Search results for: Voltage Profile Improvement.

Authors: Cheng Seong Khor, Xiao Qi Yeoh

Abstract:

This work concerns the topological optimization problem for determining the optimal petroleum refinery configuration. We are interested in further investigating and hopefully advancing the existing optimization approaches and strategies employing logic propositions to conceptual process synthesis problems. In particular, we seek to contribute to this increasingly exciting area of chemical process modeling by addressing the following potentially important issues: (a) how the formulation of design specifications in a mixed-logical-and-integer optimization model can be employed in a synthesis problem to enrich the problem representation by incorporating past design experience, engineering knowledge, and heuristics; and (b) how structural specifications on the interconnectivity relationships by space (states) and by function (tasks) in a superstructure should be properly formulated within a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) model. The proposed modeling technique is illustrated on a case study involving the alternative processing routes of naphtha, in which significant improvement in the solution quality is obtained.

Keywords: Mixed-integer linear programming (MILP), petroleum refinery, process synthesis, superstructure.

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Authors: Solyman Sharifi, Naghdali Choupani

Abstract:

Adhesively bonded joints are preferred over the conventional methods of joining such as riveting, welding, bolting and soldering. Some of the main advantages of adhesive joints compared to conventional joints are the ability to join dissimilar materials and damage-sensitive materials, better stress distribution, weight reduction, fabrication of complicated shapes, excellent thermal and insulation properties, vibration response and enhanced damping control, smoother aerodynamic surfaces and an improvement in corrosion and fatigue resistance. This paper presents the behavior of adhesively bonded joints subjected to combined thermal loadings, using the numerical methods. The joint configuration considers aluminum as central adherend with six different outer adherends including aluminum, steel, titanium, boronepoxy, unidirectional graphite-epoxy and cross-ply graphite-epoxy and epoxy-based adhesives. Free expansion of the joint in x direction was permitted and stresses in adhesive layer and interfaces calculated for different adherends.

Keywords: Thermal stress, patch repair, Adhesive joint, Finiteelement analysis.

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Authors: Ghassan A. Abed, Samir I. Badrawi

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The advancement in wireless technology with the wide use of mobile devices have drawn the attention of the research and technological communities towards wireless environments, such as Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs), Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWANs), and mobile systems and ad-hoc networks. Unfortunately, wired and wireless networks are expressively different in terms of link reliability, bandwidth, and time of propagation delay and by adapting new solutions for these enhanced telecommunications, superior quality, efficiency, and opportunities will be provided where wireless communications were otherwise unfeasible. Some researchers define 4G as a significant improvement of 3G, where current cellular network’s issues will be solved and data transfer will play a more significant role. For others, 4G unifies cellular and wireless local area networks, and introduces new routing techniques, efficient solutions for sharing dedicated frequency bands, and an increased mobility and bandwidth capacity. This paper discusses the possible solutions and enhancements probabilities that proposed to improve the performance of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) over different wireless networks and also the paper investigated each approach in term of advantages and disadvantages.

Keywords: TCP, Wireless Networks, Cellular Systems, WLAN.

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Authors: Padmanabhan Balasubramanian, C. Hari Narayanan

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This paper discusses a new, systematic approach to the synthesis of a NP-hard class of non-regenerative Boolean networks, described by FON[FOFF]={mi}[{Mi}], where for every mj[Mj]∈{mi}[{Mi}], there exists another mk[Mk]∈{mi}[{Mi}], such that their Hamming distance HD(mj, mk)=HD(Mj, Mk)=O(n), (where 'n' represents the number of distinct primary inputs). The method automatically ensures exact minimization for certain important selfdual functions with 2n-1 points in its one-set. The elements meant for grouping are determined from a newly proposed weighted incidence matrix. Then the binary value corresponding to the candidate pair is correlated with the proposed binary value matrix to enable direct synthesis. We recommend algebraic factorization operations as a post processing step to enable reduction in literal count. The algorithm can be implemented in any high level language and achieves best cost optimization for the problem dealt with, irrespective of the number of inputs. For other cases, the method is iterated to subsequently reduce it to a problem of O(n-1), O(n-2),.... and then solved. In addition, it leads to optimal results for problems exhibiting higher degree of adjacency, with a different interpretation of the heuristic, and the results are comparable with other methods. In terms of literal cost, at the technology independent stage, the circuits synthesized using our algorithm enabled net savings over AOI (AND-OR-Invert) logic, AND-EXOR logic (EXOR Sum-of- Products or ESOP forms) and AND-OR-EXOR logic by 45.57%, 41.78% and 41.78% respectively for the various problems. Circuit level simulations were performed for a wide variety of case studies at 3.3V and 2.5V supply to validate the performance of the proposed method and the quality of the resulting synthesized circuits at two different voltage corners. Power estimation was carried out for a 0.35micron TSMC CMOS process technology. In comparison with AOI logic, the proposed method enabled mean savings in power by 42.46%. With respect to AND-EXOR logic, the proposed method yielded power savings to the tune of 31.88%, while in comparison with AND-OR-EXOR level networks; average power savings of 33.23% was obtained.

Keywords: AOI logic, ESOP, AND-OR-EXOR, Incidencematrix, Hamming distance.

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Authors: S. H. Iranmanesh, L. Aliabadi, A. Mollajan

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Integrated resilience engineering (IRE) is capable of returning banking systems to the normal state in extensive economic circumstances. In this study, information system of a large bank (with several branches) is assessed and optimized under severe economic conditions. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) models are employed to achieve the objective of this study. Nine IRE factors are considered to be the outputs, and a dummy variable is defined as the input of the DEA models. A standard questionnaire is designed and distributed among executive managers to be considered as the decision-making units (DMUs). Reliability and validity of the questionnaire is examined based on Cronbach's alpha and t-test. The most appropriate DEA model is determined based on average efficiency and normality test. It is shown that the proposed integrated design provides higher efficiency than the conventional RE design. Results of sensitivity and perturbation analysis indicate that self-organization, fault tolerance, and reporting culture respectively compose about 50 percent of total weight.

Keywords: Banking system, data envelopment analysis, DEA, integrated resilience engineering, IRE, performance evaluation, perturbation analysis.

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Authors: Jay M. Joshi, Upena D. Dalal

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Multimedia information availability has increased dramatically with the advent of video broadcasting on handheld devices. But with this availability comes problems of maintaining the security of information that is displayed in public. ISMA Encryption and Authentication (ISMACryp) is one of the chosen technologies for service protection in DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting- Handheld), the TV system for portable handheld devices. The ISMACryp is encoded with H.264/AVC (advanced video coding), while leaving all structural data as it is. Two modes of ISMACryp are available; the CTR mode (Counter type) and CBC mode (Cipher Block Chaining) mode. Both modes of ISMACryp are based on 128- bit AES algorithm. AES algorithms are more complex and require larger time for execution which is not suitable for real time application like live TV. The proposed system aims to gain a deep understanding of video data security on multimedia technologies and to provide security for real time video applications using selective encryption for H.264/AVC. Five level of security proposed in this paper based on the content of NAL unit in Baseline Constrain profile of H.264/AVC. The selective encryption in different levels provides encryption of intra-prediction mode, residue data, inter-prediction mode or motion vectors only. Experimental results shown in this paper described that fifth level which is ISMACryp provide higher level of security with more encryption time and the one level provide lower level of security by encrypting only motion vectors with lower execution time without compromise on compression and quality of visual content. This encryption scheme with compression process with low cost, and keeps the file format unchanged with some direct operations supported. Simulation was being carried out in Matlab.

Keywords: AES-128, CAVLC, H.264, ISMACryp

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Authors: Yuan L. Lai, Jui P. Hung, Jian H. Chen

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This paper was aimed at developing a computer aided design and manufacturing system for spatial cylindrical cams. In the proposed system, a milling tool with a diameter smaller than that of the roller, instead of the standard cutter for traditional machining process, was used to generate the tool path for spatial cams. To verify the feasibility of the proposed method, a multi-axis machining simulation software was further used to simulate the practical milling operation of spatial cams. It was observed from computer simulation that the tool path of small-sized cutter were within the motion range of a standard cutter, no occurrence of overcutting. Examination of a finished cam component clearly verifies the accuracy of the tool path generated for small-sized milling tool. It is believed that the use of small-sized cutter for the machining of the spatial cylindrical cams can generate a better surface morphology with higher accuracy. The improvement in efficiency and cost for the manufacturing of the spatial cylindrical cam can be expected through the proposed method.

Keywords: Cylindrical cams, Computer-aided manufacturing, Tool path.

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Authors: Jiantao Weng, Yujie Zhao

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With the improvement of living quality and demand for nighttime activities in China, the current situation of outdoor lighting environment at night needs to be assessed. Lighting environment at night plays an important role to guarantee night safety. Two typical residential communities in Hangzhou were selected. A comprehensive test method of outdoor lighting environment at night was established. The road, fitness area, landscape, playground and entrance were included. Field measurements and questionnaires were conducted in these two residential communities. The characteristics of residents’ habits and the subjective evaluation on different aspects of outdoor lighting environment at night were collected via questionnaire. A safety evaluation system on the outdoor lighting environment at night in the residential community was established. The results show that there is a big difference in illumination in different areas. The lighting uniformities of roads cannot meet the requirement of lighting standard in China. Residents pay more attention to the lighting environment of the fitness area and road than others. This study can provide guidance for the design and management of outdoor lighting environment at night.

Keywords: Residential community, lighting environment, night, field measurement.

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Authors: Hanaa M. Abdelgawad, Mona Safar, Ayman M. Wahba

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Real time image and video processing is a demand in many computer vision applications, e.g. video surveillance, traffic management and medical imaging. The processing of those video applications requires high computational power. Thus, the optimal solution is the collaboration of CPU and hardware accelerators. In this paper, a Canny edge detection hardware accelerator is proposed. Edge detection is one of the basic building blocks of video and image processing applications. It is a common block in the pre-processing phase of image and video processing pipeline. Our presented approach targets offloading the Canny edge detection algorithm from processing system (PS) to programmable logic (PL) taking the advantage of High Level Synthesis (HLS) tool flow to accelerate the implementation on Zynq platform. The resulting implementation enables up to a 100x performance improvement through hardware acceleration. The CPU utilization drops down and the frame rate jumps to 60 fps of 1080p full HD input video stream.

Keywords: High Level Synthesis, Canny edge detection, Hardware accelerators, and Computer Vision.

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Authors: Zain M. Al-Houri, Abbas S. Al-Omari

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Roadways in Amman city face many problems consequent upon poor drainage systems. Evaluation tools are necessary to identify those roads needing improvement in their drainage system, and those needing regular maintenance. This work aims at evaluating drainage conditions in selected roadways in Amman city with the intent of identifying the problems encountered in their drainage systems. Three sites in the vicinity of Amman city have been selected and then inspected via several field visits to determine the state of their existing drainage systems and define the major problems encountered in these systems. The evaluation tool used in this study is based on visual inspection supported by photographs that depicted the defined problems. Following the field assessment, the drainage system in each road was rated as excellent, fair, good, or poor. The study reveals that more than 60% of the roadways in the selected sites were in poor drainage conditions, which lead to tremendous environmental problems. This assessment serves as a guide for local decision makers to help plan for the maintenance of Amman city roadways drainage systems, and propose ways of managing the associated problems.

Keywords: Amman Stormwater, Drainage systems, Environmental problems, Roadways drainage.

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Authors: Isaac Kofi Mensah, Mi Jianing

Abstract:

The lack of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) infrastructure in African countries is hampering the successful adoption, development and implementation of e-government in Africa. Electronic government is the use of ICTs to modernize government public administration processes and to provide government services to citizens with a purpose to enhance efficiency, accountability, and transparency in government’s interaction with the citizenry. ICT application in public administration has the potential to modernize and create smarter government and improvement in public service delivery. China’s Internet Plus policy and One Belt One Road strategy present a golden opportunity for countries in Africa to attract the huge financial investment through Chinese IT companies to develop and close Africa’s ICT infrastructure gap. This study recommends the establishment of One Belt One Road ICT Infrastructure Fund for Africa (OBOR ICT Fund for Africa) to enable countries in Africa to source solely for the purpose of ICT infrastructure development in the public sector/government machinery which would in turn promote the adoption and development of e-government in the public sectors of respective countries in Africa.

Keywords: E-government, public service delivery, internet plus, one belt one road initiative, China, Africa.

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Authors: Hyun-Woo Cho

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Real-time or in-line process monitoring frameworks are designed to give early warnings for a fault along with meaningful identification of its assignable causes. In artificial intelligence and machine learning fields of pattern recognition various promising approaches have been proposed such as kernel-based nonlinear machine learning techniques. This work presents a kernel-based empirical monitoring scheme for batch type production processes with small sample size problem of partially unbalanced data. Measurement data of normal operations are easy to collect whilst special events or faults data are difficult to collect. In such situations, noise filtering techniques can be helpful in enhancing process monitoring performance. Furthermore, preprocessing of raw process data is used to get rid of unwanted variation of data. The performance of the monitoring scheme was demonstrated using three-dimensional batch data. The results showed that the monitoring performance was improved significantly in terms of detection success rate of process fault.

Keywords: Process Monitoring, kernel methods, multivariate filtering, data-driven techniques, quality improvement.

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Authors: Eunil Park, Kwangsu Cho

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The wireless link can be unreliable in realistic wireless sensor networks (WSNs). Energy efficient and reliable data forwarding is important because each node has limited resources. Therefore, we must suggest an optimal solution that considers using the information of the node-s characteristics. Previous routing protocols were unsuited to realistic asymmetric WSNs. In this paper, we propose a Protocol that considers Both sides of Link-quality and Energy (PBLE), an optimal routing protocol that balances modified link-quality, distance and energy. Additionally, we propose a node scheduling method. PBLE achieves a longer lifetime than previous routing protocols and is more energy-efficient. PBLE uses energy, local information and both sides of PRR in a 1-hop distance. We explain how to send data packets to the destination node using the node's information. Simulation shows PBLE improves delivery rate and network lifetime compared to previous schemes. Moreover, we show the improvement in various WSN environments.

Keywords: energy-efficient, lifetime, PBLE, unreliable

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Authors: Xiaowei Zhang, Min Xu, Saeid Habibi, Fengjun Yan, Ryan Ahmed

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Recently, Electric Vehicles (EVs) have received extensive consideration since they offer a more sustainable and greener transportation alternative compared to fossil-fuel propelled vehicles. Lithium-Ion (Li-ion) batteries are increasingly being deployed in EVs because of their high energy density, high cell-level voltage, and low rate of self-discharge. Since Li-ion batteries represent the most expensive component in the EV powertrain, accurate monitoring and control strategies must be executed to ensure their prolonged lifespan. The Battery Management System (BMS) has to accurately estimate parameters such as the battery State-of-Charge (SOC), State-of-Health (SOH), and Remaining Useful Life (RUL). In order for the BMS to estimate these parameters, an accurate and control-oriented battery model has to work collaboratively with a robust state and parameter estimation strategy. Since battery physical parameters, such as the internal resistance and diffusion coefficient change depending on the battery state-of-life (SOL), the BMS has to be adaptive to accommodate for this change. In this paper, an extensive battery aging study has been conducted over 12-months period on 5.4 Ah, 3.7 V Lithium polymer cells. Instead of using fixed charging/discharging aging cycles at fixed C-rate, a set of real-world driving scenarios have been used to age the cells. The test has been interrupted every 5% capacity degradation by a set of reference performance tests to assess the battery degradation and track model parameters. As battery ages, the combined model parameters are optimized and tracked in an offline mode over the entire batteries lifespan. Based on the optimized model, a state and parameter estimation strategy based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and the relatively new Smooth Variable Structure Filter (SVSF) have been applied to estimate the SOC at various states of life.

Keywords: Lithium-Ion batteries, genetic algorithm optimization, battery aging test, and parameter identification.

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Authors: Manjie Li, Xiangju Cheng, Yongcan Chen

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With rapid development of industrialization and urbanization, water environmental deterioration is widespread in majority of urban rivers, which seriously affects city image and life satisfaction of residents. As an emergency measure to improve water quality, clean water diversion is introduced for water environmental management. Lubao River and Southwest River, two urban rivers in typical plain tidal river network, are identified as technically and economically feasible for the application of clean water diversion. One-dimensional hydrodynamic-water quality model is developed to simulate temporal and spatial variations of water level and water quality, with satisfactory accuracy. The mathematical model after calibration is applied to investigate hydrodynamic and water quality variations in rivers as well as determine the optimum operation scheme of water diversion. Assessment system is developed for evaluation of positive and negative effects of water diversion, demonstrating the effectiveness of clean water diversion and the necessity of pollution reduction.

Keywords: Assessment system, clean water diversion, hydrodynamic-water quality model, tidal river network, urban rivers, water environment improvement.

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Authors: P. Sanzo

Abstract:

Increased physical fitness participation has been paralleled by increasedoveruse injuries such as insertional Achilles tendinosis (AT). Treatment has provided inconsistentresults. The use of extracorporeal shockwave therapy (ECSWT) offers a new treatment consideration.The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of ECSWTon pain, function, range of motion (ROM), joint mobility and strength in patients with AT. Thirty subjects were treated with ECSWT and measures were takenbefore and three months after treatment. There was significant differences in visual analog scale (VAS) scores for pain at rest (p=0.002); after activity (p= 0.0001); overall improvement(p=0.0001); Lower Extremity Functional Scale (LEFS) scores (p=0.002); dorsiflexion range of motion (ROM) (p=0.0001); plantarflexion strength (p=0.025); talocrural joint anterior glide (p=0.046); and subtalar joint medial and lateral glide (p=0.025).ECSWT offers a new intervention that may limit the progression of the disorder and the long term healthcare costs associated with AT.

Keywords: Extracorporeal shockwave therapy, shockwave therapy, Achilles tendinosis, range of motion, strength, joint mobility

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Authors: Eva Nedeliakova, Jaroslav Masek, Juraj Camaj

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This article describes the results of research focused on quality of railway freight transport services. Improvement of these services has a crucial importance in customer considering on the future use of railway transport. Processes filling the customer demands and output quality assessment were defined as a part of the research. In this contribution is introduced the map of quality planning and the algorithm of applied methodology. It characterizes a model which takes into account characters of transportation with linking a perception services quality in ordinary and extraordinary operation. Despite the fact that rail freight transport has its solid position in the transport market, lots of carriers worldwide have been experiencing a stagnation for a couple of years. Therefore, specific results of the research have a significant importance and belong to numerous initiatives aimed to develop and support railway transport not only by creating a single railway area or reducing noise but also by promoting railway services. This contribution is focused also on the application of dynamic quality models which represent an innovative method of evaluation quality services. Through this conception, time factor, expected, and perceived quality in each moment of the transportation process can be taken into account.

Keywords: Quality, railway, transport, service.

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Authors: E. Oke, A. O. Ladokun, J. O. Daramola, O. M. Onagbesan

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There has been a growing interest on the effects of access to pasture on poultry health status. However, there is a paucity of data on the relative benefits of grass and legume pastures. An experiment was conducted to determine the effects of rearing systems {deep litter system (DL), deep litter with access to legumes (LP) or grass (GP) pastures} haematology and serum chemistry of ISA Brown layers. The study involved the use of two hundred and forty 12 weeks old pullets. The birds were reared until 60 weeks of age. Eighty birds were assigned to each treatment; each treatment had four replicates of 20 birds each. Blood samples (2.5 ml) were collected from the wing vein of two birds per replicate and serum chemistry and haematological parameters were determined. The results showed that there were no significant differences between treatments in all the parameters considered at 18 weeks of age. At 24 weeks old, the percentage of heterophyl (HET) in DL and LP were similar but higher than that of GP. The ratio of H:L was higher (P<0.05) in DL than those of LP and GP while LP and GP were comparable. At week 38 of age, the percentage of PCV in the birds in LP and GP were similar but the birds in DL had significantly lower level than that of GP. In the early production phase, serum total protein of the birds in LP was similar to that of GP but higher (P<0.05) than that of DL. At the peak production phase (week 38), the total protein in GP and DL were similar but significantly lower than that of LP. The albumin level in LP was greater (P<0.05) than GP but similar to that of DL. In the late production phase, the total protein in LP was significantly higher than that of DL but similar to that of GP. It was concluded that rearing chickens in either grass or legume pasture did not have deleterious effects on the health of laying chickens but improved some parameters including blood protein and HET/lymphocyte.

Keywords: Rearing systems, Stylosanthes, Cynodon serum chemistry, haematology, hen.

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Authors: K. Shimola, M. Krishnaveni

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This paper examines vulnerability assessment of water resources in a semi-arid basin using the 4-step approach. The vulnerability assessment framework is developed to study the water resources vulnerability which includes the creation of GIS-based vulnerability maps. These maps represent the spatial variability of the vulnerability index. This paper introduces the 4-step approach to assess vulnerability that incorporates a new set of indicators. The approach is demonstrated using a framework composed of a precipitation data for (1975–2010) period, temperature data for (1965–2010) period, hydrological model outputs and the water resources GIS data base. The vulnerability assessment is a function of three components such as exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. The current water resources vulnerability is assessed using GIS based spatio-temporal information. Rainfall Coefficient of Variation, monsoon onset and end date, rainy days, seasonality indices, temperature are selected for the criterion ‘exposure’. Water yield, ground water recharge, evapotranspiration (ET) are selected for the criterion ‘sensitivity’. Type of irrigation and storage structures are selected for the criterion ‘Adaptive capacity’. These indicators were mapped and integrated in GIS environment using overlay analysis. The five sub-basins, namely Arjunanadhi, Kousiganadhi, Sindapalli-Uppodai and Vallampatti Odai, fall under medium vulnerability profile, which indicates that the basin is under moderate stress of water resources. The paper also explores prioritization of sub-basinwise adaptation strategies to climate change based on the vulnerability indices.

Keywords: Adaptive capacity, exposure, overlay analysis, sensitivity, vulnerability.

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Authors: Dixit Garg, S. Luthra, A. Haleem

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During recent years, the natural environment has become a challenging topic that business organizations must consider due to the economic and ecological impacts and increasing awareness of environment protection among society. Organizations are trying to achieve the goals of improvement in environment, low cost, high quality, flexibility and more customer satisfaction. Performance measurement frameworks are very useful to monitor the performance of any organization. The basic goal of this paper is to identify performance measures and ranking of these performance measures of GSCM performance measurement towards sustainability framework. Five perspectives (Environment, Economic, Social, Operational and Cost performances) and nineteen performance measures of GSCM performance towards sustainability have been have been identified from extensive literature review. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) technique has been utilized for ranking of these performance perspectives and measures. All pair comparisons in AHP have been made on the basis on the experts’ opinions (selected from academia and industry). Ranking of these performance perspectives and measures will help to understand the importance of environmental, economic, social, operational performances and cost performances in the supply chain.

Keywords: Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), Green Supply Chain Management, Performance Measures (PM), Sustainability.

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Authors: Jahanfar Daneshian, P. Jonoubi, D. Barari Tari

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In order to investigate water deficit stress on 24 of soybean (Glycine Max. L) cultivars and lines in temperate climate, an experiment was conducted in Iran Seed and Plant Improvement Institute. Stress levels were irrigation after evaporation of 50, 100, 150 mm water from pan, class A. Randomized Completely Block Design was arranged for each stress levels. Some traits such as, node number, plant height, pod number per area, grain number per pod, grain number per area, 1000 grains weight, grain yield and harvest index were measured. Results showed that water deficit stress had significant effect on node number, plant height, pod number per area, grain number per pod, grain number per area, 1000 grains weight and harvest index. Also all of agronomic traits except harvest index influenced significantly by cultivars and lines. The least and most grain yield was belonged to Ronak X Williams and M41 x Clark respectively.

Keywords: Soybean, water deficit stress, Agronomic traits, Yield

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Authors: Mohammad Shahid Jamil, Mohamed Chabi

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In this study, students’ learning has been investigated and satisfaction in one of the course offered at Qatar University Foundation Program. Innovative teaching has been implied methodology that emphasizes on enhancing students’ thinking skills, decision making, and problem solving skills. Some interesting results were found which could be used to further improvement of the teaching methodology. In Fall 2012 in Foundation Program Math department at Qatar University has started implementing new ways of teaching Math by introducing MyMathLab (MML) as an innovative interactive tool in addition of the use Blackboard to support standard teaching such as Discussion board in Virtual class to engage students outside of classroom and to enhance independent, active learning that promote students’ critical thinking skills, decision making, and problem solving skills through the learning process.

Keywords: Blackboard, MyMathLab, study plan, discussion board, critical thinking, active and independent learning, problem solving.

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Authors: Zheng-Yan Ruan, Chien-Hao Wang, Hong-Jen Lin, Chien-Peng Huang, Ying-Hao Chen, En-Cheng Yang, Chwan-Lu Tseng, Joe-Air Jiang

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Bees play a vital role in pollination. This paper focuses on the weighing process of honey. Honey is usually stored at the comb in a hive. Bee farmers brush bees away from the comb and then collect honey, and the collected honey is weighed afterward. However, such a process brings strong negative influences on bees and even leads to the death of bees. This paper therefore presents an Internet of Things-based weight monitoring system which uses weight sensors to measure the weight of honey and simplifies the whole weighing procedure. To verify the system, the weight measured by the system is compared to the weight of standard weights used for calibration by employing a linear regression model. The R² of the regression model is 0.9788, which suggests that the weighing system is highly reliable and is able to be applied to obtain actual weight of honey. In the future, the weight data of honey can be used to find the relationship between honey production and different ecological parameters, such as bees’ foraging behavior and weather conditions. It is expected that the findings can serve as critical information for honey production improvement.

Keywords: Internet of Things, weight, honey, bee.

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Authors: Syarifah Abd Rahim, Fatinah Ab Rahman, Engku N. E. M. Nasir, Noor A. Ramle

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Co-crystal is believed to improve the solubility and dissolution rates and thus, enhanced the bioavailability of poor water soluble drugs particularly during the oral route of administration. With the existing of poorly soluble drugs in pharmaceutical industry, the screening of co-crystal formation using carbamazepine (CBZ) as a model drug compound with dicarboxylic acids co-crystal formers (CCF) namely fumaric (FA) and succinic (SA) acids in ethanol has been studied. The co-crystal formations were studied by varying the mol ratio values of CCF to CBZ to access the effect of CCF concentration on the formation of the co-crystal. Solvent evaporation, slurry and cooling crystallization which representing the solution based method co-crystal screening were used. Based on the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) analysis, the melting point of CBZ-SA in different ratio was in the range between 188oC-189oC. For CBZ-FA form A and CBZ-FA form B the melting point in different ratio were in the range of 174oC-175oC and 185oC-186oC respectively. The product crystal from the screening was also characterized using X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD). The XRPD pattern profile analysis has shown that the CBZ co-crystals with FA and SA were successfully formed for all ratios studied. The findings revealed that CBZ-FA co-crystal were formed in two different polymorphs. It was found that CBZ-FA form A and form B were formed from evaporation and slurry crystallization methods respectively. On the other hand, in cooling crystallization method, CBZ-FA form A was formed at lower mol ratio of CCF to CBZ and vice versa. This study disclosed that different methods and mol ratios during the co-crystal screening can affect the outcome of co-crystal produced such as polymorphic forms of co-crystal and thereof. Thus, it was suggested that careful attentions is needed during the screening since the co-crystal formation is currently one of the promising approach to be considered in research and development for pharmaceutical industry to improve the poorly soluble drugs.

Keywords: Carbamazepine, co-crystal, co-crystal former, dicarboxylic acid.

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Authors: P.L.D.N.M. de Silva, S.G. Edirisinghe, R. Weerasuriya

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High Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) is a concern of Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) based Visible Light Communication (VLC) systems. Discrete Fourier Transform spread (DFT-s) OFDM is an alternative single carrier modulation scheme which would address this concern. Employing channel coding techniques is another mechanism to reduce the PAPR. In this study, the improvement which can be harnessed by hybridizing these two techniques for VLC system is being studied. Within the study, efficient techniques such as Hamming coding and Convolutional coding have been studied. Thus, we present the impact of the hybrid of DFT-s OFDM and Channel coding (Hamming coding and Convolutional coding) on PAPR in VLC systems, using MATLAB simulations.

Keywords: Convolutional Coding, Discrete Fourier Transform spread Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (DFT-s OFDM), Hamming Coding, Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR), Visible Light Communications (VLC).

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Authors: Josiane R. Pires, Marco A. S. González, Bruna L. Brenner, Luciana S. Roos

Abstract:

The concern with sustainability brought the need for optimization of the buildings to reduce consumption of natural resources. Almost 1/3 of energy demanded by Brazilian housings is used to provide thermal solutions. AEC sector may contribute applying bioclimatic strategies on building design. The aim of this research is to investigate the viability of applying some alternative solutions in residential buildings. The research was developed with computational simulation on single family social housing, examining envelope type, absorptance, and insolation. The analysis of the thermal performance applied both Brazilian standard NBR 15575 and degree-hour method, in the scenery of Porto Alegre, a southern Brazilian city. We used BIM modeling through Revit/Autodesk and used Energy Plus to thermal simulation. The payback of the investment was calculated comparing energy savings and building costs, in a period of 50 years. The results shown that with the increment of envelope’s insulation there is thermal comfort improvement and energy economy, with a pay-back period of 24 to 36 years, in some cases.

Keywords: Civil construction, design, thermal performance, energy, economic analysis.

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Authors: Ramaswamy Palaniappan

Abstract:

In this paper, several improvements are proposed to previous work of automated classification of alcoholics and nonalcoholics. In the previous paper, multiplayer-perceptron neural network classifying energy of gamma band Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) signals gave the best classification performance using 800 VEP signals from 10 alcoholics and 10 non-alcoholics. Here, the dataset is extended to include 3560 VEP signals from 102 subjects: 62 alcoholics and 40 non-alcoholics. Three modifications are introduced to improve the classification performance: i) increasing the gamma band spectral range by increasing the pass-band width of the used filter ii) the use of Multiple Signal Classification algorithm to obtain the power of the dominant frequency in gamma band VEP signals as features and iii) the use of the simple but effective knearest neighbour classifier. To validate that these two modifications do give improved performance, a 10-fold cross validation classification (CVC) scheme is used. Repeat experiments of the previously used methodology for the extended dataset are performed here and improvement from 94.49% to 98.71% in maximum averaged CVC accuracy is obtained using the modifications. This latest results show that VEP based classification of alcoholics is worth exploring further for system development.

Keywords: Alcoholic, Multilayer-perceptron, Nearest neighbour, Gamma band, MUSIC, Visual evoked potential.

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Authors: Marine Segui, Simon Bezin, Ruxandra Mihaela Botez

Abstract:

As part of a ‘Morphing-Wing’ idea, this study consists of measuring how a winglet, which is able to change its shape during the flight, is efficient. Conventionally, winglets are fixed-vertical platforms at the wingtips, optimized for a cruise condition that the airplane should use most of the time. However, during a cruise, an airplane flies through a lot of cruise conditions corresponding to altitudes variations from 30,000 to 45,000 ft. The fixed winglets are not optimized for these variations, and consequently, they are supposed to generate some drag, and thus to deteriorate aircraft fuel consumption. This research assumes that it exists a winglet position that reduces the fuel consumption for each cruise condition. In this way, the methodology aims to find these optimal winglet positions, and to further simulate, and thus estimate the fuel consumption of an aircraft wearing this type of adaptive winglet during several cruise conditions. The adaptive winglet is assumed to have degrees of freedom given by the various changes of following surfaces: the tip chord, the sweep and the dihedral angles. Finally, results obtained during cruise simulations are presented in this paper. These results show that an adaptive winglet can reduce, thus improve up to 2.12% the fuel consumption of an aircraft during a cruise.

Keywords: Aerodynamics, Cessna Citation X, optimization, winglet, adaptive, morphing, wing, aircraft.

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Authors: S. Piramu Kailasam

Abstract:

This study is expected to compress true color image with compression algorithms in color spaces to provide high compression rates. The need of high compression ratio is to improve storage space. Alternative aim is to rank compression algorithms in a suitable color space. The dataset is sequence of true color images with size 128 x 128. HAAR Wavelet is one of the famous wavelet transforms, has great potential and maintains image quality of color images. HAAR wavelet Transform using Set Partitioning in Hierarchical Trees (SPIHT) algorithm with different color spaces framework is applied to compress sequence of images with angles. Embedded Zerotrees of Wavelet (EZW) is a powerful standard method to sequence data. Hence the proposed compression frame work of HAAR wavelet, xyz color space, morphological gradient and applied image with EZW compression, obtained improvement to other methods, in terms of Compression Ratio, Mean Square Error, Peak Signal Noise Ratio and Bits Per Pixel quality measures.

Keywords: Color Spaces, HAAR Wavelet, Morphological Gradient, Embedded Zerotrees Wavelet Compression.

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Authors: Fei Ping Por, Soon Fook Fong

Abstract:

The proposed Multimedia Pronunciation Learning Management System (MPLMS) in this study is a technology with profound potential for inducing improvement in pronunciation learning. The MPLMS optimizes the digitised phonetic symbols with the integration of text, sound and mouth movement video. The components are designed and developed in an online management system which turns the web to a dynamic user-centric collection of consistent and timely information for quality sustainable learning. The aim of this study is to design and develop the MPLMS which serves as an innovative tool to improve English pronunciation. This paper discusses the iterative methodology and the three-phase Alessi and Trollip model in the development of MPLMS. To align with the flexibility of the development of educational software, the iterative approach comprises plan, design, develop, evaluate and implement is followed. To ensure the instructional appropriateness of MPLMS, the instructional system design (ISD) model of Alessi and Trollip serves as a platform to guide the important instructional factors and process. It is expected that the results of future empirical research will support the efficacy of MPLMS and its place as the premier pronunciation learning system.

Keywords: Design, development, multimedia, pronunciation, learning management system

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