Search results for: ratio Signal / interference + Noise.
Commenced in January 2007
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Edition: International
Paper Count: 3497

Search results for: ratio Signal / interference + Noise.

1217 Performance Analysis of MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT DOA Estimation Algorithm

Authors: N. P. Waweru, D. B. O. Konditi, P. K. Langat

Abstract:

Direction of Arrival estimation refers to defining a mathematical function called a pseudospectrum that gives an indication of the angle a signal is impinging on the antenna array. This estimation is an efficient method of improving the quality of service in a communication system by focusing the reception and transmission only in the estimated direction thereby increasing fidelity with a provision to suppress interferers. This improvement is largely dependent on the performance of the algorithm employed in the estimation. Many DOA algorithms exists amongst which are MUSIC, Root-MUSIC and ESPRIT. In this paper, performance of these three algorithms is analyzed in terms of complexity, accuracy as assessed and characterized by the CRLB and memory requirements in various environments and array sizes. It is found that the three algorithms are high resolution and dependent on the operating environment and the array size. 

Keywords: Direction of Arrival, Autocorrelation matrix, Eigenvalue decomposition, MUSIC, ESPRIT, CRLB.

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1216 Flight School Perceptions of Electric Planes for Training

Authors: C. Edwards, P. Parker

Abstract:

Flight school members are facing a major disruption in the technologies available for them to fly as electric planes enter the aviation industry. The year 2020 marked a new era in aviation with the first type certification of an electric plane. The Pipistrel Velis Electro is a two-seat electric aircraft (e-plane) designed for flight training. Electric flight training has the potential to deeply reduce emissions, noise, and cost of pilot training. Though these are all attractive features, understanding must be developed on the perceptions of the essential actor of the technology, the pilot. This study asks student pilots, flight instructors, flight center managers, and other members of flight schools about their perceptions of e-planes. The questions were divided into three categories: safety and trust of the technology, expected costs in comparison to conventional planes, and interest in the technology, including their desire to fly electric planes. Participants were recruited from flight schools using a protocol approved by the Office of Research Ethics. None of these flight schools have an e-plane in their fleet so these views are based on perceptions rather than direct experience. The results revealed perceptions that were strongly positive with many qualitative comments indicating great excitement about the potential of the new electric aviation technology. Some concerns were raised regarding battery endurance limits. Overall, the flight school community is clearly in favor of introducing electric propulsion technology and reducing the environmental impacts of their industry.

Keywords: electric planes, flight training, green aircraft, student pilots, sustainable aviation

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1215 Distinguishing Innocent Murmurs from Murmurs caused by Aortic Stenosis by Recurrence Quantification Analysis

Authors: Christer Ahlstrom, Katja Höglund, Peter Hult, Jens Häggström, Clarence Kvart, Per Ask

Abstract:

It is sometimes difficult to differentiate between innocent murmurs and pathological murmurs during auscultation. In these difficult cases, an intelligent stethoscope with decision support abilities would be of great value. In this study, using a dog model, phonocardiographic recordings were obtained from 27 boxer dogs with various degrees of aortic stenosis (AS) severity. As a reference for severity assessment, continuous wave Doppler was used. The data were analyzed with recurrence quantification analysis (RQA) with the aim to find features able to distinguish innocent murmurs from murmurs caused by AS. Four out of eight investigated RQA features showed significant differences between innocent murmurs and pathological murmurs. Using a plain linear discriminant analysis classifier, the best pair of features (recurrence rate and entropy) resulted in a sensitivity of 90% and a specificity of 88%. In conclusion, RQA provide valid features which can be used for differentiation between innocent murmurs and murmurs caused by AS.

Keywords: Bioacoustics, murmur, phonocardiographic signal, recurrence quantification analysis.

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1214 Effect of Adaptation Gain on system Performance for Model Reference Adaptive Control Scheme using MIT Rule

Authors: Pankaj Swarnkar, Shailendra Jain, R.K Nema

Abstract:

Adaptive control involves modifying the control law used by the controller to cope with the fact that the parameters of the system being controlled change drastically due to change in environmental conditions or in system itself. This technique is based on the fundamental characteristic of adaptation of living organism. The adaptive control process is one that continuously and automatically measures the dynamic behavior of plant, compares it with the desired output and uses the difference to vary adjustable system parameters or to generate an actuating signal in such a way so that optimal performance can be maintained regardless of system changes. This paper deals with application of model reference adaptive control scheme in first order system. The rule which is used for this application is MIT rule. This paper also shows the effect of adaptation gain on the system performance. Simulation is done in MATLAB and results are discussed in detail.

Keywords: Adaptive control system, Adaptation gain, MIT rule, Model reference adaptive control.

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1213 Design of Power System Stabilizer Based on Sliding Mode Control Theory for Multi- Machine Power System

Authors: Hossein Shahinzadeh, Ladan Darougaran, Ebrahim Jalili Sani, Hamed Yavari, Mahdi Mozaffari Legha

Abstract:

This paper present a new method for design of power system stabilizer (PSS) based on sliding mode control (SMC) technique. The control objective is to enhance stability and improve the dynamic response of the multi-machine power system. In order to test effectiveness of the proposed scheme, simulation will be carried out to analyze the small signal stability characteristics of the system about the steady state operating condition following the change in reference mechanical torque and also parameters uncertainties. For comparison, simulation of a conventional control PSS (lead-lag compensation type) will be carried out. The main approach is focusing on the control performance which later proven to have the degree of shorter reaching time and lower spike.

Keywords: Power system stabilizer (PSS), multi-machine power system, sliding mode control

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1212 Fabrication of a High-Performance Polyetherimide Membrane for Helium Separation

Authors: Y. Alqaheem, A. Alomair, F. Altarkait, F. Alswaileh, Nusrat Tanoli

Abstract:

Helium market is continuously growing due to its essential uses in the electronic and healthcare sectors. Currently, helium is produced by cryogenic distillation but the process is uneconomical especially for low production volumes. On the other hand, polymeric membranes can provide a cost-effective solution for helium purification due to their low operating energy. However, the preparation of membranes involves the use of very toxic solvents such as chloroform. In this work, polyetherimide membranes were prepared using a less toxic solvent, n-methylpyrrolidone with a polymer-to-solvent ratio of 27 wt%. The developed membrane showed a superior helium permeability of 15.9 Barrer that surpassed the permeability of membranes made by chloroform.

Keywords: Helium separation, polyetherimide, dense membrane, gas permeability, solvent.

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1211 Hospital Based Electrocardiogram Sensor Grid

Authors: Suken Nayak, Aditya Kambli, Bharati Ingale, Gauri Shukla

Abstract:

The technological concepts such as wireless hospital and portable cardiac telemetry system require the development of physiological signal acquisition devices to be easily integrated into the hospital database. In this paper we present the low cost, portable wireless ECG acquisition hardware that transmits ECG signals to a dedicated computer.The front end of the system obtains and processes incoming signals, which are then transmitted via a microcontroller and wireless Bluetooth module. A monitoring purpose Bluetooth based end user application integrated with patient database management module is developed for the computers. The system will act as a continuous event recorder, which can be used to follow up patients who have been resuscitatedfrom cardiac arrest, ventricular tachycardia but also for diagnostic purposes for patients with arrhythmia symptoms. In addition, cardiac information can be saved into the patient-s database of the hospital.

Keywords: ECG, Bluetooth communication, monitoring application, patient database

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1210 Topology Preservation in SOM

Authors: E. Arsuaga Uriarte, F. Díaz Martín

Abstract:

The SOM has several beneficial features which make it a useful method for data mining. One of the most important features is the ability to preserve the topology in the projection. There are several measures that can be used to quantify the goodness of the map in order to obtain the optimal projection, including the average quantization error and many topological errors. Many researches have studied how the topology preservation should be measured. One option consists of using the topographic error which considers the ratio of data vectors for which the first and second best BMUs are not adjacent. In this work we present a study of the behaviour of the topographic error in different kinds of maps. We have found that this error devaluates the rectangular maps and we have studied the reasons why this happens. Finally, we suggest a new topological error to improve the deficiency of the topographic error.

Keywords: Map lattice, Self-Organizing Map, topographic error, topology preservation.

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1209 Computationally Efficient Adaptive Rate Sampling and Adaptive Resolution Analysis

Authors: Saeed Mian Qaisar, Laurent Fesquet, Marc Renaudin

Abstract:

Mostly the real life signals are time varying in nature. For proper characterization of such signals, time-frequency representation is required. The STFT (short-time Fourier transform) is a classical tool used for this purpose. The limitation of the STFT is its fixed time-frequency resolution. Thus, an enhanced version of the STFT, which is based on the cross-level sampling, is devised. It can adapt the sampling frequency and the window function length by following the input signal local variations. Therefore, it provides an adaptive resolution time-frequency representation of the input. The computational complexity of the proposed STFT is deduced and compared to the classical one. The results show a significant gain of the computational efficiency and hence of the processing power. The processing error of the proposed technique is also discussed.

Keywords: Level Crossing Sampling, Activity Selection, Adaptive Resolution Analysis, Computational Complexity

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1208 Unsupervised Feature Selection Using Feature Density Functions

Authors: Mina Alibeigi, Sattar Hashemi, Ali Hamzeh

Abstract:

Since dealing with high dimensional data is computationally complex and sometimes even intractable, recently several feature reductions methods have been developed to reduce the dimensionality of the data in order to simplify the calculation analysis in various applications such as text categorization, signal processing, image retrieval, gene expressions and etc. Among feature reduction techniques, feature selection is one the most popular methods due to the preservation of the original features. In this paper, we propose a new unsupervised feature selection method which will remove redundant features from the original feature space by the use of probability density functions of various features. To show the effectiveness of the proposed method, popular feature selection methods have been implemented and compared. Experimental results on the several datasets derived from UCI repository database, illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed methods in comparison with the other compared methods in terms of both classification accuracy and the number of selected features.

Keywords: Feature, Feature Selection, Filter, Probability Density Function

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1207 Resistive Switching in TaN/AlNx/TiN Cell

Authors: Hsin-Ping Huang, Shyankay Jou

Abstract:

Resistive switching of aluminum nitride (AlNx) thin film was demonstrated in a TaN/AlNx/TiN memory cell that was prepared by sputter deposition techniques. The memory cell showed bipolar switching of resistance between +3.5 V and –3.5 V. The resistance ratio of high resistance state (HRS) to low resistance state (HRS), RHRS/RLRS, was about 2 over 100 cycles of endurance test. Both the LRS and HRS of the memory cell exhibited ohmic conduction at low voltages and Poole-Frenkel emission at high voltages. The electrical conduction in the TaN/AlNx/TiN memory cell was possibly attributed to the interactions between charges and defects in the AlNx film.

Keywords: Aluminum nitride, nonvolatile memory, resistive switching, thin films.

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1206 Three Dimensional MEMS Supercapacitor Fabricated by DRIE on Silicon Substrate

Authors: Wei Sun, Ruilin Zheng, Xuyuan Chen

Abstract:

Micro power sources are required to be used in autonomous microelectromechanical system (MEMS). In this paper,  we designed and fabricated a three dimensional (3D) MEMS supercapacitor, which is consisting of conformal silicon  dioxide/titanium/polypyrrole (PPy) layers on silicon substrate. At first, ''through-structure'' was fabricated on the silicon substrate by high-aspect-ratio deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) method, which enlarges the available surface area significantly. Then the SiO2/Ti/PPy layers grew sequentially on the ³through-structure´. Finally, the supercapacitor was investigated by electrochemical methods.

Keywords: MEMS, Supercapacitor, DRIE, 3D.

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1205 Changes in Amino Acids Content in Muscle of European Eel (Anguilla anguilla) in Relation to Body Size

Authors: L. Gómez-Limia, I. Franco, T. Blanco, S. Martínez

Abstract:

European eels (Anguilla anguilla) belong to Anguilliformes order and Anguillidae family. They are generally classified as warm-water fish. Eels have a great commercial value in Europe and Asian countries. Eels can reach high weights, although their commercial size is relatively low in some countries. The capture of larger eels would facilitate the recovery of the species, as well as having a greater number of either glass eels or elvers for aquaculture. In the last years, the demand and the price of eels have increased significantly. However, European eel is considered critically endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. The biochemical composition of fishes is an important aspect of quality and affects the nutritional value and consumption quality of fish. In addition, knowing this composition can help predict an individual’s condition for their recovery. Fish is known to be important source of protein rich in essential amino acids. However, there is very little information about changes in amino acids composition of European eels with increase in size. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of two different weight categories on the amino acids content in muscle tissue of wild European eels. European eels were caught in River Ulla (Galicia, NW Spain), during winter. The eels were slaughtered in ice water immersion. Then, they were purchased and transferred to the laboratory. The eels were subdivided into two groups, according to the weight. The samples were kept frozen (-20 °C) until their analysis. Frozen eels were defrosted and the white muscle between the head and the anal hole. was extracted, in order to obtain amino acids composition. Thirty eels for each group were used. Liquid chromatography was used for separation and quantification of amino a cids. The results conclude that the eels are rich in glutamic acid, leucine, lysine, threonine, valine, isoleucine and phenylalanine. The analysis showed that there are significant differences (p < 0.05) among the eels with different sizes. Histidine, threonine, lysine, hydroxyproline, serine, glycine, arginine, alanine and proline were higher in small eels. European eels muscle presents between 45 and 46% of essential amino acids in the total amino acids. European eels have a well-balanced and high quality protein source in the respect of E/NE ratio. However, eels with higher weight showed a better ratio of essential and non-essential amino acid.

Keywords: European eels, amino acids, HPLC, body size.

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1204 Fabrication and Characterization of Poly-Si Vertical Nanowire Thin Film Transistor

Authors: N. Shen, T. T. Le, H. Y. Yu, Z. X. Chen, K. T. Win, N. Singh, G. Q. Lo, D. -L. Kwong

Abstract:

In this paper, we present a vertical nanowire thin film transistor with gate-all-around architecture, fabricated using CMOS compatible processes. A novel method of fabricating polysilicon vertical nanowires of diameter as small as 30 nm using wet-etch is presented. Both n-type and p-type vertical poly-silicon nanowire transistors exhibit superior electrical characteristics as compared to planar devices. On a poly-crystalline nanowire of 30 nm diameter, high Ion/Ioff ratio of 106, low drain-induced barrier lowering (DIBL) of 50 mV/V, and low sub-threshold slope SS~100mV/dec are demonstrated for a device with channel length of 100 nm.

Keywords: Nanowire (NW), Gate-all-around (GAA), polysilicon (poly-Si), thin-film transistor (TFT).

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1203 A Real Time Collision Avoidance Algorithm for Mobile Robot based on Elastic Force

Authors: Kyung Hyun, Choi, Minh Ngoc, Nong, M. Asif Ali, Rehmani

Abstract:

This present paper proposes the modified Elastic Strip method for mobile robot to avoid obstacles with a real time system in an uncertain environment. The method deals with the problem of robot in driving from an initial position to a target position based on elastic force and potential field force. To avoid the obstacles, the robot has to modify the trajectory based on signal received from the sensor system in the sampling times. It was evident that with the combination of Modification Elastic strip and Pseudomedian filter to process the nonlinear data from sensor uncertainties in the data received from the sensor system can be reduced. The simulations and experiments of these methods were carried out.

Keywords: Collision avoidance, Avoidance obstacle, Elastic Strip, Real time collision avoidance.

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1202 Optimum Replacement Policies for Kuwait Passenger Transport Company Busses: Case Study

Authors: Hilal A. Abdelwali, Elsayed E.M. Ellaimony, Ahmad E.M. Murad, Jasem M.S. Al-Rajhi

Abstract:

Due to the excess of a vehicle operation through its life, some elements may face failure and deteriorate with time. This leads us to carry out maintenance, repair, tune up or full overhaul. After a certain period, the vehicle elements deteriorations increase with time which causes a very high increase of doing the maintenance operations and their costs. However, the logic decision at this point is to replace the current vehicle by a new one with minimum failure and maximum income. The importance of studying vehicle replacement problems come from the increase of stopping days due to many deteriorations in the vehicle parts. These deteriorations increase year after year causing an increase of operating costs and decrease the vehicle income. Vehicle replacement aims to determine the optimum time to keep, maintain, overhaul, renew and replace vehicles. This leads to an improvement in vehicle income, total operating costs, maintenance cost, fuel and oil costs, ton-kilometers, vehicle and engine performance, vehicle noise, vibration, and pollution. The aim of this paper is to find the optimum replacement policies of Kuwait Passenger Transport Company (KPTCP) fleet of busses. The objective of these policies is to maximize the busses pure profits. The dynamic programming (D.P.) technique is used to generate the busses optimal replacement policies

Keywords: Replacement Problem, Automotive Replacement, Dynamic Programming, Equipment Replacement, K.P.T.C.

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1201 Investigation of the Effect of Milling Time on the Mechanochemical Synthesis of Fe3Al/ Al2O3 Nanocomposite

Authors: B. Ghasemi, A. A. Najafzadeh Khoee

Abstract:

In this study, the effect of mechanical activation on the synthesis of Fe3Al/Al2O3 nanocomposite has been investigated by using mechanochemical method. For this purpose, Aluminum powder and hematite as precursors, with stoichiometric ratio, have been utilized and other effective parameters in milling process were kept constant. Phase formation analysis, crystallite size measurement and lattice strain were studied by X-ray diffraction (XRD) by using Williamson-Hall method as well as microstructure and morphology were explored by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Also, Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analysis was used in order to probe the particle distribution. The results showed that after 30-hour milling, the reaction was started, combustibly done and completed.

Keywords: hematite, mechanochemical, milling, nanocomposite

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1200 A Novel Convergence Accelerator for the LMS Adaptive Algorithm

Authors: Jeng-Shin Sheu, Jenn-Kaie Lain, Tai-Kuo Woo, Jyh-Horng Wen

Abstract:

The least mean square (LMS) algorithmis one of the most well-known algorithms for mobile communication systems due to its implementation simplicity. However, the main limitation is its relatively slow convergence rate. In this paper, a booster using the concept of Markov chains is proposed to speed up the convergence rate of LMS algorithms. The nature of Markov chains makes it possible to exploit the past information in the updating process. Moreover, since the transition matrix has a smaller variance than that of the weight itself by the central limit theorem, the weight transition matrix converges faster than the weight itself. Accordingly, the proposed Markov-chain based booster thus has the ability to track variations in signal characteristics, and meanwhile, it can accelerate the rate of convergence for LMS algorithms. Simulation results show that the LMS algorithm can effectively increase the convergence rate and meantime further approach the Wiener solution, if the Markov-chain based booster is applied. The mean square error is also remarkably reduced, while the convergence rate is improved.

Keywords: LMS, Markov chain, convergence rate, accelerator.

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1199 Numerical Analysis and Design of Dielectric to Plasmonic Waveguides Couplers

Authors: Emanuela Paranhos Lima, Vitaly Félix Rodríguez Esquerre

Abstract:

In this work, efficient directional coupler composed of dielectric waveguides and metallic film has been analyzed in details by simulations using finite element method (FEM). The structure consists of a step-index fiber with dielectric core, silica cladding, and a metal nanowire parallel to the core. The results show that an efficient conversion of optical dielectric modes to long range plasmonic is possible. Low insertion losses in conjunction with short coupling length and a broadband operation can be achieved under certain conditions. This kind of couplers has potential applications for the design of photonic integrated circuits for signal routing between dielectric/plasmonic waveguides, sensing, lithography, and optical storage systems. A high efficient focusing of light in a very small region can be obtained.

Keywords: Directional coupler, finite element method, metallic nanowire, plasmonic, surface plasmon polariton.

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1198 Spatial Correlation of Channel State Information in Real LoRa Measurement

Authors: Ahmed Abdelghany, Bernard Uguen, Christophe Moy, Dominique Lemur

Abstract:

The Internet of Things (IoT) is developed to ensure monitoring and connectivity within different applications. Thus, it is critical to study the channel propagation characteristics in Low Power Wide Area Network (LPWAN), especially LoRaWAN. In this paper, an in-depth investigation of the reciprocity between the uplink and downlink Channel State Information (CSI) is done by performing an outdoor measurement campaign in the area of Campus Beaulieu in Rennes. At each different location, the CSI reciprocity is quantified using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient (PCC) which shows a very high linear correlation between the uplink and downlink CSI. This reciprocity feature could be utilized for the physical layer security between the node and the gateway. On the other hand, most of the CSI shapes from different locations are highly uncorrelated with each other. Hence, it can be anticipated that this could achieve significant localization gain by utilizing the frequency hopping in the LoRa systems to get access to a wider band.

Keywords: IoT, LPWAN, LoRa, RSSI, effective signal power, onsite measurement, smart city, channel reciprocity.

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1197 Negative Slope Ramp Carrier Control for High Power Factor Boost Converters in CCM Operation

Authors: T. Tanitteerapan, E.Thanpo

Abstract:

This paper, a simple continuous conduction mode (CCM) pulse-width-modulated (PWM) controller for high power factor boost converters is introduced. The duty ratios were obtained by the comparison of a sensed signal from inductor current or switch current and a negative slope ramp carrier waveform in each switching period. Due to the proposed control requires only the inductor current or switch current sensor and the output voltage sensor, its circuit implementation was very simple. To verify the proposed control, the circuit experimentation of a 350 W boost converter with the proposed control was applied. From the results, the input current waveform was shaped to be closely sinusoidal, implying high power factor and low harmonics.

Keywords: High power factor converters, boost converters, low harmonic rectifiers, power factor correction, and current control.

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1196 Coalescence of Insulin and Triglyceride/High Density Lipoprotein Cholesterol Ratio for the Derivation of a Laboratory Index to Predict Metabolic Syndrome in Morbid Obese Children

Authors: Orkide Donma, Mustafa M. Donma

Abstract:

Morbid obesity is a health threatening condition particularly in children. Generally, it leads to the development of metabolic syndrome (MetS) characterized by central obesity, elevated fasting blood glucose (FBG), triglyceride (TRG), blood pressure values and suppressed high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels. However, some ambiguities exist during the diagnosis of MetS in children below 10 years of age. Therefore, clinicians are in the need of some surrogate markers for the laboratory assessment of pediatric MetS. In this study, the aim is to develop an index, which will be more helpful during the evaluation of further risks detected in morbid obese (MO) children. A total of 235 children with normal body mass index (N-BMI), with varying degrees of obesity; overweight (OW), obese (OB), MO as well as MetS participated in this study. The study was approved by the Institutional Ethical Committee. Informed consent forms were obtained from the parents of the children. Obesity states of the children were classified using BMI percentiles adjusted for age and sex. For the purpose, tabulated data prepared by WHO were used. MetS criteria were defined. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure values were measured. Parameters related to glucose and lipid metabolisms were determined. FBG, insulin (INS), HDL-C, TRG concentrations were determined. Diagnostic Obesity Notation Model Assessment Laboratory (DONMALAB) Index [ln TRG/HDL-C*INS] was introduced. Commonly used insulin resistance (IR) indices such as Homeostatic Model Assessment for IR (HOMA-IR) as well as ratios such as TRG/HDL-C, TRG/HDL-C*INS, HDL-C/TRG*INS, TRG/HDL-C*INS/FBG, log, and ln versions of these ratios were calculated. Results were interpreted using statistical package program (SPSS Version 16.0) for Windows. The data were evaluated using appropriate statistical tests. The degree for statistical significance was defined as 0.05. 35 N, 20 OW, 47 OB, 97 MO children and 36 with MetS were investigated. Mean ± SD values of TRG/HDL-C were 1.27 ± 0.69, 1.86 ± 1.08, 2.15 ± 1.22, 2.48 ± 2.35 and 4.61 ± 3.92 for N, OW, OB, MO and MetS children, respectively. Corresponding values for the DONMALAB index were 2.17 ± 1.07, 3.01 ± 0.94, 3.41 ± 0.93, 3.43 ± 1.08 and 4.32 ± 1.00. TRG/HDL-C ratio significantly differed between N and MetS groups. On the other hand, DONMALAB index exhibited statistically significant differences between N and all the other groups except the OW group. This index was capable of discriminating MO children from those with MetS. Statistically significant elevations were detected in MO children with MetS (p < 0.05). Multiple parameters are commonly used during the assessment of MetS. Upon evaluation of the values obtained for N, OW, OB, MO groups and for MO children with MetS, the [ln TRG/HDL-C*INS] value was unique in discriminating children with MetS.

Keywords: Children, index, laboratory, metabolic syndrome, obesity.

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1195 A Temperature-Insensitive Wide-Dynamic Range Positive/Negative Full-Wave Rectifier Based on Operational Trasconductance Amplifier using Commercially Available ICs

Authors: C. Chanapromma, T. Worachak, P. Silapan

Abstract:

This paper presents positive and negative full-wave rectifier. The proposed structure is based on OTA using commercially available ICs (LT1228). The features of the proposed circuit are that: it can rectify and amplify voltage signal with controllable output magnitude via input bias current: the output voltage is free from temperature variation. The circuit description merely consists of 1 single ended and 3 fully differential OTAs. The performance of the proposed circuit are investigated though PSpice. They show that the proposed circuit can function as positive/negative full-wave rectifier, where the voltage input wide-dynamic range from -5V to 5V. Furthermore, the output voltage is slightly dependent on the temperature variations.

Keywords: Full-wave rectifier, Positive/negative, OTA, Electronically controllable, Wide-dynamic range

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1194 A Software Framework for Predicting Oil-Palm Yield from Climate Data

Authors: Mohd. Noor Md. Sap, A. Majid Awan

Abstract:

Intelligent systems based on machine learning techniques, such as classification, clustering, are gaining wide spread popularity in real world applications. This paper presents work on developing a software system for predicting crop yield, for example oil-palm yield, from climate and plantation data. At the core of our system is a method for unsupervised partitioning of data for finding spatio-temporal patterns in climate data using kernel methods which offer strength to deal with complex data. This work gets inspiration from the notion that a non-linear data transformation into some high dimensional feature space increases the possibility of linear separability of the patterns in the transformed space. Therefore, it simplifies exploration of the associated structure in the data. Kernel methods implicitly perform a non-linear mapping of the input data into a high dimensional feature space by replacing the inner products with an appropriate positive definite function. In this paper we present a robust weighted kernel k-means algorithm incorporating spatial constraints for clustering the data. The proposed algorithm can effectively handle noise, outliers and auto-correlation in the spatial data, for effective and efficient data analysis by exploring patterns and structures in the data, and thus can be used for predicting oil-palm yield by analyzing various factors affecting the yield.

Keywords: Pattern analysis, clustering, kernel methods, spatial data, crop yield

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1193 Design, Fabrication and Performance Evaluation of Mobile Engine-Driven Pneumatic Paddy Collector

Authors: Sony P. Aquino, Helen F. Gavino, Victorino T. Taylan, Teresito G. Aguinaldo

Abstract:

A simple mobile engine-driven pneumatic paddy collector made of locally available materials using local manufacturing technology was designed, fabricated, and tested for collecting and bagging of paddy dried on concrete pavement. The pneumatic paddy collector had the following major components: radial flat bladed type centrifugal fan, power transmission system, bagging area, frame and the conveyance system. Results showed significant differences on the collecting capacity, noise level, and fuel consumption when rotational speed of the air mover shaft was varied. Other parameters such as collecting efficiency, air velocity, augmented cracked grain percentage, and germination rate were not significantly affected by varying rotational speed of the air mover shaft. The pneumatic paddy collector had a collecting efficiency of 99.33 % with a collecting capacity of 2685.00 kg/h at maximum rotational speed of centrifugal fan shaft of about 4200 rpm. The machine entailed an investment cost of P 62,829.25. The break-even weight of paddy was 510,606.75 kg/yr at a collecting cost of 0.11 P/kg of paddy. Utilizing the machine for 400 hours per year generated an income of P 23,887.73. The projected time needed to recover cost of the machine based on 2685 kg/h collecting capacity was 2.63 year.

Keywords: Mobile engine-driven pneumatic paddy collector, collecting capacity and efficiency, simple cost analysis.

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1192 Performance of Nine Different Types of PV Modules in the Tropical Region

Authors: Jiang Fan

Abstract:

With growth of PV market in tropical region, it is necessary to investigate the performance of different types of PV technology under the tropical weather conditions. Singapore Polytechnic was funded by Economic Development Board (EDB) to set up a solar PV test-bed for the research on performance of different types of PV modules in the country. The PV test-bed installed the nine different types of PV systems that are integrated to power utility grid for monitoring and analyzing their operating performances. This paper presents the 12 months operational data of nine different PV systems and analyses on performances of installed PV systems using energy yield and performance ratio. The nine types of PV systems under test have shown their energy yields ranging from 2.67 to 3.36 kWh/kWp and their performance ratios (PRs) ranging from 70% to 88%.

Keywords: Monocrystalline, Multicrystalline, Amorphous Silicon, Cadmium Telluride and thin film PV.

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1191 Eukaryotic Gene Prediction by an Investigation of Nonlinear Dynamical Modeling Techniques on EIIP Coded Sequences

Authors: Mai S. Mabrouk, Nahed H. Solouma, Abou-Bakr M. Youssef, Yasser M. Kadah

Abstract:

Many digital signal processing, techniques have been used to automatically distinguish protein coding regions (exons) from non-coding regions (introns) in DNA sequences. In this work, we have characterized these sequences according to their nonlinear dynamical features such as moment invariants, correlation dimension, and largest Lyapunov exponent estimates. We have applied our model to a number of real sequences encoded into a time series using EIIP sequence indicators. In order to discriminate between coding and non coding DNA regions, the phase space trajectory was first reconstructed for coding and non-coding regions. Nonlinear dynamical features are extracted from those regions and used to investigate a difference between them. Our results indicate that the nonlinear dynamical characteristics have yielded significant differences between coding (CR) and non-coding regions (NCR) in DNA sequences. Finally, the classifier is tested on real genes where coding and non-coding regions are well known.

Keywords: Gene prediction, nonlinear dynamics, correlation dimension, Lyapunov exponent.

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1190 Investigating the Demand for Short-shelf Life Food Products for SME Wholesalers

Authors: Yamini Raju, Parminder S. Kang, Adam Moroz, Ross Clement, Ashley Hopwell, Alistair Duffy

Abstract:

Accurate forecasting of fresh produce demand is one the challenges faced by Small Medium Enterprise (SME) wholesalers. This paper is an attempt to understand the cause for the high level of variability such as weather, holidays etc., in demand of SME wholesalers. Therefore, understanding the significance of unidentified factors may improve the forecasting accuracy. This paper presents the current literature on the factors used to predict demand and the existing forecasting techniques of short shelf life products. It then investigates a variety of internal and external possible factors, some of which is not used by other researchers in the demand prediction process. The results presented in this paper are further analysed using a number of techniques to minimize noise in the data. For the analysis past sales data (January 2009 to May 2014) from a UK based SME wholesaler is used and the results presented are limited to product ‘Milk’ focused on café’s in derby. The correlation analysis is done to check the dependencies of variability factor on the actual demand. Further PCA analysis is done to understand the significance of factors identified using correlation. The PCA results suggest that the cloud cover, weather summary and temperature are the most significant factors that can be used in forecasting the demand. The correlation of the above three factors increased relative to monthly and becomes more stable compared to the weekly and daily demand.

Keywords: Demand Forecasting, Deteriorating Products, Food Wholesalers, Principal Component Analysis and Variability Factors.

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1189 Dielectric Properties of MWCNT-Muscovite/Epoxy Hybrid Composites

Authors: Nur Suraya Anis Ahmad Bakhtiar, Hazizan Md Akil

Abstract:

In the present work, the dielectric properties of Epoxy/MWCNT-muscovite HYBRID and MIXED composites based on a ratio 30:70 were studied. The multi-wall carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) were prepared using two methods: (a) MWCNTmuscovite hybrids were synthesised by chemical vapour deposition (CVD) and (b) physically mixing muscovite with MWCNT. The effects of different preparation of the composites and filler loading were evaluated. It was revealed that the dielectric constants of HYBRID epoxy composites are slightly higher than MIXED epoxy composites. It was also indicated that the dielectric constant increased by increasing the MWCNT filler loading.

Keywords: MWCNT-Muscovite, Epoxy, Dielectric Properties, Hybrid Composite.

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1188 Hydrodynamic Simulation of Fixed Bed GTL Reactor Using CFD

Authors: Sh. Shahhosseini, S. Alinia, M. Irani

Abstract:

In this work, axisymetric CFD simulation of fixed bed GTL reactor has been conducted, using computational fluid dynamics (CFD). In fixed bed CFD modeling, when N (tube-to-particle diameter ratio) has a large value, it is common to consider the packed bed as a porous media. Synthesis gas (a mixture of predominantly carbon monoxide and hydrogen) was fed to the reactor. The reactor length was 20 cm, divided to three sections. The porous zone was in the middle section of the reactor. The model equations were solved employing finite volume method. The effects of particle diameter, bed voidage, fluid velocity and bed length on pressure drop have been investigated. Simulation results showed these parameters could have remarkable impacts on the reactor pressure drop.

Keywords: GTL Process, Fixed bed reactor, Pressure drop, CFDsimulation.

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