Search results for: shortest path length estimation

Authors: H. Bensouilah, H. Boucherit, M. Lahmar

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A theoretical investigation on the effects of both steady-state and dynamic deformations of the foils on the dynamic performance characteristics of a self-acting air foil journal bearing operating under small harmonic vibrations is proposed. To take into account the dynamic deformations of foils, the perturbation method is used for determining the gas-film stiffness and damping coefficients for given values of excitation frequency, compressibility number, and compliance factor of the bump foil. The nonlinear stationary Reynolds’ equation is solved by means of the Galerkins’ finite element formulation while the finite differences method are used to solve the first order complex dynamic equations resulting from the perturbation of the nonlinear transient compressible Reynolds’ equation. The stiffness of a bump is uniformly distributed throughout the bearing surface (generation I bearing). It was found that the dynamic properties of the compliant finite length journal bearing are significantly affected by the compliance of foils especially whenthe dynamic deformation of foils is considered in addition to the static one by applying the principle of superposition.

Keywords: Elasto-aerodynamic lubrication, Air foil bearing, Steady-state deformation, Dynamic deformation, Stiffness and damping coefficients, Perturbation method, Fluid-structure interaction, Galerk infinite element method, Finite difference method.

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Authors: Uğur Çakır, Erol Sahin, Kemal Çomaklı, Aysegül Çokgez Kus

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Greenhouses offer us suitable conditions which can be controlled easily for the growth of the plant and they are made by using a covering material that allows the sun light entering into the system. Covering material can be glass, fiber glass, plastic or another transparent element. This study investigates the solar energy usability rates and solar energy benefitting rates of a semi-spherical (modified arch) type greenhouse system according to different orientations and positions which exists under climatic conditions of Bayburt. In the concept of this study it is tried to determine the best direction and best sizes of a semi-spherical greenhouse to get best solar benefit from the sun. To achieve this aim a modeling study is made by using MATLAB. However, this modeling study is run for some determined shapes and greenhouses it can be used for different shaped greenhouses or buildings. The basic parameters are determined as greenhouse azimuth angle, the rate of size of long edge to short and seasonal solar energy gaining of greenhouse. The optimum azimuth angles of 400, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, 50 m2 modified arch greenhouse are 90o, 90o, 35o, 35o, 34o, 33o and 22o while their optimum k values (ratio of length to width) are 10, 10, 10, 10, 6, 4 and 4 respectively. Positioning the buildings in order to get more solar heat energy in winter and less in summer brings out energy and money savings and increases the comfort.

Keywords: Greenhousing, solar energy, direct radiation, renewable energy.

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Authors: H. B. Kekre, Sudeep D. Thepade

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The automatic construction of large, high-resolution image vistas (mosaics) is an active area of research in the fields of photogrammetry [1,2], computer vision [1,4], medical image processing [4], computer graphics [3] and biometrics [8]. Image stitching is one of the possible options to get image mosaics. Vista Creation in image processing is used to construct an image with a large field of view than that could be obtained with a single photograph. It refers to transforming and stitching multiple images into a new aggregate image without any visible seam or distortion in the overlapping areas. Vista creation process aligns two partial images over each other and blends them together. Image mosaics allow one to compensate for differences in viewing geometry. Thus they can be used to simplify tasks by simulating the condition in which the scene is viewed from a fixed position with single camera. While obtaining partial images the geometric anomalies like rotation, scaling are bound to happen. To nullify effect of rotation of partial images on process of vista creation, we are proposing rotation invariant vista creation algorithm in this paper. Rotation of partial image parts in the proposed method of vista creation may introduce some missing region in the vista. To correct this error, that is to fill the missing region further we have used image inpainting method on the created vista. This missing view regeneration method also overcomes the problem of missing view [31] in vista due to cropping, irregular boundaries of partial image parts and errors in digitization [35]. The method of missing view regeneration generates the missing view of vista using the information present in vista itself.

Keywords: Vista, Overlap Estimation, Rotation Invariance, Missing View Regeneration.

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Authors: Peyman Shadman Heidari, Roohollah Ahmady Jazany, Mahmood Reza Mehran, Pouya Shadman Heidari, Mohammad khorasani

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Modeling of Panel Zone (PZ) seismic behavior, because of its role in overall ductility and lateral stiffness of steel moment frames, has been considered a challenge for years. There are some studies regarding the effects of different doubler plates thicknesses and geometric properties of PZ on its seismic behavior. However, there is not much investigation on the effects of number of provided continuity plates in case of presence of one triangular haunch, two triangular haunches and rectangular haunch (T shape haunches) for exterior columns. In this research first detailed finite element models of 12tested connection of SAC joint venture were created and analyzed then obtained cyclic behavior backbone curves of these models besides other FE models for similar tests were used for neural network training. Then seismic behavior of these data is categorized according to continuity plate-s arrangements and differences in type of haunches. PZ with one-sided haunches have little plastic rotation. As the number of continuity plates increases due to presence of two triangular haunches (four continuity plate), there will be no plastic rotation, in other words PZ behaves in its elastic range. In the case of rectangular haunch, PZ show more plastic rotation in comparison with one-sided triangular haunch and especially double-sided triangular haunches. Moreover, the models that will be presented in case of triangular one-sided and double- sided haunches and rectangular haunches as a result of this study seem to have a proper estimation of PZ seismic behavior.

Keywords: Continuity plate, FE models, Neural network, Panel zone, Plastic rotation, Rectangular haunch, Seismic behavior

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Authors: Aliakbar Golshani, Seyyed Mehdi Poorhashemi, Mahsa Gharizadeh

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The under passing tunnels are strongly influenced by the soils around. There are some complexities in the specification of real soil behavior, owing to the fact that lots of uncertainties exist in soil properties, and additionally, inappropriate soil constitutive models. Such mentioned factors may cause incompatible settlements in numerical analysis with the obtained values in actual construction. This paper aims to report a case study on a specific tunnel constructed by NATM. The tunnel has a depth of 11.4 m, height of 12.2 m, and width of 14.4 m with 2.5 lanes. The numerical modeling was based on a 2D finite element program. The soil material behavior was modeled by hardening soil model. According to the field observations, the numerical estimated settlement at the ground surface was approximately four times more than the measured one, after the entire installation of the initial lining, indicating that some unknown factors affect the values. Consequently, the geotechnical parameters are accurately revised by a numerical back-analysis using laboratory and field test data and based on the obtained monitoring data. The obtained result confirms that typically, the soil parameters are conservatively low-estimated. And additionally, the constitutive models cannot be applied properly for all soil conditions.

Keywords: NATM tunnel, initial lining, field test data, laboratory test data, monitoring data, numerical back-analysis.

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Authors: Niti Kammuang-lue, Kritsada On-ai, Phrut Sakulchangsatjatai, Pradit Terdtoon

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The objectives of this paper are to investigate effects of dimensionless numbers on thermal performance of the vertical closed-loop pulsating heat pipe (VCLPHP) and to establish a correlation to predict the thermal performance of the VCLPHP. The CLPHPs were made of long copper capillary tubes with inner diameters of 1.50, 1.78, and 2.16mm and bent into 26 turns. Then, both ends were connected together to form a loop. The evaporator, adiabatic, and condenser sections length were equal to 50 and 150 mm. R123, R141b, acetone, ethanol, and water were chosen as variable working fluids with constant filling ratio of 50% by total volume. Inlet temperature of heating medium and adiabatic section temperature was constantly controlled at 80 and 50^oC, respectively. Thermal performance was represented in a term of Kutateladze number (Ku). It can be concluded that when Prandtl number of liquid working fluid (Pr_l), and Karman number (Ka) increases, thermal performance increases. On contrary, when Bond number (Bo), Jacob number (Ja), and Aspect ratio (L_e/D_i) increases, thermal performance decreases. Moreover, the correlation to predict more precise thermal performance has been successfully established by analyzing on all dimensionless numbers that have effect on the thermal performance of the VCLPHP.

Keywords: Vertical closed-loop pulsating heat pipe, working fluid, thermal performance, dimensionless parameter.

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Authors: Y. V. Kim

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This article presents an approach with regards to the Functional Testing of Space System (SS) that could be a space vehicle (spacecraft-S/C) and/or its equipment and components – S/C subsystems. This test should finalize the Space Qualification Tests (SQT) campaign. It could be considered as a generic test and used for a wide class of SS that, from the point of view of System Dynamics and Control Theory, may be described by the ordinary differential equations. The suggested methodology is based on using semi-natural experiment laboratory stand that does not require complicated, precise and expensive technological control-verification equipment. However, it allows for testing totally assembled system during Assembling, Integration and Testing (AIT) activities at the final phase of SQT, involving system hardware (HW) and software (SW). The test physically activates system input (sensors) and output (actuators) and requires recording their outputs in real time. The data are then inserted in a laboratory computer, where it is post-experiment processed by the MATLAB/Simulink Identification Toolbox. It allows for estimating the system dynamics in the form of estimation of its differential equation coefficients through the verification experimental test and comparing them with expected mathematical model, prematurely verified by mathematical simulation during the design process. Mathematical simulation results presented in the article show that this approach could be applicable and helpful in SQT practice. Further semi-natural experiments should specify detail requirements for the test laboratory equipment and test-procedures.

Keywords: system dynamics, space system ground tests, space qualification, system dynamics identification, satellite attitude control, assembling integration and testing

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Authors: U. Datta

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The main objective of this study is to find a suitable approach to monitor the land infrastructure growth over a period of time using multispectral satellite images. Bi-temporal change detection method is unable to indicate the continuous change occurring over a long period of time. To achieve this objective, the approach used here estimates a statistical model from series of multispectral image data over a long period of time, assuming there is no considerable change during that time period and then compare it with the multispectral image data obtained at a later time. The change is estimated pixel-wise. Statistical composite hypothesis technique is used for estimating pixel based change detection in a defined region. The generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) is used to detect the changed pixel from probabilistic estimated model of the corresponding pixel. The changed pixel is detected assuming that the images have been co-registered prior to estimation. To minimize error due to co-registration, 8-neighborhood pixels around the pixel under test are also considered. The multispectral images from Sentinel-2 and Landsat-8 from 2015 to 2018 are used for this purpose. There are different challenges in this method. First and foremost challenge is to get quite a large number of datasets for multivariate distribution modelling. A large number of images are always discarded due to cloud coverage. Due to imperfect modelling there will be high probability of false alarm. Overall conclusion that can be drawn from this work is that the probabilistic method described in this paper has given some promising results, which need to be pursued further.

Keywords: Co-registration, GLRT, infrastructure growth, multispectral, multitemporal, pixel-based change detection.

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Authors: Salam M. H. Kareem

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Instructional or teaching procedures and their proper sequence are essential for high-quality learning outcomes. These actions are the path that the teacher takes during the learning process after setting the learning objectives. Teachers and specialists in the education field should include teaching procedures with putting in place an effective mechanism for the procedure’s implementation to achieve a logical sequence with the desired output of overall education process. Determining the sequence of these actions may be a strategic process outlined by a strategic educational plan or drawn by teachers with a high level of experience, enabling them to determine those logical procedures. While specific actions may be necessary for a specific form, many Physical Education (PE) teachers can work out on various sports disciplines. This study was conducted to investigate the impact of using the teaching sequence of the teaching pyramid in raising the level of enjoyment in swimming classes. Four months later of teaching swimming skills to the control and experimental groups of the study, we figured that using the tools shown in the teaching pyramid with the experimental group led to statistically significant differences in the positive tendencies of students to participate in the swimming classes by using the traditional procedures of teaching and using of successive procedures in the teaching pyramid, and in favor of the teaching pyramid, The students are influenced by enhancing their tendency to participate in swimming classes when the teaching procedures followed are sensitive to individual differences and are based on the element of pleasure in learning, and less positive levels of the tendency of students when using traditional teaching procedures, by getting the level of skills' requirements higher and more difficult to perform. The level of positive tendencies of students when using successive procedures in the teaching pyramid was increased, by getting the level of skills' requirements higher and more difficult to perform, because of the high level of motivation and the desire to challenge the self-provided by the teaching pyramid.

Keywords: Physical education, swimming classes, teaching process, teaching pyramid.

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Authors: Rachid Ait daoud, Abdellah Amine, Belaid Bouikhalene, Rachid Lbibb

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Given the increase in the number of e-commerce sites, the number of competitors has become very important. This means that companies have to take appropriate decisions in order to meet the expectations of their customers and satisfy their needs. In this paper, we present a case study of applying LRFM (length, recency, frequency and monetary) model and clustering techniques in the sector of electronic commerce with a view to evaluating customers’ values of the Moroccan e-commerce websites and then developing effective marketing strategies. To achieve these objectives, we adopt LRFM model by applying a two-stage clustering method. In the first stage, the self-organizing maps method is used to determine the best number of clusters and the initial centroid. In the second stage, kmeans method is applied to segment 730 customers into nine clusters according to their L, R, F and M values. The results show that the cluster 6 is the most important cluster because the average values of L, R, F and M are higher than the overall average value. In addition, this study has considered another variable that describes the mode of payment used by customers to improve and strengthen clusters’ analysis. The clusters’ analysis demonstrates that the payment method is one of the key indicators of a new index which allows to assess the level of customers’ confidence in the company's Website.

Keywords: Customer value, LRFM model, Cluster analysis, Self-Organizing Maps method (SOM), K-means algorithm, loyalty.

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Authors: Ferhat Kadioglu, Hasan Puskul

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A composite material with carbon fiber and polymer matrix has been used as adherent for manufacturing adhesive joints. In order to evaluate different fiber orientations on joint performance, the adherents with the 0°, ±15°, ±30°, ±45° fiber orientations were used in the single lap joint configuration. The joints with an overlap length of 25 mm were prepared according to the ASTM 1002 specifications and subjected to tensile loadings. The structural adhesive used was a two-part epoxy to be cured at 70°C for an hour. First, mechanical behaviors of the adherents were measured using three point bending test. In the test, considerations were given to stress to failure and elastic modulus. The results were compared with theoretical ones using rule of mixture. Then, the joints were manufactured in a specially prepared jig, after a proper surface preparation. Experimental results showed that the fiber orientations of the adherents affected the joint performance considerably; the joints with ±45° adherents experienced the worst shear strength, half of those with 0° adherents, and in general, there was a great relationship between the fiber orientations and failure mechanisms. Delamination problems were observed for many joints, which were thought to be due to peel effects at the ends of the overlap. It was proved that the surface preparation applied to the adherent surface was adequate. For further explanation of the results, a numerical work should be carried out using a possible non-linear analysis.

Keywords: Composite materials, adhesive bonding, bonding strength, lap joint, tensile strength.

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Authors: Reza Dinarvand, Mahdi Sadeghian, Somaye Sadeghian

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Prediction of the ultimate bearing capacity of piles (Qu) is one of the basic issues in geotechnical engineering. So far, several methods have been used to estimate Qu, including the recently developed artificial intelligence methods. In recent years, optimization algorithms have been used to minimize artificial network errors, such as colony algorithms, genetic algorithms, imperialist competitive algorithms, and so on. In the present research, artificial neural networks based on colonial competition algorithm (ANN-ICA) were used, and their results were compared with other methods. The results of laboratory tests of short piles in clayey soils with parameters such as pile diameter, pile buried length, eccentricity of load and undrained shear resistance of soil were used for modeling and evaluation. The results showed that ICA-based artificial neural networks predicted lateral bearing capacity of short piles with a correlation coefficient of 0.9865 for training data and 0.975 for test data. Furthermore, the results of the model indicated the superiority of ICA-based artificial neural networks compared to back-propagation artificial neural networks as well as the Broms and Hansen methods.

Keywords: Lateral bearing capacity, short pile, clayey soil, artificial neural network, Imperialist competition algorithm.

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Authors: Allaeddine Athmani, Abdelhacine Gouasmia, Tiago Ferreira, Romeu Vicente

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Seismic vulnerability assessment of masonry buildings is a fundamental issue even for moderate to low seismic hazard regions. This fact is even more important when dealing with old structures such as those located in Annaba city (Algeria), which the majority of dates back to the French colonial era from 1830. This category of buildings is in high risk due to their highly degradation state, heterogeneous materials and intrusive modifications to structural and non-structural elements. Furthermore, they are usually shelter a dense population, which is exposed to such risk. In order to undertake a suitable seismic risk mitigation strategies and reinforcement process for such structures, it is essential to estimate their seismic resistance capacity at a large scale. In this sense, two seismic vulnerability index methods and damage estimation have been adapted and applied to a pilot-scale building area located in the moderate seismic hazard region of Annaba city: The first one based on the EMS-98 building typologies, and the second one derived from the Italian GNDT approach. To perform this task, the authors took the advantage of an existing data survey previously performed for other purposes. The results obtained from the application of the two methods were integrated and compared using a geographic information system tool (GIS), with the ultimate goal of supporting the city council of Annaba for the implementation of risk mitigation and emergency planning strategies.

Keywords: Annaba city, EMS98 concept, GNDT method, old city center, seismic vulnerability index, unreinforced masonry buildings.

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Authors: Musa H. Arslan

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Strengthening of the existing seismically deficient reinforced concrete (RC) buildings is an important issue in earthquake prone regions. Addition of RC shear wall as infill or external walls into the structural system has been a commonly preferred strengthening technique since the Big Erzincan Earthquake occurred in Turkey, 1992. The newly added rigid infill walls act primarily as shear walls and relieve the non-ductile existing frames from being subjected to large shear demands providing that new RC inner or external walls are adequately anchored to the existing weak RC frame. The performance of the RC shear walls-RC weak frame connections by steel anchor dowels depends on some parameters such as compressive strength of the existing RC frame concrete, diameter and embedment length of anchored rebar, type of rebar, yielding stress of bar, properties of used chemicals, position of the anchor bars in RC. In this study, application problems of the steel anchor dowels have been checked with some field studies such as tensile test. Two different RC buildings which will be strengthened were selected, and before strengthening, some tests have been performed in the existing RC buildings. According to the field observation and experimental studies, if the concrete compressive strength is lower than 10 MPa, the performance of the anchors is reduced by 70%.

Keywords: Anchor dowel, concrete, damage, reinforced concrete, shear wall, frame.

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Authors: Anwaar Ahmed, Muhammad Bilal Khurshid, Samuel Labi

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The effect of trucks on the level of service is determined by considering passenger car equivalents (PCE) of trucks. The current version of Highway Capacity Manual (HCM) uses a single PCE value for all tucks combined. However, the composition of truck traffic varies from location to location; therefore, a single PCE value for all trucks may not correctly represent the impact of truck traffic at specific locations. Consequently, present study developed separate PCE values for single-unit and combination trucks to replace the single value provided in the HCM on different freeways. Site specific PCE values, were developed using concept of spatial lagging headways (that is the distance between rear bumpers of two vehicles in a traffic stream) measured from field traffic data. The study used data from four locations on a single urban freeway and three different rural freeways in Indiana. Three-stage-leastsquares (3SLS) regression techniques were used to generate models that predicted lagging headways for passenger cars, single unit trucks (SUT), and combination trucks (CT). The estimated PCE values for single-unit and combination truck for basic urban freeways (level terrain) were: 1.35 and 1.60, respectively. For rural freeways the estimated PCE values for single-unit and combination truck were: 1.30 and 1.45, respectively. As expected, traffic variables such as vehicle flow rates and speed have significant impacts on vehicle headways. Study results revealed that the use of separate PCE values for different truck classes can have significant influence on the LOS estimation.

Keywords: Level of Service, Capacity Analysis, Lagging Headway.

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Authors: Takashi Kaburagi, Masashi Takenaka, Yosuke Kurihara, Takashi Matsumoto

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Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most common mental illnesses today. It is believed to be caused by a combination of several factors, including stress. Stress can be quantitatively evaluated using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), one of the best indices to evaluate anxiety. Although STAI scores are widely used in applications ranging from clinical diagnosis to basic research, the scores are calculated based on a self-reported questionnaire. An objective evaluation is required because the subject may intentionally change his/her answers if multiple tests are carried out. In this article, we present a modified index called the “multi-channel Laterality Index at Rest (mc-LIR)” by recording the brain activity from a wider area of the frontal lobe using multi-channel functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The presented index aims to measure multiple positions near the F_pz defined by the international 10-20 system positioning. Using 24 subjects, the dependencies on the number of measuring points used to calculate the mc-LIR and its correlation coefficients with the STAI scores are reported. Furthermore, a simple linear regression was performed to estimate the STAI scores from mc-LIR. The cross-validation error is also reported. The experimental results show that using multiple positions near the Fpz will improve the correlation coefficients and estimation than those using only two positions.

Keywords: Stress, functional near-infrared spectroscopy, frontal lobe, state-trait anxiety inventory score.

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Authors: Rakesh Kumar, Fatima Electricwala

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One of the major thrusts of the Bus Rapid Transit System is to reduce the commuter’s dependency on private vehicles and increase the shares of public transport to make urban transportation system environmentally sustainable. In this study, commuter mode choice analysis is performed that examines behavioral responses to the proposed Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) in Surat, with estimation of the probable shift from private mode to public mode. Further, evaluation of the BRTS scenarios, using Surat’s transportation ecological footprint was done. A multi-modal simulation model was developed in Biogeme environment to explicitly consider private users behaviors and non-linear environmental impact. The data of the different factors (variables) and its impact that might cause modal shift of private mode users to proposed BRTS were collected through home-interview survey using revealed and stated preference approach. A multi modal logit model of mode-choice was then calibrated using the collected data and validated using proposed sample. From this study, a set of perception factors, with reliable and predictable data base, to explain the variation in modal shift behaviour and their impact on Surat’s ecological environment has been identified. A case study of the proposed BRTS connecting the Surat Industrial Hub to the coastal area is provided to illustrate the approach.

Keywords: BRTS, Private Modes, Mode choice models, Ecological footprint.

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Authors: Sulaiman Yunus

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The need for modeling response to urban fire disaster cannot be over emphasized, as recurrent fire outbreaks have gutted most cities of the world. This necessitated the need for a prompt and efficient response system in order to mitigate the impact of the disaster. Promptness, as a function of time, is seen to be the fundamental determinant for efficiency of a response system and magnitude of a fire disaster. Delay, as a result of several factors, is one of the major determinants of promptgness of a response system and also the magnitude of a fire disaster. Response Delay Model (RDM) intends to bridge the gap in urban fire disaster response system through incorporating and synchronizing the delay moments in measuring the overall efficiency of a response system and determining the magnitude of a fire disaster. The model identified two delay moments (pre-notification and Intra-reflex sequence delay) that can be elastic and collectively plays a significant role in influencing the efficiency of a response system. Due to variation in the elasticity of the delay moments, the model provides for measuring the length of delays in order to arrive at a standard average delay moment for different parts of the world, putting into consideration geographic location, level of preparedness and awareness, technological advancement, socio-economic and environmental factors. It is recommended that participatory researches should be embarked on locally and globally to determine standard average delay moments within each phase of the system so as to enable determining the efficiency of response systems and predicting fire disaster magnitudes.

Keywords: Delay moment, fire disaster, reflex sequence, response, response delay moment.

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Authors: Seyed Sadegh Naseralavi, Sadegh Balaghi, Ehsan Khojastehfar

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Time history seismic analysis is supposed to be the most accurate method to predict the seismic demand of structures. On the other hand, the required computational time of this method toward achieving the result is its main deficiency. While being applied in optimization process, in which the structure must be analyzed thousands of time, reducing the required computational time of seismic analysis of structures makes the optimization algorithms more practical. Apparently, the invented approximate methods produce some amount of errors in comparison with exact time history analysis but the recently proposed method namely, Complete Quadratic Combination (CQC) and Sum Root of the Sum of Squares (SRSS) drastically reduces the computational time by combination of peak responses in each mode. In the present research, the Basic Modal Displacement (BMD) method is introduced and applied towards estimation of seismic demand of main structure. Seismic demand of sampled structure is estimated by calculation of modal displacement of basic structure (in which the modal displacement has been calculated). Shear steel sampled structures are selected as case studies. The error applying the introduced method is calculated by comparison of the estimated seismic demands with exact time history dynamic analysis. The efficiency of the proposed method is demonstrated by application of three types of earthquakes (in view of time of peak ground acceleration).

Keywords: Time history dynamic analysis, basic modal displacement, earthquake induced demands, shear steel structures.

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Authors: Ahmed Rekik, Mourad Zribi, Ahmed Ben Hamida, Mohamed Benjelloun

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This paper presents an optimal and unsupervised satellite image segmentation approach based on Pearson system and k-Means Clustering Algorithm Initialization. Such method could be considered as original by the fact that it utilised K-Means clustering algorithm for an optimal initialisation of image class number on one hand and it exploited Pearson system for an optimal statistical distributions- affectation of each considered class on the other hand. Satellite image exploitation requires the use of different approaches, especially those founded on the unsupervised statistical segmentation principle. Such approaches necessitate definition of several parameters like image class number, class variables- estimation and generalised mixture distributions. Use of statistical images- attributes assured convincing and promoting results under the condition of having an optimal initialisation step with appropriated statistical distributions- affectation. Pearson system associated with a k-means clustering algorithm and Stochastic Expectation-Maximization 'SEM' algorithm could be adapted to such problem. For each image-s class, Pearson system attributes one distribution type according to different parameters and especially the Skewness 'β1' and the kurtosis 'β2'. The different adapted algorithms, K-Means clustering algorithm, SEM algorithm and Pearson system algorithm, are then applied to satellite image segmentation problem. Efficiency of those combined algorithms was firstly validated with the Mean Quadratic Error 'MQE' evaluation, and secondly with visual inspection along several comparisons of these unsupervised images- segmentation.

Keywords: Unsupervised classification, Pearson system, Satellite image, Segmentation.

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Authors: Dibya Jivan Pati, Kazuhisa Iki, Riken Homma

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Unlike other metro cities of India, Bhubaneswar–the capital city of Odisha, is expected to reach 1-million-mark population by now. The demands of dwelling unit requirement mostly among urban poor belonging to Economically Weaker section (EWS) and Low Income groups (LIG) is becoming a challenge due to high housing cost and rents. As a matter of fact, it’s also noted that, with increase in population, the solid waste generation also increases subsequently affecting the environment due to inefficiency in collection of waste by local government bodies. Methods of utilizing Solid Waste - especially in form of Plastic bottles, Glass bottles and Metal cans (PGM) are now widely used as an alternative material for construction of low-cost building by Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in developing countries like India to help the urban poor afford a shelter. The application of disposed plastic bottle used in construction of single dwelling significantly reduces the overall cost of construction to as much as 14% compared to traditional construction material. Therefore, considering its cost-benefit result, it’s possible to provide housing to EWS and LIGs at an affordable price. In this paper, we estimated the quantity of plastic bottles generated in Bhubaneswar which further helped to estimate the possible number of single dwelling unit that can be constructed on yearly basis so as to refrain from further housing shortage. The estimation results will be practically used for planning and managing low-cost housing business by local government and NGOs.

Keywords: Construction, dwelling unit, plastic bottle, solid waste generation, groups.

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Authors: Ahmed Badawi, J. Michael Johnson, Mohamed Mahfouz

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This paper proposes new enhancement models to the methods of nonlinear anisotropic diffusion to greatly reduce speckle and preserve image features in medical ultrasound images. By incorporating local physical characteristics of the image, in this case scatterer density, in addition to the gradient, into existing tensorbased image diffusion methods, we were able to greatly improve the performance of the existing filtering methods, namely edge enhancing (EE) and coherence enhancing (CE) diffusion. The new enhancement methods were tested using various ultrasound images, including phantom and some clinical images, to determine the amount of speckle reduction, edge, and coherence enhancements. Scatterer density weighted nonlinear anisotropic diffusion (SDWNAD) for ultrasound images consistently outperformed its traditional tensor-based counterparts that use gradient only to weight the diffusivity function. SDWNAD is shown to greatly reduce speckle noise while preserving image features as edges, orientation coherence, and scatterer density. SDWNAD superior performances over nonlinear coherent diffusion (NCD), speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion (SRAD), adaptive weighted median filter (AWMF), wavelet shrinkage (WS), and wavelet shrinkage with contrast enhancement (WSCE), make these methods ideal preprocessing steps for automatic segmentation in ultrasound imaging.

Keywords: Nonlinear anisotropic diffusion, ultrasound imaging, speckle reduction, scatterer density estimation, edge based enhancement, coherence enhancement.

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Authors: O. Hassanein, Sreenatha G. Anavatti, Tapabrata Ray

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The dynamics of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) are highly nonlinear and time varying and the hydrodynamic coefficients of vehicles are difficult to estimate accurately because of the variations of these coefficients with different navigation conditions and external disturbances. This study presents the on-line system identification of AUV dynamics to obtain the coupled nonlinear dynamic model of AUV as a black box. This black box has an input-output relationship based upon on-line adaptive fuzzy model and adaptive neural fuzzy network (ANFN) model techniques to overcome the uncertain external disturbance and the difficulties of modelling the hydrodynamic forces of the AUVs instead of using the mathematical model with hydrodynamic parameters estimation. The models- parameters are adapted according to the back propagation algorithm based upon the error between the identified model and the actual output of the plant. The proposed ANFN model adopts a functional link neural network (FLNN) as the consequent part of the fuzzy rules. Thus, the consequent part of the ANFN model is a nonlinear combination of input variables. Fuzzy control system is applied to guide and control the AUV using both adaptive models and mathematical model. Simulation results show the superiority of the proposed adaptive neural fuzzy network (ANFN) model in tracking of the behavior of the AUV accurately even in the presence of noise and disturbance.

Keywords: AUV, AUV dynamic model, fuzzy control, fuzzy modelling, adaptive fuzzy control, back propagation, system identification, neural fuzzy model, FLNN.

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Authors: Mohd Aftar Abu Bakar, Noratiqah Mohd Ariff, Abdul Aziz Jemain

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Storm Event Analysis (SEA) provides a method to define rainfalls events as storms where each storm has its own amount and duration. By modelling daily probability of different types of storms, the onset, offset and cycle of rainfall seasons can be determined and investigated. Furthermore, researchers from the field of meteorology will be able to study the dynamical characteristics of rainfalls and make predictions for future reference. In this study, four categories of storms; short, intermediate, long and very long storms; are introduced based on the length of storm duration. Daily probability models of storms are built for these four categories of storms in Peninsular Malaysia. The models are constructed by using Bernoulli distribution and by applying linear regression on the first Fourier harmonic equation. From the models obtained, it is found that daily probability of storms at the Eastern part of Peninsular Malaysia shows a unimodal pattern with high probability of rain beginning at the end of the year and lasting until early the next year. This is very likely due to the Northeast monsoon season which occurs from November to March every year. Meanwhile, short and intermediate storms at other regions of Peninsular Malaysia experience a bimodal cycle due to the two inter-monsoon seasons. Overall, these models indicate that Peninsular Malaysia can be divided into four distinct regions based on the daily pattern for the probability of various storm events.

Keywords: Daily probability model, monsoon seasons, regions, storm events.

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Authors: Shih-Wen Hsiao, Yi-Cheng Tsao

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In the field of reverse engineering and creative industries, applying 3D scanning process to obtain geometric forms of the objects is a mature and common technique. For instance, organic objects such as faces and nonorganic objects such as products could be scanned to acquire the geometric information for further application. However, although the data resolution of 3D scanning device is increasing and there are more and more abundant complementary applications, the penetration rate of 3D scanning for the public is still limited by the relative high price of the devices. On the other hand, Kinect, released by Microsoft, is known for its powerful functions, considerably low price, and complete technology and database support. Therefore, related studies can be done with the applying of Kinect under acceptable cost and data precision. Due to the fact that Kinect utilizes optical mechanism to extracting depth information, limitations are found due to the reason of the straight path of the light. Thus, various angles are required sequentially to obtain the complete 3D information of the object when applying a single Kinect for 3D scanning. The integration process which combines the 3D data from different angles by certain algorithms is also required. This sequential scanning process costs much time and the complex integration process often encounter some technical problems. Therefore, this paper aimed to apply multiple Kinects simultaneously on the field of developing a rapid 3D mannequin scan platform and proposed suggestions on the number and angles of Kinects. In the content, a method of establishing the coordination based on the relation between mannequin and the specifications of Kinect is proposed, and a suggestion of angles and number of Kinects is also described. An experiment of applying multiple Kinect on the scanning of 3D mannequin is constructed by Microsoft API, and the results show that the time required for scanning and technical threshold can be reduced in the industries of fashion and garment design.

Keywords: 3D scan, depth sensor, fashion and garment design, mannequin, multiple kinect sensor.

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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: H. Khanfari, M. Johari Fard

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Dealing with carbonate reservoirs can be mind-boggling for the reservoir engineers due to various digenetic processes that cause a variety of properties through the reservoir. A good estimation of the reservoir heterogeneity which is defined as the quality of variation in rock properties with location in a reservoir or formation, can better help modeling the reservoir and thus can offer better understanding of the behavior of that reservoir. Most of reservoirs are heterogeneous formations whose mineralogy, organic content, natural fractures, and other properties vary from place to place. Over years, reservoir engineers have tried to establish methods to describe the heterogeneity, because heterogeneity is important in modeling the reservoir flow and in well testing. Geological methods are used to describe the variations in the rock properties because of the similarities of environments in which different beds have deposited in. To illustrate the heterogeneity of a reservoir vertically, two methods are generally used in petroleum work: Dykstra-Parsons permeability variations (V) and Lorenz coefficient (L) that are reviewed briefly in this paper. The concept of Lorenz is based on statistics and has been used in petroleum from that point of view. In this paper, we correlated the statistical-based Lorenz method to a petroleum concept, i.e. Kozeny-Carman equation and derived the straight line plot of Lorenz graph for a homogeneous system. Finally, we applied the two methods on a heterogeneous field in South Iran and discussed each, separately, with numbers and figures. As expected, these methods show great departure from homogeneity. Therefore, for future investment, the reservoir needs to be treated carefully.

Keywords: Carbonate reservoirs, heterogeneity, homogeneous system, Dykstra-Parsons permeability variations (V), Lorenz coefficient (L).

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Authors: Ali Fadhil Naser, Wang Zonglin

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The main objectives of this study are to inspect and identify any damage of jaimusi highway prestressed concrete bridge after repair and strengthening of damaged structural members and to evaluate the performance of the bridge structural members by adopting static load test. Inspection program after repair and strengthening includes identifying and evaluating the structural members of bridge such as T-shape cantilever structure, hanging beams, corbels, external tendons, anchor beams, sticking steel plate, and piers. The results of inspection show that the overall state of the bridge structural member after repair and strengthening is good. The results of rebound test of concrete strength show that the average strength of concrete is 46.31Mpa. Whereas, the average value of concrete strength of anchor beam is 49.82Mpa. According to the results of static load test, the experimental values are less than theoretical values of internal forces, deflection, and strain, indicating that the stiffness of the experimental structure, overall deformation and integrity satisfy the designed standard and the working performance is good, and the undertaking capacity has a certain surplus. There is not visible change in the length and width of cracks and there are not new cracks under experimental load.

Keywords: Jiamusi Bridge, Damage inspection, deflection, strain.

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Authors: Seyed Saeid Tabaee, Omid Bahar

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Nowadays, energy dissipation devices are commonly used in structures. High rate of energy absorption during earthquakes is the benefit of using such devices, which results in damage reduction of structural elements, specifically columns. The hysteretic damping capacity of energy dissipation devices is the key point that it may adversely make analysis and design process complicated. This effect may be generally represented by Equivalent Viscous Damping (EVD). The equivalent viscous damping might be obtained from the expected hysteretic behavior regarding to the design or maximum considered displacement of a structure. In this paper, the hysteretic damping coefficient of a steel Moment Resisting Frame (MRF), which its performance is enhanced by a Buckling Restrained Brace (BRB) system has been evaluated. Having foresight of damping fraction between BRB and MRF is inevitable for seismic design procedures like Direct Displacement-Based Design (DDBD) method. This paper presents an approach to calculate the damping fraction for such systems by carrying out the dynamic nonlinear time history analysis (NTHA) under harmonic loading, which is tuned to the natural system frequency. Two MRF structures, one equipped with BRB and the other without BRB are simultaneously studied. Extensive analysis shows that proportion of each system damping fraction may be calculated by its shear story portion. In this way, contribution of each BRB in the floors and their general contribution in the structural performance may be clearly recognized, in advance.

Keywords: Buckling restrained brace, Direct displacement based design, Dual systems, Hysteretic damping, Moment resisting frames.

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Authors: Maninder Pal

Abstract:

Medical digital images usually have low resolution because of nature of their acquisition. Therefore, this paper focuses on zooming these images to obtain better level of information, required for the purpose of medical diagnosis. For this purpose, a strategy for selecting pixels in zooming operation is proposed. It is based on the principle of analog clock and utilizes a combination of point and neighborhood image processing. In this approach, the hour hand of clock covers the portion of image to be processed. For alignment, the center of clock points at middle pixel of the selected portion of image. The minute hand is longer in length, and is used to gain information about pixels of the surrounding area. This area is called neighborhood pixels region. This information is used to zoom the selected portion of the image. The proposed algorithm is implemented and its performance is evaluated for many medical images obtained from various sources such as X-ray, Computerized Tomography (CT) scan and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). However, for illustration and simplicity, the results obtained from a CT scanned image of head is presented. The performance of algorithm is evaluated in comparison to various traditional algorithms in terms of Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), maximum error, SSIM index, mutual information and processing time. From the results, the proposed algorithm is found to give better performance than traditional algorithms.

Keywords: Zooming, interpolation, medical images, resolution.

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