors: Martin Klaumünzer, Jakob Hübner, Denis Spitzer

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Within this paper, latest results on processing of energetic nanomaterials by means of the Spray Flash Evaporation technique are presented. This technology constitutes a highly effective and continuous way to prepare fascinating materials on the nano- and micro-scale. Within the process, a solution is set under high pressure and sprayed into an evacuated atomization chamber. Subsequent ultrafast evaporation of the solvent leads to an aerosol stream, which is separated by cyclones or filters. No drying gas is required, so the present technique should not be confused with spray dying. Resulting nanothermites, insensitive explosives or propellants and compositions are foreseen to replace toxic (according to REACH) and very sensitive matter in military and civil applications. Diverse examples are given in detail: nano-RDX (n-Cyclotrimethylentrinitramin) and nano-aluminum based systems, mixtures (n-RDX/n-TNT - trinitrotoluene) or even cocrystalline matter like n-CL-20/HMX (Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane/ Cyclotetra-methylentetranitramin). These nanomaterials show reduced sensitivity by trend without losing effectiveness and performance. An analytical study for material characterization was performed by using Atomic Force Microscopy, X-Ray Diffraction, and combined techniques as well as spectroscopic methods. As a matter of course, sensitivity tests regarding electrostatic discharge, impact, and friction are provided.

Keywords: Continuous synthesis, energetic material, nanoscale, nanothermite, nanoexplosive.

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Authors: Umber Iqbal, Shaleeza Sohail, Muhammad Younas Javed

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True integration of multimedia services over wired or wireless networks increase the productivity and effectiveness in today-s networks. IP Multimedia Subsystems are Next Generation Network architecture to provide the multimedia services over fixed or mobile networks. This paper proposes an extended SIP-based QoS Management architecture for IMS services over underlying IP access networks. To guarantee the end-to-end QoS for IMS services in interconnection backbone, SIP based proxy Modules are introduced to support the QoS provisioning and to reduce the handoff disruption time over IP access networks. In our approach these SIP Modules implement the combination of Diffserv and MPLS QoS mechanisms to assure the guaranteed QoS for real-time multimedia services. To guarantee QoS over access networks, SIP Modules make QoS resource reservations in advance to provide best QoS to IMS users over heterogeneous networks. To obtain more reliable multimedia services, our approach allows the use of SCTP protocol over SIP instead of UDP due to its multi-streaming feature. This architecture enables QoS provisioning for IMS roaming users to differentiate IMS network from other common IP networks for transmission of realtime multimedia services. To validate our approach simulation models are developed on short scale basis. The results show that our approach yields comparable performance for efficient delivery of IMS services over heterogeneous IP access networks.

Keywords: SIP-Based QoS Management Architecture, IPMultimedia Subsystems, IP Access Networks

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Authors: Amin Aghatabar Roodbary, Mohammad Hassan Bastani

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One of the defects of stepped frequency radar systems is their sensitivity to target motion. In such systems, target motion causes range cell shift, false peaks, Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) reduction and range profile spreading because of power spectrum interference of each range cell in adjacent range cells which induces distortion in High Resolution Range Profile (HRRP) and disrupt target recognition process. Thus Target Motion Parameters (TMPs) effects compensation should be employed. In this paper, such a method for estimating TMPs (velocity and acceleration) and consequently eliminating or suppressing the unwanted effects on HRRP based on entropy minimization has been proposed. This method is carried out in two major steps: in the first step, a discrete search method has been utilized over the whole acceleration-velocity lattice network, in a specific interval seeking to find a less-accurate minimum point of the entropy function. Then in the second step, a 1-D search over velocity is done in locus of the minimum for several constant acceleration lines, in order to enhance the accuracy of the minimum point found in the first step. The provided simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords: ATR, HRRP, motion compensation, SFW, TMP.

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Authors: Muntanavadee Maytapattana

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The purposes of the study were to evaluate the effectiveness of the Parent Training Program for Obesity Reduction (PTPOR) on health behaviors of school-age children. An Ecological Systems Theory (EST) was approached the study and a randomized control trial was used in this study. Participants were school-age overweight or obese children and their parents. One hundred and one parent-child dyads were recruited and random assigned into the PTPOR (N=30), Educational Intervention or EI (N=32), and control group (N=39). The parents in the PTPOR group participated in five sessions including an educational session, a cooking session, aerobic exercise training, 2-time group discussion sessions, and 4-time telephoned counseling sessions. Repeated Measure ANCOVA was used to analyze data. The results presented that the outcomes of the PTPOR group were better than the EI and the control groups at 1^st, 8^th, and 32^nd weeks after finishing the program such as child exercise behavior (F_(2,97) = 3.98, p = .02) and child dietary behavior (F_(2,97) = 9.42, p = .00). The results suggest that nurses and health care providers should utilize the PTPOR for child weight reduction and for the health promotion of a lifestyle among overweight and obese children.

Keywords: Parent training program for obesity reduction, child health behaviors, school-age children.

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Authors: A. Soria-Verdugo, A. Morato-Godino, L. M. García-Gutiérrez, N. García-Hernando

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The evolution of the pyrolysis of sewage sludge in a fixed and a fluidized bed was analyzed using a novel measuring technique. This original measuring technique consists of installing the whole reactor over a precision scale, capable of measuring the mass of the complete reactor with enough precision to detect the mass released by the sewage sludge sample during its pyrolysis. The inert conditions required for the pyrolysis process were obtained supplying the bed with a nitrogen flowrate, and the bed temperature was adjusted to either 500 ºC or 600 ºC using a group of three electric resistors. The sewage sludge sample was supplied through the top of the bed in a batch of 10 g. The measurement of the mass released by the sewage sludge sample was employed to determine the evolution of the reaction rate during the pyrolysis, the total amount of volatile matter released, and the pyrolysis time. The pyrolysis tests of sewage sludge in the fluidized bed were conducted using two different bed materials of the same size but different densities: silica sand and sepiolite particles. The higher density of silica sand particles induces a flotsam behavior for the sewage sludge particles which move close to the bed surface. In contrast, the lower density of sepiolite produces a neutrally-buoyant behavior for the sewage sludge particles, which shows a proper circulation throughout the whole bed in this case. The analysis of the evolution of the pyrolysis process in both fluidized beds show that the pyrolysis is faster when buoyancy effects are negligible, i.e. in the bed conformed by sepiolite particles. Moreover, sepiolite was found to show an absorbent capability for the volatile matter released during the pyrolysis of sewage sludge.

Keywords: Bubbling fluidized bed, pyrolysis time, segregation effects, sewage sludge.

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Authors: John Kabuba, Antoine Mulaba-Bafubiandi, Kim Battle

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This paper presents a critical study about the application of Neural Networks to ion-exchange process. Ionexchange is a complex non-linear process involving many factors influencing the ions uptake mechanisms from the pregnant solution. The following step includes the elution. Published data presents empirical isotherm equations with definite shortcomings resulting in unreliable predictions. Although Neural Network simulation technique encounters a number of disadvantages including its “black box", and a limited ability to explicitly identify possible causal relationships, it has the advantage to implicitly handle complex nonlinear relationships between dependent and independent variables. In the present paper, the Neural Network model based on the back-propagation algorithm Levenberg-Marquardt was developed using a three layer approach with a tangent sigmoid transfer function (tansig) at hidden layer with 11 neurons and linear transfer function (purelin) at out layer. The above mentioned approach has been used to test the effectiveness in simulating ion exchange processes. The modeling results showed that there is an excellent agreement between the experimental data and the predicted values of copper ions removed from aqueous solutions.

Keywords: Copper, ion-exchange process, neural networks, simulation

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Authors: Salma Ainine, Colin Ritchie, Tracey McFee

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Background: The societal impact of antibiotic resistance is a major public health concern. The increase in incidence of resistant bacteria can ultimately be fatal. Objective: To analyse the appropriateness of antibiotic prescribing in Dundee Dental Hospital, ultimately improving the safety and quality of patient care. Methods: Two examiners independently crosschecked approximately fifty consecutive prescriptions, and corresponding patient case notes, for three data collection cycles between August 2014 – September 2015. The Scottish Dental Clinical Effectiveness Program (SDCEP) Drug Prescribing for Dentistry guidelines was the standard utilised. The criteria: clinical justification, regime justification and review arrangements was measured, and compared to the standard. Results: Cycle one revealed 42% of antibiotic prescriptions were appropriate. Interventions included: multiple staff meetings, introduction of a checklist attached to the prescription pack, and production of patient leaflets explaining indications for antibiotics. Cycle two and three revealed 44%, and 30% compliance, respectively. Conclusion: The results of the audit have yet to meet target standards set out in prescribing guidelines. However, steps are being taken and change has occurred on a cultural level.

Keywords: Antibiotic resistance, antibiotic stewardship, dental infection and hygiene standards.

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Authors: Philip Feig, Klaus Gschwendtner, Julian Schatz, Frank Diermeyer

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Projects of accident research analysis are mostly focused on accidents involving personal damage. Property damage only has a high frequency of occurrence combined with high economic impact. This paper describes main influencing parameters for the extent of damage and presents a repair cost model. For a prospective evaluation method of the monetary effect of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS), it is necessary to be aware of and quantify all influencing parameters. Furthermore, this method allows the evaluation of vehicle concepts in combination with an ADAS at an early point in time of the product development process. In combination with a property damage database and the introduced repair cost model relevant test scenarios for specific vehicle configurations and their individual property damage risk may be determined. Currently, equipment rates of ADAS are low and a purchase incentive for customers would be beneficial. The next ADAS generation will prevent property damage to a large extent or at least reduce damage severity. Both effects may be a purchasing incentive for the customer and furthermore contribute to increased traffic safety.

Keywords: Property damage analysis, effectiveness, ADAS, damage risk, accident research, accident scenarios.

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Authors: N. Manavizadeh, M. Hosseini, M. Rabbani

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In the last decades to supply the various and different demands of clients, a lot of manufacturers trend to use the mixedmodel assembly line (MMAL) in their production lines, since this policy make possible to assemble various and different models of the equivalent goods on the same line with the MTO approach. In this article, we determine the sequence of (MMAL) line, with applying the kitting approach and planning of rest time for general workers to reduce the wastages, increase the workers effectiveness and apply the sector of lean production approach. This Multi-objective sequencing problem solved in small size with GAMS22.2 and PSO meta heuristic in 10 test problems and compare their results together and conclude that their results are very similar together, next we determine the important factors in computing the cost, which improving them cost reduced. Since this problem, is NPhard in large size, we use the particle swarm optimization (PSO) meta-heuristic for solving it. In large size we define some test problems to survey it-s performance and determine the important factors in calculating the cost, that by change or improved them production in minimum cost will be possible.

Keywords: Mixed-Model Assembly Line, particle swarmoptimization, Multi-objective sequencing problem, MTO system, kitto-assembly, rest time

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Authors: Rama Debbarma, Debanjan Das

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The performance of multiple tuned mass dampers to mitigate the seismic vibration of structures considering real time history data is investigated in this paper. Three different real earthquake time history data like Kobe, Imperial Valley and Mammoth Lake are taken in the present study. The multiple tuned mass dampers (MTMD) are distributed at each storey. For comparative study, single tuned mass damper (STMD) is installed at top of the similar structure. This study is conducted for a fixed mass ratio (5%) and fixed damping ratio (5%) of structures. Numerical study is performed to evaluate the effectiveness of MTMDs and overall system performance. The displacement, acceleration, base shear and storey drift are obtained for both combined system (structure with MTMD and structure with STMD) for all earthquakes. The same responses are also obtained for structure without damper system. From obtained results, it is investigated that the MTMD configuration is more effective for controlling the seismic response of the primary system with compare to STMD configuration.

Keywords: Earthquake, multiple tuned mass dampers, single tuned mass damper, time history.

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Authors: L. Benaaouinate, M. Khafallah, A. Martinez, A. Mesbahi, T. Bouragba

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This paper concerns with the modeling, simulation, and emulation of a wind turbine emulator for standalone wind energy conversion systems. By using emulation system, we aim to reproduce the dynamic behavior of the wind turbine torque on the generator shaft: it provides the testing facilities to optimize generator control strategies in a controlled environment, without reliance on natural resources. The aerodynamic, mechanical, electrical models have been detailed as well as the control of pitch angle using Fuzzy Logic for horizontal axis wind turbines. The wind turbine emulator consists mainly of an induction motor with AC power drive with torque control. The control of the induction motor and the mathematical models of the wind turbine are designed with MATLAB/Simulink environment. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the induction motor control system and the functionality of the wind turbine emulator for providing all necessary parameters of the wind turbine system such as wind speed, output torque, power coefficient and tip speed ratio. The findings are of direct practical relevance.

Keywords: Wind turbine, modeling, emulator, electrical generator, renewable energy, induction motor drive, field oriented control, real time control, wind turbine emulator, pitch angle control.

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Authors: Sara D. Garduño-Diaz, Philippe Y. Garduño-Diaz

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To date, one of the few comprehensive indicators for the measurement of food security is the Global Food Security Index (GFSI). This index is a dynamic quantitative and qualitative benchmarking model, constructed from 28 unique indicators, that measures drivers of food security across both developing and developed countries. Whereas the GFSI has been calculated across a set of 109 countries, in this paper we aim to present and compare, for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), 1) the Food Security Index scores achieved and 2) the data available on affordability, availability, and quality of food. The data for this work was taken from the latest available report published by the creators of the GFSI, which in turn used information from national and international statistical sources. MENA countries rank from place 17/109 (Israel, although with resent political turmoil this is likely to have changed) to place 91/109 (Yemen) with household expenditure spent in food ranging from 15.5% (Israel) to 60% (Egypt). Lower spending on food as a share of household consumption in most countries and better food safety net programs in the MENA have contributed to a notable increase in food affordability. The region has also, however, experienced a decline in food availability, owing to more limited food supplies and higher volatility of agricultural production. In terms of food quality and safety the MENA has the top ranking country (Israel). The most frequent challenges faced by the countries of the MENA include public expenditure on agricultural research and development as well as volatility of agricultural production. Food security is a complex phenomenon that interacts with many other indicators of a country’s wellbeing; in the MENA it is slowly but markedly improving.

Keywords: Diet, food insecurity, global food security index, nutrition, sustainability.

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Authors: Awatef Chniguir, Tarek Farah, Zouhair Ben Jemaa, Safya Belguith

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Optimal routing allows minimizing energy consumption in wireless sensor networks (WSN). Clustering has proven its effectiveness in organizing WSN by reducing channel contention and packet collision and enhancing network throughput under heavy load. Therefore, nowadays, with the emergence of the Internet of Things, heterogeneity is essential. Stable election protocol (SEP) that has increased the network stability period and lifetime is the first clustering protocol for heterogeneous WSN. SEP and its descendants, namely SEP, Threshold Sensitive SEP (TSEP), Enhanced TSEP (ETSSEP) and Current Energy Allotted TSEP (CEATSEP), were studied. These algorithms’ performance was evaluated based on different metrics, especially first node death (FND), to compare their stability. Simulations were conducted on the MATLAB tool considering two scenarios: The first one demonstrates the fraction variation of advanced nodes by setting the number of total nodes. The second considers the interpretation of the number of nodes while keeping the number of advanced nodes permanent. CEATSEP outperforms its antecedents by increasing stability and, at the same time, keeping a low throughput. It also operates very well in a large-scale network. Consequently, CEATSEP has a useful lifespan and energy efficiency compared to the other routing protocol for heterogeneous WSN.

Keywords: Clustering, heterogeneous, stability, scalability, throughput, IoT, WSN.

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Authors: Manal Sultan Alhussein, Xiang Michelle Liu

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Telehealth is an advanced technology using digital information and telecommunication facilities that provide access to health services from a distance. It slows the transmission factor of COVID-19, especially for elderly patients and patients with chronic diseases during the pandemic. Therefore, understanding patient perspectives on telehealth services and the factors impacting their option of telehealth service will shed light on the measures that healthcare providers can take to improve the quality of telehealth services. This study aimed to evaluate perceptions of telehealth services among different patient groups and explore various aspects of telehealth utilization in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey distributed via social media platforms was used to collect research data. In addition to the descriptive statistics, both correlation and regression analyses were conducted to test research hypotheses. The empirical results highlighted that the factors such as accessibility to telehealth services and the type of specialty clinics that the patients required play important roles in the effectiveness of telehealth services they received. However, the results found that patients’ waiting time to receive telehealth services and their annual income did not significantly influence their desire to select receiving healthcare services via telehealth. The limitations of the study and future research directions are discussed.

Keywords: Telehealth, patient satisfaction, pandemic, healthcare, remote patient monitor.

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Authors: Abhijit Mitra, C. Ardil

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We investigate sonic cues for binaural sound localization within classrooms and present a structural model for the same. Two of the primary cues for localization, interaural time difference (ITD) and interaural level difference (ILD) created between the two ears by sounds from a particular point in space, are used. Although these cues do not lend any information about the elevation of a sound source, the torso, head, and outer ear carry out elevation dependent spectral filtering of sounds before they reach the inner ear. This effect is commonly captured in head related transfer function (HRTF) which aids in resolving the ambiguity from the ITDs and ILDs alone and helps localize sounds in free space. The proposed structural model of HRTF produces well controlled horizontal as well as vertical effects. The implemented HRTF is a signal processing model which tries to mimic the physical effects of the sounds interacting with different parts of the body. The effectiveness of the method is tested by synthesizing spatial audio, in MATLAB, for use in listening tests with human subjects and is found to yield satisfactory results in comparison with existing models.

Keywords: Auditory localization, Binaural sound, Head related impulse response, Head related transfer function, Interaural level difference, Interaural time difference, Localization cues.

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Authors: H. Shayeghi, H.A. Shayanfar, A. Jalili

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In the LFC problem, the interconnections among some areas are the input of disturbances, and therefore, it is important to suppress the disturbances by the coordination of governor systems. In contrast, tie-line power flow control by TCPS located between two areas makes it possible to stabilize the system frequency oscillations positively through interconnection, which is also expected to provide a new ancillary service for the further power systems. Thus, a control strategy using controlling the phase angle of TCPS is proposed for provide active control facility of system frequency in this paper. Also, the optimum adjustment of PID controller's parameters in a robust way under bilateral contracted scenario following the large step load demands and disturbances with and without TCPS are investigated by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), that has a strong ability to find the most optimistic results. This newly developed control strategy combines the advantage of PSO and TCPS and has simple stricture that is easy to implement and tune. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy a three-area restructured power system is considered as a test system under different operating conditions and system nonlinearities. Analysis reveals that the TCPS is quite capable of suppressing the frequency and tie-line power oscillations effectively as compared to that obtained without TCPS for a wide range of plant parameter changes, area load demands and disturbances even in the presence of system nonlinearities.

Keywords: LFC, TCPS, Dregulated Power System, PowerSystem Control, PSO.

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Authors: Sangram Keshori Mohapatra, Sidhartha Panda, Prasant Kumar Satpathy

Abstract:

Power-system stability improvement by simultaneous tuning of power system stabilizer (PSS) and a Static Var Compensator (SVC) based damping controller is thoroughly investigated in this paper. Both local and remote signals with associated time delays are considered in the present study. The design problem of the proposed controller is formulated as an optimization problem, and differential evolution (DE) algorithm is employed to search for the optimal controller parameters. The performances of the proposed controllers are evaluated under different disturbances for both single-machine infinite bus power system and multi-machine power system. The performance of the proposed controllers with variations in the signal transmission delays has also been investigated. The proposed stabilizers are tested on a weakly connected power system subjected to different disturbances. Nonlinear simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed control schemes over a wide range of loading conditions and disturbances. Further, the proposed design approach is found to be robust and improves stability effectively even under small disturbance conditions.

Keywords: Differential Evolution Algorithm, Power System Stability, Power System Stabilizer, Static Var Compensator

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Authors: Azadeh Rouhandeh, Chris Joslin, Zhen Qu, Yuu Ono

Abstract:

The centre of rotation of the hip joint is needed for an accurate simulation of the joint performance in many applications such as pre-operative planning simulation, human gait analysis, and hip joint disorders. In human movement analysis, the hip joint center can be estimated using a functional method based on the relative motion of the femur to pelvis measured using reflective markers attached to the skin surface. The principal source of errors in estimation of hip joint centre location using functional methods is soft tissue artefacts due to the relative motion between the markers and bone. One of the main objectives in human movement analysis is the assessment of soft tissue artefact as the accuracy of functional methods depends upon it. Various studies have described the movement of soft tissue artefact invasively, such as intra-cortical pins, external fixators, percutaneous skeletal trackers, and Roentgen photogrammetry. The goal of this study is to present a non-invasive method to assess the displacements of the markers relative to the underlying bone using optical motion capture data and tissue thickness from ultrasound measurements during flexion, extension, and abduction (all with knee extended) of the hip joint. Results show that the artefact skin marker displacements are non-linear and larger in areas closer to the hip joint. Also marker displacements are dependent on the movement type and relatively larger in abduction movement. The quantification of soft tissue artefacts can be used as a basis for a correction procedure for hip joint kinematics.

Keywords: Hip joint centre, motion capture, soft tissue artefact, ultrasound depth measurement.

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Authors: T. Qasim, B. El Masoud, D. Ailabouni

Abstract:

This in vitro study focused on investigating the fatigue resistance of veneered zirconia molar crowns with different veneering ceramic thicknesses, simulating the relative wear depths under simulated cyclic loading. A mandibular first molar was prepared and then scanned using computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) technology to fabricate 32 zirconia copings of uniform 0.5 mm thickness. The manufactured copings then veneered with 1.5 mm, 1.0 mm, 0.5 mm, and 0.0 mm representing 0%, 33%, 66%, and 100% relative wear of a normal ceramic thickness of 1.5 mm. All samples were thermally aged to 6000 thermo-cycles for 2 minutes with distilled water between 5 ˚C and 55 ˚C. The samples subjected to cyclic fatigue and fracture testing using SD Mechatronik chewing simulator. These samples are loaded up to 1.25x10⁶ cycles or until they fail. During fatigue, testing, extensive cracks were observed in samples with 0.5 mm veneering layer thickness. Veneering layer thickness 1.5-mm group and 1.0-mm group were not different in terms of resisting loads necessary to cause an initial crack or final failure. All ceramic zirconia-based crown restorations with varying occlusal veneering layer thicknesses appeared to be fatigue resistant. Fracture load measurement for all tested groups before and after fatigue loading exceeded the clinical chewing forces in the posterior region. In general, the fracture loads increased after fatigue loading and with the increase in the thickness of the occlusal layering ceramic.

Keywords: All ceramic, dental crowns, relative wear, chewing simulator, cyclic loading, thermally ageing.

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Authors: Hui-Chuan Chu, Min-Ju Liao, Wei-Kai Cheng, William Wei-Jen Tsai, Yuh-Min Chen

Abstract:

Avoiding learning failures in mathematics e-learning environments caused by emotional problems in students with autism has become an important topic for combining of special education with information and communications technology. This study presents an adaptive emotional adjustment model in mathematics e-learning for students with autism, emphasizing the lack of emotional perception in mathematics e-learning systems. In addition, an emotion classification for students with autism was developed by inducing emotions in mathematical learning environments to record changes in the physiological signals and facial expressions of students. Using these methods, 58 emotional features were obtained. These features were then processed using one-way ANOVA and information gain (IG). After reducing the feature dimension, methods of support vector machines (SVM), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), and classification and regression trees (CART) were used to classify four emotional categories: baseline, happy, angry, and anxious. After testing and comparisons, in a situation without feature selection, the accuracy rate of the SVM classification can reach as high as 79.3-%. After using IG to reduce the feature dimension, with only 28 features remaining, SVM still has a classification accuracy of 78.2-%. The results of this research could enhance the effectiveness of eLearning in special education.

Keywords: Emotion classification, Physiological and facial Expression measures, Students with autism, Mathematics e-learning.

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Authors: Ahmet Yetik, Seyit Ali Kara, Cevat Özarpa

Abstract:

Load changes occur on natural gas and oil pipelines due to natural disasters. The displacement of the soil around the natural gas and oil pipes due to situations that may cause erosion, such as earthquakes, landslides, and floods, is the source of this load change. The exposure of natural gas and oil pipes to variable loads causes deformation, cracks, and breaks in these pipes. Such cracks and breaks can cause significant damage to people and the environment, including the risk of explosions. Especially with the examinations made after natural disasters, it can be easily understood which of the pipes has sustained more damage in those quake-affected regions. It has been determined that earthquakes in Türkiye have caused permanent damage to pipelines. This project was initiated in response to the identification of cracks and gas leaks in the insulation gaskets placed in the pipelines, especially at the junction points. In this study, a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) application has been developed to monitor load changes caused by natural disasters. The developed SCADA application monitors the changes in the x, y, and z axes of the stresses occurring in the pipes with the help of strain gauge sensors placed on the pipes. For the developed SCADA system, test setups in accordance with the standards were created during the fieldwork. The test setups created were integrated into the SCADA system, and the system was followed up. Thanks to the SCADA system developed with the field application, the load changes that will occur on the natural gas and oil pipes are instantly monitored, and the accumulations that may create a load on the pipes and their surroundings are immediately intervened, and new risks that may arise are prevented. It has contributed to energy supply security, asset management, pipeline holistic management, and overall sustainability in the industry.

Keywords: Earthquake, natural gas pipes, oil pipes, voltage measurement, landslide.

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