Search results for: Visual Geometry Group.

Authors: Nhon Van Do

Abstract:

In the artificial intelligence field, knowledge representation and reasoning are important areas for intelligent systems, especially knowledge base systems and expert systems. Knowledge representation Methods has an important role in designing the systems. There have been many models for knowledge such as semantic networks, conceptual graphs, and neural networks. These models are useful tools to design intelligent systems. However, they are not suitable to represent knowledge in the domains of reality applications. In this paper, new models for knowledge representation called computational networks will be presented. They have been used in designing some knowledge base systems in education for solving problems such as the system that supports studying knowledge and solving analytic geometry problems, the program for studying and solving problems in Plane Geometry, the program for solving problems about alternating current in physics.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence and education, knowledge engineering, knowledge representation.

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Authors: Maria de Fátima Lambert

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Following previous studies about Writing and Seeing, this paper focuses on the aesthetic assumptions within the concept of Winter Journey (Voyage d’Hiver/Winterreise) both in Georges Perec’s Saga and the Oulipo Group vis-à-vis with the creations by William Kentridge and Michael Borremans. The aesthetic and artistic connections are widespread. Nevertheless, we can identify common poetical principles shared by these different authors, not only according to the notion of ekphrasis, but also following the procedures of contemporary creation in literature and visual arts. The analysis of the ongoing process of the French writers as individuals and as group and the visual artists’ acting might contribute for another crossed definition of contemporary conception. The same title/theme was a challenge and a goal for them. Let’s wonder how deep the concept encouraged them and which symbolic upbringings were directing their poetical achievements. The idea of an inner journey became the main point, and got “over” and “across” a shared path worth to be followed. The authors were chosen due to the resilient contents of their visual and written images, and looking for the reasons that might had driven their conceptual basis to be. In Pérec’s “Winter Journey” as for the following fictions by Jacques Roubaud, Hervé le Tellier, Jacques Jouet and Hugo Vernier (that emerges from Perec’s fiction and becomes a real author) powerful aesthetic and enigmatic reflections grow connected with a poetic (and aesthetic) understanding of Walkscapes. They might be assumed as ironic fictions and poetical drifts. Outstanding from different logics, the overwhelming impact of Winterreise Lied by Schubert after Wilhelm Müller’s poems is a major reference in present authorship creations. Both Perec and Oulipo’s author’s texts are powerfully ekphrastic, although we should not forget they follow goals, frameworks and identities. When acting as a reader, they induce powerful imageries - cinematic or cinematographic - that flow in our minds. It was well-matched with William Kentridge animated video Winter Journey (2014) and the creations (sharing the same title) of Michael Borremans (2014) for the KlaraFestival, Bozar, Cité de la musique, in Belgium. Both were taken by the foremost Schubert’s Winterreise. Several metaphors fulfil new Winter Journeys (or Travels) that were achieved in contemporary art and literature, as it once succeeded in the 19^th century. Maybe the contemporary authors and artists were compelled by the consciousness of nothingness, although outstanding different aesthetics and ontological sources. The unbearable knowledge of the road’s end, and also the urge of fulfilling the void might be a common element to all of them. As Schopenhauer once wrote, after all, Art is the only human subjective power that we can call upon in life. These newer aesthetic meanings, released from these winter journeys are surely open to wider approaches that might happen in other poetic makings to be.

Keywords: Aesthetic, Voyage d’Hiver, Georges Perec & Oulipo, Schubert's Winterreise, William Kentridge & Michael Borremans.

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Authors: Paul David Henry

Abstract:

This paper describes the results and implications of a correlational study of learning styles and learner satisfaction. The relationship of these empirical concepts was examined in the context of traditional versus e-blended modes of course delivery in an introductory graduate research course. Significant results indicated that the visual side of the visual-verbal dimension of students- learning style(s) was positively correlated to satisfaction with themselves as learners in an e-blended course delivery mode and negatively correlated to satisfaction with the classroom environment in the context of a traditional classroom course delivery mode.

Keywords: Course delivery mode, e-blended, hybrid, learner satisfaction, learning style.

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Authors: Yali Zheng, Peipei Luo, Shinan Chen, Jiasheng Hao, Hong Cheng

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Most of traditional visual indoor navigation algorithms and methods only consider the localization in ordinary daytime, while we focus on the indoor re-localization in low light in the paper. As RGB images are degraded in low light, less discriminative infrared and depth image pairs are taken, as the input, by RGB-D cameras, the most similar candidates, as the output, are searched from databases which is built in the bag-of-word framework. Epipolar constraints can be used to relocalize the query infrared and depth image sequence. We evaluate our method in two datasets captured by Kinect2. The results demonstrate very promising re-localization results for indoor navigation system in low light environments.

Keywords: Indoor navigation, low light, RGB-D camera, vision based.

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Authors: Hamed Qazanfari, Hamid Hassanpour, Kazem Qazanfari

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In this paper, a method is provided for content-based image retrieval. Content-based image retrieval system searches query an image based on its visual content in an image database to retrieve similar images. In this paper, with the aim of simulating the human visual system sensitivity to image's edges and color features, the concept of color difference histogram (CDH) is used. CDH includes the perceptually color difference between two neighboring pixels with regard to colors and edge orientations. Since the HSV color space is close to the human visual system, the CDH is calculated in this color space. In addition, to improve the color features, the color histogram in HSV color space is also used as a feature. Among the extracted features, efficient features are selected using entropy and correlation criteria. The final features extract the content of images most efficiently. The proposed method has been evaluated on three standard databases Corel 5k, Corel 10k and UKBench. Experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed image retrieval method is significantly improved compared to the recently developed methods.

Keywords: Content-based image retrieval, color difference histogram, efficient features selection, entropy, correlation.

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Authors: Yinchang Du, Yangfang Li

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In this work, we used the single Langmuir probe to measure the plasma density distribution in an geometrically asymmetric capacitive coupled plasma discharge system. Because of the frame structure of powered electrode, the plasma density was not homogeneous in the discharge volume. It was higher under the frame, but lower in the centre. Finite element simulation results showed a good agreement with the experiment results. To increase the electron density in the central volume and improve the homogeneity of the plasma, we added an auxiliary electrode, powered by DC voltage, in the simulation geometry. The simulation results showed that the auxiliary electrode could alter the potential distribution and improve the density homogeneity effectively.

Keywords: Capacitive coupled discharge, asymmetric discharge, homogeneous plasma.

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Authors: Naohiko Honma, Kojiro Suzuki

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This paper proposes the concept of aerocapture with aerodynamic-environment-adaptive variable geometry flexible aeroshell that vehicle deploys. The flexible membrane is composed of thin-layer film or textile as its aeroshell in order to solve some problems obstructing realization of aerocapture technique. Multi-objective optimization study is conducted to investigate solutions and derive design guidelines. As a result, solutions which can avoid aerodynamic heating and enlarge the corridor width up to 10% are obtained successfully, so that the effectiveness of this concept can be demonstrated. The deformation-use optimum solution changes its drag coefficient from 1.6 to 1.1, along with the change in dynamic pressure. Moreover, optimization results show that deformation-use solution requires the membrane for which upper temperature limit and strain limit are more than 700 K and 120%, respectively, and elasticity (Young-s modulus) is of order of 106 Pa.

Keywords: Aerocapture, flexible aeroshell, optimization, response surface methodology.

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Authors: Daohong Yang, Xiang Zhang, Wanting Zhou, Lei Li

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Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (VSLAM) is a technology that gathers information about the surrounding environment to ascertain its own position and create a map. It is widely used in computer vision, robotics, and various other fields. Many visual SLAM systems, such as OBSLAM3, utilize a constant velocity motion model. The utilization of this model facilitates the determination of the initial pose of the current frame, thereby enhancing the efficiency and precision of feature matching. However, it is often difficult to satisfy the constant velocity motion model in actual situations. This can result in a significant deviation between the obtained initial pose and the true value, leading to errors in nonlinear optimization results. Therefore, this paper proposes a motion model based on acceleration that can be applied to most SLAM systems. To provide a more accurate description of the camera pose acceleration, we separate the pose transformation matrix into its rotation matrix and translation vector components. The rotation matrix is now represented by a rotation vector. We assume that, over a short period, the changes in rotating angular velocity and translation vector remain constant. Based on this assumption, the initial pose of the current frame is estimated. In addition, the error of the constant velocity model is analyzed theoretically. Finally, we apply our proposed approach to the ORBSLAM3 system and evaluate two sets of sequences from the TUM datasets. The results show that our proposed method has a more accurate initial pose estimation, resulting in an improvement of 6.61% and 6.46% in the accuracy of the ORBSLAM3 system on the two test sequences, respectively.

Keywords: Error estimation, constant acceleration motion model, pose estimation, visual SLAM.

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Authors: Ahmed Jassim Shkarah, Mohd Yusoff Bin Sulaiman, Md Razali bin Hj Ayob

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A 3D-conjugate numerical investigation was conducted to predict heat transfer characteristics in a rectangular cross-sectional micro-channel employing simultaneously developing Tow-phase flows. The sole purpose for analyzing two phase flow heat transfer in rectangular micro channel is to pin point what are the different factors affecting this phenomenon. Different methods and techniques have been undertaken to analyze the equations arising constituting the flow of heat from gas phase to liquid phase and vice versa.Different models of micro channels have been identified and analyzed. How the geometry of micro channels affects their activity i.e. of circular and non-circular geometry has also been reviewed. To the study the results average Nusselt no plotted against the Reynolds no has been taken into consideration to study average heat exchange in micro channels against applied heat flux. High heat fluxes up to 140 W/cm2 were applied to investigate micro-channel thermal characteristics.

Keywords: Tow Phase flow, Micro channel, VOF.

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Authors: Carlos V. Regueiro, Jose E. Domenech, Roberto Iglesias, Jose L. Correa

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In this work a visual and reactive contour following behaviour is learned by reinforcement. With artificial vision the environment is perceived in 3D, and it is possible to avoid obstacles that are invisible to other sensors that are more common in mobile robotics. Reinforcement learning reduces the need for intervention in behaviour design, and simplifies its adjustment to the environment, the robot and the task. In order to facilitate its generalisation to other behaviours and to reduce the role of the designer, we propose a regular image-based codification of states. Even though this is much more difficult, our implementation converges and is robust. Results are presented with a Pioneer 2 AT on a Gazebo 3D simulator.

Keywords: Image-based State Codification, Mobile Robotics, ReinforcementLearning, Visual Behaviour.

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Authors: Sadoon Abdallah, Mizi Fan, Xiangming Zhou

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In this study, a comprehensive approach has been adopted to examine in detail the effect of various hook geometries on bond-slip characteristics. Extensive single fibre pull-out tests on ultra-high performance matrix with three different W/B ratios and embedded lengths have been carried out. Test results showed that the mechanical deformation of fibre hook is the main mechanism governing the pull-out behaviour. Furthermore, the quantitative analyses have been completed to compare the hook design contribution of 3D, 4D and 5D fibres to assess overall pull-out behaviour. It was also revealed that there is a strong relationship between the magnitude of hook contribution and W/B ratio (i.e. matrix strength). Reducing the W/B ratio from 0.20 to 0.11 greatly optimizes the interfacial transition zone (ITZ) and enables better mobilization, straightening of the hook and results in bond-slip-hardening behaviour.

Keywords: Bond mechanisms, fibre-matrix interface, hook geometry, pullout behaviour and water to binder ratio.

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Authors: Ahmed Mansouri, Naoji Matsumoto

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This research is a comparative study of complexity, as a multidimensional concept, in the context of streetscape composition in Algeria and Japan. 80 streetscapes visual arrays have been collected and then presented to 20 participants, with different cultural backgrounds, in order to be categorized and classified according to their degrees of complexity. Three analysis methods have been used in this research: cluster analysis, ranking method and Hayashi Quantification method (Method III). The results showed that complexity, disorder, irregularity and disorganization are often conflicting concepts in the urban context. Algerian daytime streetscapes seem to be balanced, ordered and regular, and Japanese daytime streetscapes seem to be unbalanced, regular and vivid. Variety, richness and irregularity with some aspects of order and organization seem to characterize Algerian night streetscapes. Japanese night streetscapes seem to be more related to balance, regularity, order and organization with some aspects of confusion and ambiguity. Complexity characterized mainly Algerian avenues with green infrastructure. Therefore, for Japanese participants, Japanese traditional night streetscapes were complex. And for foreigners, Algerian and Japanese avenues nightscapes were the most complex visual arrays.

Keywords: Streetscape, Nightscape, Complexity, Visual Array, Affordance, Cluster Analysis, Hayashi Quantification Method.

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Authors: Pablo Barrera, Jose M. Canas, Vicente Matellan

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This paper addresses the problem of determining the current 3D location of a moving object and robustly tracking it from a sequence of camera images. The approach presented here uses a particle filter and does not perform any explicit triangulation. Only the color of the object to be tracked is required, but not any precisemotion model. The observation model we have developed avoids the color filtering of the entire image. That and the Monte Carlotechniques inside the particle filter provide real time performance.Experiments with two real cameras are presented and lessons learned are commented. The approach scales easily to more than two cameras and new sensor cues.

Keywords: Monte Carlo sampling, multiple view, particle filters, visual tracking.

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Authors: Sungkyung Kim, Jee-Hyeon Na, Dong-Seung Kwon

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Future mobile networks following 5th generation will be characterized by one thousand times higher gains in capacity; connections for at least one hundred billion devices; user experience capable of extremely low latency and response times. To be close to the capacity requirements and higher reliability, advanced technologies have been studied, such as multiple connectivity, small cell enhancement, heterogeneous networking, and advanced interference and mobility management. This paper is focused on the multiple connectivity in heterogeneous cellular networks. We investigate the performance of coverage and user throughput in several deployment scenarios. Using the stochastic geometry approach, the SINR distributions and the coverage probabilities are derived in case of dual connection. Also, to compare the user throughput enhancement among the deployment scenarios, we calculate the spectral efficiency and discuss our results.

Keywords: Heterogeneous networks, multiple connectivity, small cell enhancement, stochastic geometry.

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Authors: Rabi W. Yousif, Mohd Asri Hj Mansor

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In this paper, we present a novel technique called Self-Learning Expert System (SLES). Unlike Expert System, where there is a need for an expert to impart experiences and knowledge to create the knowledge base, this technique tries to acquire the experience and knowledge automatically. To display this technique at work, a simulation of a mobile robot navigating through an environment with obstacles is employed using visual basic. The mobile robot will move through this area without colliding with any obstacle and save the path that it took. If the mobile robot has to go through a similar environment again, then it will apply this experience to help it move through quicker without having to check for collision.

Keywords: Expert system, knowledge base, mobile robot, visual basic.

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Authors: Rocío Abascal-Mena, Erick López-Ornelas

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We present the results of a case study aiming to assess the reflection of the tourism community in the Web and its usability to propose new ways to communicate visually. The wealth of information contained in the Web and the clear facilities to communicate personals points of view makes of the social web a new space of exploration. In this way, social web allow the sharing of information between communities with similar interests. However, the tourism community remains unexplored as is the case of the information covered in travel stories. Along the Web, we find multiples sites allowing the users to communicate their experiences and personal points of view of a particular place of the world. This cultural heritage is found in multiple documents, usually very little supplemented with photos, so they are difficult to explore due to the lack of visual information. This paper explores the possibility of analyzing travel stories to display them visually on maps and generate new knowledge such as patterns of travel routes. This way, travel narratives published in electronic formats can be very important especially to the tourism community because of the great amount of knowledge that can be extracted. Our approach is based on the use of a Geoparsing Web Service to extract geographic coordinates from travel narratives in order to draw the geo-positions and link the documents into a map image.

Keywords: Social web, tourism community, visual communication, travel stories, geo references.

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Authors: Shu-Hui Jan, Hui-Ping Tserng, Shih-Ping Ho

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Construction project control attempts to obtain real-time as-built schedule information and to eliminate project delays by effectively enhancing dynamic schedule control and management. Suitable platforms for enhancing an as-built schedule visually during the construction phase are necessary and important for general contractors. As the application of building information modeling (BIM) becomes more common, schedule management integrated with the BIM approach becomes essential to enhance visual construction management implementation for the general contractor during the construction phase. To enhance visualization of the updated as-built schedule for the general contractor, this study presents a novel system called the Construction BIM-assisted Schedule Management (ConBIM-SM) system for general contractors in Taiwan. The primary purpose of this study is to develop a web ConBIM-SM system for the general contractor to enhance visual as-built schedule information sharing and efficiency in tracking construction as-built schedule. Finally, the ConBIM-SM system is applied to a case study of a commerce building project in Taiwan to verify its efficacy and demonstrate its effectiveness during the construction phase. The advantages of the ConBIM-SM system lie in improved project control and management efficiency for general contractors, and in providing BIM-assisted as-built schedule tracking and management, to access the most current as-built schedule information through a web browser. The case study results show that the ConBIM-SM system is an effective visual as-built schedule management platform integrated with the BIM approach for general contractors in a construction project.

Keywords: BIM, Building information modeling, construction schedule management, as-built schedule management, BIM schedule updating mechanism.

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Authors: ML. Benmessaoud, A. Lamrani, K. Nemra, AK. Souici

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This paper presents an Extended Kaman Filter implementation of a single-camera Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping algorithm, a novel algorithm for simultaneous localization and mapping problem widely studied in mobile robotics field. The algorithm is vision and odometry-based, The odometry data is incremental, and therefore it will accumulate error over time, since the robot may slip or may be lifted, consequently if the odometry is used alone we can not accurately estimate the robot position, in this paper we show that a combination of odometry and visual landmark via the extended Kalman filter can improve the robot position estimate. We use a Pioneer II robot and motorized pan tilt camera models to implement the algorithm.

Keywords: Mobile Robot, Navigation, vSLAM, EKF, monocular.

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Authors: A. S. Mousa, R. I. Rajab, A. A. Pinto

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An envy behavioral game theoretical model with two types of homogeneous players is considered in this paper. The strategy space of each type of players is a discrete set with only two alternatives. The preferences of each type of players is given by a discrete utility function. All envy strategies that form Nash equilibria and the corresponding envy Nash domains for each type of players have been characterized. We use geometry to construct two dimensional envy tilings where the horizontal axis reflects the preference for players of type one, while the vertical axis reflects the preference for the players of type two. The influence of the envy behavior parameters on the Cartesian position of the equilibria has been studied, and in each envy tiling we determine the envy Nash equilibria. We observe that there are 1024 combinatorial classes of envy tilings generated from envy chromosomes: 256 of them are being structurally stable while 768 are with bifurcation. Finally, some conditions for the disparate envy Nash equilibria are stated.

Keywords: Game theory, Nash Equilibrium, envy Nash Equilibrium, geometric tilings, bifurcation thresholds.

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Authors: Wenwen Liu, Robert Burton, Simon McKeown

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Climate change is seriously threatening human security and development, leading to global warming and economic, political, and social chaos. Many artists have created visual responses that challenge perceptions on climate change, actively guiding people to think about the climate issues and potential crises after urban industrialization and explore positive solutions. This project is an interdisciplinary and intertextual study where art practice is informed by culture, philosophy, psychology, ecology, and science. By correlating theory and artistic practice, it studies how art practice creates a visual way of understanding climate issues and uses art as a way of exploring speculative futures. In the context of practical-based research, arts-based practice as research and creative practice as interdisciplinary research are applied alternately to seek the original solution and new knowledge. Through creative art practice, this project has established visual ways of looking at climate change and has developed it into a model to generate more possibilities, an alternative social imagination. It not only encourages people to think and find a sustainable speculative future conducive to all species but also proves that people have the ability to realize positive futures.

Keywords: Climate change, creative practice as interdisciplinary research, arts-based practice as research, creative art practice, speculative future.

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Authors: Ayman El Ansary, Mohamed Shalaby

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The current study describes a multi-objective optimization technique for positioning of houses in a residential neighborhood. The main task is the placement of residential houses in a favorable configuration satisfying a number of objectives. Solving the house layout problem is a challenging task. It requires an iterative approach to satisfy design requirements (e.g. energy efficiency, skyview, daylight, roads network, visual privacy, and clear access to favorite views). These design requirements vary from one project to another based on location and client preferences. In the Gulf region, the most important socio-cultural factor is the visual privacy in indoor space. Hence, most of the residential houses in this region are surrounded by high fences to provide privacy, which has a direct impact on other requirements (e.g. daylight and direction to favorite views). This investigation introduces a novel technique to optimally locate and orient residential buildings to satisfy a set of design requirements. The developed technique explores the search space for possible solutions. This study considers two dimensional house planning problems. However, it can be extended to solve three dimensional cases.

Keywords: Evolutionary optimization, Houses planning, Urban modeling, Daylight, Visual Privacy, Residential compounds.

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Authors: Ya-Ling Huang, Ming-Chun Tsai, Fan Hsu, Kai-Ru Hsieh

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This paper mainly discusses the research and practice process of a laboratory curriculum by leading students to perform field investigation into time-honoured shops that have existed for more than 50 years in the downtown area of Tainan, Taiwan, and then search again for design elements and completing the design. The participants are juniors from the Department of Visual Communication Design, Kun Shan University. The duration of research and practice is two months. Operators of these shops are invited to jointly appraise the final achievements. 9 works out of 27 are chosen for final exhibition and commercialization.

Keywords: Culture creative industry, visual communication design, curriculum experimental.

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Authors: Comingstarful Marthong, Deba Kumar Sarma

Abstract:

Concrete is strong in compression however weak in tension. The tensile strength as well as ductile property of concrete could be improved by addition of short dispersed fibers. Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fiber obtained from hand cutting or mechanical slitting of plastic sheets generally used as discrete reinforcement in substitution of steel fiber. PET fiber obtained from the former process is in the form of straight slit sheet pattern that impart weaker mechanical bonding behavior in the concrete matrix. To improve the limitation of straight slit sheet fiber the present study considered two additional geometry of fiber namely (a) flattened end slit sheet and (b) deformed slit sheet. The mix for plain concrete was design for a compressive strength of 25 MPa at 28 days curing time with a watercement ratio of 0.5. Cylindrical and beam specimens with 0.5% fibers volume fraction and without fibers were cast to investigate the influence of geometry on the mechanical properties of concrete. The performance parameters mainly studied include flexural strength, splitting tensile strength, compressive strength and ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV). Test results show that geometry of fiber has a marginal effect on the workability of concrete. However, it plays a significant role in achieving a good compressive and tensile strength of concrete. Further, significant improvement in term of flexural and energy dissipation capacity were observed from other fibers as compared to the straight slit sheet pattern. Also, the inclusion of PET fiber improved the ability in absorbing energy in the post-cracking state of the specimen as well as no significant porous structures.

Keywords: Concrete matrix, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fibers, mechanical bonding, mechanical properties, UPV.

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Authors: Abdullah Bajelan, Adel Akbarimajd

Abstract:

Object manipulation techniques in robotics can be categorized in two major groups including manipulation with grasp and manipulation without grasp. The original aim of this paper is to develop an object manipulation method where in addition to being grasp-less, the manipulation task is done in a passive approach. In this method, linear and angular positions of the object are changed and its manipulation path is controlled. The manipulation path is a helix track with constant radius and incline. The method presented in this paper proposes a system which has not the actuator and the active controller. So this system requires a passive mechanical intelligence to convey the object from the status of the source along the specified path to the goal state. This intelligent is created based on utilizing the geometry of the system components. A general set up for the components of the system is considered to satisfy the required conditions. Then after kinematical analysis, detailed dimensions and geometry of the mechanism is obtained. The kinematical results are verified by simulation in ADAMS.

Keywords: Mechanical intelligence, Object manipulation, Passive mechanism, Passive non-prehensile manipulation.

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Authors: Muhammad Shafi, Paul W. H. Chung

Abstract:

This paper proposes a hybrid method for eyes localization in facial images. The novelty is in combining techniques that utilise colour, edge and illumination cues to improve accuracy. The method is based on the observation that eye regions have dark colour, high density of edges and low illumination as compared to other parts of face. The first step in the method is to extract connected regions from facial images using colour, edge density and illumination cues separately. Some of the regions are then removed by applying rules that are based on the general geometry and shape of eyes. The remaining connected regions obtained through these three cues are then combined in a systematic way to enhance the identification of the candidate regions for the eyes. The geometry and shape based rules are then applied again to further remove the false eye regions. The proposed method was tested using images from the PICS facial images database. The proposed method has 93.7% and 87% accuracies for initial blobs extraction and final eye detection respectively.

Keywords: Erosion, dilation, Edge-density

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Authors: H. Elbehiery, A. Hefnawy, M. Elewa

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Quality control in ceramic tile manufacturing is hard, labor intensive and it is performed in a harsh industrial environment with noise, extreme temperature and humidity. It can be divided into color analysis, dimension verification, and surface defect detection, which is the main purpose of our work. Defects detection is still based on the judgment of human operators while most of the other manufacturing activities are automated so, our work is a quality control enhancement by integrating a visual control stage using image processing and morphological operation techniques before the packing operation to improve the homogeneity of batches received by final users.

Keywords: Quality control, Defects detection, Visual control, Image processing, Morphological operation

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Authors: Nor Hafizah S., Salfarina A. G., Intan Hashimah H., Juliana A. W.

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Collective action can be an effective means for local development as well as important strategy to enhance livelihoods especially among rural people. This article explores the level of collective action among members of Fishermen-s Wives Group (KUNITA) in Malaysia. KUNITA was established by the Malaysian Fishery Development Authority (LKIM) with an objective to increase the socio-economic status of fishermen-s families. The members who are mostly the wives and daughters of fishermen are strongly encouraged by LKIM to venture into entrepreneurship activities. The objective of this research was to see the level of collective action among members in KUNITA groups in the state of Selangor. The finding shows that high level of collective action among KUNITA members is strongly based on volunteerism. However, the level of cooperation among members in the group is relatively low. The findings present significant challenges for the group in maintaining the sustainability of KUNITA organization.

Keywords: Collective action, entrepreneurship, fishermen' swives group, LKIM.

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Authors: Alaa Al Hawari, Mohammad Khader, Tarek Zayed, Osama Moselhi

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In this paper, an effective non-destructive, noninvasive approach for leak detection was proposed. The process relies on analyzing thermal images collected by an IR viewer device that captures thermo-grams. In this study a statistical analysis of the collected thermal images of the ground surface along the expected leak location followed by a visual inspection of the thermo-grams was performed in order to locate the leak. In order to verify the applicability of the proposed approach the predicted leak location from the developed approach was compared with the real leak location. The results showed that the expected leak location was successfully identified with an accuracy of more than 95%.

Keywords: Thermography, Leakage, Water pipelines, Thermograms.

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Authors: Malcolm R Davidson, Ram P. Bharti, Petar Liovic, Dalton J.E. Harvie

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The electrokinetic flow resistance (electroviscous effect) is predicted for steady state, pressure-driven liquid flow at low Reynolds number in a microfluidic contraction of rectangular cross-section. Calculations of the three dimensional flow are performed in parallel using a finite volume numerical method. The channel walls are assumed to carry a uniform charge density and the liquid is taken to be a symmetric 1:1 electrolyte. Predictions are presented for a single set of flow and electrokinetic parameters. It is shown that the magnitude of the streaming potential gradient and the charge density of counter-ions in the liquid is greater than that in corresponding two-dimensional slit-like contraction geometry. The apparent viscosity is found to be very close to the value for a rectangular channel of uniform cross-section at the chosen Reynolds number (Re = 0.1). It is speculated that the apparent viscosity for the contraction geometry will increase as the Reynolds number is reduced.

Keywords: Contraction, Electroviscous, Microfluidic, Numerical.

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Authors: Mohamed F. Ahmed, Mabruka S. Elashheb, Fatma M. Ben Rabha

Abstract:

This study aimed to determine the possible protective effects of L‐carnitine against gentamicin‐induced nephrotoxicity. Forty male albino rats were divided into 4 groups (10 rats each); Group 1: normal control, group 2: induced nephrotoxicity (gentamicin 50 mg/kg/day S.C; 8 days), group 3: treated with L‐ carnitine (40 mg/kg/d SC for 12 days) and group 4: treated with L‐ carnitine 4 days before and for 8 days in concomitant with gentamicin. Gentamicin‐induced nephrotoxicity (group 2): caused significant increase in serum urea, creatinine, urinary N‐acetyl‐B‐D‐ glucosaminidase (NAG), gamma glutamyl transpeptidase (GGT), urinary total protein and kidney tissue malondialdehyde (MDA) with significant decrease in serum superoxide dismutase (SOD), serum catalase and creatinine clearance and marked tubular necrosis in the proximal convoluted tubules with interruption in the basement membrane around the necrotic tubule compared to the normal control group. L‐carnitine 4 days before and for 8 days in concomitant with gentamicin (group 4) offered marked decrease in serum urea, serum creatinine, urinary NAG, urinary GGT, urinary proteins and kidney tissue MDA, with marked increase in serum SOD, serum catalase and creatinine clearance with marked improvement in the tubular damage compared to gentamicin‐induced nephrotoxicity group. L‐carnitine administered for 12 days produced no change in the parameters mentioned above as compared to the normal control group. In conclusion: L‐carnitine could reduce most of the biochemical parameters and also improve the histopathological features of kidney asscociated with gentamicin induced‐nephrotoxicity. 

Keywords: Gentamicin, kidney disease, L‐carnitine, nephrotoxicity.

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