Search results for: level set method.

Authors: Hossein Mirzaee, Farhad Besharati

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A combination of image fusion and quad tree decomposition method is used for detecting the sunspot trajectories in each month and computation of the latitudes of these trajectories in each solar hemisphere. Daily solar images taken with SOHO satellite are fused for each month and the result of fused image is decomposed with Quad Tree decomposition method in order to classifying the sunspot trajectories and then to achieve the precise information about latitudes of sunspot trajectories. Also with fusion we deduce some physical remarkable conclusions about sun magnetic fields behavior. Using quad tree decomposition we give information about the region on sun surface and the space angle that tremendous flares and hot plasma gases permeate interplanetary space and attack to satellites and human technical systems. Here sunspot images in June, July and August 2001 are used for studying and give a method to compute the latitude of sunspot trajectories in each month with sunspot images.

Keywords: Quad Tree Decomposition, Sunspot.

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Authors: Apirada Chinprateep

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The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is the goal of regional economic integration by 2015. In the region, tourism is an activity that is important, especially as a source of foreign currency, a source of employment creation and a source of income bringing to the region. Given the complexity of the issues entailing the concept of sustainable tourism, this paper tries to assess tourism sustainability with the ASEAN, based on a number of quantitative indicators for all the ten economies, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Philippines, Cambodia, and Brunei. The methodological framework will provide a number of benchmarks of tourism activities in these countries. They include identification of the dimensions; for example, economic, socio-ecologic, infrastructure and indicators, method of scaling, chart representation and evaluation on Asian countries. This specification shows that a similar level of tourism activity might introduce different implementation in the tourism activity and might have different consequences for the socioecological environment and sustainability. The heterogeneity of developing countries exposed briefly here would be useful to detect and prepare for coping with the main problems of each country in their tourism activities, as well as competitiveness and value creation of tourism for ASEAN economic community, and will compare with other parts of the world.

Keywords: AEC, ASEAN, sustainable, tourism, competitiveness.

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Authors: Soyoon Bak, Sunyoung Bu, Philsu Kim

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In this paper, a backward semi-Lagrangian scheme combined with the second-order backward difference formula is designed to calculate the numerical solutions of nonlinear advection-diffusion equations. The primary aims of this paper are to remove any iteration process and to get an efficient algorithm with the convergence order of accuracy 2 in time. In order to achieve these objects, we use the second-order central finite difference and the B-spline approximations of degree 2 and 3 in order to approximate the diffusion term and the spatial discretization, respectively. For the temporal discretization, the second order backward difference formula is applied. To calculate the numerical solution of the starting point of the characteristic curves, we use the error correction methodology developed by the authors recently. The proposed algorithm turns out to be completely iteration free, which resolves the main weakness of the conventional backward semi-Lagrangian method. Also, the adaptability of the proposed method is indicated by numerical simulations for Burgers’ equations. Throughout these numerical simulations, it is shown that the numerical results is in good agreement with the analytic solution and the present scheme offer better accuracy in comparison with other existing numerical schemes.

Keywords: Semi-Lagrangian method, Iteration free method, Nonlinear advection-diffusion equation.

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Authors: Hoa Pham

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The literature on language teaching and second language acquisition has been largely driven by monolingual ideology with a common assumption that a second language (L2) is best taught and learned in the L2 only. The current study challenges this assumption by reporting learners' positive perceptions of tertiary level teachers' code switching practices in Vietnam. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of code switching practices in language classrooms from a learners' perspective. Data were collected from student participants who were working towards a Bachelor degree in English within the English for Business Communication stream through the use of focus group interviews. The literature has documented that this method of interviewing has a number of distinct advantages over individual student interviews. For instance, group interactions generated by focus groups create a more natural environment than that of an individual interview because they include a range of communicative processes in which each individual may influence or be influenced by others - as they are in their real life. The process of interaction provides the opportunity to obtain the meanings and answers to a problem that are "socially constructed rather than individually created" leading to the capture of real-life data. The distinct feature of group interaction offered by this technique makes it a powerful means of obtaining deeper and richer data than those from individual interviews. The data generated through this study were analysed using a constant comparative approach. Overall, the students expressed positive views of this practice indicating that it is a useful teaching strategy. Teacher code switching was seen as a learning resource and a source supporting language output. This practice was perceived to promote student comprehension and to aid the learning of content and target language knowledge. This practice was also believed to scaffold the students' language production in different contexts. However, the students indicated their preference for teacher code switching to be constrained, as extensive use was believed to negatively impact on their L2 learning and trigger cognitive reliance on the L1 for L2 learning. The students also perceived that when the L1 was used to a great extent, their ability to develop as autonomous learners was negatively impacted. This study found that teacher code switching was supported in certain contexts by learners, thus suggesting that there is a need for the widespread assumption about the monolingual teaching approach to be re-considered.

Keywords: Code switching, L1 use, L2 teaching, Learners’ perception.

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Authors: A. Mojtaba Aghajani, B. Leila Shavakhi

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Energy intensity(energy consumption intensity) is a global index which computes the required energy for producing a specific value of goods and services in each country. It is computed in terms of initial energy supply or final energy consumption. In this study (research) Divisia method is used to decompose energy consumption and energy intensity. This method decomposes consumption and energy intensity to production effects, structural and net intensity and could be done as time series or two-periodical. This study analytically investigates consumption changes and energy intensity on economical sectors of Iran and more specific on road transportation(rail road and road).Our results show that the contribution of structural effect (change in economical activities combination) is very low and the effect of net energy consumption has the higher contribution in consumption changes and energy intensity. In other words, the high consumption of energy is due to Intensity of energy consumption and is not to structural effect of transportation sector.

Keywords: Divisia Method, Energy Intensity, Net IntensityEffect, Road Transportation , Structural Effect.

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Authors: Bella Llego

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This study aims to investigate the relationships between human resource management and entrepreneurship in the view of owner-managers and employees, and among employees with in the SME in Thailand. The research method used qualitative method to confirm the phenomenology interest with top management position which women are regarding their career path by using purposive sampling method. The results showed that human resources management has positive relate with the corporate entrepreneurship are including the recruitment process, training worker, professional career development and reward system impact to entrepreneur’s knowledge and innovation of corporate entrepreneurship in respectively to bring a very reliable way. Then, the key informant suggested that women’s career experiences predisposed them to find an alternative route for entrepreneurship, despite having achieved top management. The understanding factors that successfully contribute to the development of women entrepreneurs from career development perspective are critical endeavour for any type of organization as well.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, firm performance, human resource management, work efficiency.

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Authors: J. Yang, Y. Ma, X. Zhang, S. Li, Y. Zhang

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The traditional k-means algorithm has been widely used as a simple and efficient clustering method. However, the algorithm often converges to local minima for the reason that it is sensitive to the initial cluster centers. In this paper, an algorithm for selecting initial cluster centers on the basis of minimum spanning tree (MST) is presented. The set of vertices in MST with same degree are regarded as a whole which is used to find the skeleton data points. Furthermore, a distance measure between the skeleton data points with consideration of degree and Euclidean distance is presented. Finally, MST-based initialization method for the k-means algorithm is presented, and the corresponding time complexity is analyzed as well. The presented algorithm is tested on five data sets from the UCI Machine Learning Repository. The experimental results illustrate the effectiveness of the presented algorithm compared to three existing initialization methods.

Keywords: Degree, initial cluster center, k-means, minimum spanning tree.

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Authors: Farzaneh Akhavan Mahdavi, Siti Anom Ahmad, Mohd Hamiruce Marhaban, Mohammad-R. Akbarzadeh-T

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Electromyography (EMG) signal processing has been investigated remarkably regarding various applications such as in rehabilitation systems. Specifically, wavelet transform has served as a powerful technique to scrutinize EMG signals since wavelet transform is consistent with the nature of EMG as a non-stationary signal. In this paper, the efficiency of wavelet transform in surface EMG feature extraction is investigated from four levels of wavelet decomposition and a comparative study between different mother wavelets had been done. To recognize the best function and level of wavelet analysis, two evaluation criteria, scatter plot and RES index are recruited. Hereupon, four wavelet families, namely, Daubechies, Coiflets, Symlets and Biorthogonal are studied in wavelet decomposition stage. Consequently, the results show that only features from first and second level of wavelet decomposition yields good performance and some functions of various wavelet families can lead to an improvement in separability class of different hand movements.

Keywords: Electromyography signal, feature extraction, wavelettransform, means absolute value.

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Authors: Vaso K. Kapnopoulou, Piero Caridis

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The fatigue of ship structural details is of major concern in the maritime industry as it can generate fracture issues that may compromise structural integrity. In the present study, a fatigue analysis of the lower hopper knuckle connection of a bulk carrier was conducted using the Finite Element Method by means of ABAQUS/CAE software. The fatigue life was calculated using Miner’s Rule and the long-term distribution of stress range by the use of the two-parameter Weibull distribution. The cumulative damage ratio was estimated using the fatigue damage resulting from the stress range occurring at each load condition. For this purpose, a cargo hold model was first generated, which extends over the length of two holds (the mid-hold and half of each of the adjacent holds) and transversely over the full breadth of the hull girder. Following that, a submodel of the area of interest was extracted in order to calculate the hot spot stress of the connection and to estimate the fatigue life of the structural detail. Two hot spot locations were identified; one at the top layer of the inner bottom plate and one at the top layer of the hopper plate. The IACS Common Structural Rules (CSR) require that specific dynamic load cases for each loading condition are assessed. Following this, the dynamic load case that causes the highest stress range at each loading condition should be used in the fatigue analysis for the calculation of the cumulative fatigue damage ratio. Each load case has a different effect on ship hull response. Of main concern, when assessing the fatigue strength of the lower hopper knuckle connection, was the determination of the maximum, i.e. the critical value of the stress range, which acts in a direction normal to the weld toe line. This acts in the transverse direction, that is, perpendicularly to the ship's centerline axis. The load cases were explored both theoretically and numerically in order to establish the one that causes the highest damage to the location examined. The most severe one was identified to be the load case induced by beam sea condition where the encountered wave comes from the starboard. At the level of the cargo hold model, the model was assumed to be simply supported at its ends. A coarse mesh was generated in order to represent the overall stiffness of the structure. The elements employed were quadrilateral shell elements, each having four integration points. A linear elastic analysis was performed because linear elastic material behavior can be presumed, since only localized yielding is allowed by most design codes. At the submodel level, the displacements of the analysis of the cargo hold model to the outer region nodes of the submodel acted as boundary conditions and applied loading for the submodel. In order to calculate the hot spot stress at the hot spot locations, a very fine mesh zone was generated and used. The fatigue life of the detail was found to be 16.4 years which is lower than the design fatigue life of the structure (25 years), making this location vulnerable to fatigue fracture issues. Moreover, the loading conditions that induce the most damage to the location were found to be the various ballasting conditions.

Keywords: Lower hopper knuckle, high cycle fatigue, finite element method, dynamic load cases.

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Authors: Yoichi Ishikawa, Yuichi Masukake, Yoshihisa Ishida

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This paper presents a novel control method based on radial basis function networks (RBFNs) for chaotic dynamical systems. The proposed method first identifies the nonlinear part of the chaotic system off-line and then constructs a model-following controller using only the estimated system parameters. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

Keywords: Chaos, nonlinear plant, radial basis function network.

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Authors: A. Selmi

Abstract:

Free vibration analysis of homogenous and axially functionally graded simply supported beams within the context of Euler-Bernoulli beam theory is presented in this paper. The material properties of the beams are assumed to obey the linear law distribution. The effective elastic modulus of the composite was predicted by using the rule of mixture. Here, the complexities which appear in solving differential equation of transverse vibration of composite beams which limit the analytical solution to some special cases are overcome using a relatively new approach called the Differential Transformation Method. This technique is applied for solving differential equation of transverse vibration of axially functionally graded beams. Natural frequencies and corresponding normalized mode shapes are calculated for different Young’s modulus ratios. MATLAB code is designed to solve the transformed differential equation of the beam. Comparison of the present results with the exact solutions proves the effectiveness, the accuracy, the simplicity, and computational stability of the differential transformation method. The effect of the Young’s modulus ratio on the normalized natural frequencies and mode shapes is found to be very important.

Keywords: Differential transformation method, functionally graded material, mode shape, natural frequency.

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Authors: C. Hemasundara Rao, M. Madhavi Latha

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Image compression can improve the performance of the digital systems by reducing time and cost in image storage and transmission without significant reduction of the image quality. Furthermore, the discrete cosine transform has emerged as the new state-of-the art standard for image compression. In this paper, a hybrid image compression technique based on reversible blockade transform coding is proposed. The technique, implemented over regions of interest (ROIs), is based on selection of the coefficients that belong to different transforms, depending on the coefficients is proposed. This method allows: (1) codification of multiple kernals at various degrees of interest, (2) arbitrary shaped spectrum,and (3) flexible adjustment of the compression quality of the image and the background. No standard modification for JPEG2000 decoder was required. The method was applied over different types of images. Results show a better performance for the selected regions, when image coding methods were employed for the whole set of images. We believe that this method is an excellent tool for future image compression research, mainly on images where image coding can be of interest, such as the medical imaging modalities and several multimedia applications. Finally VLSI implementation of proposed method is shown. It is also shown that the kernal of Hartley and Cosine transform gives the better performance than any other model.

Keywords: VLSI, Discrete Cosine Transform, JPEG, Hartleytransform, Radon Transform

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Authors: V. S. Bushkova

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It is well known that in recent years magnetic materials have received increased attention due to their properties. For this reason a significant number of patents that were published during the last decade are oriented towards synthesis and study of such materials. The aim of this work is to create and study ferrite nanocrystalline materials with spinel structure, using sol-gel technology with participation of auto-combustion. This method is perspective in that it is a cheap and low-temperature technique that allows for the fine control on the product’s chemical composition.

Keywords: Magnetic materials, ferrites, sol–gel technology, nanocrystalline powders.

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Authors: A. Gandomkar, R. Dehghani

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Drought is natural and climate phenomenon and in fact server as a part of climate in an area and also it has significant environmental, social ,and economic consequences .drought differs from the other natural disasters from this viewpoint that it s a creeping phenomenon meaning that it progresses little and its difficult to determine the time of its onset and termination .most of the drought definitions are on based on precipitation shortage and consequently ,the shortage of water some of the activities related to the water such as agriculture In this research ,drought condition in Fars province was evacuated using SPI method within a 37 year – statistical –period(1974-2010)and maps related to the drought were prepared for each of the statistical period years. According to the results obtained from this research, the years 1974, 1976, 1975, 1982 with SPI (-1.03, 0.39, -1.05, -1.49) respectively, were the doughiest years and 1996,1997,2000 with SPI (2.49, 1.49, 1.46, 1.04) respectively, the most humid within the studying time series and the rest are in more normal conditions in the term of drought.

Keywords: Fars Province, Drought, SPI Method, Time Series

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Authors: Azza A. Abou-Arab, Marwa H. Mahmoud, Ferial M. Abu-Salem

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The present investigation studied the content of bioactive compounds as ascorbic acid, β-carotene, and flavonoids, and the effect of drying methods (microwave, solar, and air oven drying) on its level in citrus peel. These levels were decreased significantly (p <0.05) due to the dried methods. The percentage of ascorbic acid content loss of orange C. Valencia were 46.64, 52.95 and 68.83% with microwave, solar and air oven methods, respectively comparing to fresh samples. Also, the percentages of β- carotene loss of orange C. Valencia were 38.89, 52.42 and 87.14% with microwave, solar and air oven methods, respectively. Total flavonoid content recorded 453.33, 396.67 and 327.50 mg QE/100g dw, with dried by microwave, solar and oven methods, respectively compared with control in orange, C. valencia. These results revealed that microwave drying procedure was the most effective method which maintained citrus bioactive compounds content (ascorbic acid, β-carotene and flavonoid) followed by solar. On the other hand, air oven drying came in the last order due to direct heat treatment.

Keywords: Ascorbic acid, β-carotene, flavonoids, microwave, solar, air oven drying.

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Authors: Ionel D. Craiu, Mihai Nedelcu

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Thin-walled cylinders are often used by the offshore industry as columns of floating installations. Based on observed strains, the inverse Finite Element Method (iFEM) may rebuild the deformation of structures. Structural Health Monitoring uses this approach extensively. However, the number of in-situ strain gauges is what determines how accurate it is, and for shell structures with complicated deformation, this number can easily become too high for practical use. Any thin-walled beam member's complicated deformation can be modeled by the Generalized Beam Theory (GBT) as a linear combination of pre-specified cross-section deformation modes. GBT uses bar finite elements as opposed to shell finite elements. This paper proposes an iFEM/GBT formulation for the shape sensing of thin-walled cylinders based on these benefits. This method significantly reduces the number of strain gauges compared to using the traditional inverse-shell finite elements. Using numerical simulations, dent damage detection is achieved by comparing the strain distributions of the undamaged and damaged members. The effect of noise on strain measurements is also investigated.

Keywords: Damage detection, generalized beam theory, inverse finite element method, shape sensing.

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Authors: Omid A. Zargar

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The simulated mass and spring method evaluation for subway or railways construction and installation systems have a wide application in rail industries. This kind of design should be optimizing all related parameters to reduce the amount of vibration in cities, homelands, historical zones and other critical locations. Finite element method could help us a lot to analysis such applications with an excellent accuracy but always developing some simple, fast and user friendly evaluation method required in subway industrial applications. In addition, process parameter optimization extremely required in railway industries to achieve some optimal design of railways with maximum safety, reliability and performance. Furthermore, it is important to reduce vibrations and further related maintenance costs as well as possible. In this paper a simple but useful simulated mass and spring evaluation system developed for Esfahan subway construction. Besides, some of related recent patent and innovations in rail world industries like Suspension mass tuned vibration reducer, short sleeper vibration attenuation fastener and Airtight track vibration-noise reducing fastener discussed in details.

Keywords: Subway construction engineering, natural frequency, operation frequency, vibration analysis, polyurethane layer.

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Authors: M. Azadbakht, N. Tajari, R. Alimoradzade

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Knowing pea pods mechanical resistance against dynamic forces are important for design of combine harvester. In pea combine harvesters, threshing is accomplished by two mechanical actions of impact and friction forces. In this research, the effects of initial moisture content and needed impact and friction energy on threshing of pea pods were studied. An impact device was built based on pendulum mechanism. The experiments were done at three initial moisture content levels of 12.1, 23.5 and 39.5 (%w.b.) for both impact and friction methods. Three energy levels of 0.088, 0.126 and 0.202 J were used for impact method and for friction method three energy levels of 0.784, 0.930 and 1.351 J. The threshing percentage was measured in each method. By using a frictional device, kinetic friction coefficients at above moisture contents were measured 0.257, 0.303 and 0.336, respectively. The results of variance analysis of the two methods showed that moisture content and energy have significant effects on the threshing percentage.

Keywords: Pea pod, Energy, Friction, Impact, Initial moisture content, Threshing.

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Authors: Tienfuan Kerh, Hsienchang Lu, Rob Saunders

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Shoreline erosion problems caused by global warming and sea level rising may result in losing of land areas, so it should be examined regularly to reduce possible negative impacts. Initially in this study, three sets of survey images obtained from the years of 1990, 2001, and 2010, respectively, are digitalized by using graphical software to establish the spatial coordinates of six major beaches around the island of Taiwan. Then, by overlaying the known multi-period images, the change of shoreline can be observed from their distribution of coordinates. In addition, the neural network approximation is used to develop a model for predicting shoreline variation in the years of 2015 and 2020. The comparison results show that there is no significant change of total sandy area for all beaches in the three different periods. However, the prediction results show that two beaches may exhibit an increasing of total sandy areas under a statistical 95% confidence interval. The proposed method adopted in this study may be applicable to other shorelines of interest around the world.

Keywords: Digitalized shoreline coordinates, survey image overlaying, neural network approximation, total beach sandy areas.

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Authors: Ye. B. Utepov, A. S. Tulebekova, A. B. Kazkeyev

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Maturity sensors are used to determine concrete strength by the non-destructive method. The method of placement of the maturity sensors determines their number required for a certain frame of a monolithic building. This paper proposes a cheap prototype of an embedded wireless sensor for monitoring concrete structures, as well as an alternative strategy for placing sensors based on the transitional boundaries of the temperature distribution of concrete curing, which were determined by building a heat map of the temperature distribution, where unknown values are calculated by the method of inverse distance weighing. The developed prototype can simultaneously measure temperature and relative humidity over a smartphone-controlled time interval. It implements a maturity method to assess the in-situ strength of concrete, which is considered an alternative to the traditional shock impulse and compression testing method used in Kazakhstan. The prototype was tested in laboratory and field conditions. The tests were aimed at studying the effect of internal and external temperature and relative humidity on concrete's strength gain. Based on an experimentally poured concrete slab with randomly integrated maturity sensors, it the transition boundaries form elliptical forms were determined. Temperature distribution over the largest diameter of the ellipses was plotted, resulting in correct and inverted parabolas. As a result, the distance between the closest opposite crossing points of the parabolas is accepted as the maximum permissible step for setting the maturity sensors. The proposed placement strategy can be applied to sensors that measure various continuous phenomena such as relative humidity. Prototype testing has also revealed Bluetooth inconvenience due to weak signal and inability to access multiple prototypes simultaneously. For this reason, further prototype upgrades are planned in the future work.

Keywords: Heat map, placement strategy, temperature and relative humidity, wireless embedded sensor.

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Authors: Lotfi Beji, Laredj Benchikh

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Underground tunnel face bolting and pipe umbrella reinforcement are one of the most challenging tasks in construction whether industrial or not, and infrastructures such as roads or pipelines. It is one of the first sectors of economic activity in the world. Through a variety of soil and rock, a cyclic Conventional Tunneling Method (CTM) remains the best one for projects with highly variable ground conditions or shapes. CTM is the only alternative for the renovation of existing tunnels and creating emergency exit. During the drilling process, a wide variety of non-desired vibrations may arise, and a method using a robot arm is proposed. The main kinds of drilling through vibration here is the bit-bouncing phenomenon (resonant axial vibration). Hence, assisting the task by a robot arm may play an important role on drilling performances and security. We propose to control the axial-vibration phenomenon along the drillstring at a practical resonant frequency, and embed a Resonant Sonic Drilling Head (RSDH) as a robot end effector for drilling. Many questionable industry drilling criteria and stability are discussed in this paper.

Keywords: Drilling, PDE control, robotic arm, resonant vibration.

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Authors: Gioacchino Lavanco, Elisabetta Di Giovanni, Floriana Romano

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The aim of this paper is to study in depth some methodological aspects of social interventation, focusing on desirable passage from social maternage method to peer advocacy method. For this purpose, we intend analyze social and organizative components, that affect operator-s professional action and that are part of his psychological environment, besides the physical and social one. In fact, operator-s interventation should not be limited to a pure supply of techniques, nor to take shape as improvised action, but “full of good purposes".

Keywords: Advocacy, Education, Relationship, Social Mandate.

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Authors: M. Kashiripoor

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Existing indicators for sustainable urban development do not identify the features of cities’ planning structures and their architecture. Iranian city has special relevance problem of assessing the conformity of their planning and development of the concept of sustainable development. Based on theoretical sources, the author concludes that, despite the existence of common indicators for sustainable development of settlements, specialized evaluation criteria city structure planning has not been developed. He is trying to fill this gap and put forward a system of indicators characterizing the level of development of the architectural-planning structure of the city. The proposed system of indicators is designed based on technical and economic urban standard indicators from different countries. Alternative designing systems and requirements of modern rating systems like LEED-ND comprise a criterion for evaluation of urban structures in accordance with principles of "Green" building and New Urbanism. Urban development trends are close in spirit of sustainable development and developed under its influence. The study allowed concluding that a system of indicators to identify the relevant architectural-planning structure of the city, requirements of sustainable development, should be adapted to the conditions of each country, particularly in Iran. The article attempts typology proposed indicators, which are presented in tabular form and are divided into two types: planning and spatial. This article discusses the known indicators of sustainable development and proposed specific system of indicators characterizing the level of development of architectural-planning structure of the city. This article examines indicators for evaluating level of city' planning structure development. The proposed system of indicators is derived from the urban planning standards and rating systems such as LEED-ND, BREEAM Community and CASBEE-UD.

Keywords: Architectural-planning structure of cities, urban planning indicators, urban space indicators.

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Authors: M. Fathi, M. J. Alvarez, V. Rodríguez

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Assembly line balancing is a very important issue in mass production systems due to production cost. Although many studies have been done on this topic, but because assembly line balancing problems are so complex they are categorized as NP-hard problems and researchers strongly recommend using heuristic methods. This paper presents a new heuristic approach called the critical task method (CTM) for solving U-shape assembly line balancing problems. The performance of the proposed heuristic method is tested by solving a number of test problems and comparing them with 12 other heuristics available in the literature to confirm the superior performance of the proposed heuristic. Furthermore, to prove the efficiency of the proposed CTM, the objectives are increased to minimize the number of workstation (or equivalently maximize line efficiency), and minimizing the smoothness index. Finally, it is proven that the proposed heuristic is more efficient than the others to solve the U-shape assembly line balancing problem.

Keywords: Critical task method, Heuristic, Line balancingproblem, U-shape

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Authors: I. Abuiziah, A. Oulhaj, K. Sebari, D. Ouazar, A. A. Saber

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In water pipeline systems, the flow control is an integrated part of the operation, for instance, opening and closing the valves, starting and stopping the pumps, when these operations very quickly performed, they shall cause the hydraulic transient phenomena, which may cause pump and, valve failures and catastrophic pipe ruptures. Fluid transient analysis is one of the more challenging and complicated flow problems in the design and the operation of water pipeline systems. Transient control has become an essential requirement for ensuring safe operation of water pipeline systems. An accurate analysis and suitable protection devices should be used to protect water pipeline systems. The fourth-order Runge-Kutta method has been used to solve the dynamic and continuity equations in the rigid column method, while the characteristics method used to solve these equations in the full elastic methods. This paper presents the problem of modeling and simulating of transient phenomena in conveying pipeline systems based on the rigid column and full elastic methods. Also, it provides the influence of using the protection devices to protect the pipeline systems from damaging due to the gain pressure which occur in the transient state. The results obtained provide that the model is an efficient tool for flow transient analysis and provide approximately identical results by using these two methods. Moreover; using the closed surge tank reduces the unfavorable effects of transients.

Keywords: Flow transient, Pipeline, Air chamber, Numerical model, Protection devices, Elastic method, Rigid column method.

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Authors: Hamideh Mahdavifar, Ramin Nassiri, Alireza Bagheri

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Enterprise Architecture (EA) is a framework for description, coordination and alignment of all activities across the organization in order to achieve strategic goals using ICT enablers. A number of EA-compatible frameworks have been developed. We, in this paper, mainly focus on Federal Enterprise Architecture Framework (FEAF) since its reference models are plentiful. Among these models we are interested here in its business reference model (BRM). The test process is one important subject of an EA project which is to somewhat overlooked. This lack of attention may cause drawbacks or even failure of an enterprise architecture project. To address this issue we intend to use International Software Testing Qualification Board (ISTQB) framework and standard test suites to present a method to improve EA testing process. The main challenge is how to communicate between the concepts of EA and ISTQB. In this paper, we propose a method for integrating these concepts.

Keywords: Business Reference Model (BRM), Federal Enterprise Architecture (FEA), ISTQB, Test Techniques.

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Authors: Eryati Darwin, Eka Fithra Elfi, Indria Hafizah

Abstract:

Background: Physical exercise induces a pattern of hormonal and immunological responses that prevent endothelial dysfunction by maintaining the availability of nitric oxide (NO). Regular and moderate exercise stimulates NO release, that can be considered as protective factor of cardiovascular diseases, while strenuous exercise induces increased levels in a number of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) triggers endothelial activation which results in an increased vascular permeability. Nuclear gene factor kappa B (NF-κB) activates biological effect of TNF-α. Aim of Study: To determine the effect of physical exercise on the endothelial and skeletal muscle, we measured the level of NF-κB on rats’ serum, macrophages, and myocytes after strenuous physical exercise. Methods: 30 male Rattus norvegicus in the age of eight weeks were randomly divided into five groups (each containing six), and there were treated groups (T) and control group (C). The treated groups obtain strenuous physical exercise by ran on treadmill at 32 m/minutes for 1 hour or until exhaustion. Blood samples, myocytes of gastrocnemius muscle, and intraperitoneal macrophages were collected sequentially. There were investigated immediately, 2 hours, 6 hours, and 24 hours (T1, T2, T3, and T4) after sacrifice. The levels of NF-κB were measured by ELISA methods. Results: From our study, we found that the levels of NF-κB on myocytes in treated group from which its specimen was taken immediately (T1), 2 hours after treadmill (T2), and 6 hours after treadmill (T3) were significantly higher than control group (p<0.05), while the group from which its specimen was taken 24 hours after treadmill, was no significantly different (p>0.05). Also on macrophages, NF-κB in treated groups T1, T2, and T3 was significantly higher than control group (p<0.05), but there was no difference between T4 and control group (p>0.05). The level of serum NF-κB was not significantly different between treatment group as well as compared to control group (p>0.05). Serum NF-κB was significantly higher than the level on macrophages and myocytes (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that strenuous physical exercise stimulates the activation of NF-κB that plays a role in vascular inflammation and muscular damage, and may be recovered after resting period.

Keywords: Endothelial function, inflammation, NF-κB, physical exercise.

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Authors: Kaige Shi, Chao Jiang, Xin Li

Abstract:

The swirl gripper is an electrically activated noncontact handling device that uses swirling airflow to generate a lifting force. This force can be used to pick up a workpiece placed underneath the swirl gripper without any contact. It is applicable, for example, in the semiconductor wafer production line, where contact must be avoided during the handling and moving of a workpiece to minimize damage. When a workpiece levitates underneath a swirl gripper, the gap height between them is crucial for safe handling. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method to estimate the levitation gap height by detecting pressure at two points. The method is based on theoretical model of the swirl gripper, and has been experimentally verified. Furthermore, the force between the gripper and the workpiece can also be estimated using the detected pressure. As a result, the nonlinear relationship between the force and gap height can be linearized by adjusting the rotating speed of the fan in the swirl gripper according to the estimated force and gap height. The linearized relationship is expected to enhance handling stability of the workpiece.

Keywords: Swirl gripper, noncontact handling, levitation, gap height estimation.

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Authors: Ho-Hyun Park, Woosik Kim, Miae Woo

Abstract:

It is expected that ubiquitous era will come soon. A ubiquitous environment has features like peer-to-peer and nomadic environments. Such features can be represented by peer-to-peer systems and mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs). The features of P2P systems and MANETs are similar, appealing for implementing P2P systems in MANET environment. It has been shown that, however, the performance of the P2P systems designed for wired networks do not perform satisfactorily in mobile ad-hoc environment. Subsequently, this paper proposes a method to improve P2P performance using cross-layer design and the goodness of a node as a peer. The proposed method uses routing metric as well as P2P metric to choose favorable peers to connect. It also utilizes proactive approach for distributing peer information. According to the simulation results, the proposed method provides higher query success rate, shorter query response time and less energy consumption by constructing an efficient overlay network.

Keywords: Ad-hoc Networks, Cross-layer, Peer-to-Peer, Performance Analysis.

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Authors: M. Sasajima, M. Watanabe, T. Yamaguchi Y. Kurosawa, Y. Koike

Abstract:

In very narrow pathways, the speed of sound propagation and the phase of sound waves change due to the air viscosity. We have developed a new finite element method (FEM) that includes the effects of air viscosity for modeling a narrow sound pathway. This method is developed as an extension of the existing FEM for porous sound-absorbing materials. The numerical calculation results for several three-dimensional slit models using the proposed FEM are validated against existing calculation methods.

Keywords: Simulation, FEM, air viscosity, slit.

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