Search results for: small and large farms.

Authors: Zoran Jovanovic, Zoran Masonicic, S. Dragutinovic, Z. Sakota

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In this paper, results concerning flame propagation of various fuels in a particular combustion chamber with four tilted valves were elucidated. Flame propagation was represented by the evolution of spatial distribution of temperature in various cut-planes within combustion chamber while the flame front location was determined by dint of zones with maximum temperature gradient. The results presented are only a small part of broader on-going scrutinizing activity in the field of multidimensional modeling of reactive flows in combustion chambers with complicated geometries encompassing various models of turbulence, different fuels and combustion models. In the case of turbulence two different models were applied i.e. standard k-ε model of turbulence and k-ξ-f model of turbulence. In this paper flame propagation results were analyzed and presented for two different hydrocarbon fuels, such as CH4 and C8H18. In the case of combustion all differences ensuing from different turbulence models, obvious for non-reactive flows are annihilated entirely. Namely the interplay between fluid flow pattern and flame propagation is invariant as regards turbulence models and fuels applied. Namely the interplay between fluid flow pattern and flame propagation is entirely invariant as regards fuel variation indicating that the flame propagation through unburned mixture of CH4 and C8H18 fuels is not chemically controlled.

Keywords: Automotive flows, flame propagation, combustion modelling.

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Authors: C. Iraklis, G. Evmiridis, A. Iraklis

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Renewable energy sources and distributed power generation units already have an important role in electrical power generation. A mixture of different technologies penetrating the electrical grid, adds complexity in the management of distribution networks. High penetration of distributed power generation units creates node over-voltages, huge power losses, unreliable power management, reverse power flow and congestion. This paper presents an optimization algorithm capable of reducing congestion and power losses, both described as a function of weighted sum. Two factors that describe congestion are being proposed. An upgraded selective particle swarm optimization algorithm (SPSO) is used as a solution tool focusing on the technique of network reconfiguration. The upgraded SPSO algorithm is achieved with the addition of a heuristic algorithm specializing in reduction of power losses, with several scenarios being tested. Results show significant improvement in minimization of losses and congestion while achieving very small calculation times.

Keywords: Congestion, distribution networks, loss reduction, particle swarm optimization, smart grid.

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Authors: Klaus Stranacher, Vesna Krnjic, Thomas Zefferer

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The public sector holds large amounts of data of various areas such as social affairs, economy, or tourism. Various initiatives such as Open Government Data or the EU Directive on public sector information aim to make these data available for public and private service providers. Requirements for the provision of public sector data are defined by legal and organizational frameworks. Surprisingly, the defined requirements hardly cover security aspects such as integrity or authenticity. In this paper we discuss the importance of these missing requirements and present a concept to assure the integrity and authenticity of provided data based on electronic signatures. We show that our concept is perfectly suitable for the provisioning of unaltered data. We also show that our concept can also be extended to data that needs to be anonymized before provisioning by incorporating redactable signatures. Our proposed concept enhances trust and reliability of provided public sector data.

Keywords: Trusted Public Sector Data, Integrity, Authenticity, Reliability, Redactable Signatures.

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Authors: Permphan Dharmasaroja

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Mutations of the telomeric copy of the survival motor neuron 1 (SMN1) gene cause spinal muscular atrophy. A deletion of the Eef1a2 gene leads to lower motor neuron degeneration in wasted mice. Indirect evidences have been shown that the eEF1A protein family may interact with SMN, and our previous study showed that abnormalities of neuromuscular junctions in wasted mice were similar to those of Smn mutant mice. To determine potential colocalization between SMN and tissue-specific translation elongation factor 1A2 (eEF1A2), an immunochemical analysis of HeLa cells transfected with the plasmid pcDNA3.1(+)C-hEEF1A2- myc and a new quantitative test of colocalization by intensity correlation analysis (ICA) was used to explore the association of SMN and eEF1A2. Here the results showed that eEF1A2 redistributed from the cytoplasm to the nucleus in response to serum and epidermal growth factor. In the cytoplasm, compelling evidence showed that staining for myc-tagged eEF1A2 varied in synchrony with that for SMN, consistent with the formation of a SMN-eEF1A2 complex in the cytoplasm of HeLa cells. These findings suggest that eEF1A2 may colocalize with SMN in the cytoplasm and may be a component of the SMN complex. However, the limitation of the ICA method is an inability to resolve colocalization in components of small organelles such as the nucleus.

Keywords: Intensity correlation analysis, intensity correlation quotient.

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Authors: D. Mirauda, M. Greco, A. Volpe Plantamura

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The necessity of updating the numerical models inputs, because of geometrical and resistive variations in rivers subject to solid transport phenomena, requires detailed control and monitoring activities. The human employment and financial resources of these activities moves the research towards the development of expeditive methodologies, able to evaluate the outflows through the measurement of more easily acquirable sizes. Recent studies highlighted the dependence of the entropic parameter on the kinematical and geometrical flow conditions. They showed a meaningful variability according to the section shape, dimension and slope. Such dependences, even if not yet well defined, could reduce the difficulties during the field activities, and also the data elaboration time. On the basis of such evidences, the relationships between the entropic parameter and the geometrical and resistive sizes, obtained through a large and detailed laboratory experience on steady free surface flows in conditions of macro and intermediate homogeneous roughness, are analyzed and discussed.

Keywords: Froude number, entropic parameter, roughness, water discharge.

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Authors: Giovanni Luca Masala

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A typical definition of the Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD), found in literature, can be: A diagnosis made by a radiologist using the output of a computerized scheme for automated image analysis as a diagnostic aid. Often it is possible to find the expression Computer Aided Detection (CAD or CADe): this definition emphasizes the intent of CAD to support rather than substitute the human observer in the analysis of radiographic images. In this article we will illustrate the application of CAD systems and the aim of these definitions. Commercially available CAD systems use computerized algorithms for identifying suspicious regions of interest. In this paper are described the general CAD systems as an expert system constituted of the following components: segmentation / detection, feature extraction, and classification / decision making. As example, in this work is shown the realization of a Computer- Aided Detection system that is able to assist the radiologist in identifying types of mammary tumor lesions. Furthermore this prototype of station uses a GRID configuration to work on a large distributed database of digitized mammographic images.

Keywords: Computer Aided Detection, Computer Aided Diagnosis, mammography, GRID.

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Authors: Sushil Sarwa, Rajeev Kumar

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The wireless mesh networks (WMNs) are emerging technology in wireless networking as they can serve large scale high speed internet access. Due to its wireless multi-hop feature, wireless mesh network is prone to suffer from many attacks, such as denial of service attack (DoS). We consider a special case of DoS attack which is selective forwarding attack (a.k.a. gray hole attack). In such attack, a misbehaving mesh router selectively drops the packets it receives rom its predecessor mesh router. It is very hard to detect that packet loss is due to medium access collision, bad channel quality or because of selective forwarding attack. In this paper, we present a review of detection algorithms of selective forwarding attack and discuss their advantage & disadvantage. Finally we conclude this paper with open research issues and challenges.

Keywords: CAD algorithm, CHEMAS, selective forwarding attack, watchdog & pathrater, wireless mesh network.

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Authors: Manfred Hartmann, Andreas Graef, Hannes Perko, Christoph Baumgartner, Tilmann Kluge

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In this paper we introduce a novel method for the characterization of synchronziation and coupling effects in multivariate time series that can be used for the analysis of EEG or ECoG signals recorded during epileptic seizures. The method allows to visualize the spatio-temporal evolution of synchronization and coupling effects that are characteristic for epileptic seizures. Similar to other methods proposed for this purpose our method is based on a regression analysis. However, a more general definition of the regression together with an effective channel selection procedure allows to use the method even for time series that are highly correlated, which is commonly the case in EEG/ECoG recordings with large numbers of electrodes. The method was experimentally tested on ECoG recordings of epileptic seizures from patients with temporal lobe epilepsies. A comparision with the results from a independent visual inspection by clinical experts showed an excellent agreement with the patterns obtained with the proposed method.

Keywords: EEG, epilepsy, regression analysis, seizurepropagation.

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Authors: Yu-Sin Lin, Chih-Yang Wu, Yung-Ching Chu

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In this work, we perform numerical simulation of fluid mixing in a floor-grooved micro-channel with wavy sidewalls which may impose perturbation on the helical flow induced by the slanted grooves on the channel floor. The perturbation is caused by separation vortices in the recesses of the wavy-walled channel as the Reynolds number is large enough. The results show that the effects of the wavy sidewalls of the present micromixer on the enhancement of fluid mixing increase with the increase of Reynolds number. The degree of mixing increases with the increase of the corrugation angle, until the angle is greater than 45 degrees. Besides, the pumping pressure of the micromixer increases with the increase of the corrugation angle monotonically. Therefore, we would suggest setting the corrugation angle of the wavy sidewalls to be 45 degrees.

Keywords: Fluid mixing, grooved channel, microfluidics, separation vortex.

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Authors: Alexandra Leukauf, Alexander Schirrer, Emir Talic

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Numerical computation of wave propagation in a large domain usually requires significant computational effort. Hence, the considered domain must be truncated to a smaller domain of interest. In addition, special boundary conditions, which absorb the outward travelling waves, need to be implemented in order to describe the system domains correctly. In this work, the linear one dimensional wave equation is approximated by utilizing the Fourier Galerkin approach. Furthermore, the artificial boundaries are realized with absorbing boundary conditions. Within this work, a systematic work flow for setting up the wave problem, including the absorbing boundary conditions, is proposed. As a result, a convenient modal system description with an effective absorbing boundary formulation is established. Moreover, the truncated model shows high accuracy compared to the global domain.

Keywords: Absorbing boundary conditions, boundary control, Fourier Galerkin approach, modal approach, wave equation.

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Authors: Md Abdullah Al Faruque

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A very large percentage of bridge failures are attributed to scouring around bridge piers and this directly influences public safety. Experiments are carried out in a 12-m long rectangular open channel flume made of transparent tempered glass. A 300 mm thick bed made up of sand particles is leveled horizontally to create the test bed and a 50 mm hollow plastic cylinder is used as a model bridge pier. Tests are carried out with varying flow depths and velocities. Data points of various scour parameters such as scour depth, width, and length are collected based on different flow conditions and visual observations of changes in the stream bed downstream the bridge pier are also made as the scour progresses. Result shows that all three major flow characteristics (flow depth, Froude number and densimetric Froude number) have one way or other affect the scour profile.

Keywords: Bridge pier scour, densimetric Froude number, flow depth, Froude Number, sand.

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Authors: Carine Moussaed, Stephen Wornom, Bruno Koobus, Maria Vittoria Salvetti, Alain Dervieux,

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The effects of dynamic subgrid scale (SGS) models are investigated in variational multiscale (VMS) LES simulations of bluff body flows. The spatial discretization is based on a mixed finite element/finite volume formulation on unstructured grids. In the VMS approach used in this work, the separation between the largest and the smallest resolved scales is obtained through a variational projection operator and a finite volume cell agglomeration. The dynamic version of Smagorinsky and WALE SGS models are used to account for the effects of the unresolved scales. In the VMS approach, these effects are only modeled in the smallest resolved scales. The dynamic VMS-LES approach is applied to the simulation of the flow around a circular cylinder at Reynolds numbers 3900 and 20000 and to the flow around a square cylinder at Reynolds numbers 22000 and 175000. It is observed as in previous studies that the dynamic SGS procedure has a smaller impact on the results within the VMS approach than in LES. But improvements are demonstrated for important feature like recirculating part of the flow. The global prediction is improved for a small computational extra cost.

Keywords: variational multiscale LES, dynamic SGS model, unstructured grids, circular cylinder, square cylinder.

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Authors: M. Schulze, P. Crespo Del Granado

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This paper considers the influence of promotion instruments for renewable energy sources (RES) on a multi-energy modeling framework. In Europe, so called Feed-in Tariffs are successfully used as incentive structures to increase the amount of energy produced by RES. Because of the stochastic nature of large scale integration of distributed generation, many problems have occurred regarding the quality and stability of supply. Hence, a macroscopic model was developed in order to optimize the power supply of the local energy infrastructure, which includes electricity, natural gas, fuel oil and district heating as energy carriers. Unique features of the model are the integration of RES and the adoption of Feed-in Tariffs into one optimization stage. Sensitivity studies are carried out to examine the system behavior under changing profits for the feed-in of RES. With a setup of three energy exchanging regions and a multi-period optimization, the impact of costs and profits are determined.

Keywords: Distributed generation, optimization methods, power system modeling, renewable energy.

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Authors: Md. Fazlul Karim, Ahmad Izani Ismail, Mohammed Ashaque Meah

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This paper focuses on the development of a 2-D boundary fitted and nested grid (BFNG) model to compute the tsunami propagation of Indonesian tsunami 2004 along the coastal region of Penang in Peninsular Malaysia.

In the presence of a curvilinear coastline, boundary fitted grids are suitable to represent the model boundaries accurately. On the other hand, when large gradient of velocity within a confined area is expected, the use of a nested grid system is appropriate to improve the numerical accuracy with the least grid numbers.

This paper constructs a shallow water nested and orthogonal boundary fitted grid model and presents computational results of the tsunami impact on the Penang coast due to the Indonesian tsunami of 2004. The results of the numerical simulations are compared with available data.

Keywords: Boundary Fitted Nested Model, Tsunami, Penang Island, 2004 Indonesian Tsunami.

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Authors: Nguyen Minh, Tuan, Chung-Ruey, Yen, Bui Lan, Anh

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The study was carried out to evaluated effect of S-gridling on fruit growth and quality of wax apple. The study was laid in Random completed block design with four replicated. Four treatment were applied as follows: S-girdling, fruit thinning plus bagging with 2,4-D sprayed, fruit thinning plus bagging and the control treatment. 2,4D was sprayed at the small bud and petal fall stage. Girdling was applied three week before flowering. The effect of all treatments on fruit growth was measured weekly. Number of flower, fruit set, fruit drop, fruit crack, and fruit quality were recorded. The result indicated that S-girdling, 2,4D application produced the lowest bud drop, fruit drop compared to untreated control. S-girdling improved faster fruit growth producing the best final fruit length and diameter compared to untreated control. S-girdling also markedly enhanced fruit set, fruit weight, and total soluble solid, reduced fruit crack, titratable acidity. On the other hand, it was noticed that with 2,4-D application also increased the fruit growth rate, improved physiological and biochemical characters of fruit than control treatment. It was concluded that S-girdling was recommended as the industry norm to increase fruit set, fruit quality in wax apple. 2,4D application had a distinctive and significant effect on most of the fruit quality characteristics assessed.

Keywords: S-girdling, 2, 4D, wax apple, fruit growth, fruit quality.

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Authors: C. P. Parente, M. J. Reis Lima, E. Teixeira-Lemos, M. M. Moreira, Aquiles A. Barros, Luís F. Guido

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Broccoli has been widely recognized as a wealthy vegetable which contains multiple nutrients with potent anti-cancer properties. Lamb’s lettuce has been used as food for many centuries but only recently became commercially available and literature is therefore exiguous concerning these vegetables. The aim of this work was to evaluate the influence of the extraction conditions on the yield of phenolic compounds and the corresponding antioxidant capacity of broccoli and lamb’s lettuce. The results indicate that lamb’s lettuce, compared to broccoli, contains simultaneously a large amount of total polyphenols as well as high antioxidant activity. It is clearly demonstrated that extraction solvent significantly influences the antioxidant activity. Methanol is the solvent that can globally maximize the antioxidant extraction yield. The results presented herein prove lamb’s lettuce as a very interesting source of polyphenols, and thus a potential health-promoting food.

Keywords: Broccoli, lamb’s lettuce, extraction, antioxidant activity, phenolic compounds.

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Authors: Basak Oguz Yolcular

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A large amount of valuable information is available in plain text clinical reports. New techniques and technologies are applied to extract information from these reports. In this study, we developed a domain based software system to transform 600 Otorhinolaryngology discharge notes to a structured form for extracting clinical data from the discharge notes. In order to decrease the system process time discharge notes were transformed into a data table after preprocessing. Several word lists were constituted to identify common section in the discharge notes, including patient history, age, problems, and diagnosis etc. N-gram method was used for discovering terms co-Occurrences within each section. Using this method a dataset of concept candidates has been generated for the validation step, and then Predictive Apriori algorithm for Association Rule Mining (ARM) was applied to validate candidate concepts.

Keywords: association rule mining, otorhinolaryngology, predictive apriori, text mining

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Authors: Nerey H. Mvungi, Justinian Anatory, Fatuma Simba

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Digital broadcasting has been an area of active research, development, innovation and business models development in recent years. This paper presents a survey on the characteristics of the digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DTTB) standards, and implementation status of DTTB worldwide showing the standards adopted. It is clear that only the developed countries and some in the developing ones shall be able to beat the ITU set analogue to digital broadcasting migration deadline because of the challenges that these countries faces in digitizing their terrestrial broadcasting. The challenges to keep on track the DTTB migration plan are also discussed in this paper. They include financial, technology gap, policies alignment with DTTB technology, etc. The reported performance comparisons for the different standards are also presented. The interesting part is that the results for many comparative studies depends to a large extent on the objective behind such studies, hence counter claims are common.

Keywords: Digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DTTB) technologies, DTTB standards comparison, DTTB implementation.

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Authors: Krzysztof Zieliński, Dariusz Kierzek

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The addition of a small amount of alumina cement to Portland cement results in immediate setting, a rapid increase in the compressive strength and a clear increase of the adhesion to concrete substrate. This phenomenon is used, among others, for the production of liquid floor self-levelling compounds. Alumina cement is several times more expensive than Portland cement and is a component having a significant impact on prices of products manufactured with its use. For the production of liquid floor self-levelling compounds, low-alumina cement containing approximately 40% Al₂O₃ is normally used. The aim of the study was to determine the impact of Portland cement with the addition of alumina cement on the basic physical and mechanical properties of cement slurries and mortars. CEM I 42.5R and three types of alumina cement containing 40%, 50% and 70% of Al₂O₃ were used for the tests. Mixes containing 4%, 6%, 8%, 10% and 12% of different varieties of alumina cement were prepared; for which, the time of initial and final setting, compressive and flexural strength and adhesion to concrete substrate were determined. The analysis of the obtained test results showed that a similar immediate setting effect and clearly better adhesion strength can be obtained using the addition of 6% of high-alumina cement than 12% of low-alumina cement. As the prices of these cements are similar, this can give significant financial savings in the production of liquid floor self-levelling compounds.

Keywords: Alumina cement, immediate setting, compression strength, adhesion to substrate.

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Authors: T. Hacib, M. R. Mekideche, N. Ferkha

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This paper presents an approach which is based on the use of supervised feed forward neural network, namely multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network and finite element method (FEM) to solve the inverse problem of parameters identification. The approach is used to identify unknown parameters of ferromagnetic materials. The methodology used in this study consists in the simulation of a large number of parameters in a material under test, using the finite element method (FEM). Both variations in relative magnetic permeability and electrical conductivity of the material under test are considered. Then, the obtained results are used to generate a set of vectors for the training of MLP neural network. Finally, the obtained neural network is used to evaluate a group of new materials, simulated by the FEM, but not belonging to the original dataset. Noisy data, added to the probe measurements is used to enhance the robustness of the method. The reached results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach, and encourage future works on this subject.

Keywords: Inverse problem, MLP neural network, parametersidentification, FEM.

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Authors: C. A. Alves, A. I. Calvo, A. Castro, R. Fraile, M. Evtyugina, E. F. Bate-Epey

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In July 2012, an indoor/outdoor monitoring programme was undertaken in two university sports facilities: a fronton and a gymnasium. Comfort parameters (temperature, relative humidity, CO and CO2) and total volatile organic compounds (VOCs) were continuously monitored. Concentrations of NO2, carbonyl compounds and individual VOCs were obtained. Low volume samplers were used to collect particulate matter (PM10). The minimum ventilation rates stipulated for acceptable indoor air quality were observed in both sports facilities. It was found that cleaning activities may have a large influence on the VOC levels. Acrolein was one of the most abundant carbonyl compounds, showing concentrations above the recommended limit. Formaldehyde was detected at levels lower than those commonly reported for other indoor environments. The PM10 concentrations obtained during the occupancy periods ranged between 38 and 43μgm-3 in the fronton and from 154 to 198μgm-3 in the gymnasium.

Keywords: Air exchange rates, carbonyls, gymnasiums, indoor air quality, PM10, VOCs.

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Authors: H. Mansor, S. B. Mohd-Noor, T. S. Gunawan, S. Khan, N. I. Othman, N. Tazali, R. B. Islam

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This paper provides a comparative study on the performances of standard PID and adaptive PID controllers tested on travel angle of a 3-Degree-of-Freedom (3-DOF) Quanser bench-top helicopter. Quanser, a well-known manufacturer of educational bench-top helicopter has developed Proportional Integration Derivative (PID) controller with Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) for all travel, pitch and yaw angle of the bench-top helicopter. The performance of the PID controller is relatively good; however, its performance could also be improved if the controller is combined with adaptive element. The objective of this research is to design adaptive PID controller and then compare the performances of the adaptive PID with the standard PID. The controller design and test is focused on travel angle control only. Adaptive method used in this project is self-tuning controller, which controller’s parameters are updated online. Two adaptive algorithms those are pole-placement and deadbeat have been chosen as the method to achieve optimal controller’s parameters. Performance comparisons have shown that the adaptive (deadbeat) PID controller has produced more desirable performance compared to standard PID and adaptive (poleplacement). The adaptive (deadbeat) PID controller attained very fast settling time (5 seconds) and very small percentage of overshoot (5% to 7.5%) for 10° to 30° step change of travel angle.

Keywords: Adaptive control, bench-top helicopter, deadbeat, pole-placement, self-tuning control.

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Authors: P. Ahern, D. Collery

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The implementation of lean thinking in the manufacturing industry revolutionized the traditional approach to large-scale production through the process of identifying the waste in each task and putting in place mitigation measures to eliminate the waste in all its forms. The Irish construction industry, however, has been much slower to adopt the principles of lean, opting instead to stick with the traditional approach to construction project delivery which is inherently wasteful. Lean thinking holds the potential to revolutionize the construction industry in a similar manner to the adoption of lean manufacturing. Lean principles present opportunities for reduced project duration, reduced project cost, improved quality, and elimination of re-works and non-value-added activities. This research has been designed to accumulate research data through available literature, electronic surveys, and interviews. The results show an industry reluctant to accept change and an undefined path to successful lean construction implementation.

Keywords: Barriers, lean construction, lean implementation, lean manufacturing, lean philosophy.

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Authors: Satyanarayana, K.N. Prabhu

Abstract:

Microstructure, wetting behavior and interfacial reactions between Sn–0.7Cu and Sn–0.3Ag–0.7Cu (SAC0307) solders solidified on Ni coated Al substrates were compared and investigated. Microstructure of Sn–0.7Cu alloy exhibited a eutectic matrix composed of primary β-Sn dendrites with a fine dispersion of Cu6Sn5 intermetallics whereas microstructure of SAC0307 alloy exhibited coarser Cu6Sn5 and finer Ag3Sn precipitates of IMCs with decreased tin dendrites. Contact angles ranging from 22° to 26° were obtained for Sn–0.7Cu solder solidified on substrate surface whereas for SAC0307 solder alloy contact angles were found to be in the range of 20° to 22°. Sn–0.7Cu solder/substrate interfacial region exhibited faceted (Cu, Ni)6Sn5 IMCs protruding into the solder matrix and a small amount of (Cu, Ni)3Sn4 intermetallics at the interface. SAC0307 solder/substrate interfacial region showed mainly (Cu, Ni)3Sn4 intermetallics adjacent to the coating layer and (Cu, Ni)6Sn5 IMCs in the solder matrix. The improvement in the wettability of SAC0307 solder alloy on substrate surface is attributed to the formation of cylindrical shape (Cu,Ni)6Sn5 and a layer of (Cu, Ni)3Sn4 IMCs at the interface.

Keywords: Lead-free solder, wetting, contact angle, intermetallics.

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Authors: Lawrence N. Ngeh, John D. Orbell, Stephen W. Bigger, Kasup Munaweera, Peter Dann

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This research is part of a broad program aimed at advancing the science and technology involved in the rescue and rehabilitation of oiled wildlife. One aspect of this research involves the use of oil-sequestering magnetic particles for the removal of contaminants from plumage – so-called “magnetic cleansing". This treatment offers a number of advantages over conventional detergent-based methods including portability - which offers the possibility of providing a “quick clean" to the animal upon first encounter in the field. This could be particularly advantageous when the contaminant is toxic and/or corrosive and/or where there is a delay in transporting the victim to a treatment centre. The method could also be useful as part of a stabilization protocol when large numbers of affected animals are awaiting treatment. This presentation describes the design, development and testing of a prototype field kit for providing a “quick clean" to contaminated wildlife in the field.

Keywords: Magnetic Particles, Oiled Wildlife, Quick Clean, Wildlife Rehabilitation.

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Authors: A. Zerkane, K. El Bikri, R. Benamar

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The purpose of the present paper is to show that the problem of geometrically nonlinear free vibrations of functionally graded beams (FGB) with immovable ends can be reduced to that of isotropic homogeneous beams with effective bending stiffness and axial stiffness parameters by using an homogenization procedure. The material properties of the functionally graded composites examined are assumed to be graded in the thickness direction and estimated through the rule of mixture. The theoretical model is based on the Euler-Bernouilli beam theory and the Von Kármán geometrical nonlinearity assumptions. Hamilton’s principle is applied and a multimode approach is derived to calculate the fundamental nonlinear frequency parameters, which are found to be in a good agreement with the published results. The non-dimensional curvatures associated to the nonlinear fundamental mode are also given for various vibration amplitudes in the case of clamped-clamped FGB.

Keywords: Nonlinear vibrations, functionally graded materials, homogenization procedure.

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Authors: Jieh-Haur Chen, Pei-Fen Huang

Abstract:

This paper presents an integrated model that automatically measures the change of rivers, damage area of bridge surroundings, and change of vegetation. The proposed model is on the basis of a neurofuzzy mechanism enhanced by SOM optimization algorithm, and also includes three functions to deal with river imagery. High resolution imagery from FORMOSAT-2 satellite taken before and after the invasion period is adopted. By randomly selecting a bridge out of 129 destroyed bridges, the recognition results show that the average width has increased 66%. The ruined segment of the bridge is located exactly at the most scour region. The vegetation coverage has also reduced to nearly 90% of the original. The results yielded from the proposed model demonstrate a pinpoint accuracy rate at 99.94%. This study brings up a successful tool not only for large-scale damage assessment but for precise measurement to disasters.

Keywords: remote sensing image, damage assessment, typhoon disaster, bridge, ANN, fuzzy, SOM, optimization.

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Authors: Trevor Kroeger, Hayden Williams, Edward Holzinger, David Coleman, Brian Haberman

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The network connectivity of medical devices is increasing at a rapid rate. Many medical devices, such as vital sign monitors, share information via wireless or wired connections. However, these connectivity options suffer from a variety of well-known limitations. Wireless connectivity, especially in the unlicensed radio frequency bands, can be disrupted. Such disruption could be due to benign reasons, such as a crowded spectrum, or to malicious intent. While wired connections are less susceptible to interference, they inhibit the mobility of the medical devices, which could be critical in a variety of scenarios. This work explores the application of Light Fidelity (Li-Fi) communication to enhance the security, performance, and mobility of medical devices in connected healthcare scenarios. A simple bridge for connected devices serves as an avenue to connect traditional medical devices to the Li-Fi network. This bridge was utilized to conduct bandwidth tests on a small Li-Fi network installed into a Mock-ICU setting with a backend enterprise network similar to that of a hospital. Mobile and stationary tests were conducted to replicate various different situations that might occur within a hospital setting. Results show that in room Li-Fi connectivity provides reasonable bandwidth and latency within a hospital like setting.

Keywords: Hospital, light fidelity, Li-Fi, medical devices, security.

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Authors: U. Kalay, O. Kalıpsız

Abstract:

For a spatiotemporal database management system, I/O cost of queries and other operations is an important performance criterion. In order to optimize this cost, an intense research on designing robust index structures has been done in the past decade. With these major considerations, there are still other design issues that deserve addressing due to their direct impact on the I/O cost. Having said this, an efficient buffer management strategy plays a key role on reducing redundant disk access. In this paper, we proposed an efficient buffer strategy for a spatiotemporal database index structure, specifically indexing objects moving over a network of roads. The proposed strategy, namely MONPAR, is based on the data type (i.e. spatiotemporal data) and the structure of the index structure. For the purpose of an experimental evaluation, we set up a simulation environment that counts the number of disk accesses while executing a number of spatiotemporal range-queries over the index. We reiterated simulations with query sets with different distributions, such as uniform query distribution and skewed query distribution. Based on the comparison of our strategy with wellknown page-replacement techniques, like LRU-based and Prioritybased buffers, we conclude that MONPAR behaves better than its competitors for small and medium size buffers under all used query-distributions.

Keywords: Buffer Management, Spatiotemporal databases.

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Authors: Daniel F. Garcia, Diego Gonzalez

Abstract:

This paper shows a simple and effective approach to the design and implementation of Industrial Information Systems (IIS) oriented to control the characteristics of each individual product manufactured in a production line and also their manufacturing conditions. The particular products considered in this work are large steel strips that are coiled just after their manufacturing. However, the approach is directly applicable to coiled strips in other industries, like paper, textile, aluminum, etc. These IIS provide very detailed information of each manufactured product, which complement the general information managed by the ERP system of the production line. In spite of the high importance of this type of IIS to guarantee and improve the quality of the products manufactured in many industries, there are very few works about them in the technical literature. For this reason, this paper represents an important contribution to the development of this type of IIS, providing guidelines for their design, implementation and exploitation.

Keywords: Data storage, industrial information systems, measurement systems integration, signal acquisition.

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