Search results for: Project cost.

Authors: Othoman Elsayah, Naren Gupta, Binsheng Zhang

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The construction sector constitutes one of the most important sectors in the economy of any country. Contractor selection is a critical decision that is undertaken by client organizations and is central to the success of any construction project. Contractor selection (CS) is a process which involves investigating, screening and determining whether candidate contractors have the technical and financial capability to be accepted to formally tender for construction work. The process should be conducted prior to the award of contract, characterized by many factors such as: contactor’s skills, experience on similar projects, track- record in the industry, and financial stability. However, this paper evaluates the current state of knowledge in relation to contractor selection process and demonstrates the findings from the analysis of the data collected from the Delphi questionnaire survey. The survey was conducted with a group of 12 experts working in the Libyan construction industry (LCI). The paper starts by briefly explaining the general outline of the questionnaire including the survey participation rate, the different fields the experts came from, and the business titles of the participants. Then the paper describes the tests used to determine when the experts had reached consensus. The paper is based on research which aims to develop rank contractor selection criteria with specific application to make construction projects in the Libyan context. The findings of this study will be utilized to establish the scope of work that will be used as part of a PhD research.

Keywords: Contractor selection, Libyan construction industry, Decision experts and Delphi technique.

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Authors: Ritwik Dutta, Marilyn Wolf

Abstract:

This paper describes the tradeoffs and the design from scratch of a self-contained, easy-to-use health dashboard software system that provides customizable data tracking for patients in smart homes. The system is made up of different software modules and comprises a front-end and a back-end component. Built with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, the front-end allows adding users, logging into the system, selecting metrics, and specifying health goals. The backend consists of a NoSQL Mongo database, a Python script, and a SimpleHTTPServer written in Python. The database stores user profiles and health data in JSON format. The Python script makes use of the PyMongo driver library to query the database and displays formatted data as a daily snapshot of user health metrics against target goals. Any number of standard and custom metrics can be added to the system, and corresponding health data can be fed automatically, via sensor APIs or manually, as text or picture data files. A real-time METAR request API permits correlating weather data with patient health, and an advanced query system is implemented to allow trend analysis of selected health metrics over custom time intervals. Available on the GitHub repository system, the project is free to use for academic purposes of learning and experimenting, or practical purposes by building on it.

Keywords: Flask, Java, JavaScript, health monitoring, long term care, Mongo, Python, smart home, software engineering, webserver.

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Authors: Almas Tayebi, Tayeb Saki Nejad, Alireza Shoukofar

Abstract:

The trial in the city, located 170 kilometers from the Iranian city of Ahvaz was Omidiyeh. The main factor in this project includes 4 levels in control (without hormones), use of hormones in the seed, vegetative and flowering stage respectively. And sub-plots included 3 varieties of vetch in three levels, with local names, was the jewel in the study of light and Auxin in the vegetative and reproductive different times in different varieties of vetch was investigated. This test has been taken in the plots in a randomized complete block with four replications. In order to study the effects of the hormone Auxin in the growth stages (seed, vegetative and flowering) to control (no hormone Auxin) on three local varieties of vetch, the essence of light and plant height, number of pods per plant, seed number The pods, seeds per plant, grain weight, grain yield, plant dry weight and protein content were measured. Among the vetch varieties for plant height, number of pods per plant, a seed per plant, grain weight, grain yield, and plant dry weight and protein levels of 1 percent of plant and seed number per pod per plant at 5% level of There was no significant difference. Interactions for grain yield per plant, grain yield and protein levels of 1 percent and the number of seeds per pod and seed weight are significant differences in levels 5 and plant height and plant dry weight of the interaction were INFLUENCE There was no significant difference in them.

Keywords: Auxin hormones, various periods of growth, production components, vetch

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Authors: Chen-Fu Wang, Lin-Ya Kung

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For traditional painting materials, the artisan used to combine the pigments with different binders to create colors. As time goes by, the materials used for painting evolved from natural to chemical materials. The vast variety of ingredients used in chemical materials has complicated restoration work; it makes conservation work more difficult. Conservation work also becomes harder when the materials cannot be easily identified; therefore, it is essential that we take a more scientific approach to assist in conservation work. Paintings materials are high molecular weight polymer, and their analysis is very complicated as well other contamination such as smoke and dirt can also interfere with the analysis of the material. The current methods of composition analysis of painting materials include Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), mass spectrometer, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction spectroscopy (XRD), each of which has its own limitation. In this study, FT-IR was used to analyze the components of the paint coating. We have taken the most commonly seen materials as samples and deteriorated it. The aged information was then used for the database to exam the temple painting materials. By observing the FT-IR changes over time, we can tell all of the painting materials will be deteriorated by the UV light, but only the speed of its degradation had some difference. From the deterioration experiment, the acrylic resin resists better than the others. After collecting the painting materials aging information on FT-IR, we performed some test on the paintings on the temples. It was found that most of the artisan used tune-oil for painting materials, and some other paintings used chemical materials. This method is now working successfully on identifying the painting materials. However, the method is destructive and high cost. In the future, we will work on the how to know the painting materials more efficiently.

Keywords: Temple painting, painting material, conservation, FT-IR.

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Authors: Valentina Di Maria, Anton Ianakiev

Abstract:

The use OF adhesive anchors for wooden constructions is an efficient technology to connect and design timber members in new timber structures and to rehabilitate the damaged structural members of historical buildings. Due to the lack of standard regulation in this specific area of structural design, designers’ choices are still supported by test analysis that enables knowledge, and the prediction, of the structural behaviour of glued in rod joints. The paper outlines an experimental research activity aimed at identifying the tensile resistance capacity of several new adhesive joint prototypes made of epoxy resin, steel bar and timber, Oak and Douglas Fir species. The development of new adhesive connectors has been carried out by using epoxy to glue stainless steel bars into pre-drilled holes, characterised by smooth and rough internal surfaces, in timber samples. The realization of a threaded contact surface using a specific drill bit has led to an improved bond between wood and epoxy. The applied changes have also reduced the cost of the joints’ production. The paper presents the results of this parametric analysis and a Finite Element analysis that enables identification and study of the internal stress distribution in the proposed adhesive anchors.

Keywords: Glued in rod joints, adhesive anchors, timber, epoxy, rough contact surface, threaded hole shape.

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Authors: Ibrahim A. Al-Sulaihi, Khalid S. Al-Gahtani, Abdullah M. Al-Sugair, Aref A. Abadel

Abstract:

Achieving environmental sustainability is one of the important issues considered in many countries’ vision. Green/Sustainable building is widely used terminology for describing a friendly environmental construction. Applying sustainable practices has a significant importance in various fields, including construction field that consumes an enormous amount of resource and causes a considerable amount of waste. The need for sustainability is increased in the regions that suffering from the limitation of natural resource and extreme weather conditions such as Saudi Arabia. Since buildings designs are getting sophisticated, the need for tools, which support decision-making for sustainability issues, is increasing, especially in the design and preconstruction stages. In this context, Building Information Modeling (BIM) can aid in performing complex building performance analyses to ensure an optimized sustainable building design. Accordingly, this paper introduces a roadmap towards developing a systematic approach for presenting the sustainability of buildings using BIM. The approach includes set of main processes including; identifying the sustainability parameters that can be used for sustainability assessment in Saudi Arabia, developing sustainability assessment method that fits the special circumstances in the Kingdom, identifying the sustainability requirements and BIM functions that can be used for satisfying these requirements, and integrating these requirements with identified functions. As a result, the sustainability-BIM approach can be developed which helps designers in assessing the sustainability and exploring different design alternatives at the early stage of the construction project.

Keywords: Green buildings, sustainability, BIM, rating systems, environment, Saudi Arabia.

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Authors: Gautam Sarkar, Anjan Rakshit, Amitava Chatterjee, Kesab Bhattacharya

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The present paper describes the development of a low cost, highly accurate low capacitance measurement system that can be used over a range of 0 – 400 pF with a resolution of 1 pF. The range of capacitance may be easily altered by a simple resistance or capacitance variation of the measurement circuit. This capacitance measurement system uses quad two-input NAND Schmitt trigger circuit CD4093B with hysteresis for the measurement and this system is integrated with PIC 18F2550 microcontroller for data acquisition purpose. The microcontroller interacts with software developed in the PC end through USB architecture and an attractive graphical user interface (GUI) based system is developed in the PC end to provide the user with real time, online display of capacitance under measurement. The system uses a differential mode of capacitance measurement, with reference to a trimmer capacitance, that effectively compensates lead capacitances, a notorious error encountered in usual low capacitance measurements. The hysteresis provided in the Schmitt-trigger circuits enable reliable operation of the system by greatly minimizing the possibility of false triggering because of stray interferences, usually regarded as another source of significant error. The real life testing of the proposed system showed that our measurements could produce highly accurate capacitance measurements, when compared to cutting edge, high end digital capacitance meters.

Keywords: Capacitance measurement, NAND Schmitt trigger, microcontroller, GUI, lead compensation, hysteresis.

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Authors: R.Balamurugan, S.Subramanian

Abstract:

This paper presents the solution of power economic dispatch (PED) problem of generating units with valve point effects and multiple fuel options using Self-Adaptive Differential Evolution (SDE) algorithm. The global optimal solution by mathematical approaches becomes difficult for the realistic PED problem in power systems. The Differential Evolution (DE) algorithm is found to be a powerful evolutionary algorithm for global optimization in many real problems. In this paper the key parameters of control in DE algorithm such as the crossover constant CR and weight applied to random differential F are self-adapted. The PED problem formulation takes into consideration of nonsmooth fuel cost function due to valve point effects and multi fuel options of generator. The proposed approach has been examined and tested with the numerical results of PED problems with thirteen-generation units including valve-point effects, ten-generation units with multiple fuel options neglecting valve-point effects and ten-generation units including valve-point effects and multiple fuel options. The test results are promising and show the effectiveness of proposed approach for solving PED problems.

Keywords: Multiple fuels, power economic dispatch, selfadaptivedifferential evolution and valve-point effects.

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Authors: Rami N. Khushaba, Adel Al-Jumaily

Abstract:

The myoelectric signal (MES) is one of the Biosignals utilized in helping humans to control equipments. Recent approaches in MES classification to control prosthetic devices employing pattern recognition techniques revealed two problems, first, the classification performance of the system starts degrading when the number of motion classes to be classified increases, second, in order to solve the first problem, additional complicated methods were utilized which increase the computational cost of a multifunction myoelectric control system. In an effort to solve these problems and to achieve a feasible design for real time implementation with high overall accuracy, this paper presents a new method for feature extraction in MES recognition systems. The method works by extracting features using Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT) applied on the MES from multiple channels, and then employs Fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm to generate a measure that judges on features suitability for classification. Finally, Principle Component Analysis (PCA) is utilized to reduce the size of the data before computing the classification accuracy with a multilayer perceptron neural network. The proposed system produces powerful classification results (99% accuracy) by using only a small portion of the original feature set.

Keywords: Biomedical Signal Processing, Data mining andInformation Extraction, Machine Learning, Rehabilitation.

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Authors: M. Ezkurra, J. A. Esnaola, M. Martinez-Agirre, U. Etxeberria, U. Lertxundi, L. Colomo, M. Begiristain, I. Zurutuza

Abstract:

Butterfly valves are widely used industrial piping components as on-off and flow controlling devices. The main challenge in the design process of this type of valves is the correct dimensioning to ensure proper mechanical performance as well as to minimise flow losses that affect the efficiency of the system. Butterfly valves are typically dimensioned in a closed position based on mechanical approaches considering uniform hydrostatic pressure, whereas the flow losses are analysed by means of CFD simulations. The main limitation of these approaches is that they do not consider either the influence of the dynamics of the manoeuvring stage or coupled phenomena. Recent works have included the influence of the flow on the mechanical behaviour for different opening angles by means of one-way FSI approach. However, these works consider steady-state flow for the selected angles, not capturing the effect of the transient flow evolution during the manoeuvring stage. Two-way FSI modelling approach could allow overcoming such limitations providing more accurate results. Nevertheless, the use of this technique is limited due to the increase in the computational cost. In the present work, the applicability of FSI one-way and two-way approaches is evaluated for the analysis of butterfly valves, showing that not considering fluid-structure coupling involves not capturing the most critical situation for the valve disc.

Keywords: Butterfly valves, fluid-structure interaction, one-way approach, two-way approach.

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Authors: Jureerat Buakaew

Abstract:

The purpose of this research was to investigate Thai Muslims’ way of life through the way their clothes. The data of this qualitative research were collected from related documents and research reports, ancient cloths and clothing, and in-depth interviews with clothes owners and weavers.

The research found that in the 18^th century Thai Muslims in the three southern border provinces used many types of clothing in their life. At home women wore plain clothes. They used checked cloths to cover the upper part of their body from the breasts down to the waist. When going out, they used Lima cloth and So Kae with a piece of Pla-nging cloth as a head scarf. For men, they wore a checked sarong as a lower garment, and wore no upper garment. However, when going out, they wore Puyo Potong. In addition, Thai Muslims used cloths in various religious rites, namely, the rite of placing a baby in a cradle, the Masoyawi rite, the Nikah rite, and the burial rite. These types of cloths were related to the way of life of Thai Muslims from birth to death. They reflected the race, gender, age, social status, values, and beliefs in traditions that have been inherited.

Practical Implication: Woven in these cloths are the lost local wisdom, and therefore, aesthetics on the cloths are like mirrors reflecting the background of people in this region that is fading away. These cloths are pages of a local history book that is of importance and value worth for preservation and publicity so that they are treasured. Government organizations can expand and materialize the knowledge received from the study in accordance with government policy in supporting the One Tambon, One Product project.

Keywords: Way of life, rite of placing a baby in a cradle, Masoyawi rite, Thai Muslims.

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Authors: Carlo Cernicchiaro, Pedro D. Gaspar, Martim L. Aguiar

Abstract:

The agricultural sector is becoming more critical than ever in view of the expected overpopulation of the Earth. The introduction of robotic solutions in this field is an increasingly researched topic to make the most of the Earth's resources, thus going to avoid the problems of wear and tear of the human body due to the harsh agricultural work, and open the possibility of a constant careful processing 24 hours a day. This project is realized for a terrestrial autonomous robot aimed to navigate in an orchard collecting fallen peaches below the trees. When it receives the signal indicating the low battery, it has to return to the docking station where it will replace its battery and then return to the last work point and resume its routine. Considering a preset path in orchards with tree rows with variable length by which the robot goes iteratively using the algorithm D*. In case of low battery, the D* algorithm is still used to determine the fastest return path to the docking station as well as to come back from the docking station to the last work point. MATLAB simulations were performed to analyze the flexibility and adaptability of the developed algorithm. The simulation results show an enormous potential for adaptability, particularly in view of the irregularity of orchard field, since it is not flat and undergoes modifications over time from fallen branch as well as from other obstacles and constraints. The D* algorithm determines the best route in spite of the irregularity of the terrain. Moreover, in this work, it will be shown a possible solution to improve the initial points tracking and reduce time between movements.

Keywords: Path planning, fastest return path, agricultural terrestrial robot, autonomous, docking station.

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Authors: Ahmed A. D. Sarhan, Hong Wan Ping, M. Sayuti

Abstract:

In this current era of competitive machinery productions, the industries are designed to place more emphasis on the product quality and reduction of cost whilst abiding by the pollution-preventing policy. In attempting to delve into the concerns, the industries are aware that the effectiveness of existing lubrication systems must be improved to achieve power-efficient and pollution-preventing machining processes. As such, this research is targeted to study on a plausible solution to the issue in grinding titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) by using nanolubrication, as an alternative to flood grinding. The aim of this research is to evaluate the optimum condition of grinding force and surface roughness using MQL lubricating system to deliver nano-oil at different level of weight concentration of Silicon Dioxide (SiO₂) mixed normal mineral oil. Taguchi Design of Experiment (DoE) method is carried out using a standard Taguchi orthogonal array of L16(43) to find the optimized combination of weight concentration mixture of SiO₂, nozzle orientation and pressure of MQL. Surface roughness and grinding force are also analyzed using signal-to-noise(S/N) ratio to determine the best level of each factor that are tested. Consequently, the best combination of parameters is tested for a period of time and the results are compared with conventional grinding method of dry and flood condition. The results show a positive performance of MQL nanolubrication.  

Keywords: Grinding, MQL, precision grinding, Taguchi optimization, titanium alloy.

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Authors: Ml. López-Moreno, Le. Lugo Avilés, Fr. Román, J. Lugo Rosas, Ja. Hernández-Viezcas, Jr. Peralta-Videa, Jl. Gardea-Torresdey

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Degradation of agricultural soils has increased rapidly during the last 20 years due to the indiscriminate use of pesticides and other anthropogenic activities. Currently, there is an urgent need of soil restoration to increase agricultural production. Utilization of sewage sludge or municipal solid waste is an important way to recycle nutrient elements and improve soil quality. With these amendments, nutrient availability in the aqueous phase might be increased and production of healthier crops can be accomplished. This research project aimed to achieve sustainable management of tropical agricultural soils, specifically in Puerto Rico, through the amendment of water treatment plant sludge’s. This practice avoids landfill disposal of sewage sludge and at the same time results costeffective practice for recycling solid waste residues. Coriander sativum was cultivated in a compost-soil-sludge mixture at different proportions. Results showed that Coriander grown in a mixture of 25% compost+50% Voladora soi+25% sludge had the best growth and development. High chlorophyll content (33.01 ± 0.8) was observed in Coriander plants cultivated in 25% compost+62.5% Coloso soil+ 12.5% sludge compared to plants grown with no sludge (32.59 ± 0.7). ICP-OES analysis showed variations in mineral element contents (macro and micronutrients) in coriander plant grown I soil amended with sludge and compost.

Keywords: Compost, Coriandrum sativum, nutrients, waste sludge.

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Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Vanja I. Akova, Stefan V. Krustev, Krasimir I. Ivanov

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A field study was conducted to evaluate the efficacy of safflower plant for phytoremediation of contaminated soils. The experiment was performed on an agricultural fields contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Field experiments with randomized complete block design with five treatments (control, compost amendments added at 20 and 40 t/daa, and vermicompost amendments added at 20 and 40 t/daa) were carried out. The quality of safflower seeds and oil (heavy metals and fatty acid composition) were determined. Tested organic amendments significantly influenced the chemical composition of safflower seeds and oil. The compost and vermicompost treatments significantly reduced heavy metals concentration in safflower seeds and oils, but the effect differed among them. Addition of vermicompost and compost leads to an increase in the content of palmitic acid and linoleic acid, and a decrease in the stearic and oleic acids compared with the control. A significant increase in the quantity of saturated acids was observed in the variants with 20 t/daa of compost and 20 t/daa of vermicompost (9.1 and 8.9% relative to the control). Safflower is a plant which is tolerant to heavy metals and can be successfully used in the phytoremediation of heavy metal contaminated soils. The processing of seeds to oil and using the obtained oil for nutritional purposes will greatly reduce the cost of phytoremediation.

Keywords: Heavy metals, organic amendments, phytoremediation, safflower.

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Authors: A. Elyousfi, A. Tamtaoui, E. Bouyakhf

Abstract:

The H.264/AVC video coding standard contains a number of advanced features. Ones of the new features introduced in this standard is the multiple intramode prediction. Its function exploits directional spatial correlation with adjacent block for intra prediction. With this new features, intra coding of H.264/AVC offers a considerably higher improvement in coding efficiency compared to other compression standard, but computational complexity is increased significantly when brut force rate distortion optimization (RDO) algorithm is used. In this paper, we propose a new fast intra prediction mode decision method for the complexity reduction of H.264 video coding. for luma intra prediction, the proposed method consists of two step: in the first step, we make the RDO for four mode of intra 4x4 block, based the distribution of RDO cost of those modes and the idea that the fort correlation with adjacent mode, we select the best mode of intra 4x4 block. In the second step, we based the fact that the dominating direction of a smaller block is similar to that of bigger block, the candidate modes of 8x8 blocks and 16x16 macroblocks are determined. So, in case of chroma intra prediction, the variance of the chroma pixel values is much smaller than that of luma ones, since our proposed uses only the mode DC. Experimental results show that the new fast intra mode decision algorithm increases the speed of intra coding significantly with negligible loss of PSNR.

Keywords: Intra prediction, H264/AVC, video coding, encodercomplexity.

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Authors: Atif Mehmood, Said M. Easa

Abstract:

This paper develops driver reaction-time models for car-following analysis based on human factors. The reaction time was classified as brake-reaction time (BRT) and acceleration/deceleration reaction time (ADRT). The BRT occurs when the lead vehicle is barking and its brake light is on, while the ADRT occurs when the driver reacts to adjust his/her speed using the gas pedal only. The study evaluates the effect of driver characteristics and traffic kinematic conditions on the driver reaction time in a car-following environment. The kinematic conditions introduced urgency and expectancy based on the braking behaviour of the lead vehicle at different speeds and spacing. The kinematic conditions were used for evaluating the BRT and are classified as normal, surprised, and stationary. Data were collected on a driving simulator integrated into a real car and included the BRT and ADRT (as dependent variables) and driver-s age, gender, driving experience, driving intensity (driving hours per week), vehicle speed, and spacing (as independent variables). The results showed that there was a significant difference in the BRT at normal, surprised, and stationary scenarios and supported the hypothesis that both urgency and expectancy had significant effects on BRT. Driver-s age, gender, speed, and spacing were found to be significant variables for the BRT in all scenarios. The results also showed that driver-s age and gender were significant variables for the ADRT. The research presented in this paper is part of a larger project to develop a driversensitive in-vehicle rear-end collision warning system.

Keywords: Brake reaction time, car-following, human factors, modeling.

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Authors: Kambiz Tahvildari, Shakila ila Motamedi

Abstract:

Presently and in line with the United Nations (EPA), human thinking system has shifted towards clean fuels so as to maintain a cleaner environment and to save our planet earth. One of the most successful studies in order to achieve new energies includes the use of animal wastes and their organic residues, and the result of these researches has been represented in the form of very simple and cheap methods called biogas technology. Biogas technology has developed a lot in the recent decades; its reason is the high cost of fossil fuels and the greater attention of countries to the environmental pollutions due to the consumption of this kind of fuels. IRAN is ready for the optimized application of renewable energies, having much enriched resources of this kind of energies; so a special place could be considered for it when making programs. The purpose of biogas technology is the recovery of energy and finally the protection of the environment, which is much appropriate for the third world farmers with respect to their technical abilities and economic potentials. Studies show that the production and consumption of biogas is appropriate and economic in IRAN, because of the high amount of waste in the agriculture sector, the significant amount of animal and human excrement production, the great volume of garbage produced and the most important the specific social, climatic and agricultural conditions in IRAN, in order to proceed towards the reduction of pollution due to the use of fossil fuels.

Keywords: Agriculture, Biogas, Energy, Environment.

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Authors: Ashly Joseph

Abstract:

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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Authors: Karunakar A K, Manohara Pai M M

Abstract:

In 3D-wavelet video coding framework temporal filtering is done along the trajectory of motion using Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering (MCTF). Hence computationally efficient motion estimation technique is the need of MCTF. In this paper a predictive technique is proposed in order to reduce the computational complexity of the MCTF framework, by exploiting the high correlation among the frames in a Group Of Picture (GOP). The proposed technique applies coarse and fine searches of any fast block based motion estimation, only to the first pair of frames in a GOP. The generated motion vectors are supplied to the next consecutive frames, even to subsequent temporal levels and only fine search is carried out around those predicted motion vectors. Hence coarse search is skipped for all the motion estimation in a GOP except for the first pair of frames. The technique has been tested for different fast block based motion estimation algorithms over different standard test sequences using MC-EZBC, a state-of-the-art scalable video coder. The simulation result reveals substantial reduction (i.e. 20.75% to 38.24%) in the number of search points during motion estimation, without compromising the quality of the reconstructed video compared to non-predictive techniques. Since the motion vectors of all the pair of frames in a GOP except the first pair will have value ±1 around the motion vectors of the previous pair of frames, the number of bits required for motion vectors is also reduced by 50%.

Keywords: Motion Compensated Temporal Filtering, predictivemotion estimation, lifted wavelet transform, motion vector

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Authors: N. S. Usha, E. A. Mary Anita

Abstract:

Recent innovations in the field of technology led to the use of   wireless sensor networks in various applications, which consists of a number of small, very tiny, low-cost, non-tamper proof and resource constrained sensor nodes. These nodes are often distributed and deployed in an unattended environment, so as to collaborate with each other to share data or information. Amidst various applications, wireless sensor network finds a major role in monitoring battle field in military applications. As these non-tamperproof nodes are deployed in an unattended location, they are vulnerable to many security attacks. Amongst many security attacks, the node replication attack seems to be more threatening to the network users. Node Replication attack is caused by an attacker, who catches one true node, duplicates the first certification and cryptographic materials, makes at least one or more copies of the caught node and spots them at certain key positions in the system to screen or disturb the network operations. Preventing the occurrence of such node replication attacks in network is a challenging task. In this survey article, we provide the classification of detection schemes and also explore the various schemes proposed in each category. Also, we compare the various detection schemes against certain evaluation parameters and also its limitations. Finally, we provide some suggestions for carrying out future research work against such attacks.

Keywords: Clone node, data security, detection schemes, node replication attack, wireless sensor networks.

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Authors: M. Aboudalle, Le Btth, M. Sari, F. Meftah

Abstract:

In parallel with the appearance of new materials, brick masonry had and still has an essential part of the construction market today, with new technical challenges in designing bricks to meet additional requirements. Being used in structural applications, predicting the performance of clay brick masonry allows a significant cost reduction, in terms of practical experimentation. The behavior of masonry walls depends on the behavior of their elementary components, such as bricks, joints, and coatings. Therefore, it is necessary to consider it at different scales (from the scale of the intrinsic material to the real scale of the wall) and then to develop appropriate models, using numerical simulations. The work presented in this paper focuses on the mechanical characterization of the terracotta material at ambient temperature. As a result, the static Young’s modulus obtained from the flexural test shows different values in comparison with the compression test, as well as with the dynamic Young’s modulus obtained from the Impulse excitation of vibration test. Moreover, the Young's modulus varies according to the direction in which samples are extracted, where the values in the extrusion direction diverge from the ones in the orthogonal directions. Based on these results, hollow bricks can be considered as transversely isotropic bimodulus material.

Keywords: Bimodulus material, hollow clay brick, impulse excitation of vibration, transversely isotropic material, Young’s modulus.

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Authors: M. Jusoh, R. Mohd Yunus, M. A. Abu Hassan

Abstract:

Freeze concentration freezes or crystallises the water molecules out as ice crystals and leaves behind a highly concentrated solution. In conventional suspension freeze concentration where ice crystals formed as a suspension in the mother liquor, separation of ice is difficult. The size of the ice crystals is still very limited which will require usage of scraped surface heat exchangers, which is very expensive and accounted for approximately 30% of the capital cost. This research is conducted using a newer method of freeze concentration, which is progressive freeze concentration. Ice crystals were formed as a layer on the designed heat exchanger surface. In this particular research, a helical structured copper crystallisation chamber was designed and fabricated. The effect of two operating conditions on the performance of the newly designed crystallisation chamber was investigated, which are circulation flowrate and coolant temperature. The performance of the design was evaluated by the effective partition constant, K, calculated from the volume and concentration of the solid and liquid phase. The system was also monitored by a data acquisition tool in order to see the temperature profile throughout the process. On completing the experimental work, it was found that higher flowrate resulted in a lower K, which translated into high efficiency. The efficiency is the highest at 1000 ml/min. It was also found that the process gives the highest efficiency at a coolant temperature of -6 °C.

Keywords: Freeze concentration, progressive freeze concentration, freeze wastewater treatment, ice crystals.

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Authors: Fahad Alhussein, Huaping Liu

Abstract:

This paper compares the multipath mitigation performance of code correlation reference waveform receivers with variable and fixed window width, for binary offset carrier and multiplexed binary offset carrier signals typically used in global navigation satellite systems. In the variable window width method, such width is iteratively reduced until the distortion on the discriminator with multipath is eliminated. This distortion is measured as the Euclidean distance between the actual discriminator (obtained with the incoming signal), and the local discriminator (generated with a local copy of the signal). The variable window width have shown better performance compared to the fixed window width. In particular, the former yields zero error for all delays for the BOC and MBOC signals considered, while the latter gives rather large nonzero errors for small delays in all cases. Due to its computational simplicity, the variable window width method is perfectly suitable for implementation in low-cost receivers.

Keywords: Correlation reference waveform receivers, binary offset carrier, multiplexed binary offset carrier, global navigation satellite systems.

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Authors: Salma Siddika, Fayeka Mansura, Mahbub Hasan

Abstract:

The term hybrid composite refers to the composite containing more than one type of fiber material as reinforcing fillers. It has become attractive structural material due to the ability of providing better combination of properties with respect to single fiber containing composite. The eco-friendly nature as well as processing advantage, light weight and low cost have enhanced the attraction and interest of natural fiber reinforced composite. The objective of present research is to study the mechanical properties of jute-coir fiber reinforced hybrid polypropylene (PP) composite according to filler loading variation. In the present work composites were manufactured by using hot press machine at four levels of fiber loading (5, 10, 15 and 20 wt %). Jute and coir fibers were utilized at a ratio of (1:1) during composite manufacturing. Tensile, flexural, impact and hardness tests were conducted for mechanical characterization. Tensile test of composite showed a decreasing trend of tensile strength and increasing trend of the Young-s modulus with increasing fiber content. During flexural, impact and hardness tests, the flexural strength, flexural modulus, impact strength and hardness were found to be increased with increasing fiber loading. Based on the fiber loading used in this study, 20% fiber reinforced composite resulted the best set of mechanical properties.

Keywords: Mechanical Properties; Coir, Jute, Polypropylene, Hybrid Composite.

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Authors: Saeedeh Bakhtiari, Johannes Depessemier, Stijn Hertelé, Wim De Waele

Abstract:

High cycle fatigue comprising up to 10⁷ load cycles has been the subject of many studies, and the behavior of many materials was recorded adequately in this regime. However, many applications involve larger numbers of load cycles during the lifetime of machine components. In this ultra-high cycle regime, other failure mechanisms play, and the concept of a fatigue endurance limit (assumed for materials such as steel) is often an oversimplification of reality. When machine component design demands a high geometrical complexity, cast iron grades become interesting candidate materials. Grey cast iron is known for its low cost, high compressive strength, and good damping properties. However, the ultra-high cycle fatigue behavior of cast iron is poorly documented. The current work focuses on the ultra-high cycle fatigue behavior of EN-GJL-250 (GG25) grey cast iron by developing an ultrasonic (20 kHz) fatigue testing system. Moreover, the testing machine is instrumented to measure the temperature and the displacement of  the specimen, and to control the temperature. The high resonance frequency allowed to assess the  behavior of the cast iron of interest within a matter of days for ultra-high numbers of cycles, and repeat the tests to quantify the natural scatter in fatigue resistance.

Keywords: GG25, cast iron, ultra-high cycle fatigue, ultrasonic test.

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Authors: Bhavneet Sidhu, Hardeep Singh, Amit Chhabra

Abstract:

The world of wireless telecommunications is rapidly evolving. Technologies under research and development promise to deliver more services to more users in less time. This paper presents the emerging technologies helping wireless systems grow from where we are today into our visions of the future. This paper will cover the applications and characteristics of emerging wireless technologies: Wireless Local Area Networks (WiFi-802.11n), Wireless Personal Area Networks (ZigBee) and Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WiMAX). The purpose of this paper is to explain the impending 802.11n standard and how it will enable WLANs to support emerging media-rich applications. The paper will also detail how 802.11n compares with existing WLAN standards and offer strategies for users considering higher-bandwidth alternatives. The emerging IEEE 802.15.4 (ZigBee) standard aims to provide low data rate wireless communications with high-precision ranging and localization, by employing UWB technologies for a low-power and low cost solution. WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) is a standard for wireless data transmission covering a range similar to cellular phone towers. With high performance in both distance and throughput, WiMAX technology could be a boon to current Internet providers seeking to become the leader of next generation wireless Internet access. This paper also explores how these emerging technologies differ from one another.

Keywords: MIMO technology, WiFi, WiMAX, ZigBee.

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Authors: W. E. Igwegbe, B. C. Okoro, J. C. Osuagwu

Abstract:

The study assessed the effectiveness of Pawpaw (Carica papaya) wood in reducing the concentrations of heavy metals in wastewater acting as a bio-sorbent. The following heavy metals were considered; Zinc, Cadmium, Lead, Copper, Iron, Selenium, Nickel and Manganese. The physiochemical properties of Carica papaya stem were studied. The experimental sample was sourced from the trunk of a felled matured pawpaw tree. Wastewater for experimental use was prepared by dissolving soil samples collected from a dump site at Owerri, Imo state of Nigeria in water. The concentration of each metal remaining in solution as residual metal after bio-sorption was determined using Atomic absorption Spectrometer. The effects of pH and initial heavy metal concentration were studied in a batch reactor. The results of Spectrometer test showed that there were different functional groups detected in the Carica papaya stem biomass. There was increase in metal removal as the pH increased for all the metals considered except for Nickel and Manganese. Optimum bio-sorption occurred at pH 5.9 with 5g/100ml solution of bio-sorbent. The results of the study showed that the treated wastewater is fit for irrigation purpose based on Canada wastewater quality guideline for the protection of Agricultural standard. This approach thus provides a cost effective and environmentally friendly option for treating wastewater.

Keywords: Biomass, bio-sorption, Carica papaya, heavy metal, wastewater.

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Authors: A. Sharma, R. Tewari, S. K. Soni

Abstract:

Biofuels production has come forth as a future technology to combat the problem of depleting fossil fuels. Bio-based ethanol production from enzymatic lignocellulosic biomass degradation serves an efficient method and catching the eye of scientific community. High cost of the enzyme is the major obstacle in preventing the commercialization of this process. Thus main objective of the present study was to optimize composition of medium components for enhancing cellulase production by newly isolated strain of Bacillus tequilensis. Nineteen factors were taken into account using statistical Plackett-Burman Design. The significant variables influencing the cellulose production were further employed in statistical Response Surface Methodology using Central Composite Design for maximizing cellulase production. The optimum medium composition for cellulase production was: peptone (4.94 g/L), ammonium chloride (4.99 g/L), yeast extract (2.00 g/L), Tween-20 (0.53 g/L), calcium chloride (0.20 g/L) and cobalt chloride (0.60 g/L) with pH 7, agitation speed 150 rpm and 72 h incubation at 37oC. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) revealed high coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.99. Maximum cellulase productivity of 11.5 IU/ml was observed against the model predicted value of 13 IU/ml. This was found to be optimally active at 60oC and pH 5.5.

Keywords: Bacillus tequilensis, CMCase, Submerged Fermentation, Optimization, Plackett-Burman Design, Response Surface Methodology.

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Authors: Dharmendra Chourishi “Maitraya”, Sridevi Seshadri

Abstract:

Bluetooth is a personal wireless communication technology and is being applied in many scenarios. It is an emerging standard for short range, low cost, low power wireless access technology. Current existing MAC (Medium Access Control) scheduling schemes only provide best-effort service for all masterslave connections. It is very challenging to provide QoS (Quality of Service) support for different connections due to the feature of Master Driven TDD (Time Division Duplex). However, there is no solution available to support both delay and bandwidth guarantees required by real time applications. This paper addresses the issue of how to enhance QoS support in a Bluetooth piconet. The Bluetooth specification proposes a Round Robin scheduler as possible solution for scheduling the transmissions in a Bluetooth Piconet. We propose an algorithm which will reduce the bandwidth waste and enhance the efficiency of network. We define token counters to estimate traffic of real-time slaves. To increase bandwidth utilization, a back-off mechanism is then presented for best-effort slaves to decrease the frequency of polling idle slaves. Simulation results demonstrate that our scheme achieves better performance over the Round Robin scheduling.

Keywords: Piconet, Medium Access Control, Polling algorithm, Scheduling, QoS, Time Division Duplex (TDD).

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