Search results for: quality control

Authors: N.H. Mvungi

Abstract:

This paper addresses control of commutation of switched reluctance (SR) motor without the use of a physical position detector. Rotor position detection schemes for SR motor based on magnetisation characteristics of the motor use normal excitation or applied current /voltage pulses. The resulting schemes are referred to as passive or active methods respectively. The research effort is in realizing an economical sensorless SR rotor position detector that is accurate, reliable and robust to suit a particular application. An effective and reliable means of generating commutation signals of an SR motor based on inductance profile of its stator windings determined using active probing technique is presented. The scheme has been validated online using a 4-phase 8/6 SR motor and an 8-bit processor.

Keywords: Position detection, rotor position, sensorless, switched reluctance, SR.

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Authors: Tajul Urus, S., Molla, A., Teoh, S.Y.

Abstract:

A number of studies highlighted problems related to ERP systems, yet, most of these studies focus on the problems during the project and implementation stages but not during the postimplementation use process. Problems encountered in the process of using ERP would hinder the effective exploitation and the extended and continued use of ERP systems and their value to organisations. This paper investigates the different types of problems users (operational, supervisory and managerial) faced in using ERP and how 'feral system' is used as the coping mechanism. The paper adopts a qualitative method and uses data collected from two cases and 26 interviews, to inductively develop a casual network model of ERP usage problem and its coping mechanism. This model classified post ERP usage problems as data quality, system quality, interface and infrastructure. The model is also categorised the different coping mechanism through use of 'feral system' inclusive of feral information system, feral data and feral use of technology.

Keywords: Case Studies, Coping Mechanism, Post Implementation ERP system, Usage Problem

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Authors: R. Dariani, S. Schmidt, R. Kasper

Abstract:

Based on a non-linear single track model which describes the dynamics of vehicle, an optimal path planning strategy is developed. Real time optimization is used to generate reference control values to allow leading the vehicle alongside a calculated lane which is optimal for different objectives such as energy consumption, run time, safety or comfort characteristics. Strict mathematic formulation of the autonomous driving allows taking decision on undefined situation such as lane change or obstacle avoidance. Based on position of the vehicle, lane situation and obstacle position, the optimization problem is reformulated in real-time to avoid the obstacle and any car crash.

Keywords: Autonomous driving, Obstacle avoidance, Optimal control, Path planning.

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Authors: M. H. Korayem, K. Khoshhal, H. Aliakbarpour

Abstract:

In this paper, a vision based system has been used for controlling an industrial 3P Cartesian robot. The vision system will recognize the target and control the robot by obtaining images from environment and processing them. At the first stage, images from environment are changed to a grayscale mode then it can diverse and identify objects and noises by using a threshold objects which are stored in different frames and then the main object will be recognized. This will control the robot to achieve the target. A vision system can be an appropriate tool for measuring errors of a robot in a situation where the experimental test is conducted for a 3P robot. Finally, the international standard ANSI/RIA R15.05-2 is used for evaluating the path-related characteristics of the robot. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method experimental test is carried out.

Keywords: Robot, Vision, Experiment, Standard.

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Authors: Eryati Darwin, Eka Fithra Elfi, Indria Hafizah

Abstract:

Background: Physical exercise induces a pattern of hormonal and immunological responses that prevent endothelial dysfunction by maintaining the availability of nitric oxide (NO). Regular and moderate exercise stimulates NO release, that can be considered as protective factor of cardiovascular diseases, while strenuous exercise induces increased levels in a number of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines. Pro-inflammatory cytokines tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) triggers endothelial activation which results in an increased vascular permeability. Nuclear gene factor kappa B (NF-κB) activates biological effect of TNF-α. Aim of Study: To determine the effect of physical exercise on the endothelial and skeletal muscle, we measured the level of NF-κB on rats’ serum, macrophages, and myocytes after strenuous physical exercise. Methods: 30 male Rattus norvegicus in the age of eight weeks were randomly divided into five groups (each containing six), and there were treated groups (T) and control group (C). The treated groups obtain strenuous physical exercise by ran on treadmill at 32 m/minutes for 1 hour or until exhaustion. Blood samples, myocytes of gastrocnemius muscle, and intraperitoneal macrophages were collected sequentially. There were investigated immediately, 2 hours, 6 hours, and 24 hours (T1, T2, T3, and T4) after sacrifice. The levels of NF-κB were measured by ELISA methods. Results: From our study, we found that the levels of NF-κB on myocytes in treated group from which its specimen was taken immediately (T1), 2 hours after treadmill (T2), and 6 hours after treadmill (T3) were significantly higher than control group (p<0.05), while the group from which its specimen was taken 24 hours after treadmill, was no significantly different (p>0.05). Also on macrophages, NF-κB in treated groups T1, T2, and T3 was significantly higher than control group (p<0.05), but there was no difference between T4 and control group (p>0.05). The level of serum NF-κB was not significantly different between treatment group as well as compared to control group (p>0.05). Serum NF-κB was significantly higher than the level on macrophages and myocytes (p<0.05). Conclusion: This study demonstrated that strenuous physical exercise stimulates the activation of NF-κB that plays a role in vascular inflammation and muscular damage, and may be recovered after resting period.

Keywords: Endothelial function, inflammation, NF-κB, physical exercise.

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Authors: Marcus Walter, Norbert Nitzsche, Dirk Odenthal, Steffen M¨uller

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This contribution presents a friction estimator for industrial purposes which identifies Coulomb friction in a steering system. The estimator only needs a few, usually known, steering system parameters. Friction occurs on almost every mechanical system and has a negative influence on high-precision position control. This is demonstrated on a steering angle controller for highly automated driving. In this steering system the friction induces limit cycles which cause oscillating vehicle movement when the vehicle follows a given reference trajectory. When compensating the friction with the introduced estimator, limit cycles can be suppressed. This is demonstrated by measurements in a series vehicle.

Keywords: Friction estimation, friction compensation, steering system, lateral vehicle guidance.

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Authors: Ali Ghaffari, Mansour Nikkhah Bahrami, Hesam Parsa

Abstract:

In this paper a comprehensive model of a fossil fueled power plant (FFPP) is developed in order to evaluate the performance of a newly designed turbine follower controller. Considering the drawbacks of previous works, an overall model is developed to minimize the error between each subsystem model output and the experimental data obtained at the actual power plant. The developed model is organized in two main subsystems namely; Boiler and Turbine. Considering each FFPP subsystem characteristics, different modeling approaches are developed. For economizer, evaporator, superheater and reheater, first order models are determined based on principles of mass and energy conservation. Simulations verify the accuracy of the developed models. Due to the nonlinear characteristics of attemperator, a new model, based on a genetic-fuzzy systems utilizing Pittsburgh approach is developed showing a promising performance vis-à-vis those derived with other methods like ANFIS. The optimization constraints are handled utilizing penalty functions. The effect of increasing the number of rules and membership functions on the performance of the proposed model is also studied and evaluated. The turbine model is developed based on the equation of adiabatic expansion. Parameters of all evaluated models are tuned by means of evolutionary algorithms. Based on the developed model a fuzzy PI controller is developed. It is then successfully implemented in the turbine follower control strategy of the plant. In this control strategy instead of keeping control parameters constant, they are adjusted on-line with regard to the error and the error rate. It is shown that the response of the system improves significantly. It is also shown that fuel consumption decreases considerably.

Keywords: Attemperator, Evolutionary algorithms, Fossil fuelled power plant (FFPP), Fuzzy set theory, Gain scheduling

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Authors: Suhartini M. Jainury, Rizauddin Ramli, Mohd Nizam A. Rahman

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Lean, which was initially developed by Toyota, is widely implemented in other companies to improve competitiveness. This research is an attempt to identify the adoption of lean in the production system of Malaysian car manufacturer, Proton using case study approach. To gain the in-depth information regarding lean implementation, an activity on the assembly line called Set Parts Supply (SPS) was studied. The result indicates that by using lean principles, tools and techniques in the implementation of SPS enabled to achieve the goals on safety, quality, cost, delivery and morale. The implementation increased the size of the workspace, improved the quality of assembly and the delivery of parts supply, reduced the manpower, achieved cost savings on electricity and also increased the motivation of manpower in respect of attendance at work. A framework of SPS implementation is suggested as a contribution for lean practices in production system.

Keywords: Assembly line, lean manufacturing, production, parts supply.

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Authors: Hala A. Hassan, Vasiliki K. Tsiouri, Konstantinos E. Konstantinos

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Fugitive particulate matter (PM) is a major source of airborne pollution in the Middle East countries. The meteorological conditions and topography of the area makes it highly susceptible to wind-blown particles which raise many air quality concerns. Air quality tools such as field monitoring, emission factors and dispersion modeling have been used in previous research studies to analyze the release and impacts of fugitive PM in the region. However, these tools have been originally developed based on experiments made for European and North American regions. In this work, an experimental campaign was conducted on April-May 2014 in a construction site in Doha city, Qatar. The ultimate goal is to evaluate the applicability of the existing emission factors for construction sites in dry and arid areas like the Middle East.

Keywords: Air pollution, construction, emissions, middle east, fugitive particulate matter.

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Authors: Amil Daraz, Suheel Abdullah Malik, Tahir Saleem, Sajid Ali Bhati

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In this paper, Integral Proportional (I-P) controller is employed for superheated steam temperature control system. The Ziegler-Nichols (Z-N) method is used for the tuning of I-P controller. The performance analysis of Z-N based I-P controller is assessed on superheated steam system of 500-MW boiler. The comparison of transient response parameters such as rise time, settling time, and overshoot is made with Z-N based Proportional Integral (PI) controller. It is observed from the results that Z-N based I-P controller completely eliminates the overshoot in the output response.

Keywords: Superheated steam, process reaction curve, PI and I-P controller, Ziegler-Nichols tuning.

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Authors: Jitendra Jain, Cassandra Hidajat, Hansraj Riteesh Bookun

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Graft patency underpins long-term prognosis after coronary artery bypass grafting surgery (CABG). The benefits of the combined use of only the left internal mammary artery and radial artery, referred to as total arterial revascularisation (TAR), on long-term clinical outcomes and quality of life are relatively unknown. The aim of this study was to identify whether there were differences in long term clinical outcomes between recipients of TAR compared to a cohort of mostly arterial revascularization involving the left internal mammary, at least one radial artery and at least one saphenous vein graft. A retrospective analysis was performed on all patients who underwent TAR or were re-vascularized with supplementary saphenous vein graft from February 1996 to December 2004. Telephone surveys were conducted to obtain clinical outcome parameters including major adverse cardiac and cerebrovascular events (MACCE) and Short Form (SF-36v2) Health Survey responses. A total of 176 patients were successfully contacted to obtain postop follow up results. The mean follow-up length from time of surgery in our study was TAR 12.4±1.8 years and conventional 12.6±2.1. PCS score was TAR 45.9±8.8 vs LIMA/Rad/ SVG 44.9±9.2 (p=0.468) and MCS score was TAR 52.0±8.9 vs LIMA/Rad/SVG 52.5±9.3 (p=0.723). There were no significant differences between groups for NYHA class 3+ TAR 9.4% vs. LIMA/Rad/SVG 6.6%; or CCS 3+ TAR 2.35% vs. LIMA/Rad/SVG 0%.

Keywords: CABG, MACCEs, quality of life, total arterial revascularization.

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Authors: Salem Belhaj, Moncef Tagina

Abstract:

This paper is aimed at describing a delay-based endto- end (e2e) congestion control algorithm, called Very FAST TCP (VFAST), which is an enhanced version of FAST TCP. The main idea behind this enhancement is to smoothly estimate the Round-Trip Time (RTT) based on a nonlinear filter, which eliminates throughput and queue oscillation when RTT fluctuates. In this context, an evaluation of the suggested scheme through simulation is introduced, by comparing our VFAST prototype with FAST in terms of throughput, queue behavior, fairness, stability, RTT and adaptivity to changes in network. The achieved simulation results indicate that the suggested protocol offer better performance than FAST TCP in terms of RTT estimation and throughput.

Keywords: Fast tcp, RTT, delay estimation, delay-based congestion control, high speed TCP, large bandwidth delay product.

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Authors: Bruno Félix, André Vasconcelos, José Tribolet

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Nowadays increasingly the population makes use of Information Technology (IT). As such, in recent year the Portuguese government increased its focus on using the IT for improving people-s life and began to develop a set of measures to enable the modernization of the Public Administration, and so reducing the gap between Public Administration and citizens.Thus the Portuguese Government launched the Simplex Program. However these SIMPLEX eGov measures, which have been implemented over the years, present a serious challenge: how to forecast its impact on existing Information Systems Architecture (ISA). Thus, this research is focus in addressing the problem of automating the evaluation of the actual impact of implementation an eGovSimplification and Modernization measures in the Information Systems Architecture. To realize the evaluation we proposes a Framework, which is supported by some key concepts as: Quality Factors, ISA modeling, Multicriteria Approach, Polarity Profile and Quality Metrics

Keywords: Information System Architecture, Evaluation, eGov Simplification measure, Multicriteria Evaluation

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Authors: Maria P. Tzamtzi, Fotis N. Koumboulis

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We propose a control design scheme that aims to prevent undesirable liquid outpouring and suppress sloshing during the forward and backward tilting phases of the pouring process, for the case of liquid containers carried by manipulators. The proposed scheme combines a partial inverse dynamics controller with a PID controller, tuned with the use of a “metaheuristic" search algorithm. The “metaheuristic" search algorithm tunes the PID controller based on simulation results of the plant-s linearization around the operating point corresponding to the critical tilting angle, where outpouring initiates. Liquid motion is modeled using the well-known pendulumtype model. However, the proposed controller does not require measurements of the liquid-s motion within the tank.

Keywords: Robotic systems, Controller design, Sloshingsuppression, Metaheuristic optimization.

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Authors: Qiaozhen Song

Abstract:

Based on the feature of model disturbances and uncertainty being compensated dynamically in auto – disturbances-rejection-controller (ADRC), a new method using ADRC is proposed for the decoupling control of dispenser longitudinal movement in big flight envelope. Developed from nonlinear model directly, ADRC is especially suitable for dynamic model that has big disturbances. Furthermore, without changing the structure and parameters of the controller in big flight envelope, this scheme can simplify the design of flight control system. The simulation results in big flight envelope show that the system achieves high dynamic performance, steady state performance and the controller has strong robustness.

Keywords: ADRC, ESO, nonlinear system

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Authors: Chao-Linag Hsieh, Zheng-Wei Ye, Chen-Kang Huang, Yeun-Chung Lee, Chih-Hong Sun, Tzai-Hung Wen, Jehn-Yih Juang, Joe-Air Jiang

Abstract:

Air pollution and climate warming become more and more intensified in many areas, especially in urban areas. Environmental parameters are critical information to air pollution and weather monitoring. Thus, it is necessary to develop a suitable air pollution and weather monitoring system for urban areas. In this study, a vehicle monitoring system (VMS) based on the IoT technique is developed. Cars are selected as the research tool because it can reach a greater number of streets to collect data. The VMS can monitor different environmental parameters, including ambient temperature and humidity, and air quality parameters, including PM2.5, NO₂, CO, and O₃. The VMS can provide other information, including GPS signals and the vibration information through driving a car on the street. Different sensor modules are used to measure the parameters and collect the measured data and transmit them to a cloud server through the LoRa protocol. A user interface is used to show the sensing data storing at the cloud server. To examine the performance of the system, a researcher drove a Nissan x-trail 1998 to the area close to the Da’an District office in Taipei to collect monitoring data. The collected data are instantly shown on the user interface. The four kinds of information are provided by the interface: GPS positions, weather parameters, vehicle information, and air quality information. With the VMS, users can obtain the information regarding air quality and weather conditions when they drive their car to an urban area. Also, government agencies can make decisions on traffic planning based on the information provided by the proposed VMS.

Keywords: Vehicle, monitoring system, LoRa, smart city.

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Authors: Sorayya Malek, Mogeeb Mosleh, Sharifah M. Syed

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In this study, Support Vector Machine (SVM) technique was applied to predict the dichotomized value of Dissolved oxygen (DO) from two freshwater lakes namely Chini and Bera Lake (Malaysia). Data sample contained 11 parameters for water quality features from year 2005 until 2009. All data parameters were used to predicate the dissolved oxygen concentration which was dichotomized into 3 different levels (High, Medium, and Low). The input parameters were ranked, and forward selection method was applied to determine the optimum parameters that yield the lowest errors, and highest accuracy. Initial results showed that pH, Water Temperature, and Conductivity are the most important parameters that significantly affect the predication of DO. Then, SVM model was applied using the Anova kernel with those parameters yielded 74% accuracy rate. We concluded that using SVM models to predicate the DO is feasible, and using dichotomized value of DO yields higher prediction accuracy than using precise DO value.

Keywords: Dissolved oxygen, Water quality, predication DO, Support Vector Machine.

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Authors: Dhaksha Vivekanandan

Abstract:

DeFi is a network that avoids reliance on financial intermediaries through its peer-to-peer financial network. DeFi operates outside of government control; hence, it is important for us to understand its impacts. This study employs a literature review to understand DeFi and its emergence, as well as its implications on transparency, social impact, and regulation. Further, three case studies are analysed within the context of these categories. DeFi’s provision of increased transparency poses environmental and storage costs and can lead to user privacy being endangered. DeFi allows for the provision of entrepreneurial incentives and protection against monetary censorship and capital control. Despite DeFi's transparency issues and volatility costs, it has huge potential to reduce poverty; however, regulation surrounding DeFi still requires further tightening by governments.

Keywords: DeFi, transparency, regulation, social impact.

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Authors: Tahereh Talebi, Reza Ghomashchi, Pejman Talemi, Sima Aminorroaya

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Electrophoretic deposition (EPD) of p-type Bi₂Te₃ material has been accomplished, and a high quality crack-free thick film has been achieved for thermoelectric (TE) applications. TE generators (TEG) can convert waste heat into electricity, which can potentially solve global warming problems. However, TEG is expensive due to the high cost of materials, as well as the complex and expensive manufacturing process. EPD is a simple and cost-effective method which has been used recently for advanced applications. In EPD, when a DC electric field is applied to the charged powder particles suspended in a suspension, they are attracted and deposited on the substrate with the opposite charge. In this study, it has been shown that it is possible to prepare a TE film using the EPD method and potentially achieve high TE properties at low cost. The relationship between the deposition weight and the EPD-related process parameters, such as applied voltage and time, has been investigated and a linear dependence has been observed, which is in good agreement with the theoretical principles of EPD. A stable EPD suspension of p-type Bi₂Te₃ was prepared in a mixture of acetone-ethanol with triethanolamine as a stabilizer. To achieve a high quality homogenous film on a copper substrate, the optimum voltage and time of the EPD process was investigated. The morphology and microstructures of the green deposited films have been investigated using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The green Bi₂Te₃ films have shown good adhesion to the substrate. In summary, this study has shown that not only EPD of p-type Bi₂Te₃ material is possible, but its thick film is of high quality for TE applications.

Keywords: Electrical conductivity, electrophoretic deposition, p-type Bi2Te3, thermoelectric materials, thick films.

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Authors: H. Yazdani, K. Ghorbanian

Abstract:

This paper deals with modeling and simulation of the plasma actuator with OpenFOAM. Plasma actuator is one of the newest devices in flow control techniques which can delay separation by inducing external momentum to the boundary layer of the flow. The effects of the plasma actuators on the external flow are incorporated into Navier-Stokes computations as a body force vector which is obtained as a product of the net charge density and the electric field. In order to compute this body force vector, the model solves two equations: One for the electric field due to the applied AC voltage at the electrodes and the other for the charge density representing the ionized air. The simulation result is compared to the experimental and typical values which confirms the validity of the modeling.

Keywords: Active flow control, flow field, OpenFOAM, plasma actuator.

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Authors: S. Raja Balachandar, K.Kannan

Abstract:

A new Meta heuristic approach called "Randomized gravitational emulation search algorithm (RGES)" for solving vertex covering problems has been designed. This algorithm is found upon introducing randomization concept along with the two of the four primary parameters -velocity- and -gravity- in physics. A new heuristic operator is introduced in the domain of RGES to maintain feasibility specifically for the vertex covering problem to yield best solutions. The performance of this algorithm has been evaluated on a large set of benchmark problems from OR-library. Computational results showed that the randomized gravitational emulation search algorithm - based heuristic is capable of producing high quality solutions. The performance of this heuristic when compared with other existing heuristic algorithms is found to be excellent in terms of solution quality.

Keywords: Vertex covering Problem, Velocity, Gravitational Force, Newton's Law, Meta Heuristic, Combinatorial optimization.

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Authors: M. S. Manikandan, K. V. Nithish Kumar, M. Krishnamoorthi, V. Ganesh

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The Automobile Braking System has a crucial role for safety of the passenger and riding quality of the vehicle. The braking force mainly depends on normal reaction on the wheel and the co-efficient of friction between the tire and the road surface. Whenever a vehicle is loaded, the normal reaction on the rear wheel is increased. Thus the amount of braking force required to halt the vehicle with minimum stopping distance, is based on the pillion load on the vehicle. In this work, in order to vary the braking force in two wheelers, the mechanical leverage which operates the master cylinder is varied based on the pillion load. Thus the amount of braking force developed between ground and tire is varied. This optimum braking force on the disc brake helps in attaining the minimum vehicle stopping distance. In addition to that, it also helps in preventing sliding. Thus the system results in reducing the stopping distance of the two wheelers and providing a better braking efficiency than the conventional braking system.

Keywords: Braking force, Master cylinder, Mechanical leverage, Minimum stopping distance.

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Authors: Sangbum Park, Youngjoon Han

Abstract:

This paper proposes a balance control scheme for a biped robot to trace an arbitrary path using image information. While moving, it estimates the zero moment point(ZMP) of the biped robot in the next step using a Kalman filter and renders an appropriate balanced pose of the robot. The ZMP can be calculated from the robot's pose, which is measured from the reference object image acquired by a CCD camera on the robot's head. For simplifying the kinematical model, the coordinates systems of individual joints of each leg are aligned and the robot motion is approximated as an inverted pendulum so that a simple linear dynamics, 3D-LIPM(3D-Linear Inverted Pendulum Mode) can be applied. The efficiency of the proposed algorithm has been proven by the experiments performed on unknown trajectory.

Keywords: Biped robot, Zero moment point, Balance control, Kalman filter.

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Authors: Carmen E. Zapata, Juan Bautista, Olga Montoya, Claudia Moreno, Marisol Suarez, Alejandra Betancur, Duvan Nanclares, Natalia A. Cano

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This study aims to evaluate the diversity of microorganisms in filters PM2.5 and PM10; and determine the genotoxic and cytotoxic activity of the complex mixture present in PM2.5 filters used in the Aburrá Valley Air Quality Monitoring Network (Colombia). The research results indicate that particulate matter PM2.5 of different monitoring stations are bacteria; however, this study of detection of bacteria and their phylogenetic relationship is not complete evidence to connect the microorganisms with pathogenic or degrading activities of compounds present in the air. Additionally, it was demonstrated the damage induced by the particulate material in the cell membrane, lysosomal and endosomal membrane and in the mitochondrial metabolism; this damage was independent of the PM2.5 concentrations in almost all the cases.

Keywords: Cytotoxic, genotoxic, microbiological analysis, PM10, PM2.5.

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Authors: R. A. Isabel, E. Baburaj

Abstract:

Wireless Body Area Networks (WBANs) are essential for real-time health monitoring of patients and in diagnosing of many diseases. WBANs comprise many sensors to monitor a large range of ambient conditions. Quality of Service (QoS) is a key challenge in WBAN, because the different state information of the neighboring nodes has to be monitored in an accurate manner. However, energy consumption gets increased while predicting and maintaining the exact information in highly dynamic environments. In order to reduce energy consumption and end to end delay, Markov Chain Based Quality of Service Support (MC-QoSS) method is designed in the health monitoring services of WBAN communication. The energy consumption gets reduced by forming a Markov chain with high energy nodes in the sensor networks communication path. The low energy level sensor nodes are removed using transitional probability in order to reduce end to end delay. High energy nodes are formed in the chain structure of its corresponding path to enhance communication. After choosing the communication path through high energy nodes, the packets are sent to the sink node from the source node with a higher Packet Delivery Ratio. The simulation result shows that MC-QoSS method improves the packet delivery ratio and reduces energy consumption with minimum end to end delay, compared to existing methods.

Keywords: Wireless body area networks, quality of service, Markov chain, health monitoring services.

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Authors: Samir A. Emam, Ali El Domiaty

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Friction-stir welding has received a huge interest in the last few years. The many advantages of this promising process have led researchers to present different theoretical and experimental explanation of the process. The way to quantitatively and qualitatively control the different parameters of the friction-stir welding process has not been paved. In this study, a refined energybased model that estimates the energy generated due to friction and plastic deformation is presented. The effect of the plastic deformation at low energy levels is significant and hence a scale factor is introduced to control its effect. The predicted heat energy and the obtained maximum temperature using our model are compared to the theoretical and experimental results available in the literature and a good agreement is obtained. The model is applied to AA6000 and AA7000 series.

Keywords: Friction-stir welding, Energy, Aluminum Alloys.

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Authors: K. Petcharaporn, S. Kumchoo

Abstract:

The acidity (citric acid) is the one of chemical content that can be refer to the internal quality and it’s a maturity index of tomato, The titratable acidity (%TA) can be predicted by a non-destructive method prediction by using the transmittance short wavelength (SW-NIR) spectroscopy in the wavelength range between 665-955 nm. The set of 167 tomato samples divided into groups of 117 tomatoes sample for training set and 50 tomatoes sample for test set were used to establish the calibration model to predict and measure %TA by partial least squares regression (PLSR) technique. The spectra were pretreated with MSC pretreatment and it gave the optimal result for calibration model as (R = 0.92, RMSEC = 0.03%) and this model obtained high accuracy result to use for %TA prediction in test set as (R = 0.81, RMSEP = 0.05%). From the result of prediction in test set shown that the transmittance SW-NIR spectroscopy technique can be used for a non-destructive method for %TA prediction of tomato.

Keywords: Tomato, quality, prediction, transmittance, titratable acidity, citric acid.

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Authors: Nino Abesadze, Marine Mindorashvili, Nino Paresashvili

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The main purpose of the article is to make complex statistical analysis of tourist expenses of foreign visitors. We used mixed technique of selection that implies rules of random and proportional selection. Computer software SPSS was used to compute statistical data for corresponding analysis. Corresponding methodology of tourism statistics was implemented according to international standards. Important information was collected and grouped from the major Georgian airports. Techniques of statistical observation were prepared. A representative population of foreign visitors and a rule of selection of respondents were determined. We have a trend of growth of tourist numbers and share of tourists from post-soviet countries constantly increases. Level of satisfaction with tourist facilities and quality of service has grown, but still we have a problem of disparity between quality of service and prices. The design of tourist expenses of foreign visitors is diverse; competitiveness of tourist products of Georgian tourist companies is higher.

Keywords: Tourist, expenses, methods, statistics, analysis.

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Authors: Kei Fujii, Jun Okawa, Kaori Suigetsu

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Concatenative speech synthesis is a method that can make speech sound which has naturalness and high-individuality of a speaker by introducing a large speech corpus. Based on this method, in this paper, we propose a voice conversion method whose conversion speech has high-individuality and naturalness. The authors also have two subjective evaluation experiments for evaluating individuality and sound quality of conversion speech. From the results, following three facts have be confirmed: (a) the proposal method can convert the individuality of speakers well, (b) employing the framework of unit selection (especially join cost) of concatenative speech synthesis into conventional voice conversion improves the sound quality of conversion speech, and (c) the proposal method is robust against the difference of genders between a source speaker and a target speaker.

Keywords: concatenative speech synthesis, join cost, speaker individuality, unit selection, voice conversion

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Authors: Hadjikhani R.

Abstract:

Anxiety is a common disorder that attacks many people in society and often accompanied by physiological sensations such as tachycardia, chest pain, shortness of breath, insensitivity and etc. The purpose of this study is to characterize the putative anxiolytic-like effects of DEV (dichloromethane extracts of valerian) using the elevated plus maze (EPM) in rats. DEV was dissolved in DMSO and orally administered at different doses to adult male wistar rats, 0.5, 1.5 and 3 hours before behavioral evaluation in an EPM respectively. Control rats were treated with an equal volume of DMSO. Single treatment of DEV (at 0.1,0.2. 0.3, and 0.4 g/kg) significantly increased time-spent and arm entries into open arms of EPM versus control groups (p<0.05).However, no changes in the locomotor activity ccured. This result suggests that DEV might prove to be an effective anxiolytic agent.

Keywords: Anxiety, Dichloromethane extracts, Valerian, Rat

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