Search results for: Dynamic Variation

Authors: Shuenn-Yih Chang, Chiu-Li Huang

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It has been shown that a load discontinuity at the end of an impulse will result in an extra impulse and hence an extra amplitude distortion if a step-by-step integration method is employed to yield the shock response. In order to overcome this difficulty, three remedies are proposed to reduce the extra amplitude distortion. The first remedy is to solve the momentum equation of motion instead of the force equation of motion in the step-by-step solution of the shock response, where an external momentum is used in the solution of the momentum equation of motion. Since the external momentum is a resultant of the time integration of external force, the problem of load discontinuity will automatically disappear. The second remedy is to perform a single small time step immediately upon termination of the applied impulse while the other time steps can still be conducted by using the time step determined from general considerations. This is because that the extra impulse caused by a load discontinuity at the end of an impulse is almost linearly proportional to the step size. Finally, the third remedy is to use the average value of the two different values at the integration point of the load discontinuity to replace the use of one of them for loading input. The basic motivation of this remedy originates from the concept of no loading input error associated with the integration point of load discontinuity. The feasibility of the three remedies are analytically explained and numerically illustrated.

Keywords: Dynamic analysis, load discontinuity, shock response, step-by-step integration

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Authors: Juan Llopis, Reyes Gonzalez, Jose Gasco

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This paper has as its main aim to analyse how corporate web pages can become an essential tool in order to detect strategic trends by firms or sectors, and even a primary source for benchmarking. This technique has made it possible to identify the key issues in the strategic management of the most excellent large Spanish firms and also to describe trends in their long-range planning, a way of working that can be generalised to any country or firm group. More precisely, two objectives were sought. The first one consisted in showing the way in which corporate websites make it possible to obtain direct information about the strategic variables which can define firms. This tool is dynamic (since web pages are constantly updated) as well as direct and reliable, since the information comes from the firm itself, not from comments of third parties (such as journalists, academicians, consultants...). When this information is analysed for a group of firms, one can observe their characteristics in terms of both managerial tasks and business management. As for the second objective, the methodology proposed served to describe the corporate profile of the large Spanish enterprises included in the Ibex35 (the Ibex35 or Iberia Index is the reference index in the Spanish Stock Exchange and gathers periodically the 35 most outstanding Spanish firms). An attempt is therefore made to define the long-range planning that would be characteristic of the largest Spanish firms.

Keywords: Web Pages, Strategic Management, Corporate Description, Large Firms, Spain.

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Authors: Thuraya M. Qaradaghi, Newroz N. Abdulrazaq

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The McEliece cryptosystem is an asymmetric type of cryptography based on error correction code. The classical McEliece used irreducible binary Goppa code which considered unbreakable until now especially with parameter [1024, 524, and 101], but it is suffering from large public key matrix which leads to be difficult to be used practically. In this work Irreducible and Separable Goppa codes have been introduced. The Irreducible and Separable Goppa codes used are with flexible parameters and dynamic error vectors. A Comparison between Separable and Irreducible Goppa code in McEliece Cryptosystem has been done. For encryption stage, to get better result for comparison, two types of testing have been chosen; in the first one the random message is constant while the parameters of Goppa code have been changed. But for the second test, the parameters of Goppa code are constant (m=8 and t=10) while the random message have been changed. The results show that the time needed to calculate parity check matrix in separable are higher than the one for irreducible McEliece cryptosystem, which is considered expected results due to calculate extra parity check matrix in decryption process for g2(z) in separable type, and the time needed to execute error locator in decryption stage in separable type is better than the time needed to calculate it in irreducible type. The proposed implementation has been done by Visual studio C#.

Keywords: McEliece cryptosystem, Goppa code, separable, irreducible.

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Authors: S. A. Che Osmi, W. M. F. Wan Ishak, H. Kim, M. A. Azman, M. A. Ramli

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River is one of important water sources for many activities including industrial and domestic usage such as daily usage, transportation, power supply and recreational activities. However, increasing activities in a river has grown the sources of pollutant enters the water bodies, and degraded the water quality of the river. It becomes a challenge to develop an effective river management to ensure the water sources of the river are well managed and regulated. In Malaysia, several approaches for river management have been implemented such as Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) program for coordinating the management of resources in a natural environment based on river basin to ensure their sustainability lead by Department of Drainage and Irrigation (DID), Malaysia. Nowadays, Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) is one of the best approaches for river management in Malaysia. TMDL implementation is regulated and implemented in the United States. A study on the development of TMDL in Malacca River has been carried out by doing water quality monitoring, the development of water quality model by using Environmental Fluid Dynamic Codes (EFDC), and TMDL implementation plan. The implementation of TMDL will help the stakeholders and regulators to control and improve the water quality of the river. It is one of the good approaches for river management in Malaysia.

Keywords: EFDC, river management, TMDL, water quality modelling.

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Authors: Milad Kurdi, Hadi Farhadian, Teymour Eslamkish

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This study examined the hydro-geochemistry of Qare-Sou catchment and Gorgan Gulf in order to determine the spatial distribution of major ions. In this regard, six hydrometer stations in the catchment and four stations in Gorgan Gulf were chosen and the samples were collected. Results of spatial and temporal distribution of major ions have shown similar variation trends for calcium, magnesium, and bicarbonate ions. Also, the spatial trend of chloride, sulfate, sodium and potassium ions were same as Electrical Conductivity (EC) and Total Dissolved Solid (TDS). In Nahar Khoran station, the concentrations of ions were more than other stations which may be related to human activities and the role of geology. The Siah Ab station’s ions showed high concentration which is may be related to the station’s close proximity to Gorgan Gulf and the return of water to Qare-Sou River. In order to determine the interaction of water and rock, the Gibbs diagram was used and the results showed that water of the river falls in the rock range and it is affected more by weathering and reaction between water and stone and less by evaporation and crystallization. Assessment of the quality of river water by using graphic methods indicated that the type of water in this area is Ca-HCO₃-Mg. Major ions concentration in Qare-Sou in the universal average was more than but not more than the allowed limit by the World Health Organization and China Standard Organization. A comparison of ions concentration in Gorgan Gulf, seas and oceans showed that the pH in Gorgan Gulf was more than the other seas but in Gorgan Gulf the concentration of anion and cation was less than other seas.

Keywords: Hydro-geochemistry, Qare-Sou River, Gorgan Gulf, major ions, Gibbs diagram, water quality, graphical methods.

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Authors: K. N. C. Njoku, Chinwendu Best Eleje, Christian Chukwuemeka Nwandu

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One of the problems facing most insurance companies is how best the burden of paying claims to its policy holders can be managed whenever need arises. Hence there is need for the insurer to buy a reinsurance contract in order to reduce risk which will enable the insurer to share the financial burden with the reinsurer. In this paper, the insurer’s and reinsurer’s strategy is investigated under the modified constant elasticity of variance (M-CEV) process and proportional administrative charges. The insurer considered investment in one risky asset and one risk free asset where the risky asset is modeled based on the M-CEV process which is an extension of constant elasticity of variance (CEV) process. Next, a nonlinear partial differential equation in the form of Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equation is obtained by dynamic programming approach. Using power transformation technique and variable change, the explicit solutions of the optimal investment strategy and optimal reinsurance strategy are obtained. Finally, some numerical simulations of some sensitive parameters were obtained and discussed in details where we observed that the modification factor only affects the optimal investment strategy and not the reinsurance strategy for an insurer with exponential utility function.

Keywords: Reinsurance strategy, Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equation, power transformation, M-CEV process, exponential utility.

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Authors: Jaimala Gambhir, Tilak Thakur, Puneet Chawla

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As per the statistical data, the Doubly-fed Induction Generator (DFIG) based wind turbine with variable speed and variable pitch control is the most common wind turbine in the growing wind market. This machine is usually used on the grid connected wind energy conversion system to satisfy grid code requirements such as grid stability, Fault Ride Through (FRT), power quality improvement, grid synchronization and power control etc. Though the requirements are not fulfilled directly by the machine, the control strategy is used in both the stator as well as rotor side along with power electronic converters to fulfil the requirements stated above. To satisfy the grid code requirements of wind turbine, usually grid side converter is playing a major role. So in order to improve the operation capacity of wind turbine under critical situation, the intensive study of both machine side converter control and grid side converter control is necessary In this paper DFIG is modeled using power components as variables and the performance of the DFIG system is analysed under grid voltage fluctuations. The voltage fluctuations are made by lowering and raising the voltage values in the utility grid intentionally for the purpose of simulation keeping in view of different grid disturbances.

Keywords: DFIG, dynamic modeling, DPC, sag, swell, voltage fluctuations, FRT.

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Authors: Mohamad Azmi Haniffa, Fakhruldin Mohd Hashim

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Pipeline infrastructures normally represent high cost of investment and the pipeline must be free from risks that could cause environmental hazard and potential threats to personnel safety. Pipeline integrity such monitoring and management become very crucial to provide unimpeded transportation and avoiding unnecessary production deferment. Thus proper cleaning and inspection is the key to safe and reliable pipeline operation and plays an important role in pipeline integrity management program and has become a standard industry procedure. In view of this, understanding the motion (dynamic behavior), prediction and control of the PIG speed is important in executing pigging operation as it offers significant benefits, such as estimating PIG arrival time at receiving station, planning for suitable pigging operation, and improves efficiency of pigging tasks. The objective of this paper is to review recent developments in speed control system of pipeline PIGs. The review carried out would serve as an industrial application in a form of quick reference of recent developments in pipeline PIG speed control system, and further initiate others to add-in/update the list in the future leading to knowledge based data, and would attract active interest of others to share their view points.

Keywords: Pipeline Inspection Gauge (PIG), In Line Inspection Tools (ILI), PIG motion, PIG speed control system

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Authors: Rajendraprasad Narne, P. C. Panda

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In this article, coordinated tuning of power system stabilizer (PSS) with static var compensator (SVC) and thyristor controlled series capacitor (TCSC) in multi-machine power system is proposed. The design of proposed coordinated damping controller is formulated as an optimization problem and the controller gains are optimized instantaneously using advanced adaptive particle swarm optimization (AAPSO). The objective function is framed with the inter-area speed deviations of the generators and it is minimized using AAPSO to improve the dynamic stability of power system under severe disturbance. The proposed coordinated controller performance is evaluated under a wide range of system operating conditions with three-phase fault disturbance. Using time domain simulations the damping characteristics of proposed controller is compared with individually tuned PSS, SVC and TCSC controllers. Finally, the real-time simulations are carried out in Opal-RT hardware simulator to synchronize the proposed controller performance in the real world.

Keywords: Advanced adaptive particle swarm optimization, Coordinated design, Power system stabilizer, Real-time implementation, static var compensator, Thyristor controlled series capacitor.

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Authors: Jagadish H. Pujar, S. F. Kodad

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Recent developments in Soft computing techniques, power electronic switches and low-cost computational hardware have made it possible to design and implement sophisticated control strategies for sensorless speed control of AC motor drives. Such an attempt has been made in this work, for Sensorless Speed Control of Induction Motor (IM) by means of Direct Torque Fuzzy Control (DTFC), PI-type fuzzy speed regulator and MRAS speed estimator strategy, which is absolutely nonlinear in its nature. Direct torque control is known to produce quick and robust response in AC drive system. However, during steady state, torque, flux and current ripple occurs. So, the performance of conventional DTC with PI speed regulator can be improved by implementing fuzzy logic techniques. Certain important issues in design including the space vector modulated (SVM) 3-Ф voltage source inverter, DTFC design, generation of reference torque using PI-type fuzzy speed regulator and sensor less speed estimator have been resolved. The proposed scheme is validated through extensive numerical simulations on MATLAB. The simulated results indicate the sensor less speed control of IM with DTFC and PI-type fuzzy speed regulator provides satisfactory high dynamic and static performance compare to conventional DTC with PI speed regulator.

Keywords: Sensor-less Speed Estimator, Fuzzy Logic Control(FLC), SVM, DTC, DTFC, IM, fuzzy speed regulator.

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Authors: Jun-ya Nagase, Toshiyuki Satoh, Norihiko Saga, Koichi Suzumori

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In recent years, Japanese society has been aging, engendering a labor shortage of young workers. Robots are therefore expected to perform tasks such as rehabilitation, nursing elderly people, and day-to-day work support for elderly people. The pneumatic balloon actuator is a rubber artificial muscle developed for use in a robot hand in such environments. This actuator has a long stroke and a high power-to-weight ratio compared with the present pneumatic artificial muscle. Moreover, the dynamic characteristics of this actuator resemble those of human muscle. This study evaluated characteristics of force control of balloon actuator using a predictive functional control (PFC) system with disturbance observer. The predictive functional control is a model-based predictive control (MPC) scheme that predicts the future outputs of the actual plants over the prediction horizon and computes the control effort over the control horizon at every sampling instance. For this study, a 1-link finger system using a pneumatic balloon actuator is developed. Then experiments of PFC control with disturbance observer are performed. These experiments demonstrate the feasibility of its control of a pneumatic balloon actuator for a robot hand.

Keywords: Disturbance observer, Pneumatic balloon, Predictive functional control, Rubber artificial muscle.

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Authors: C. Nutphuang, S. Chirarattananon, V.D. Hien

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In research on natural ventilation, and passive cooling with forced convection, is essential to know how heat flows in a solid object and the pattern of temperature distribution on their surfaces, and eventually how air flows through and convects heat from the surfaces of steel under roof. This paper presents some results from running the computational fluid dynamic program (CFD) by comparison between natural ventilation and forced convection within roof attic that is received directly from solar radiation. The CFD program for modeling air flow inside roof attic has been modified to allow as two cases. First case, the analysis under natural ventilation, is closed area in roof attic and second case, the analysis under forced convection, is opened area in roof attic. These extend of all cases to available predictions of variations such as temperature, pressure, and mass flow rate distributions in each case within roof attic. The comparison shows that this CFD program is an effective model for predicting air flow of temperature and heat transfer coefficient distribution within roof attic. The result shows that forced convection can help to reduce heat transfer through roof attic and an around area of steel core has temperature inner zone lower than natural ventilation type. The different temperature on the steel core of roof attic of two cases was 10-15 oK.

Keywords: CFD program, natural ventilation, forcedconvection, heat transfer, air flow.

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Authors: R. D. Kulkarni, Mayur Chaudhari, S. Mishra

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Curing of paints by exposure to UV radiations is emerging as one of the best film forming technique as an alternative to traditional solvent borne oxidative and thermal curing coatings. The composition and chemistry of UV curable coatings and role of multifunctional and monofunctional monomers, oligomers, and photoinitiators have been discussed. The limitations imposed by thermodynamic equilibrium and tendency for acrylic double bond polymerizations during synthesis of multifunctional acrylates have been presented. Aim of present investigation was thus to explore the reaction variables associated with synthesis of multifunctional acrylates. Zirconium oxychloride was evaluated as catalyst against regular acid functional catalyst. The catalyzed synthesis of glyceryl acrylate and neopentyl glycol acrylate was conducted by variation of following reaction parameters: two different reactant molar ratios- 1:4 and 1:6; catalyst usage in % by moles on polyol- 2.5, 5.0 and 7.5 and two different reaction temperatures- 45 and 75 0C. The reaction was monitored by determination of acid value and hydroxy value at regular intervals, besides TLC, HPLC, and FTIR analysis of intermediates and products. On the basis of determination of reaction progress over 1-60 hrs, the esterification reaction was observed to follow 2nd order kinetics with rate constant varying from 1*10-4 to 7*10-4. The thermal and catalytic components of second order rate constant and energy of activation were also determined. Uses of these kinetic and thermodynamic parameters in design of reactor for manufacture of multifunctional acrylate ester have been presented. The synthesized multifunctional acrylates were used to formulate and apply UV curable clear coat followed by determination of curing characteristics and mechanical properties of cured film. The overall curing rates less than 05 min. were easily attained indicating economical viability of radiation curable system due to faster production schedules

Keywords: glyceryl acrylate, neopentyl glycol acrylate, kinetic modeling, zirconium oxychloride.

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Authors: A. Chaouachi, R. M. Kamel, K. Nagasaka

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This paper presents a novel methodology for Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) of a grid-connected 20 kW Photovoltaic (PV) system using neuro-fuzzy network. The proposed method predicts the reference PV voltage guarantying optimal power transfer between the PV generator and the main utility grid. The neuro-fuzzy network is composed of a fuzzy rule-based classifier and three Radial Basis Function Neural Networks (RBFNN). Inputs of the network (irradiance and temperature) are classified before they are fed into the appropriated RBFNN for either training or estimation process while the output is the reference voltage. The main advantage of the proposed methodology, comparing to a conventional single neural network-based approach, is the distinct generalization ability regarding to the nonlinear and dynamic behavior of a PV generator. In fact, the neuro-fuzzy network is a neural network based multi-model machine learning that defines a set of local models emulating the complex and non-linear behavior of a PV generator under a wide range of operating conditions. Simulation results under several rapid irradiance variations proved that the proposed MPPT method fulfilled the highest efficiency comparing to a conventional single neural network.

Keywords: MPPT, neuro-fuzzy, RBFN, grid-connected, photovoltaic.

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Authors: T. T. Manikandan, Rajeev Sukumaran

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For maintaining the biodiversity of many ecosystems the existence of coral reefs play a vital role. But due to many factors such as pollution and coral mining, coral reefs are dying day by day. One way to protect the coral reefs is to farm them in a carefully monitored underwater environment and restore it in place of dead corals. For successful farming of corals in coral farms, different parameters of the water in the farming area need to be monitored and maintained at optimal level. Sensing underwater parameters using wireless sensor nodes is an effective way for precise and continuous monitoring in a highly dynamic environment like oceans. Here the sensed information is of varying importance and it needs to be provided with desired Quality of Service(QoS) guarantees in delivering the information to offshore monitoring centers. The main interest of this research is Stochastic Network Calculus (SNC) based modeling of network layer design for underwater wireless sensor communication. The model proposed in this research enforces differentiation of service in underwater wireless sensor communication with the help of buffer sizing and link scheduling. The delay and backlog bounds for such differentiated services are analytically derived using stochastic network calculus.

Keywords: Underwater Coral Farms, SNC, differentiated service, delay bound, backlog bound.

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Authors: S. Jarernprasert, E. Bazan-Zurita, P. C. Rizzo

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Currently, seismic probabilistic risk assessments (SPRA) for nuclear facilities use In-Structure Response Spectra (ISRS) in the calculation of fragilities for systems and components. ISRS are calculated via dynamic analyses of the host building subjected to two orthogonal components of horizontal ground motion. Each component is defined as the median motion in any horizontal direction. Structural engineers applied the components along selected X and Y Cartesian axes. The ISRS at different locations in the building are also calculated in the X and Y directions. The choice of the directions of X and Y are not specified by the ground motion model with respect to geographic coordinates, and are rather arbitrarily selected by the structural engineer. Normally, X and Y coincide with the “principal” axes of the building, in the understanding that this practice is generally conservative. For SPRA purposes, however, it is desirable to remove any conservatism in the estimates of median ISRS. This paper examines the effects of the direction of horizontal seismic motion on the ISRS on typical nuclear structure. We also evaluate the variability of ISRS calculated along different horizontal directions. Our results indicate that some central measures of the ISRS provide robust estimates that are practically independent of the selection of the directions of the horizontal Cartesian axes.

Keywords: Seismic, Directionality, In-Structure Response Spectra, Probabilistic Risk Assessment.

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Authors: Shameemraj M. Nadaf, Sipra Behera, Hemant K. Rath, Garima Mishra, Raja Mukhopadhyay, Sumanta Patro

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Microservices architecture has been widely embraced for rapid, frequent, and reliable delivery of complex applications. It enables organizations to evolve their technology stack in various domains. Today, the networking domain is flooded with plethora of devices and software solutions which address different functionalities ranging from elementary operations, viz., switching, routing, firewall etc., to complex analytics and insights based intelligent services. In this paper, we attempt to bring in the microservices based approach for agile and adaptive delivery of network services for any underlying networking technology. We discuss the life cycle management of each individual microservice and a distributed control approach with emphasis for dynamic provisioning, management, and orchestration in an automated fashion which can provide seamless operations in large scale networks. We have conducted validations of the system in lab testbed comprising of Traditional/Legacy and Software Defined Wireless Local Area networks.

Keywords: Microservices architecture, software defined wireless networks, traditional wireless networks, automation, orchestration, intelligent networks, network analytics, seamless management, single pane control, fine-grain control.

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Authors: Dheyaa Hussein, Peter Armstrong

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The phenomenon of visual disorder is prominent in contemporary townscapes. This paper provides a theoretical framework for the assessment of visual consistency in townscape in order to achieve more favourable outcomes for users. In this paper, visual consistency refers to the amount of similarity between adjacent components of townscape. The paper investigates parameters which relate to visual consistency in townscape, explores the relationships between them and highlights their significance. The paper uses arithmetic methods from outside the domain of urban design to enable the establishment of an objective approach of assessment which considers subjective indicators including users’ preferences. These methods involve the standard of deviation, colour distance and the distance between points. The paper identifies urban space as a key representative of the visual parameters of townscape. It focuses on its two components, geometry and colour in the evaluation of the visual consistency of townscape. Accordingly, this article proposes four measurements. The first quantifies the number of vertices, which are points in the three-dimensional space that are connected, by lines, to represent the appearance of elements. The second evaluates the visual surroundings of urban space through assessing the location of their vertices. The last two measurements calculate the visual similarity in both vertices and colour in townscape by the calculation of their variation using methods including standard of deviation and colour difference. The proposed quantitative assessment is based on users’ preferences towards these measurements. The paper offers a theoretical basis for a practical tool which can alter the current understanding of architectural form and its application in urban space. This tool is currently under development. The proposed method underpins expert subjective assessment and permits the establishment of a unified framework which adds to creativity by the achievement of a higher level of consistency and satisfaction among the citizens of evolving townscapes.

Keywords: Townscape, Urban Design, Visual Assessment, Visual Consistency.

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Authors: M. K. Bhuyan

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The use of human hand as a natural interface for humancomputer interaction (HCI) serves as the motivation for research in hand gesture recognition. Vision-based hand gesture recognition involves visual analysis of hand shape, position and/or movement. In this paper, we use the concept of object-based video abstraction for segmenting the frames into video object planes (VOPs), as used in MPEG-4, with each VOP corresponding to one semantically meaningful hand position. Next, the key VOPs are selected on the basis of the amount of change in hand shape – for a given key frame in the sequence the next key frame is the one in which the hand changes its shape significantly. Thus, an entire video clip is transformed into a small number of representative frames that are sufficient to represent a gesture sequence. Subsequently, we model a particular gesture as a sequence of key frames each bearing information about its duration. These constitute a finite state machine. For recognition, the states of the incoming gesture sequence are matched with the states of all different FSMs contained in the database of gesture vocabulary. The core idea of our proposed representation is that redundant frames of the gesture video sequence bear only the temporal information of a gesture and hence discarded for computational efficiency. Experimental results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed scheme for key frame extraction, subsequent gesture summarization and finally gesture recognition.

Keywords: Hand gesture, MPEG-4, Hausdorff distance, finite state machine.

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Authors: A. Abdulkadir, Y. M. Bello, A. A. Okhimamhe, H. Ibrahim, M. B. Matazu, L. S. Barau

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The increasing volume of solid waste generated, collected and disposed daily complicate adequate management of solid waste by relevant agency like Niger State Environmental Protection Agency (NISEPA). In addition, the impacts of solid waste on the natural environment and human livelihood require identification of cost-effective ways for sustainable municipal waste management in Nigeria. These signal the need for identifying environment-friendly initiative and local solution to address the problem of municipal solid waste. A research field was secured at Pago, Minna, Niger State which is located in the guinea savanna belt of Nigeria, within longitude 60 361 4311 - 4511 and latitude 90 291 37.6111 - .6211 N. Poultry droppings, decomposed household waste manure and NPK treatments were used. The experimental field was divided into three replications and four (4) treatments on each replication making a total of twelve (12) plots. The treatments were allotted using Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and Data collected was analyzed using SPSS software and RCBD. The result depicts variation in plant height and number of leaves at 50% flowering; Poultry dropping records the highest height while the number of leaves for waste manure competes fairly well with NPK treatment. Similarly, the varying treatments significantly increase vegetable yield, as the control (non-treatment) records the least yield for the three vegetable samples. Adoption of this organic manure for cultivation does not only enhance environment quality and attainment of food security but will contribute to local economic development, poverty alleviation as well as social inclusion.

Keywords: Environmental issues, food security, NISEPA, solid waste.

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Authors: Justinian Anatory, Ekael Stephen Manase

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The use of mobile phones is growing tremendously all over the world. In Tanzania there are a number of operators licensed by Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) aiming at attracting customers into their networks. So far telecommunications market competition has been very stiff. Various measures are being taken by mobile operators to survive in the market. Such measure include introducing of different air time bundles on daily, weekly and monthly at lower tariffs. Other measures include the introduction of normal tariff, tourist package and one network. Despite of all these strategies, there is a dynamic competition in the market which needs to be explored. Some influences which attract customers to choose a certain mobile operator are of particular interest. This paper is investigating if the network effects and Quality of Services (QoS) influence mobile customers in selection of their mobile network operators. Seventy seven students from high learning institutions in Dodoma Municipality in Tanzania participated in responding to prepared questionnaires. The data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) Software. The results indicate that, network coverage does influence customers in selection of mobile operators. In addition, this paper proposes further research in some areas especially where the study came up with different findings from what the theory has in place.

Keywords: Network effects, Quality of services, Consumer Buying, mobile operators.

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Authors: Abed Ahmed, Mehrdad Asadi, Jennifer Martay

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Stainless steel pipelines are crucial components to transportation and storage in the oil and gas industry. However, the rise of random attacks and vandalism on these pipes for their valuable transport has led to more security and protection for incoming surface impacts. These surface impacts can lead to large global deformations of the pipe and place the pipe under strain, causing the eventual failure of the pipeline. Therefore, understanding how these surface impact loads affect the pipes is vital to improving the pipes’ security and protection. In this study, experimental test and finite element analysis (FEA) have been carried out on EN3B stainless steel specimens to study the impact behaviour. Low velocity impact tests at 9 m/s with 16 kg dome impactor was used to simulate for high momentum impact for localised failure. FEA models of clamped and deformable boundaries were modelled to study the effect of the boundaries on the pipes impact behaviour on its impact resistance, using experimental and FEA approach. Comparison of experimental and FE simulation shows good correlation to the deformable boundaries in order to validate the robustness of the FE model to be implemented in pipe models with complex anisotropic structure.

Keywords: Dynamic impact, deformable boundary conditions, finite element modeling, FEM, finite element, FE, LS-DYNA, Stainless steel pipe.

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Authors: Zhi-Wei Zheng, Zhong-Qi Liu, Jia-Ling Qiu, Shan-Qing Guo, Zhong-Wei Jia, Chun Hao

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Objectives: The purpose of this study was to understand and examine the association between diurnal mood variation and sexual/health-related status among men who have sex with men (MSM) using data from MSM Chinese Twitter messages. The study consists of 843,745 postings of 377,610 MSM users located in Guangdong that were culled from the MSM Chinese Twitter App. Positive affect, negative affect, sexual related behaviors, and health-related status were measured using the Simplified Chinese Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. Emotions, including joy, sadness, anger, fear, and disgust were measured using the Weibo Basic Mood Lexicon. A positive sentiment score and a positive emotions score were also calculated. Linear regression models based on a permutation test were used to assess associations between affective states and sexual/health-related status. In the results, 5,871 active MSM users and their 477,374 postings were finally selected. MSM expressed positive affect and joy at 8 a.m. and expressed negative affect and negative emotions between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. In addition, 25.1% of negative postings were directly related to health and 13.4% reported seeking social support during that sensitive period. MSM who were senior, educated, overweight or obese, self-identified as performing a versatile sex role, and with less followers, more followers, and less chat groups mainly expressed more negative affect and negative emotions. MSM who talked more about sexual-related behaviors had a higher positive sentiment score (β=0.29, p < 0.001) and a higher positive emotions score (β = 0.16, p < 0.001). MSM who reported more on their health status had a lower positive sentiment score (β = -0.83, p < 0.001) and a lower positive emotions score (β = -0.37, p < 0.001). The study concluded that psychological intervention based on an app for MSM should be conducted, as it may improve mental health.

Keywords: Affect, men who have sex with men, sexual-related behaviors, health-related status, social media.

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Authors: Farzaneh Tahmoorian, Bijan Samali, John Yeaman

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Road networks are increasingly expanding all over the world. The construction and maintenance of the road pavements require large amounts of aggregates. Considerable usage of various natural aggregates for constructing roads as well as the increasing rate at which solid waste is generated have attracted the attention of many researchers in the pavement industry to investigate the feasibility of the application of some of the waste materials as alternative materials in pavement construction. Among various waste materials, construction and demolition wastes, including Recycled Construction Aggregate (RCA) constitute a major part of the municipal solid wastes in Australia. Creating opportunities for the application of RCA in civil and geotechnical engineering applications is an efficient way to increase the market value of RCA. However, in spite of such promising potentials, insufficient and inconclusive data and information on the engineering properties of RCA had limited the reliability and design specifications of RCA to date. In light of this, this paper, as a first step of a comprehensive research, aims to investigate the feasibility of the application of RCA obtained from construction and demolition wastes for the replacement of part of coarse aggregates in asphalt mixture. As the suitability of aggregates for using in asphalt mixtures is determined based on the aggregate characteristics, including physical and mechanical properties of the aggregates, an experimental program is set up to evaluate the physical and mechanical properties of RCA. This laboratory investigation included the measurement of compressive strength and workability of RCA, particle shape, water absorption, flakiness index, crushing value, deleterious materials and weak particles, wet/dry strength variation, and particle density. In addition, the comparison of RCA properties with virgin aggregates has been included as part of this investigation and this paper presents the results of these investigations on RCA, basalt, and the mix of RCA/basalt.

Keywords: Asphalt, basalt, pavement, recycled aggregate.

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Authors: A. Nour Eddine, D. Chalet, L. Aixala, P. Chessé, X. Faure, N. Hatat

Abstract:

Thermal power technology such as the TEG (Thermo-Electric Generator) arouses significant attention worldwide for waste heat recovery. Despite the potential benefits of marine application due to the permanent heat sink from sea water, no significant studies on this application were to be found. In this study, a test rig has been designed and built to test the performance of the TEG on engine operating points. The TEG device is built from commercially available materials for the sake of possible economical application. Two types of commercial TEM (thermo electric module) have been studied separately on the test rig. The engine data were extracted from a commercial Diesel engine since it shares the same principle in terms of engine efficiency and exhaust with the marine Diesel engine. An open circuit water cooling system is used to replicate the sea water cold source. The characterization tests showed that the silicium-germanium alloys TEM proved a remarkable reliability on all engine operating points, with no significant deterioration of performance even under sever variation in the hot source conditions. The performance of the bismuth-telluride alloys was 100% better than the first type of TEM but it showed a deterioration in power generation when the air temperature exceeds 300 °C. The temperature distribution on the heat exchange surfaces revealed no useful combination of these two types of TEM with this tube length, since the surface temperature difference between both ends is no more than 10 °C. This study exposed the perspective of use of TEG technology for marine engine exhaust heat recovery. Although the results suggested non-sufficient power generation from the low cost commercial TEM used, it provides valuable information about TEG device optimization, including the design of heat exchanger and the types of thermo-electric materials.

Keywords: Internal combustion engine application, Seebeck, thermo-electricity, waste heat recovery.

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Authors: Waqqas-ur-Rehman Butt, Martin Servin, Marion Pause

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In recent years, object detection has gained much attention and very encouraging research area in the field of computer vision. The robust object boundaries detection in an image is demanded in numerous applications of human computer interaction and automated surveillance systems. Many methods and approaches have been developed for automatic object detection in various fields, such as automotive, quality control management and environmental services. Inappropriately, to the best of our knowledge, object detection under illumination with shadow consideration has not been well solved yet. Furthermore, this problem is also one of the major hurdles to keeping an object detection method from the practical applications. This paper presents an approach to automatic object detection in images under non-standardized environmental conditions. A key challenge is how to detect the object, particularly under uneven illumination conditions. Image capturing conditions the algorithms need to consider a variety of possible environmental factors as the colour information, lightening and shadows varies from image to image. Existing methods mostly failed to produce the appropriate result due to variation in colour information, lightening effects, threshold specifications, histogram dependencies and colour ranges. To overcome these limitations we propose an object detection algorithm, with pre-processing methods, to reduce the interference caused by shadow and illumination effects without fixed parameters. We use the Y CrCb colour model without any specific colour ranges and predefined threshold values. The segmented object regions are further classified using morphological operations (Erosion and Dilation) and contours. Proposed approach applied on a large image data set acquired under various environmental conditions for wood stack detection. Experiments show the promising result of the proposed approach in comparison with existing methods.

Keywords: Image processing, Illumination equalization, Shadow filtering, Object detection, Colour models, Image segmentation.

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Authors: Mukesh Doble, Sunil K Narayan

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Diffuse viral encephalitis may lack fever and other cardinal signs of infection and hence its distinction from other acute encephalopathic illnesses is challenging. Often, the EEG changes seen routinely are nonspecific and reflect diffuse encephalopathic changes only. The aim of this study was to use nonlinear dynamic mathematical techniques for analyzing the EEG data in order to look for any characteristic diagnostic patterns in diffuse forms of encephalitis.It was diagnosed on clinical, imaging and cerebrospinal fluid criteria in three young male patients. Metabolic and toxic encephalopathies were ruled out through appropriate investigations. Digital EEGs were done on the 3rd to 5th day of onset. The digital EEGs of 5 male and 5 female age and sex matched healthy volunteers served as controls.Two sample t-test indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the average values in amplitude between the two groups. However, the standard deviation (or variance) of the EEG signals at FP1-F7 and FP2-F8 are significantly higher for the patients than the normal subjects. The regularisation dimension is significantly less for the patients (average between 1.24-1.43) when compared to the normal persons (average between 1.41-1.63) for the EEG signals from all locations except for the Fz-Cz signal. Similarly the wavelet dimension is significantly less (P = 0.05*) for the patients (1.122) when compared to the normal person (1.458). EEGs are subdued in the case of the patients with presence of uniform patterns, manifested in the values of regularisation and wavelet dimensions, when compared to the normal person, indicating a decrease in chaotic nature.

Keywords: Chaos, Diffuse encephalitis, Electroencephalogram, Fractal dimension, Fourier spectrum.

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Authors: Maumita Bhattacharya

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Optimization is often a critical issue for most system design problems. Evolutionary Algorithms are population-based, stochastic search techniques, widely used as efficient global optimizers. However, finding optimal solution to complex high dimensional, multimodal problems often require highly computationally expensive function evaluations and hence are practically prohibitive. The Dynamic Approximate Fitness based Hybrid EA (DAFHEA) model presented in our earlier work [14] reduced computation time by controlled use of meta-models to partially replace the actual function evaluation by approximate function evaluation. However, the underlying assumption in DAFHEA is that the training samples for the meta-model are generated from a single uniform model. Situations like model formation involving variable input dimensions and noisy data certainly can not be covered by this assumption. In this paper we present an enhanced version of DAFHEA that incorporates a multiple-model based learning approach for the SVM approximator. DAFHEA-II (the enhanced version of the DAFHEA framework) also overcomes the high computational expense involved with additional clustering requirements of the original DAFHEA framework. The proposed framework has been tested on several benchmark functions and the empirical results illustrate the advantages of the proposed technique.

Keywords: Evolutionary algorithm, Fitness function, Optimization, Meta-model, Stochastic method.

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Authors: Zsolt Szilvágyi, Jakub Panuska, Orsolya Kegyes-Brassai, Ákos Wolf, Péter Tildy, Richard P. Ray

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Near-surface loose sediments and local ground conditions in general have a major influence on seismic response of structures. It is a difficult task to model ground behavior in seismic soil-structure-foundation interaction problems, fully account for them in seismic design of structures, or even properly consider them in seismic hazard assessment. In this study, we focused on applying seismic soil investigation methods, used for determining soil stiffness and damping properties, to response analysis used in seismic design. A site in Budapest, Hungary was investigated using Multichannel Analysis of Surface Waves, Seismic Cone Penetration Tests, Bender Elements, Resonant Column and Torsional Shear tests. Our aim was to compare the results of the different test methods and use the resulting soil properties for 1D ground response analysis. Often in practice, there are little-to no data available on dynamic soil properties and estimated parameters are used for design. Therefore, a comparison is made between results based on estimated parameters and those based on detailed investigations. Ground response results are also compared to Eurocode 8 design spectra.

Keywords: Bender element, ground response analysis, MASW, resonant column test, SCPT, torsional shear test.

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Authors: Ashly Joseph

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Cloud computing has become an essential component of enterprises and organizations globally in the current era of digital technology. The cloud has a multitude of advantages, including scalability, flexibility, and cost-effectiveness, rendering it an appealing choice for data storage and processing. The increasing storage of sensitive information in cloud environments has raised significant concerns over the security of such systems. The frequency of cyber threats and attacks specifically aimed at cloud infrastructure has been increasing, presenting substantial dangers to the data, reputation, and financial stability of enterprises. Conventional security methods can become inadequate when confronted with ever intricate and dynamic threats. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies possess the capacity to significantly transform cloud security through their ability to promptly identify and thwart assaults, adjust to emerging risks, and offer intelligent perspectives for proactive security actions. The objective of this research study is to investigate the utilization of AI technologies in augmenting the security measures within cloud computing systems. This paper aims to offer significant insights and recommendations for businesses seeking to protect their cloud-based assets by analyzing the present state of cloud security, the capabilities of AI, and the possible advantages and obstacles associated with using AI into cloud security policies.

Keywords: Machine Learning, Natural Learning Processing, Denial-of-Service attacks, Sentiment Analysis, Cloud computing.

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