Search results for: Measuring Strategy

Authors: Bibhya Sharma, Jito Vanualailai, Ravindra Rai

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This research paper designs a unique motion planner of multiple platoons of nonholonomic car-like robots as a feasible solution to the lane changing/merging maneuvers. The decentralized planner with a leaderless approach and a path-guidance principle derived from the Lyapunov-based control scheme generates collision free avoidance and safe merging maneuvers from multiple lanes to a single lane by deploying a split/merge strategy. The fixed obstacles are the markings and boundaries of the road lanes, while the moving obstacles are the robots themselves. Real and virtual road lane markings and the boundaries of road lanes are incorporated into a workspace to achieve the desired formation and configuration of the robots. Convergence of the robots to goal configurations and the repulsion of the robots from specified obstacles are achieved by suitable attractive and repulsive potential field functions, respectively. The results can be viewed as a significant contribution to the avoidance algorithm of the intelligent vehicle systems (IVS). Computer simulations highlight the effectiveness of the split/merge strategy and the acceleration-based controllers.

Keywords: Lane merging, Lyapunov-based control scheme, path-guidance principle, split/merge strategy.

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Authors: Amany A. Ragheb, Ghada Ragheb, Abd ElRahman A.

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Egypt has a countless heritage of mansions, castles, cities, towns, villages, industrial and manufacturing sites. This richness of heritage provides endless and matchless prospects for culture. Despite being famous worldwide, Egypt’s heritage still is in constant need of protection. Political conflicts and religious revolutions form a direct threat to buildings in various areas, historic, archaeological sites, and religious monuments. Egypt has witnessed two revolutions in less than 60 years; both had an impact on its architectural heritage. In this paper, the authors aim to review legal and policy framework to protect the cultural heritage and present the risk management strategy for cultural heritage in conflict. Through a review of selected international models of devastated architectural heritage in conflict zones and highlighting some of their changes, we can learn from the experiences of other countries to assist towards the development of a methodology to halt the plundering of architectural heritage. Finally, the paper makes an effort to enhance the formulation of a risk management strategy for protection and conservation of cultural heritage, through which to end the plundering of Egypt’s architectural legacy in the Egyptian community (revolutions, 1952 and 2011); and by presenting to its surrounding community the benefits derived from maintaining it.

Keywords: Cultural heritage, legal regulation, risk management, preservation.

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Authors: Oksana Razina, Shakeel Ahmad, Jessie Qun Ren, Olufemi Isiaq

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The modern life of businesses is categorically reliant on their established position online, where digital (and particularly website) content plays a significant role as the first point of information. Digital content, therefore, becomes essential – from making the first impression through to the building and development of client relationships. Despite a number of valuable papers suggesting a strategic approach when dealing with digital data, other sources often do not view or accept the approach to digital content as a holistic or continuous process. Associations are frequently made with merely a one-off marketing campaign or similar. The challenge is in establishing an agreed definition for the notion of Digital Content Strategy (DCS), which currently does not exist, as it is viewed from an excessive number of angles. A strategic approach to content, nonetheless, is required, both practically and contextually. We, therefore, aimed at attempting to identify the key content components, comprising a DCS, to ensure all the aspects were covered and strategically applied – from the company’s understanding of the content value to the ability to display flexibility of content and advances in technology. This conceptual project evaluated existing literature on the topic of DCS and related aspects, using PRISMA Systematic Review Method, Document Analysis, Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria, Scoping Review, Snow-Balling Technique and Thematic Analysis. The data were collected from academic and statistical sources, government and relevant trade publications. Based on the suggestions from academics and trading sources, related to the issues discussed, we revealed the key actions for content creation and attempted to define the notion of DCS. The major finding of the study presented Key Content Components of DCS and can be considered for implementation in a business retail setting.

Keywords: Digital content strategy, digital marketing strategy, key content components, websites.

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Authors: Oksana Razina, Shakeel Ahmad, Jessie Qun Ren, Olufemi Isiaq

Abstract:

The modern life of businesses is categorically reliant on their established position online, where digital (and particularly website) content plays a significant role as the first point of information. Digital content, therefore, becomes essential – from making the first impression through to the building and development of client relationships. Despite a number of valuable papers suggesting a strategic approach when dealing with digital data, other sources often do not view or accept the approach to digital content as a holistic or continuous process. Associations are frequently made with merely a one-off marketing campaign or similar. The challenge is in establishing an agreed definition for the notion of Digital Content Strategy (DCS), which currently does not exist, as it is viewed from an excessive number of angles. A strategic approach to content, nonetheless, is required, both practically and contextually. We, therefore, aimed at attempting to identify the key content components, comprising a DCS, to ensure all the aspects were covered and strategically applied – from the company’s understanding of the content value to the ability to display flexibility of content and advances in technology. This conceptual project evaluated existing literature on the topic of DCS and related aspects, using PRISMA Systematic Review Method, Document Analysis, Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria, Scoping Review, Snow-Balling Technique and Thematic Analysis. The data were collected from academic and statistical sources, government and relevant trade publications. Based on the suggestions from academics and trading sources, related to the issues discussed, we revealed the key actions for content creation and attempted to define the notion of DCS. The major finding of the study presented Key Content Components of DCS and can be considered for implementation in a business retail setting.

Keywords: Digital content strategy, digital marketing strategy, key content components, websites.

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Authors: H. Shayeghi, H.A. Shayanfar, A. Jalili

Abstract:

In the LFC problem, the interconnections among some areas are the input of disturbances, and therefore, it is important to suppress the disturbances by the coordination of governor systems. In contrast, tie-line power flow control by TCPS located between two areas makes it possible to stabilize the system frequency oscillations positively through interconnection, which is also expected to provide a new ancillary service for the further power systems. Thus, a control strategy using controlling the phase angle of TCPS is proposed for provide active control facility of system frequency in this paper. Also, the optimum adjustment of PID controller's parameters in a robust way under bilateral contracted scenario following the large step load demands and disturbances with and without TCPS are investigated by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), that has a strong ability to find the most optimistic results. This newly developed control strategy combines the advantage of PSO and TCPS and has simple stricture that is easy to implement and tune. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy a three-area restructured power system is considered as a test system under different operating conditions and system nonlinearities. Analysis reveals that the TCPS is quite capable of suppressing the frequency and tie-line power oscillations effectively as compared to that obtained without TCPS for a wide range of plant parameter changes, area load demands and disturbances even in the presence of system nonlinearities.

Keywords: LFC, TCPS, Dregulated Power System, PowerSystem Control, PSO.

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Authors: Wen-Yuh Jywe, Bor-Jeng Lin, Jing-Chung Shen, Jeng-Dao Lee, Hsueh-Liang Huang, Tung-Hsien Hsieh

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In this study, a simple 2-D measurement system based on optical design was developed to measure the motion errors of the linear guideway. Compared with the transitional methods about the linear guideway for measuring the motion errors, our proposed 2-D optical measurement system can simultaneously measure horizontal and vertical running straightness errors for the linear guideway.

The performance of the 2-D optical measurement system is verified by experimental results. The standard deviation of the 2-D optical measurement system is about 0.4μm in the measurement range of 100 mm. The maximum measuring speed of the proposed automatic measurement instrument is 1 m/sec.

Keywords: 2-D measurement, linear guideway, motion errors, running straightness.

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Authors: Hossein Heidari Tabrizi, Azizeh Chalak, Hossein Enayat

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The present study seeks to investigate the application of expansion strategy in Persian subtitles of English crime movies. More precisely, this study aims at classifying the different types of expansion used in subtitles as well as investigating the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the application of each type. To achieve this end, three movies; namely, The Net (1995), Contact (1997) and Mission Impossible 2 (2000), available with Persian subtitles, were selected for the study. To collect the data, the above mentioned movies were watched and those parts of the Persian subtitles in which expansion had been used were identified and extracted along with their English dialogs. Then, the extracted Persian subtitles were classified based on the reason that led to expansion in each case. Next, the appropriateness or inappropriateness of using expansion in the extracted Persian subtitles was descriptively investigated. Finally, an equivalent not containing any expansion was proposed for those cases in which the meaning could be fully transferred without this strategy. The findings of the study indicated that the reasons range from explicitation (explicitation of visual, co-textual and contextual information), mistranslation and paraphrasing to the preferences of subtitlers. Furthermore, it was found that the employment of expansion strategy was inappropriate in all cases except for those caused by explicitation of contextual information since correct and shorter equivalents which were equally capable of conveying the intended meaning could be posited for the original dialogs.

Keywords: Audiovisual translation, English crime movies, expansion strategies, Persian subtitles.

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Authors: Ana Paula Monte, Christiane Fontenete

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As current business environment is demanding a constant adaptation of companies, the planning and strategic management should be an ongoing and natural process in all kind of organizations. The use of management and monitoring strategic performance tools such as the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) have been popular; even to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. This paper aims to investigate whether the BSC is being used in monitoring the performance of small businesses, particularly in small fuel retailers companies, which are competing in co-branding; and if not, it aims to identify its strategic orientation in order to recommend a possible strategy map for those managers that are willing to adopt this model as an alternative to traditional ones for organizational performance evaluation, which often focus only on evaluation of the organizational financial performance.

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard, Performance Management and Evaluation, SMEs, Strategy Maps

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Authors: Agord M. Pinto Jr., Yuzo Iano, Leandro T. Manera, Raphael R. N. Souza

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This paper describes an optimization tool-based design strategy for a Current Mode Logic CML divide-by-2 circuit. Representing a building block for output frequency generation in a RFID protocol based-frequency synthesizer, the circuit was designed to minimize the power consumption for driving of multiple loads with unbalancing (at transceiver level). Implemented with XFAB XC08 180 nm technology, the circuit was optimized through MunEDA WiCkeD tool at Cadence Virtuoso Analog Design Environment ADE.

Keywords: Divide-by-2 circuit, CMOS technology, PLL phase locked-loop, optimization tool, CML current mode logic, RF transceiver.

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Authors: Domenico Chizzoniti, Monica Moscatelli, Letizia Cattani, Piero Favino, Luca Preis

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A settlement strategy is to anticipate and respond the needs of existing and future communities through the provision of primary health care facilities in marginalized areas. Access to a health care network is important to improving healthcare coverage, often lacking, in developing countries. The study explores that a good sanitary system strategy of rural contexts brings advantages to an existing settlement: improving transport, communication, water and social facilities. The objective of this paper is to define a possible methodology to implement primary health care facilities in disadvantaged areas of emerging countries. In this research, we analyze the case study of Lauro de Freitas, a municipality in the Brazilian state of Bahia, part of the Metropolitan Region of Salvador, with an area of 57,662 km² and 194.641 inhabitants. The health localization system in Lauro de Freitas is an integrated process that involves not only geographical aspects, but also a set of factors: population density, epidemiological data, allocation of services, road networks, and more. Data were collected also using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to the local population. Synthesized data suggest that moving away from the coast where there is the greatest concentration of population and services, a network of primary health care facilities is able to improve the living conditions of small-dispersed communities. Based on the health service needs of populations, we have developed a methodological approach that is particularly useful in rural and remote contexts in emerging countries.

Keywords: Primary health care, developing countries, policy health planning, settlement strategy.

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Authors: Jia-Ru Li, Ching-Wen Lin

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The study was designed to develop a measurement of the positive emotion regulation questionnaire (PERQ) that assesses positive emotion regulation strategies through self-report. The 14 items developed for the surveying instrument of the study were based upon literatures regarding elements of positive regulation strategies. 319 elementary students (age ranging from 12 to14) were recruited among three public elementary schools to survey on their use of positive emotion regulation strategies. Of 319 subjects, 20 invalid questionnaire s yielded a response rate of 92%. The data collected wasanalyzed through methods such as item analysis, factor analysis, and structural equation models. In reference to the results from item analysis, the formal survey instrument was reduced to 11 items. A principal axis factor analysis with varimax was performed on responses, resulting in a 2-factor equation (savoring strategy and neutralizing strategy), which accounted for 55.5% of the total variance. Then, the two-factor structure of scale was also identified by structural equation models. Finally, the reliability coefficients of the two factors were Cronbach-s α .92 and .74. Gender difference was only found in savoring strategy. In conclusion, the positive emotion regulation strategies questionnaire offers a brief, internally consistent, and valid self-report measure for understanding the emotional regulation strategies of children that may be useful to researchers and applied professionals.

Keywords: Emotional regulation, emotional regulation strategies, scale, SEM.

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Authors: Farhad Alizadeh, Alireza Faregh Gharamaleki, Mojtaba Jalilzadeh, Houshang Gholami, Ali Akhoundzadeh

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This study presented hybrid pre-processing approach along with a conceptual model to enhance the accuracy of river discharge prediction. In order to achieve this goal, Ensemble Empirical Mode Decomposition algorithm (EEMD), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Mutual Information (MI) were employed as a hybrid pre-processing approach conjugated to Least Square Support Vector Machine (LSSVM). A conceptual strategy namely multi-station model was developed to forecast the Souris River discharge more accurately. The strategy used herein was capable of covering uncertainties and complexities of river discharge modeling. DWT and EEMD was coupled, and the feature selection was performed for decomposed sub-series using MI to be employed in multi-station model. In the proposed feature selection method, some useless sub-series were omitted to achieve better performance. Results approved efficiency of the proposed DWT-EEMD-MI approach to improve accuracy of multi-station modeling strategies.

Keywords: River stage-discharge process, LSSVM, discrete wavelet transform (DWT), ensemble empirical decomposition mode (EEMD), multi-station modeling.

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

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Headphones and earphones have many extremely small holes or narrow slits; they use sound-absorbing or porous material (i.e., dampers) to suppress vibratory system resonance. The air viscosity in these acoustic paths greatly affects the acoustic properties. Simulation analyses such as the finite element method (FEM) therefore require knowledge of the material properties of sound-absorbing or porous materials, such as the characteristic impedance and propagation constant. The transfer function method using acoustic tubes is a widely known measuring method, but there is no literature on taking measurements up to the audible range. To measure the acoustic properties at high-range frequencies, the acoustic tubes that form the measuring device need to be narrowed, and the distance between the two microphones needs to be reduced. However, when the tubes are narrowed, the characteristic impedance drops below the air impedance. In this study, we considered the effect of air viscosity in an acoustical tube, introduced a theoretical formula for this effect in the form of complex density and complex sonic velocity, and verified the theoretical formula. We also conducted an experiment and observed the effect from air viscosity in the actual measurements.

Keywords: acoustic tube, air viscosity, earphones, FEM, porous material, sound-absorbing material, transfer function method

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Authors: H. Siswoyo Jo, N. Mir-Nasiri, E. Jayamani

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This paper presents a new type of mechanism and trajectory planning strategy for bipedal walking robot. The newly designed mechanism is able to improve the performance of bipedal walking robot in terms of energy efficiency and weight reduction by utilizing minimum number of actuators. The usage of parallelogram mechanism eliminates the needs of having an extra actuator at the knee joint. This mechanism works together with the joint space trajectory planning in order to realize straight legged walking which cannot be achieved by conventional inverse kinematics trajectory planning due to the singularity. The effectiveness of the proposed strategy is confirmed by computer simulation results.

Keywords: Bipedal robot, Energy efficiency, Straight legged walking, Trajectory planning.

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Authors: Chandrakala Varatharajoo, Adelina Binti Asmawi, Nabeel Abdallah Mohammad Abedalaziz

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This study investigated the impact of inflectional and derivational morphemic analysis awareness on ESL secondary school students’ vocabulary learning strategy. The quasi-experimental study was conducted with 106 low proficiency secondary school students in two experimental groups (inflectional and derivational) and one control group. The students’ vocabulary acquisition was assessed through two measures: Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary- Morphemic Test in the pretest and posttest before and after an intervention programme. Results of ANCOVA revealed that both the experimental groups achieved a significant score in Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary-Morphemic Test. However, the inflectional group obtained a fairly higher score than the derivational group. Thus, the results indicated that ESL low proficiency secondary school students performed better on inflectional morphemic awareness as compared to derivatives. The results also showed that the awareness of inflectional morphology contributed more on the vocabulary acquisition. Importantly, learning inflectional morphology can help ESL low proficiency secondary school students to develop both morphemic awareness and vocabulary gain. Theoretically, these findings show that not all morphemes are equally useful to students for their language development. Practically, these findings indicate that morphological instruction should at least be included in remediation and instructional efforts with struggling learners across all grade levels, allowing them to focus on meaning within the word before they attempt the text in large for better comprehension. Also, by methodologically, by conducting individualized intervention and assessment this study provided fresh empirical evidence to support the existing literature on morphemic analysis awareness and vocabulary learning strategy. Thus, a major pedagogical implication of the study is that morphemic analysis awareness strategy is a definite boon for ESL secondary school students in learning English vocabulary.

Keywords: ESL, instruction, morphemic analysis, vocabulary.

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Authors: Abdulrahman Abdulrahman

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Critical depth meters, such as abroad crested weir, Venture Flume and combined control flume are standard devices for measuring flow in open channels. The discharge relation for these devices cannot be solved directly, but it needs iteration process to account for the approach velocity head. In this paper, analytical solution was developed to calculate the discharge in a combined critical depth-meter namely, a hump combined with lateral contraction in rectangular channel with subcritical approach flow including energy losses. Also analytical formulae were derived for approach velocity head coefficient for different types of critical depth meters. The solution was derived by solving a standard cubic equation considering energy loss on the base of trigonometric identity. The advantage of this technique is to avoid iteration process adopted in measuring flow by these devices. Numerical examples are chosen for demonstration of the proposed solution.

Keywords: Broad crested weir, combined control meter, control structures, critical flow, discharge measurement, flow control, hydraulic engineering, hydraulic structures, open channel flow.

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Authors: Mukesh Kumar Shah, Tushar Gupta

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An Upgraded Cuckoo Search Algorithm is proposed here to solve optimization problems based on the improvements made in the earlier versions of Cuckoo Search Algorithm. Short comings of the earlier versions like slow convergence, trap in local optima improved in the proposed version by random initialization of solution by suggesting an Improved Lambda Iteration Relaxation method, Random Gaussian Distribution Walk to improve local search and further proposing Greedy Selection to accelerate to optimized solution quickly and by “Study Nearby Strategy” to improve global search performance by avoiding trapping to local optima. It is further proposed to generate better solution by Crossover Operation. The proposed strategy used in algorithm shows superiority in terms of high convergence speed over several classical algorithms. Three standard algorithms were tested on a 6-generator standard test system and the results are presented which clearly demonstrate its superiority over other established algorithms. The algorithm is also capable of handling higher unit systems.

Keywords: Economic dispatch, Gaussian selection operator, prohibited operating zones, ramp rate limits, upgraded cuckoo search.

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Authors: Heeyong Noh, Sungjoo Lee

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The goal of this research is discovering the determinants of the success or failure of external cooperation in small and medium enterprises (SMEs). For this, a survey was given to 190 SMEs that experienced external cooperation within the last 3 years. A logistic regression model was used to derive organizational or strategic characteristics that significantly influence whether external collaboration of domestic SMEs is successful or not. Results suggest that research and development (R&D) features in general characteristics (both idea creation and discovering market opportunities) that focused on and emphasized indirected-market stakeholders (such as complementary companies and affiliates) and strategies in innovative strategic characteristics raise the probability of successful external cooperation. This can be used meaningfully to build a policy or strategy for inducing successful external cooperation or to understand the innovation of SMEs.

Keywords: External collaboration, Innovation strategy, Logisticregression, SMEs.

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Authors: Altab Hossain, Ataur Rahman, A. K. M. Mohiuddin, Yulfian Aminanda

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Fuzzy logic approach is used in this study to predict the tractive performance in terms of traction force, and motion resistance for an intelligent air cushion track vehicle while it operates in the swamp peat. The system is effective to control the intelligent air –cushion system with measuring the vehicle traction force (TF), motion resistance (MR), cushion clearance height (CH) and cushion pressure (CP). Sinkage measuring sensor, magnetic switch, pressure sensor, micro controller, control valves and battery are incorporated with the Fuzzy logic system (FLS) to investigate experimentally the TF, MR, CH, and CP. In this study, a comparison for tractive performance of an intelligent air cushion track vehicle has been performed with the results obtained from the predicted values of FLS and experimental actual values. The mean relative error of actual and predicted values from the FLS model on traction force, and total motion resistance are found as 5.58 %, and 6.78 % respectively. For all parameters, the relative error of predicted values are found to be less than the acceptable limits. The goodness of fit of the prediction values from the FLS model on TF, and MR are found as 0.90, and 0.98 respectively.

Keywords: Cushion pressure, Fuzzy logic, Motion resistance, Traction force.

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Authors: Rodrigo Montufar-Chaveznava

Abstract:

The colors of the human skin represent a special category of colors, because they are distinctive from the colors of other natural objects. This category is found as a cluster in color spaces, and the skin color variations between people are mostly due to differences in the intensity. Besides, the face detection based on skin color detection is a faster method as compared to other techniques. In this work, we present a system to track faces by carrying out skin color detection in four different color spaces: HSI, YCbCr, YES and RGB. Once some skin color regions have been detected for each color space, we label each and get some characteristics such as size and position. We are supposing that a face is located in one the detected regions. Next, we compare and employ a polling strategy between labeled regions to determine the final region where the face effectively has been detected and located.

Keywords: Tracking, face detection, image processing, colorspaces.

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Authors: Carlos Sanchís-Pedregosa, José A. D. M achuca, María del Mar González-Zamora

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The growing outsourcing of logistics services resulting from the ongoing current in firms of costs reduction/increased efficiency means that it is becoming more and more important for the companies doing the outsourcing to carry out a proper evaluation. The multiple definitions and measures of logistics service performance found in research on the topic create a certain degree of confusion and do not clear the way towards the proper measurement of their performance. Do a model and a specific set of indicators exist that can be considered appropriate for measuring the performance of logistics services outsourcing in industrial environments? Are said indicators in keeping with the objectives pursued by outsourcing? We aim to answer these and other research questions in the study we have initiated in the field within the framework of the international High Performance Manufacturing (HPM) project of which this paper forms part. As the first stage of this research, this paper reviews articles dealing with the topic published in the last 15 years with the aim of detecting the models most used to make this measurement and determining which performance indicators are proposed as part of said models and which are most used. The first steps are also taken in determining whether these indicators, financial and operational, cover the aims that are being pursued when outsourcing logistics services. The findings show there is a wide variety of both models and indicators used. This would seem to testify to the need to continue with our research in order to try to propose a model and a set of indicators for measuring the performance of logistics services outsourcing in industrial environments.

Keywords: Logistics, objectives, outsourcing, performancemeasurement systems

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Authors: Jehad Al Dallal

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Program slicing is the task of finding all statements in a program that directly or indirectly influence the value of a variable occurrence. The set of statements that can affect the value of a variable at some point in a program is called a program slice. In several software engineering applications, such as program debugging and measuring program cohesion and parallelism, several slices are computed at different program points. In this paper, algorithms are introduced to compute all backward and forward static slices of a computer program by traversing the program representation graph once. The program representation graph used in this paper is called Program Dependence Graph (PDG). We have conducted an experimental comparison study using 25 software modules to show the effectiveness of the introduced algorithm for computing all backward static slices over single-point slicing approaches in computing the parallelism and functional cohesion of program modules. The effectiveness of the algorithm is measured in terms of time execution and number of traversed PDG edges. The comparison study results indicate that using the introduced algorithm considerably saves the slicing time and effort required to measure module parallelism and functional cohesion.

Keywords: Backward slicing, cohesion measure, forward slicing, parallelism measure, program dependence graph, program slicing, static slicing.

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Authors: Jayme G. A. Barbedo, Amauri Lopes

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This paper presents an algorithm to estimate the parameters of two closely spaced sinusoids, providing a frequency resolution that is more than 800 times greater than that obtained by using the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT). The strategy uses a highly optimized grid search approach to accurately estimate frequency, amplitude and phase of both sinusoids, keeping at the same time the computational effort at reasonable levels. The proposed method has three main characteristics: 1) a high frequency resolution; 2) frequency, amplitude and phase are all estimated at once using one single package; 3) it does not rely on any statistical assumption or constraint. Potential applications to this strategy include the difficult task of resolving coincident partials of instruments in musical signals.

Keywords: Closely spaced sinusoids, high-resolution parameter estimation, optimized grid search.

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Authors: S.A.M. Yatim, Z.B. Ibrahim, K.I. Othman, F. Ismail

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The implicit block methods based on the backward differentiation formulae (BDF) for the solution of stiff initial value problems (IVPs) using variable step size is derived. We construct a variable step size block methods which will store all the coefficients of the method with a simplified strategy in controlling the step size with the intention of optimizing the performance in terms of precision and computation time. The strategy involves constant, halving or increasing the step size by 1.9 times the previous step size. Decision of changing the step size is determined by the local truncation error (LTE). Numerical results are provided to support the enhancement of method applied.

Keywords: Backward differentiation formulae, block backwarddifferentiation formulae, stiff ordinary differential equation, variablestep size.

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Authors: Igor Astrov, Natalya Berezovski

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This paper focuses on a critical component of the situational awareness (SA), the control of autonomous vertical flight for vectored thrust aerial vehicle (VTAV). With the SA strategy, we proposed a neural network motion control procedure to address the dynamics variation and performance requirement difference of flight trajectory for a VTAV. This control strategy with using of NARMAL2 neurocontroller for chosen model of VTAV has been verified by simulation of take-off and forward maneuvers using software package Simulink and demonstrated good performance for fast stabilization of motors, consequently, fast SA with economy in energy can be asserted during search-and-rescue operations.

Keywords: NARMA-L2 neurocontroller, situational awareness, vectored thrust aerial vehicle.

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Authors: M.Sushanth Babu, P.Krishna, U.Venu, M.Ranjith

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In this paper, we evaluate the choice of suitable quantization characteristics for both the decoder messages and the received samples in Low Density Parity Check (LDPC) coded systems using M-QAM (Quadrature Amplitude Modulation) schemes. The analysis involves the demapper block that provides initial likelihood values for the decoder, by relating its quantization strategy of the decoder. A mapping strategy refers to the grouping of bits within a codeword, where each m-bit group is used to select a 2m-ary signal in accordance with the signal labels. Further we evaluate the system with mapping strategies like Consecutive-Bit (CB) and Bit-Reliability (BR). A new demapper version, based on approximate expressions, is also presented to yield a low complexity hardware implementation.

Keywords: Low Density parity Check, Mapping, Demapping, Quantization, Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

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Authors: Tung-Sheng Zhan, Chih-Cheng Kao, Chin-Der Yang, Jong-Ian Tsai

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Fossil fuel-firing power plants dominate electric power generation in Taiwan, which are also the major contributor to Green House gases (GHG). CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas that cause global warming. This paper penetrates the relationship between carbon trading for GHG reduction and power generation expansion planning (GEP) problem for the electrical utility. The Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) Algorithm is presented to deal with the generation expansion planning strategy of the utility with independent power providers (IPPs). The utility has to take both the IPPs- participation and environment impact into account when a new generation unit is considering expanded from view of supply side.

Keywords: Carbon Trading, CO2 Emission, GenerationExpansion Planning (GEP), Green House gases (GHG), ParticleSwarm Optimization (PSO).

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Authors: Mehdi Modabberifar, Sanaz Jabary, Mojtaba Ghodsi

Abstract:

Stiffness sensing is an important issue in medical diagnostic, robotics surgery, safe handling, and safe grasping of objects in production lines. Detecting and obtaining the characteristics in dwelling lumps embedded in a soft tissue and safe removing and handling of detected lumps is needed in surgery. Also in industry, grasping and handling an object without damaging in a place where it is not possible to access a human operator is very important. In this paper, a method for object handling is presented. It is based on the use of an intelligent gripper to detect the object stiffness and then setting a programmable force for grasping the object to move it. The main components of this system includes sensors (sensors for measuring force and displacement), electrical (electrical and electronic circuits, tactile data processing and force control system), mechanical (gripper mechanism and driving system for the gripper) and the display unit. The system uses a rotary potentiometer for measuring gripper displacement. A microcontroller using the feedback received by the load cell, mounted on the finger of the gripper, calculates the amount of stiffness, and then commands the gripper motor to apply a certain force on the object. Results of Experiments on some samples with different stiffness show that the gripper works successfully. The gripper can be used in haptic interfaces or robotic systems used for object handling.

Keywords: Gripper, haptic, stiffness, robotic.

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Authors: Chong-Yang Qiao, Teeravarunyou Sakol

Abstract:

Current production-oriented factories need maintenance operators to work in shifts monitoring and inspecting complex systems and different equipment in the situation of mechanical breakdown. Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging technology that embeds data into the environment for situation awareness to help maintenance operators make decisions and solve problems. An application was designed to identify the problem of steam generators and inspection centrifugal pumps. The objective of this research was to find the best medium of AR and type of problem solving strategies among analogy, focal object method and mean-ends analysis. Two scenarios of inspecting leakage were temperature and vibration. Two experiments were used in usability evaluation and future innovation, which included decision-making process and problem-solving strategy. This study found that maintenance operators prefer build-in magnifier to zoom the components (55.6%), 3D exploded view to track the problem parts (50%), and line chart to find the alter data or information (61.1%). There is a significant difference in the use of analogy (44.4%), focal objects (38.9%) and mean-ends strategy (16.7%). The marked differences between maintainers and operators are of the application of a problem solving strategy. However, future work should explore multimedia information retrieval which supports maintenance operators for decision-making.

Keywords: Augmented reality, situation awareness, decision-making, problem-solving.

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Authors: Dana Aljadaa, Hasim Altan

Abstract:

Japan’s strategy is based on improving the current resources and productivity by identifying the environmental challenges to progress further in many areas. For example, it will help in understanding the competitive challenges in the industry, emerging innovation, and other progresses. The present study seeks to examine the characteristics of sustainable practices using materials that will last longer and following environmental policies. There has been a major emphasis since 1990s and onwards about recycling and preserving the environment. Furthermore, the present paper analyses and argues how national interest in policy increases resource productivity. It is a universal law, but these actions may be different based on the unique situation of the country. In addition, the present study explains some of the strategies developed by the Environmental Agency of Japan in the last few years. There are a few resources reviewed involving ‘Strategy for an Environmental Nation in the 21st Century’ from 2001, ‘Clean Asia Initiative’ from 2008, and ‘New Growth Strategy’ from 2010. The present paper also highlights the emphasis on increasing efficiency, as it is an important part of sustainability. We finally conclude by providing reasoning on the impact and positivity of reducing production and consumption on the environment, resulting in a productive and progressive Japan for the near and long term future.

Keywords: Green innovation, sustainable development, resource productivity, sound material-cycle society, waste management.

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