Search results for: evaluation tool

Authors: Pradeep Kumar, Abdul Wahid

Abstract:

Accurate software reliability prediction not only enables developers to improve the quality of software but also provides useful information to help them for planning valuable resources. This paper examines the performance of three well-known data mining techniques (CART, TreeNet and Random Forest) for predicting software reliability. We evaluate and compare the performance of proposed models with Cascade Correlation Neural Network (CCNN) using sixteen empirical databases from the Data and Analysis Center for Software. The goal of our study is to help project managers to concentrate their testing efforts to minimize the software failures in order to improve the reliability of the software systems. Two performance measures, Normalized Root Mean Squared Error (NRMSE) and Mean Absolute Errors (MAE), illustrate that CART model is accurate than the models predicted using Random Forest, TreeNet and CCNN in all datasets used in our study. Finally, we conclude that such methods can help in reliability prediction using real-life failure datasets.

Keywords: Classification, Cascade Correlation Neural Network, Random Forest, Software reliability, TreeNet.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1834

Authors: Emad Amar, Tawfik Khattab, Fatma Zada

Abstract:

Predicting earthquakes is an important issue in the study of geography. Accurate prediction of earthquakes can help people to take effective measures to minimize the loss of personal and economic damage, such as large casualties, destruction of buildings and broken of traffic, occurred within a few seconds. United States Geological Survey (USGS) science organization provides reliable scientific information about Earthquake Existed throughout history & the Preliminary database from the National Center Earthquake Information (NEIC) show some useful factors to predict an earthquake in a seismic area like Aleutian Arc in the U.S. state of Alaska. The main advantage of this prediction method that it does not require any assumption, it makes prediction according to the future evolution of the object's time series. The article compares between simulation data result from trained BP and RBF neural network versus actual output result from the system calculations. Therefore, this article focuses on analysis of data relating to real earthquakes. Evaluation results show better accuracy and higher speed by using radial basis functions (RBF) neural network.

Keywords: BP neural network, Prediction, RBF neural network.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3213

Authors: Sukrit Ghorai

Abstract:

Proof of controlling crack width is a basic condition for securing suitable performance in serviceability limit state. The cracking in concrete can occur at any time from the casting of time to the years after the concrete has been set in place. Most codes struggle with offering procedure for crack width calculation. There is lack in availability of design charts for designers to compute crack width with ease. The focus of the study is to utilize design charts and parametric equations in calculating crack width with minimum error. The paper contains a simplified procedure to calculate crack width for reinforced concrete (RC) sections subjected to bending with axial tensile force following the guidelines of Euro code [DS EN-1992-1-1 & DS EN-1992-1-2]. Numerical examples demonstrate the application of the suggested procedure. Comparison with parallel analytical tools supports the validity of result and show the percentage deviation of crack width in both the procedures. The technique is simple, user friendly and ready to evolve for a greater spectrum of section sizes and materials.

Keywords: Concrete structures, crack width calculation, serviceability limit state, structural design, bridge engineering.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6661

Authors: A. Mavrikos, N. Petsas, E. Kaltsi, D. Kaliampakos

Abstract:

The lignite-fired power plants in the Western Macedonia Lignite Center produce more than 810⁶ t of fly ash per year. Approximately 90% of this quantity is used for restoration-reclamation of exhausted open-cast lignite mines and slope stabilization of the overburden. The purpose of this work is to evaluate the environmental behavior of the mixture of waste rock and fly ash that is being used in the external deposition site of the South Field lignite mine. For this reason, a borehole was made within the site and 86 samples were taken and subjected to chemical analyses and leaching tests. The results showed very limited leaching of trace elements and heavy metals from this mixture. Moreover, when compared to the limit values set for waste acceptable in inert waste landfills, only few excesses were observed, indicating only minor risk for groundwater pollution. However, due to the complexity of both the leaching process and the contaminant pathway, more boreholes and analyses should be made in nearby locations and a systematic groundwater monitoring program should be implemented both downstream and within the external deposition site.

Keywords: Co-deposition, fly ash, leaching tests, lignite, waste rock.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1888

Authors: N. Nacereddine, M. Zelmat, S. S. Belaïfa, M. Tridi

Abstract:

Industrial radiography is a famous technique for the identification and evaluation of discontinuities, or defects, such as cracks, porosity and foreign inclusions found in welded joints. Although this technique has been well developed, improving both the inspection process and operating time, it does suffer from several drawbacks. The poor quality of radiographic images is due to the physical nature of radiography as well as small size of the defects and their poor orientation relatively to the size and thickness of the evaluated parts. Digital image processing techniques allow the interpretation of the image to be automated, avoiding the presence of human operators making the inspection system more reliable, reproducible and faster. This paper describes our attempt to develop and implement digital image processing algorithms for the purpose of automatic defect detection in radiographic images. Because of the complex nature of the considered images, and in order that the detected defect region represents the most accurately possible the real defect, the choice of global and local preprocessing and segmentation methods must be appropriated.

Keywords: Digital image processing, global and localapproaches, radiographic film, weld defect.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4062

Authors: H. Iranmanesh, M. R. Skandari, M. Allahverdiloo

Abstract:

Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the problem in project scheduling notated as (1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project (curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed method.

Keywords: FastPGA, Multi-Execution Activity Mode, Pareto Optimality, Project Scheduling, Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1801

Authors: Oluwaseyi O. Taiwo, Adeolu A. Adediran, Abayomi A. Akinwande, Frank C. Okoyeh

Abstract:

The use of fuel fired crucible furnace is essential in the foundries of developing countries owing to the luxury of electricity. Fuel fired crucible furnace are commonly used in recycling, casting, research and training activities in tertiary institutions, therefore, several attempts are being made to improve the performance and service life of fuel fired crucible. The current study reviews the sequential stages involved in the designs and fabrication of fuel fired crucible furnace which include; design, material selection, modelling and simulation as well as performance evaluation. The study shows that selecting appropriate materials for the different units in the fabrication process is important to the efficiency and service life of fuel fired crucible furnaces. Also, efficiency and performance of fuel fired furnaces are independent of cost of fabrication and their capacity. The importance of modelling and simulation tools in the fabrication process are identified while their non-frequent usage in several works is observed. The need to widen performance evaluations in further studies beyond efficiency determination to give a more detailed assessment of fuel fired crucible furnaces is also observed.

Keywords: Crucible furnace, furnace design, fabrication, fuel.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 459

Authors: Martins Sabovics, Karina Ruse, Evita Straumite, Ruta Galoburda

Abstract:

The research was accomplished on triticale flour blend, which was made from whole grain triticale, rye, hull-less barley flour and rice, maize flour. The aim of this research was to evaluate physico-chemical and sensory properties of triticale flour blend dough in the mixing and fermentation processes. For dough making was used triticale flour blend, yeast, sugar, salt, and water. In the mixing process ware evaluated moisture, acidity, pH, and dough sensory properties (softness, viscosity, and stickiness), but in the fermentation process ware evaluated volume, moisture, acidity, and pH. During present research was established that increasing fermentation temperature and time, increase dough temperature, volume, moisture, and acidity. The mixing time and fermentation time and temperature have significant effect (p<0.05) on triticale flour blend dough physico-chemical and sensory properties.

Keywords: Dough quality, dough fermentation, dough mixing, triticale flour blend.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2461

Authors: Pogula Rakesh, T. Kishore Kumar

Abstract:

Speech enhancement is a long standing problem with numerous applications like teleconferencing, VoIP, hearing aids and speech recognition. The motivation behind this research work is to obtain a clean speech signal of higher quality by applying the optimal noise cancellation technique. Real-time adaptive filtering algorithms seem to be the best candidate among all categories of the speech enhancement methods. In this paper, we propose a speech enhancement method based on Recursive Least Squares (RLS) adaptive filter of speech signals. Experiments were performed on noisy data which was prepared by adding AWGN, Babble and Pink noise to clean speech samples at -5dB, 0dB, 5dB and 10dB SNR levels. We then compare the noise cancellation performance of proposed RLS algorithm with existing NLMS algorithm in terms of Mean Squared Error (MSE), Signal to Noise ratio (SNR) and SNR Loss. Based on the performance evaluation, the proposed RLS algorithm was found to be a better optimal noise cancellation technique for speech signals.

Keywords: Adaptive filter, Adaptive Noise Canceller, Mean Squared Error, Noise reduction, NLMS, RLS, SNR, SNR Loss.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3179

Authors: Mliki Bouchmel, Abbassi Mohamed Ammar, Kamel Geudri, Chrigui Mouldi, Omri Ahmed

Abstract:

The objective of this work is to use the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) to investigate the behavior of a kerosene small-scale fire. FDS is a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) tool developed specifically for fire applications. Throughout its development, FDS is used for the resolution of practical problems in fire protection engineering. At the same time FDS is used to study fundamental fire dynamics and combustion. Predictions are based on Large Eddy Simulation (LES) with a Smagorinsky turbulence model. LES directly computes the large-scale eddies and the sub-grid scale dissipative processes are modeled. This technique is the default turbulence model which was used in this study. The validation of the numerical prediction is done using a direct comparison of combustion output variables to experimental measurements. Effect of the mesh size on the temperature evolutions is investigated and optimum grid size is suggested. Effect of width openings is investigated. Temperature distribution and species flow are presented for different operating conditions. The effect of the composition of the used fuel on atmospheric pollution is also a focus point within this work. Good predictions are obtained where the size of the computational cells within the fire compartment is less than 1/10th of the characteristic fire diameter.

Keywords: Large eddy simulation, Radiation, Turbulence, combustion, pollution.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2172

Authors: Kenichiro Hida, Shin-Ichi Kuribayashi

Abstract:

In a conventional network, most network devices, such as routers, are dedicated devices that do not have much variation in capacity. In recent years, a new concept of network functions virtualisation (NFV) has come into use. The intention is to implement a variety of network functions with software on general-purpose servers and this allows the network operator to select their capacities and locations without any constraints. This paper focuses on the allocation of NFV-based routing functions which are one of critical network functions, and presents the virtual routing function allocation algorithm that minimizes the total power consumption. In addition, this study presents the useful allocation policy of virtual routing functions, based on an evaluation with a ladder-shaped network model. This policy takes the ratio of the power consumption of a routing function to that of a circuit and traffic distribution between areas into consideration. Furthermore, the present paper shows that there are cases where the use of NFV-based routing functions makes it possible to reduce the total power consumption dramatically, in comparison to a conventional network, in which it is not economically viable to distribute small-capacity routing functions.

Keywords: Virtual routing function, NFV, resource allocation, minimum power consumption.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1298

Authors: Fernando Alonso, Rafael Fernandez, Sonia Frutos, Javier Soriano

Abstract:

CIM is the standard formalism for modeling management information developed by the Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) in the context of its WBEM proposal, designed to provide a conceptual view of the managed environment. In this paper, we propose the inclusion of formal knowledge representation techniques, based on Description Logics (DLs) and the Web Ontology Language (OWL), in CIM-based conceptual modeling, and then we examine the benefits of such a decision. The proposal is specified as a CIM metamodel level mapping to a highly expressive subset of DLs capable of capturing all the semantics of the models. The paper shows how the proposed mapping can be used for automatic reasoning about the management information models, as a design aid, by means of new-generation CASE tools, thanks to the use of state-of-the-art automatic reasoning systems that support the proposed logic and use algorithms that are sound and complete with respect to the semantics. Such a CASE tool framework has been developed by the authors and its architecture is also introduced. The proposed formalization is not only useful at design time, but also at run time through the use of rational autonomous agents, in response to a need recently recognized by the DMTF.

Keywords: CIM, Knowledge-based Information Models, Ontology Languages, OWL, Description Logics, Integrated Network Management, Intelligent Agents, Automatic Reasoning Techniques.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1726

Authors: Pradeep Singh, Shrish Verma

Abstract:

Software fault prediction models are created by using the source code, processed metrics from the same or previous version of code and related fault data. Some company do not store and keep track of all artifacts which are required for software fault prediction. To construct fault prediction model for such company, the training data from the other projects can be one potential solution. Earlier we predicted the fault the less cost it requires to correct. The training data consists of metrics data and related fault data at function/module level. This paper investigates fault predictions at early stage using the cross-project data focusing on the design metrics. In this study, empirical analysis is carried out to validate design metrics for cross project fault prediction. The machine learning techniques used for evaluation is Naïve Bayes. The design phase metrics of other projects can be used as initial guideline for the projects where no previous fault data is available. We analyze seven datasets from NASA Metrics Data Program which offer design as well as code metrics. Overall, the results of cross project is comparable to the within company data learning.

Keywords: Software Metrics, Fault prediction, Cross project, Within project.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2539

Authors: Tahany W. Sadak, Fouly, A. Anwer, M. Rizk

Abstract:

The current investigation presents a study on the hydraulic performance of an electro-hydraulic servo solenoid valve controlled linear piston used in hydraulic systems. Advanced methods have been used to measure and record laboratory experiments, to ensure accurate analysis and evaluation. Experiments have been conducted under different values of temperature (28, 40 and 50 °C), supply pressure (10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 bar), system stiffness (32 N/mm), and load (0.0 & 5560 N). It is concluded that increasing temperature of hydraulic oil increases the quantity of flow rate, so it achieves an increase of the quantity of flow by 5.75 % up to 48.8 % depending on operating conditions. The values of pressure decay at low temperature are less than the values at high temperature. The frequency increases with the increase of the temperature. When we connect the springs to the system, it decreases system frequency. These results are very useful in the process of packing and manufacturing of fluid products, where the properties are not affected by 50 °C, so energy and time are saved.

Keywords: Electro Hydraulic Servo Valve, fluid power control system, system stiffness, static and dynamic performance.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 676

Authors: Levente Varga, Dávid Deritei, Mária Ercsey-Ravasz, Răzvan Florian, Zsolt I. Lázár, István Papp, Ferenc Járai-Szabó

Abstract:

One of the major shortcomings of widely used scientometric indicators is that different disciplines cannot be compared with each other. The issue of cross-disciplinary normalization has been long discussed, but even the classification of publications into scientific domains poses problems. Structural properties of citation networks offer new possibilities, however, the large size and constant growth of these networks asks for precaution. Here we present a new tool that in order to perform cross-field normalization of scientometric indicators of individual publications relays on the structural properties of citation networks. Due to the large size of the networks, a systematic procedure for identifying scientific domains based on a local community detection algorithm is proposed. The algorithm is tested with different benchmark and real-world networks. Then, by the use of this algorithm, the mechanism of the scientometric indicator normalization process is shown for a few indicators like the citation number, P-index and a local version of the PageRank indicator. The fat-tail trend of the article indicator distribution enables us to successfully perform the indicator normalization process.

Keywords: Citation networks, scientometric indicator, cross-field normalization, local cluster detection.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 721

Authors: T. Yilmaz, N. Kirac

Abstract:

Beam-column elements are defined as structural members subjected to a combination of axial and bending forces. Lateral torsional buckling is one of the major failure modes in which beam-columns that are bent about its strong axis may buckle out of the plane by deflecting laterally and twisting. This study presents a compact closed-form equation that it can be used for calculating critical lateral torsional-buckling load of beam-columns with monosymmetric sections in the presence of a known axial load. Lateral-torsional buckling behavior of beam-columns subjected to constant axial force and various transverse load cases are investigated by using Ritz method in order to establish proposed equation. Lateral-torsional buckling loads calculated by presented formula are compared to finite element model results. ABAQUS software is utilized to generate finite element models of beam-columns. It is found out that lateral-torsional buckling load of beam-columns with monosymmetric sections can be determined by proposed equation and can be safely used in design.

Keywords: Lateral-torsional buckling, stability, beam-column, monosymmetric section.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2789

Authors: Muhammad Muhsin, Abhishek Mishra, Shreyansh Vishwakarma, K. Dasaratha Babu, Anudevi Samuel

Abstract:

In an interconnected power system, any sudden small load perturbation in any of the interconnected areas causes the deviation of the area frequencies, the tie line power and voltage deviation at the generator terminals. This paper deals with the study of performance of intelligent Fuzzy Logic controllers coupled with Conventional Controllers (PI and PID) for Load Frequency Control. For analysis, an isolated single area and interconnected two area thermal power systems with and without generation rate constraints (GRC) have been considered. The studies have been performed with conventional PI and PID controllers and their performance has been compared with intelligent fuzzy controllers. It can be demonstrated that these controllers can successfully bring back the excursions in area frequencies and tie line powers within acceptable limits in smaller time periods and with lesser transients as compared to the performance of conventional controllers under same load disturbance conditions. The simulations in MATLAB have been used for comparative studies.

Keywords: Area Control Error, Fuzzy Logic, Generation rate constraint, Load Frequency, Tie line Power.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2454

Authors: S. S. Panda, Arkesh Chouhan, Yogesh Deshpande

Abstract:

The present paper deals with designing and fabricating an apparatus for the speedy and accurate manufacturing of fiber reinforced composite lamina of different orientation, thickness and stacking sequences for testing. Properties derived through an analytical approach are verified through measuring the elastic modulus, ultimate tensile strength, flexural modulus and flexural strength of the samples. The 0⁰ orientation ply looks stiffer compared to the 90⁰ ply. Similarly, the flexural strength of 0⁰ ply is higher than to the 90⁰ ply. Sample machinability has been studied by conducting numbers of drilling based on Taguchi Design experiments. Multi Responses (Delamination and Damage grading) is obtained using the desirability approach and optimum cutting condition (spindle speed, feed and drill diameter), at which responses are minimized is obtained thereafter. Delamination increases nonlinearly with the increase in spindle speed. Similarly, the influence of the drill diameter on delamination is higher than the spindle speed and feed rate.

Keywords: Delamination, FRP composite, multi response optimization, Taguchi design.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1225

Authors: Luís Pina

Abstract:

The conservation of marine biodiversity keeps ecosystems in balance and ensures the sustainable use of resources. In this context, technological resources have been used for monitoring marine species to allow biologists to obtain data in real-time. There are different mobile applications developed for data collection for monitoring purposes, but these systems are designed to be utilized only on third-generation (3G) phones or smartphones with Internet access and in rural parts of the developing countries, Internet services and smartphones are scarce. Thus, the objective of this work is to develop a system to monitor marine turtles using Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), which users can access through basic mobile phones. The system aims to improve the data collection mechanism and enhance the effectiveness of current systems in monitoring sea turtles using any type of mobile device without Internet access. The system will be able to report information related to the biological activities of marine turtles. Also, it will be used as a platform to assist marine conservation entities to receive reports of illegal sales of sea turtles. The system can also be utilized as an educational tool for communities, providing knowledge and allowing the inclusion of communities in the process of monitoring marine turtles. Therefore, this work may contribute with information to decision-making and implementation of contingency plans for marine conservation programs.

Keywords: GSM, marine biology, marine turtles, USSD.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 922

Authors: Farzan Namvari, Panam Zarfam

Abstract:

Nowadays use of a new structural bracing system called 'Knee Bracing System' have taken the specialists attention too much. On the other hand nonlinear static analysis procedures in estimate structures performance in earthquake time have taken attention too much. One of these procedure is modal pushover analysis (MPA) procedure. The accuracy of MPA procedure for simple steel moment resisting frame has been verified and considered in Chintanapakdee and Chopra-s article in 2003. Since the accuracy of MPA procedure has not verified for semi-rigid steel frames with knee bracing, we are going to get through with this matter in this study. For this purpose, the selected structures are four frames with different heights, 5 to 20 stories, will be designed according to AISC criteria. Then MPA procedure is used for the same frames with different rigidity percentiles of connections. The results of seismic responses are compared with dynamic nonlinear response history analysis as exact procedure and accuracy of MPA procedure is evaluated. It seems that MPA procedure accuracy will come down by reduction of the rigidity percentiles of semi-rigid connections.

Keywords: Knee Bracing, Modal Pushover Analysis, SeismicBehavior, Semi-Rigid Connections.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2125

Authors: Vasudha Hegde, Narendra Chaulagain, H. M. Ravikumar, Sonu Mishra, Siva Yellampalli

Abstract:

Acoustic sensors are extensively used in recent days not only for sensing and condition monitoring applications but also for small scale energy harvesting applications to power wireless sensor networks (WSN) due to their inherent advantages. The natural frequency of the structure plays a major role in energy harvesting applications since the sensor key element has to operate at resonant frequency. In this paper, circular diaphragm based MEMS acoustic sensor is modelled by Lumped Element Model (LEM) and the natural frequency is compared with the simulated model using Finite Element Method (FEM) tool COMSOL Multiphysics. The sensor has the circular diaphragm of 3000 µm radius and thickness of 30 µm to withstand the high SPL (Sound Pressure Level) and also to withstand the various fabrication steps. A Piezoelectric ZnO layer of thickness of 1 µm sandwiched between two aluminium electrodes of thickness 0.5 µm and is coated on the diaphragm. Further, a channel with radius 3000 µm radius and length 270 µm is connected at the bottom of the diaphragm. The natural frequency of the structure by LEM method is approximately 16.6 kHz which is closely matching with that of simulated structure with suitable approximations.

Keywords: Acoustic sensor, diaphragm based, lumped element modeling, natural frequency, piezoelectric.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1022

Authors: Pattama Ratana-Arporn, Pongtep Wilaipun

Abstract:

White scar oyster (Crassostrea belcheri) is often eaten raw and being the leading vehicle for foodborne disease, especially Salmonella Weltevreden which exposed the prominent and most resistant to radiation. Gamma irradiation at a low dose of 1 kGy was enough to eliminate S. Weltevreden contaminated in oyster meat at a level up to 5 log CFU/g while it still retain the raw characteristics and equivalent sensory quality as the non-irradiated one. Process development of ready-to-eat chilled oyster meat was conducted by shucking the meat, individually packed in plastic bags, subjected to 1 kGy gamma radiation at chilled condition and then stored in 4oC refrigerated temperature. Microbiological determination showed the absence of S. Weltevreden (5 log CFU/g initial inoculated) along the whole storage time of 30 days. Sensory evaluation indicated the decreasing in sensory scores along storage time which determining the product shelf life to be 18 days compared to 15 days of nonirradiated one. The most advantage of developed process was to provide the safe raw oyster to consumers and in addition sensory quality retained and 3-day extension shelf life also exist.

Keywords: decontamination, food safety, irradiation, oyster, Salmonella Weltevreden

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1678

Authors: Mairwen K. Jones, Lynne Harris, Lisa D. Vaccaro

Abstract:

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a common and disabling condition. Therapist-delivered treatments that use exposure and response prevention have been found to be very effective in treating OCD, although they are costly and associated with high rates of attrition. Effective treatments that can be made widely available without the need for therapist contact are urgently needed. This case study represents the first published investigation of a self-administered cognitive treatment for OCD in a 50-year old female with a 20 year history of OCD. The treatment evaluation occurred over 27 weeks, including 12 weeks of self-administration of the Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy (DIRT) program. Decreases of between 23% to 33% on measures from pre-treatment to follow-up were observed. Bearing in mind the methodological limitations associated with a case study, we conclude that the results reported here are encouraging and indicate that further research effort evaluating the effectiveness of self-administered DIRT is warranted.

Keywords: Anxiety Treatment, Cognitive Therapy, Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy, Obsessive–Compulsive Disorder, Self- Administered Danger Ideation Reduction Therapy.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1760

Authors: Mansoor Ahsan, Suhail Akhtar, Adnan Ali, Farrukh Mazhar, Muddssar Khalid

Abstract:

In the present era of aviation technology, autonomous navigation and control have emerged as a prime area of active research. Owing to the tremendous developments in the field, autonomous controls have led today’s engineers to claim that future of aerospace vehicle is unmanned. Development of guidance and navigation algorithms for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an extremely challenging task, which requires efforts to meet strict, and at times, conflicting goals of guidance and control. In this paper, aircraft altitude and heading controllers and an efficient algorithm for self-governing navigation using MATLAB® mapping toolbox is presented which also enables loitering of a fixed wing UAV over a specified area. For this purpose, a nonlinear mathematical model of a UAV is used. The nonlinear model is linearized around a stable trim point and decoupled for controller design. The linear controllers are tested on the nonlinear aircraft model and navigation algorithm is subsequently developed for for autonomous flight of the UAV. The results are presented for trajectory controllers and waypoint based navigation. Our investigation reveals that MATLAB® mapping toolbox can be exploited to successfully deliver an efficient algorithm for autonomous aerial navigation for a UAV.

Keywords: Navigation, trajectory-control, unmanned aerial vehicle, PID-control, MATLAB® mapping toolbox.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 4370

Authors: Dhurgham Al-Karawi, Nisreen Polus, Shakir Al-Zaidi, Sabah Jassim

Abstract:

The management of COVID-19 patients based on chest imaging is emerging as an essential tool for evaluating the spread of the pandemic which has gripped the global community. It has already been used to monitor the situation of COVID-19 patients who have issues in respiratory status. There has been increase to use chest imaging for medical triage of patients who are showing moderate-severe clinical COVID-19 features, this is due to the fast dispersal of the pandemic to all continents and communities. This article demonstrates the development of machine learning techniques for the test of COVID-19 patients using Chest X-Ray (CXR) images in nearly real-time, to distinguish the COVID-19 infection with a significantly high level of accuracy. The testing performance has covered a combination of different datasets of CXR images of positive COVID-19 patients, patients with viral and bacterial infections, also, people with a clear chest. The proposed AI scheme successfully distinguishes CXR scans of COVID-19 infected patients from CXR scans of viral and bacterial based pneumonia as well as normal cases with an average accuracy of 94.43%, sensitivity 95%, and specificity 93.86%. Predicted decisions would be supported by visual evidence to help clinicians speed up the initial assessment process of new suspected cases, especially in a resource-constrained environment.

Keywords: COVID-19, chest x-ray scan, artificial intelligence, texture analysis, local binary pattern transform, Gabor filter.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 665

Authors: Nisar Ahmed Memon, Anwar Majid Mirza, S.A.M. Gilani

Abstract:

Segmentation is an important step in medical image analysis and classification for radiological evaluation or computer aided diagnosis. The CAD (Computer Aided Diagnosis ) of lung CT generally first segment the area of interest (lung) and then analyze the separately obtained area for nodule detection in order to diagnosis the disease. For normal lung, segmentation can be performed by making use of excellent contrast between air and surrounding tissues. However this approach fails when lung is affected by high density pathology. Dense pathologies are present in approximately a fifth of clinical scans, and for computer analysis such as detection and quantification of abnormal areas it is vital that the entire and perfectly lung part of the image is provided and no part, as present in the original image be eradicated. In this paper we have proposed a lung segmentation technique which accurately segment the lung parenchyma from lung CT Scan images. The algorithm was tested against the 25 datasets of different patients received from Ackron Univeristy, USA and AGA Khan Medical University, Karachi, Pakistan.

Keywords: Computer Aided Diagnosis, Medical ImageProcessing, Region Growing, Segmentation, Thresholding,

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2590

Authors: U. Amin, A. Talib, S. A. Qureshi, M. J. Hossain, G. Ahmad

Abstract:

The choice evaluation between oil-immersed and dry-type transformers is often controlled by cost, location, and application. This paper compares the electrical performance of liquid- filled and dry-type transformers, which will assist the customer to choose the right and efficient ones for particular applications. An accurate assessment of the time-average flux density, electric field intensity and voltage distribution in an oil-insulated and a dry-type transformer have been computed and investigated. The detailed transformer modeling and analysis has been carried out to determine electrical parameter distributions. The models of oil-immersed and dry-type transformers are developed and solved by using the finite element method (FEM) to compare the electrical parameters. The effects of non-uniform and non-coherent voltage gradient, flux density and electric field distribution on the power losses and insulation properties of transformers are studied in detail. The results show that, for the same voltage and kilo-volt-ampere (kVA) rating, oil-immersed transformers have better insulation properties and less hysteresis losses than the dry-type.

Keywords: Finite element method, flux density, transformer, voltage gradient.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1224

Authors: Wei Zhang, Yao-Yu Li, Yi-Fan Zhu, Qun Li, Wei-Ping Wang

Abstract:

It-s known that incorporating prior knowledge into support vector regression (SVR) can help to improve the approximation performance. Most of researches are concerned with the incorporation of knowledge in the form of numerical relationships. Little work, however, has been done to incorporate the prior knowledge on the structural relationships among the variables (referred as to Structural Prior Knowledge, SPK). This paper explores the incorporation of SPK in SVR by constructing appropriate admissible support vector kernel (SV kernel) based on the properties of reproducing kernel (R.K). Three-levels specifications of SPK are studied with the corresponding sub-levels of prior knowledge that can be considered for the method. These include Hierarchical SPK (HSPK), Interactional SPK (ISPK) consisting of independence, global and local interaction, Functional SPK (FSPK) composed of exterior-FSPK and interior-FSPK. A convenient tool for describing the SPK, namely Description Matrix of SPK is introduced. Subsequently, a new SVR, namely Motivated Support Vector Regression (MSVR) whose structure is motivated in part by SPK, is proposed. Synthetic examples show that it is possible to incorporate a wide variety of SPK and helpful to improve the approximation performance in complex cases. The benefits of MSVR are finally shown on a real-life military application, Air-toground battle simulation, which shows great potential for MSVR to the complex military applications.

Keywords: admissible support vector kernel, reproducing kernel, structural prior knowledge, motivated support vector regression

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1618

Authors: Wei Zhang, Yao-Yu Li, Yi-Fan Zhu, Qun Li, Wei-Ping Wang

Abstract:

It-s known that incorporating prior knowledge into support vector regression (SVR) can help to improve the approximation performance. Most of researches are concerned with the incorporation of knowledge in form of numerical relationships. Little work, however, has been done to incorporate the prior knowledge on the structural relationships among the variables (referred as to Structural Prior Knowledge, SPK). This paper explores the incorporation of SPK in SVR by constructing appropriate admissible support vector kernel (SV kernel) based on the properties of reproducing kernel (R.K). Three-levels specifications of SPK are studies with the corresponding sub-levels of prior knowledge that can be considered for the method. These include Hierarchical SPK (HSPK), Interactional SPK (ISPK) consisting of independence, global and local interaction, Functional SPK (FSPK) composed of exterior-FSPK and interior-FSPK. A convenient tool for describing the SPK, namely Description Matrix of SPK is introduced. Subsequently, a new SVR, namely Motivated Support Vector Regression (MSVR) whose structure is motivated in part by SPK, is proposed. Synthetic examples show that it is possible to incorporate a wide variety of SPK and helpful to improve the approximation performance in complex cases. The benefits of MSVR are finally shown on a real-life military application, Air-toground battle simulation, which shows great potential for MSVR to the complex military applications.

Keywords: admissible support vector kernel, reproducing kernel, structural prior knowledge, motivated support vector regression

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1394

Authors: Z. Sakka, I. Assakkaf, T. Al-Yaqoub, J. Parol

Abstract:

reliability-based methodology for the assessment and evaluation of reinforced concrete (R/C) structural elements of concrete structures is presented herein. The results of the reliability analysis and assessment for R/C structural elements were verified by the results obtained through deterministic methods. The outcomes of the reliability-based analysis were compared against currently adopted safety limits that are incorporated in the reliability indices β’s, according to international standards and codes. The methodology is based on probabilistic analysis using reliability concepts and statistics of the main random variables that are relevant to the subject matter, and for which they are to be used in the performance-function equation(s) associated with the structural elements under study. These methodology techniques can result in reliability index β, which is commonly known as the reliability index or reliability measure value that can be utilized to assess and evaluate the safety, human risk, and functionality of the structural component. Also, these methods can result in revised partial safety factor values for certain target reliability indices that can be used for the purpose of redesigning the R/C elements of the building and in which they could assist in considering some other remedial actions to improve the safety and functionality of the member.

Keywords: Concrete Structures, FORM, Monte Carlo Simulation, Structural Reliability.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3086