Search results for: root length

Authors: Tetsuro Saeki, Yuichi Kato, Shoutarou Mizuno

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STRIM (Statistical Test Rule Induction Method) has been proposed as a method to effectively induct if-then rules from the decision table which is considered as a sample set obtained from the population of interest. Its usefulness has been confirmed by simulation experiments specifying rules in advance, and by comparison with conventional methods. However, scope for future development remains before STRIM can be applied to the analysis of real-world data sets. The first requirement is to determine the size of the dataset needed for inducting true rules, since finding statistically significant rules is the core of the method. The second is to examine the capacity of rule induction from datasets with contaminated attribute values created by missing data and noise, since real-world datasets usually contain such contaminated data. This paper examines the first problem theoretically, in connection with the rule length. The second problem is then examined in a simulation experiment, utilizing the critical size of dataset derived from the first step. The experimental results show that STRIM is highly robust in the analysis of datasets with contaminated attribute values, and hence is applicable to real-world data

Keywords: Rule induction, decision table, missing data, noise.

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Authors: Z. Ezzouine, A. Nakheli

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This paper presents a high position electromagnetic sensor system (HPESS) that is applicable for moving object detection. The authors have developed a high-performance position sensor prototype dedicated to students’ laboratory. The challenge was to obtain a highly accurate and real-time sensor that is able to calculate position, length or displacement. An electromagnetic solution based on a two coil induction principal was adopted. The HPESS converts mechanical motion to electric energy with direct contact. The output signal can then be fed to an electronic circuit. The voltage output change from the sensor is captured by data acquisition system using LabVIEW software. The displacement of the moving object is determined. The measured data are transmitted to a PC in real-time via a DAQ (NI USB -6281). This paper also describes the data acquisition analysis and the conditioning card developed specially for sensor signal monitoring. The data is then recorded and viewed using a user interface written using National Instrument LabVIEW software. On-line displays of time and voltage of the sensor signal provide a user-friendly data acquisition interface. The sensor provides an uncomplicated, accurate, reliable, inexpensive transducer for highly sophisticated control systems.

Keywords: Electromagnetic sensor, data acquisition, accurately, position measurement.

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Authors: Al-Falahi Amir, Yusoff M. Z, Yusaf T

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The aim of this paper is to develop a new two dimensional time accurate Euler solver for shock tube applications. The solver was developed to study the performance of a newly built short-duration hypersonic test facility at Universiti Tenaga Nasional “UNITEN" in Malaysia. The facility has been designed, built, and commissioned for different values of diaphragm pressure ratios in order to get wide range of Mach number. The developed solver uses second order accurate cell-vertex finite volume spatial discretization and forth order accurate Runge-Kutta temporal integration and it is designed to simulate the flow process for similar driver/driven gases (e.g. air-air as working fluids). The solver is validated against analytical solution and experimental measurements in the high speed flow test facility. Further investigations were made on the flow process inside the shock tube by using the solver. The shock wave motion, reflection and interaction were investigated and their influence on the performance of the shock tube was determined. The results provide very good estimates for both shock speed and shock pressure obtained after diaphragm rupture. Also detailed information on the gasdynamic processes over the full length of the facility is available. The agreements obtained have been reasonable.

Keywords: shock tunnel, shock tube, shock wave, CFD.

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Authors: L. Bennaceur Farah, I. R. Farah, R. Bennaceur, Z. Belhadj, M. R. Boussema

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The overall objective of this paper is to retrieve soil surfaces parameters namely, roughness and soil moisture related to the dielectric constant by inverting the radar backscattered signal from natural soil surfaces. Because the classical description of roughness using statistical parameters like the correlation length doesn't lead to satisfactory results to predict radar backscattering, we used a multi-scale roughness description using the wavelet transform and the Mallat algorithm. In this description, the surface is considered as a superposition of a finite number of one-dimensional Gaussian processes each having a spatial scale. A second step in this study consisted in adapting a direct model simulating radar backscattering namely the small perturbation model to this multi-scale surface description. We investigated the impact of this description on radar backscattering through a sensitivity analysis of backscattering coefficient to the multi-scale roughness parameters. To perform the inversion of the small perturbation multi-scale scattering model (MLS SPM) we used a multi-layer neural network architecture trained by backpropagation learning rule. The inversion leads to satisfactory results with a relative uncertainty of 8%.

Keywords: Remote sensing, rough surfaces, inverse problems, SAR, radar scattering, Neural networks and Fractals.

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Authors: S. K. Fasogbon, T. M. Oladosu, O. S. Osasuyi

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Plastic extrusion has been an important process of plastic production since 19^th century. Meanwhile, in plastic extrusion process, wide variation in temperature along the extrudate usually leads to scraps formation on the side of finished products. To avoid this situation, there is a need to deeply understand temperature distribution along the extrudate in plastic extrusion process. This work developed an analytical model that predicts the temperature distribution over the billet (the polymers melt) along the extrudate during extrusion process with the limitation that the polymer in question does not cover biopolymer such as DNA. The model was solved and simulated. Results for two different plastic materials (polyvinylchloride and polycarbonate) using self-developed MATLAB code and a commercially developed software (ANSYS) were generated and ultimately compared. It was observed that there is a thermodynamic heat transfer from the entry level of the billet into the die down to the end of it. The graph plots indicate a natural exponential decay of temperature with time and along the die length, with the temperature being 413 K and 474 K for polyvinylchloride and polycarbonate respectively at the entry level and 299.3 K and 328.8 K at the exit when the temperature of the surrounding was 298 K. The extrusion model was validated by comparison of MATLAB code simulation with a commercially available ANSYS simulation and the results favourably agree. This work concludes that the developed mathematical model and the self-generated MATLAB code are reliable tools in predicting temperature distribution along the extrudate in plastic extrusion process.

Keywords: ANSYS, extrusion process, MATLAB, plastic making, thermal analysis.

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Authors: M. Ghanbari, S. Hossainpour, G. Rezazadeh

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In this paper, longitudinal vibration of a micro-beam in micro-scale fluid media has been investigated. The proposed mathematical model for this study is made up of a micro-beam and a micro-plate at its free end. An AC voltage is applied to the pair of piezoelectric layers on the upper and lower surfaces of the micro-beam in order to actuate it longitudinally. The whole structure is bounded between two fixed plates on its upper and lower surfaces. The micro-gap between the structure and the fixed plates is filled with fluid. Fluids behave differently in micro-scale than macro, so the fluid field in the gap has been modeled based on micro-polar theory. The coupled governing equations of motion of the micro-beam and the micro-scale fluid field have been derived. Due to having non-homogenous boundary conditions, derived equations have been transformed to an enhanced form with homogenous boundary conditions. Using Galerkin-based reduced order model, the enhanced equations have been discretized over the beam and fluid domains and solve simultaneously in order to obtain force response of the micro-beam. Effects of micro-polar parameters of the fluid as characteristic length scale, coupling parameter and surface parameter on the response of the micro-beam have been studied.

Keywords: Micro-polar theory, Galerkin method, MEMS, micro-fluid.

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Authors: T.C. Manjunath, B. Bandyopadhyay

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Active Vibration Control (AVC) is an important problem in structures. One of the ways to tackle this problem is to make the structure smart, adaptive and self-controlling. The objective of active vibration control is to reduce the vibration of a system by automatic modification of the system-s structural response. This paper features the modeling and design of a Periodic Output Feedback (POF) control technique for the active vibration control of a flexible Timoshenko cantilever beam for a multivariable case with 2 inputs and 2 outputs by retaining the first 2 dominant vibratory modes using the smart structure concept. The entire structure is modeled in state space form using the concept of piezoelectric theory, Timoshenko beam theory, Finite Element Method (FEM) and the state space techniques. Simulations are performed in MATLAB. The effect of placing the sensor / actuator at 2 finite element locations along the length of the beam is observed. The open loop responses, closed loop responses and the tip displacements with and without the controller are obtained and the performance of the smart system is evaluated for active vibration control.

Keywords: Smart structure, Timoshenko theory, Euler-Bernoulli theory, Periodic output feedback control, Finite Element Method, State space model, Vibration control, Multivariable system, Linear Matrix Inequality

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Authors: B.S. Al-Tulaian, M. J. Al-Shannag, A.M. Al-Hozaimy

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The development of new construction materials using  recycled plastic is important to both the construction and the plastic  recycling industries. Manufacturing of fibers from industrial or  postconsumer plastic waste is an attractive approach with such  benefits as concrete performance enhancement, and reduced needs  for land filling. The main objective of this study is to investigate the  effect of Plastic fibers obtained locally from recycled waste on plastic  shrinkage cracking of ordinary cement based mortar. Parameters  investigated include: fiber length ranging from 20 to 50mm, and fiber  volume fraction ranging from 0% to 1.5% by volume. The test results  showed significant improvement in crack arresting mechanism and  substantial reduction in the surface area of cracks for the mortar  reinforced with recycled plastic fibers compared to plain mortar.  Furthermore, test results indicated that there was a slight decrease in  compressive strength of mortar reinforced with different lengths and  contents of recycled fibers compared to plain mortar. This study  suggests that adding more than 1% of RP fibers to mortar, can be  used effectively for controlling plastic shrinkage cracking of cement  based mortar, and thus results in waste reduction and resources  conservation.

 

Keywords: Mortar, plastic, shrinkage cracking, compressive strength, RF recycled fibers.

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Authors: Hyun-Koo Kim, Young-Nam Shin, Sa-gong Kuk, Ju H. Park, Ho-Youl Jung

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This paper presents an effective traffic lights detection method at the night-time. First, candidate blobs of traffic lights are extracted from RGB color image. Input image is represented on the dominant color domain by using color transform proposed by Ruta, then red and green color dominant regions are selected as candidates. After candidate blob selection, we carry out shape filter for noise reduction using information of blobs such as length, area, area of boundary box, etc. A multi-class classifier based on SVM (Support Vector Machine) applies into the candidates. Three kinds of features are used. We use basic features such as blob width, height, center coordinate, area, area of blob. Bright based stochastic features are also used. In particular, geometric based moment-s values between candidate region and adjacent region are proposed and used to improve the detection performance. The proposed system is implemented on Intel Core CPU with 2.80 GHz and 4 GB RAM and tested with the urban and rural road videos. Through the test, we show that the proposed method using PF, BMF, and GMF reaches up to 93 % of detection rate with computation time of in average 15 ms/frame.

Keywords: Night-time traffic light detection, multi-class classification, driving assistance system.

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Authors: Hyun-Koo Kim, Ju H. Park, Ho-Youl Jung

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This paper presents an effective traffic lights recognition method at the daytime. First, Potential Traffic Lights Detector (PTLD) use whole color source of YCbCr channel image and make each binary image of green and red traffic lights. After PTLD step, Shape Filter (SF) use to remove noise such as traffic sign, street tree, vehicle, and building. At this time, noise removal properties consist of information of blobs of binary image; length, area, area of boundary box, etc. Finally, after an intermediate association step witch goal is to define relevant candidates region from the previously detected traffic lights, Adaptive Multi-class Classifier (AMC) is executed. The classification method uses Haar-like feature and Adaboost algorithm. For simulation, we are implemented through Intel Core CPU with 2.80 GHz and 4 GB RAM and tested in the urban and rural roads. Through the test, we are compared with our method and standard object-recognition learning processes and proved that it reached up to 94 % of detection rate which is better than the results achieved with cascade classifiers. Computation time of our proposed method is 15 ms.

Keywords: Traffic Light Detection, Multi-class Classification, Driving Assistance System, Haar-like Feature, Color SegmentationMethod, Shape Filter

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Authors: H. Bensouilah, H. Boucherit, M. Lahmar

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A theoretical investigation on the effects of both steady-state and dynamic deformations of the foils on the dynamic performance characteristics of a self-acting air foil journal bearing operating under small harmonic vibrations is proposed. To take into account the dynamic deformations of foils, the perturbation method is used for determining the gas-film stiffness and damping coefficients for given values of excitation frequency, compressibility number, and compliance factor of the bump foil. The nonlinear stationary Reynolds’ equation is solved by means of the Galerkins’ finite element formulation while the finite differences method are used to solve the first order complex dynamic equations resulting from the perturbation of the nonlinear transient compressible Reynolds’ equation. The stiffness of a bump is uniformly distributed throughout the bearing surface (generation I bearing). It was found that the dynamic properties of the compliant finite length journal bearing are significantly affected by the compliance of foils especially whenthe dynamic deformation of foils is considered in addition to the static one by applying the principle of superposition.

Keywords: Elasto-aerodynamic lubrication, Air foil bearing, Steady-state deformation, Dynamic deformation, Stiffness and damping coefficients, Perturbation method, Fluid-structure interaction, Galerk infinite element method, Finite difference method.

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Authors: Uğur Çakır, Erol Sahin, Kemal Çomaklı, Aysegül Çokgez Kus

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Greenhouses offer us suitable conditions which can be controlled easily for the growth of the plant and they are made by using a covering material that allows the sun light entering into the system. Covering material can be glass, fiber glass, plastic or another transparent element. This study investigates the solar energy usability rates and solar energy benefitting rates of a semi-spherical (modified arch) type greenhouse system according to different orientations and positions which exists under climatic conditions of Bayburt. In the concept of this study it is tried to determine the best direction and best sizes of a semi-spherical greenhouse to get best solar benefit from the sun. To achieve this aim a modeling study is made by using MATLAB. However, this modeling study is run for some determined shapes and greenhouses it can be used for different shaped greenhouses or buildings. The basic parameters are determined as greenhouse azimuth angle, the rate of size of long edge to short and seasonal solar energy gaining of greenhouse. The optimum azimuth angles of 400, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, 50 m2 modified arch greenhouse are 90o, 90o, 35o, 35o, 34o, 33o and 22o while their optimum k values (ratio of length to width) are 10, 10, 10, 10, 6, 4 and 4 respectively. Positioning the buildings in order to get more solar heat energy in winter and less in summer brings out energy and money savings and increases the comfort.

Keywords: Greenhousing, solar energy, direct radiation, renewable energy.

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Authors: Niti Kammuang-lue, Kritsada On-ai, Phrut Sakulchangsatjatai, Pradit Terdtoon

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The objectives of this paper are to investigate effects of dimensionless numbers on thermal performance of the vertical closed-loop pulsating heat pipe (VCLPHP) and to establish a correlation to predict the thermal performance of the VCLPHP. The CLPHPs were made of long copper capillary tubes with inner diameters of 1.50, 1.78, and 2.16mm and bent into 26 turns. Then, both ends were connected together to form a loop. The evaporator, adiabatic, and condenser sections length were equal to 50 and 150 mm. R123, R141b, acetone, ethanol, and water were chosen as variable working fluids with constant filling ratio of 50% by total volume. Inlet temperature of heating medium and adiabatic section temperature was constantly controlled at 80 and 50^oC, respectively. Thermal performance was represented in a term of Kutateladze number (Ku). It can be concluded that when Prandtl number of liquid working fluid (Pr_l), and Karman number (Ka) increases, thermal performance increases. On contrary, when Bond number (Bo), Jacob number (Ja), and Aspect ratio (L_e/D_i) increases, thermal performance decreases. Moreover, the correlation to predict more precise thermal performance has been successfully established by analyzing on all dimensionless numbers that have effect on the thermal performance of the VCLPHP.

Keywords: Vertical closed-loop pulsating heat pipe, working fluid, thermal performance, dimensionless parameter.

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Authors: Arunima Shukla, Vikas Almadi, Devesh Jaiswal, Sunil Saini, Bhusan S. Patil

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Lightning protection consists of three main parts; mainly air termination system, down conductor, and earth termination system. Earth termination system is the most important part as earth is the sink and source of charges. Therefore, even when the charges are captured and delivered to the ground, and an easy path is not provided to the charges, earth termination system would lead to problems. Soil has significantly different resistivities ranging from 10 Ωm for wet organic soil to 10000 Ωm for bedrock. Different methods have been discussed and used conventionally such as deep-ground-well method and altering the length of the rod. Those methods are not considered economical. Therefore, it was a general practice to use charcoal along with salt to reduce the soil resistivity. Bentonite is worldwide acceptable material, that had led our interest towards study of bentonite at first. It was concluded that bentonite is a clay which is non-corrosive, environment friendly. Whereas bentonite is suitable only when there is moisture present in the soil, as in the absence of moisture, cracks will appear on the surface which will provide an open passage to the air, resulting into increase in the resistivity. Furthermore, bentonite without moisture does not have enough bonding property, moisture retention, conductivity, and non-leachability. Therefore, bentonite was used along with the other backfill material to overcome the dependency of bentonite on moisture. Different experiments were performed to get the best ratio of bentonite and carbon backfill. It was concluded that properties will highly depend on the quantity of bentonite and carbon-based backfill material.

Keywords: Backfill material, bentonite, conducting soil, grounding material, low resistivity.

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Authors: Rachid Ait daoud, Abdellah Amine, Belaid Bouikhalene, Rachid Lbibb

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Given the increase in the number of e-commerce sites, the number of competitors has become very important. This means that companies have to take appropriate decisions in order to meet the expectations of their customers and satisfy their needs. In this paper, we present a case study of applying LRFM (length, recency, frequency and monetary) model and clustering techniques in the sector of electronic commerce with a view to evaluating customers’ values of the Moroccan e-commerce websites and then developing effective marketing strategies. To achieve these objectives, we adopt LRFM model by applying a two-stage clustering method. In the first stage, the self-organizing maps method is used to determine the best number of clusters and the initial centroid. In the second stage, kmeans method is applied to segment 730 customers into nine clusters according to their L, R, F and M values. The results show that the cluster 6 is the most important cluster because the average values of L, R, F and M are higher than the overall average value. In addition, this study has considered another variable that describes the mode of payment used by customers to improve and strengthen clusters’ analysis. The clusters’ analysis demonstrates that the payment method is one of the key indicators of a new index which allows to assess the level of customers’ confidence in the company's Website.

Keywords: Customer value, LRFM model, Cluster analysis, Self-Organizing Maps method (SOM), K-means algorithm, loyalty.

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Authors: P. V. Pramila, V. Mahesh

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Pulmonary Function Tests are important non-invasive diagnostic tests to assess respiratory impairments and provides quantifiable measures of lung function. Spirometry is the most frequently used measure of lung function and plays an essential role in the diagnosis and management of pulmonary diseases. However, the test requires considerable patient effort and cooperation, markedly related to the age of patients resulting in incomplete data sets. This paper presents, a nonlinear model built using Multivariate adaptive regression splines and Random forest regression model to predict the missing spirometric features. Random forest based feature selection is used to enhance both the generalization capability and the model interpretability. In the present study, flow-volume data are recorded for N= 198 subjects. The ranked order of feature importance index calculated by the random forests model shows that the spirometric features FVC, FEF25, PEF, FEF25-75, FEF50 and the demographic parameter height are the important descriptors. A comparison of performance assessment of both models prove that, the prediction ability of MARS with the `top two ranked features namely the FVC and FEF25 is higher, yielding a model fit of R2= 0.96 and R2= 0.99 for normal and abnormal subjects. The Root Mean Square Error analysis of the RF model and the MARS model also shows that the latter is capable of predicting the missing values of FEV1 with a notably lower error value of 0.0191 (normal subjects) and 0.0106 (abnormal subjects) with the aforementioned input features. It is concluded that combining feature selection with a prediction model provides a minimum subset of predominant features to train the model, as well as yielding better prediction performance. This analysis can assist clinicians with a intelligence support system in the medical diagnosis and improvement of clinical care.

Keywords: FEV1, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines Pulmonary Function Test, Random Forest.

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Authors: Ferhat Kadioglu, Hasan Puskul

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A composite material with carbon fiber and polymer matrix has been used as adherent for manufacturing adhesive joints. In order to evaluate different fiber orientations on joint performance, the adherents with the 0°, ±15°, ±30°, ±45° fiber orientations were used in the single lap joint configuration. The joints with an overlap length of 25 mm were prepared according to the ASTM 1002 specifications and subjected to tensile loadings. The structural adhesive used was a two-part epoxy to be cured at 70°C for an hour. First, mechanical behaviors of the adherents were measured using three point bending test. In the test, considerations were given to stress to failure and elastic modulus. The results were compared with theoretical ones using rule of mixture. Then, the joints were manufactured in a specially prepared jig, after a proper surface preparation. Experimental results showed that the fiber orientations of the adherents affected the joint performance considerably; the joints with ±45° adherents experienced the worst shear strength, half of those with 0° adherents, and in general, there was a great relationship between the fiber orientations and failure mechanisms. Delamination problems were observed for many joints, which were thought to be due to peel effects at the ends of the overlap. It was proved that the surface preparation applied to the adherent surface was adequate. For further explanation of the results, a numerical work should be carried out using a possible non-linear analysis.

Keywords: Composite materials, adhesive bonding, bonding strength, lap joint, tensile strength.

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Authors: Reza Dinarvand, Mahdi Sadeghian, Somaye Sadeghian

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Prediction of the ultimate bearing capacity of piles (Qu) is one of the basic issues in geotechnical engineering. So far, several methods have been used to estimate Qu, including the recently developed artificial intelligence methods. In recent years, optimization algorithms have been used to minimize artificial network errors, such as colony algorithms, genetic algorithms, imperialist competitive algorithms, and so on. In the present research, artificial neural networks based on colonial competition algorithm (ANN-ICA) were used, and their results were compared with other methods. The results of laboratory tests of short piles in clayey soils with parameters such as pile diameter, pile buried length, eccentricity of load and undrained shear resistance of soil were used for modeling and evaluation. The results showed that ICA-based artificial neural networks predicted lateral bearing capacity of short piles with a correlation coefficient of 0.9865 for training data and 0.975 for test data. Furthermore, the results of the model indicated the superiority of ICA-based artificial neural networks compared to back-propagation artificial neural networks as well as the Broms and Hansen methods.

Keywords: Lateral bearing capacity, short pile, clayey soil, artificial neural network, Imperialist competition algorithm.

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Authors: Musa H. Arslan

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Strengthening of the existing seismically deficient reinforced concrete (RC) buildings is an important issue in earthquake prone regions. Addition of RC shear wall as infill or external walls into the structural system has been a commonly preferred strengthening technique since the Big Erzincan Earthquake occurred in Turkey, 1992. The newly added rigid infill walls act primarily as shear walls and relieve the non-ductile existing frames from being subjected to large shear demands providing that new RC inner or external walls are adequately anchored to the existing weak RC frame. The performance of the RC shear walls-RC weak frame connections by steel anchor dowels depends on some parameters such as compressive strength of the existing RC frame concrete, diameter and embedment length of anchored rebar, type of rebar, yielding stress of bar, properties of used chemicals, position of the anchor bars in RC. In this study, application problems of the steel anchor dowels have been checked with some field studies such as tensile test. Two different RC buildings which will be strengthened were selected, and before strengthening, some tests have been performed in the existing RC buildings. According to the field observation and experimental studies, if the concrete compressive strength is lower than 10 MPa, the performance of the anchors is reduced by 70%.

Keywords: Anchor dowel, concrete, damage, reinforced concrete, shear wall, frame.

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Authors: S. Chaisit, H.Y. Kung, N.T. Phuong

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Radio frequency identification (RFID) applications have grown rapidly in many industries, especially in indoor location identification. The advantage of using received signal strength indicator (RSSI) values as an indoor location measurement method is a cost-effective approach without installing extra hardware. Because the accuracy of many positioning schemes using RSSI values is limited by interference factors and the environment, thus it is challenging to use RFID location techniques based on integrating positioning algorithm design. This study proposes the location estimation approach and analyzes a scheme relying on RSSI values to minimize location errors. In addition, this paper examines different factors that affect location accuracy by integrating the backpropagation neural network (BPN) with the LANDMARC algorithm in a training phase and an online phase. First, the training phase computes coordinates obtained from the LANDMARC algorithm, which uses RSSI values and the real coordinates of reference tags as training data for constructing an appropriate BPN architecture and training length. Second, in the online phase, the LANDMARC algorithm calculates the coordinates of tracking tags, which are then used as BPN inputs to obtain location estimates. The results show that the proposed scheme can estimate locations more accurately compared to LANDMARC without extra devices.

Keywords: BPNs, indoor location, location estimation, intelligent location identification.

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Authors: Sulaiman Yunus

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The need for modeling response to urban fire disaster cannot be over emphasized, as recurrent fire outbreaks have gutted most cities of the world. This necessitated the need for a prompt and efficient response system in order to mitigate the impact of the disaster. Promptness, as a function of time, is seen to be the fundamental determinant for efficiency of a response system and magnitude of a fire disaster. Delay, as a result of several factors, is one of the major determinants of promptgness of a response system and also the magnitude of a fire disaster. Response Delay Model (RDM) intends to bridge the gap in urban fire disaster response system through incorporating and synchronizing the delay moments in measuring the overall efficiency of a response system and determining the magnitude of a fire disaster. The model identified two delay moments (pre-notification and Intra-reflex sequence delay) that can be elastic and collectively plays a significant role in influencing the efficiency of a response system. Due to variation in the elasticity of the delay moments, the model provides for measuring the length of delays in order to arrive at a standard average delay moment for different parts of the world, putting into consideration geographic location, level of preparedness and awareness, technological advancement, socio-economic and environmental factors. It is recommended that participatory researches should be embarked on locally and globally to determine standard average delay moments within each phase of the system so as to enable determining the efficiency of response systems and predicting fire disaster magnitudes.

Keywords: Delay moment, fire disaster, reflex sequence, response, response delay moment.

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Authors: W. EL Khoumsi, A. Hammani, M. Kuper, A. Bouaziz

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Oases are complex and fragile agro-ecosystems. They have always existed in environments characterized by an arid climate, scarcity of rainfall, high temperatures and high evaporation. These palms have grown up despite the severity of the physical characteristics thanks to the water's existence and irrigation practice. The oases are generally spread along non-perennial rivers (wadis), shallow water table or deep artesian groundwater. However, the sustainability of oasis system is threatened by water scarcity and declining of water table levels particularly in arid areas. Located in the southern east area of Morocco, Tafilalet plain encompasses one of the largest palm groves in the kingdom. In recent years, this area has become increasingly threatened by water shortage and has seen a sharp deterioration under the effect of several combined anthropogenic and climatic factors. The Bayoud disease, successive years of drought, Hassan Addakhil dam construction etc are all factors that have affected both water and phoenicicole heritage of the area. The objective of this study is to understand the interaction between qualitative and quantitative degradation of groundwater resources, and the palm grove dynamics, while reviewing the assumption that groundwater resources contribute in a direct way to the conservation of this oasis agroecosystem. A historical analysis tracing both the oasis dynamics and the groundwater evolution has been established. Data were collected from satellite images, surveys with different actors (farmers, Regional Office for Agricultural Development, Basin agency...). They were complemented by a synthesis of numerous technical reports in the area. The results showed that within 40 years, the thickness of the groundwater table has dropped in 50 %. Along with this, there has been a downsizing of date palm by 50 %. Areas with higher groundwater level were the least affected by the downsizing. So we can say that the shallow groundwater contribute significantly and directly to the water supply of date palm through its root system, and largely ensures the oasis ecosystem sustainability.

Keywords: Oasis dynamics, Arid environments, Groundwater deterioration, Date palm.

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Authors: Mohd Aftar Abu Bakar, Noratiqah Mohd Ariff, Abdul Aziz Jemain

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Storm Event Analysis (SEA) provides a method to define rainfalls events as storms where each storm has its own amount and duration. By modelling daily probability of different types of storms, the onset, offset and cycle of rainfall seasons can be determined and investigated. Furthermore, researchers from the field of meteorology will be able to study the dynamical characteristics of rainfalls and make predictions for future reference. In this study, four categories of storms; short, intermediate, long and very long storms; are introduced based on the length of storm duration. Daily probability models of storms are built for these four categories of storms in Peninsular Malaysia. The models are constructed by using Bernoulli distribution and by applying linear regression on the first Fourier harmonic equation. From the models obtained, it is found that daily probability of storms at the Eastern part of Peninsular Malaysia shows a unimodal pattern with high probability of rain beginning at the end of the year and lasting until early the next year. This is very likely due to the Northeast monsoon season which occurs from November to March every year. Meanwhile, short and intermediate storms at other regions of Peninsular Malaysia experience a bimodal cycle due to the two inter-monsoon seasons. Overall, these models indicate that Peninsular Malaysia can be divided into four distinct regions based on the daily pattern for the probability of various storm events.

Keywords: Daily probability model, monsoon seasons, regions, storm events.

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Authors: Ali Fadhil Naser, Wang Zonglin

Abstract:

The main objectives of this study are to inspect and identify any damage of jaimusi highway prestressed concrete bridge after repair and strengthening of damaged structural members and to evaluate the performance of the bridge structural members by adopting static load test. Inspection program after repair and strengthening includes identifying and evaluating the structural members of bridge such as T-shape cantilever structure, hanging beams, corbels, external tendons, anchor beams, sticking steel plate, and piers. The results of inspection show that the overall state of the bridge structural member after repair and strengthening is good. The results of rebound test of concrete strength show that the average strength of concrete is 46.31Mpa. Whereas, the average value of concrete strength of anchor beam is 49.82Mpa. According to the results of static load test, the experimental values are less than theoretical values of internal forces, deflection, and strain, indicating that the stiffness of the experimental structure, overall deformation and integrity satisfy the designed standard and the working performance is good, and the undertaking capacity has a certain surplus. There is not visible change in the length and width of cracks and there are not new cracks under experimental load.

Keywords: Jiamusi Bridge, Damage inspection, deflection, strain.

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Authors: Maninder Pal

Abstract:

Medical digital images usually have low resolution because of nature of their acquisition. Therefore, this paper focuses on zooming these images to obtain better level of information, required for the purpose of medical diagnosis. For this purpose, a strategy for selecting pixels in zooming operation is proposed. It is based on the principle of analog clock and utilizes a combination of point and neighborhood image processing. In this approach, the hour hand of clock covers the portion of image to be processed. For alignment, the center of clock points at middle pixel of the selected portion of image. The minute hand is longer in length, and is used to gain information about pixels of the surrounding area. This area is called neighborhood pixels region. This information is used to zoom the selected portion of the image. The proposed algorithm is implemented and its performance is evaluated for many medical images obtained from various sources such as X-ray, Computerized Tomography (CT) scan and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). However, for illustration and simplicity, the results obtained from a CT scanned image of head is presented. The performance of algorithm is evaluated in comparison to various traditional algorithms in terms of Peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), maximum error, SSIM index, mutual information and processing time. From the results, the proposed algorithm is found to give better performance than traditional algorithms.

Keywords: Zooming, interpolation, medical images, resolution.

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Authors: Mohammad Heidari

Abstract:

Horizontal wells are proven to be better producers because they can be extended for a long distance in the pay zone. Engineers have the technical means to forecast the well productivity for a given horizontal length. However, experiences have shown that the actual production rate is often significantly less than that of forecasted. It is a difficult task, if not impossible to identify the real reason why a horizontal well is not producing what was forecasted. Often the source of problem lies in the drilling of horizontal section such as permeability reduction in the pay zone due to mud invasion or snaky well patterns created during drilling. Although drillers aim to drill a constant inclination hole in the pay zone, the more frequent outcome is a sinusoidal wellbore trajectory. The two factors, which play an important role in wellbore tortuosity, are the inclination and side force at bit. A constant inclination horizontal well can only be drilled if the bit face is maintained perpendicular to longitudinal axis of bottom hole assembly (BHA) while keeping the side force nil at the bit. This approach assumes that there exists no formation force at bit. Hence, an appropriate BHA can be designed if bit side force and bit tilt are determined accurately. The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is superior to existing analytical techniques. In this study, the neural networks have been employed as a general approximation tool for estimation of the bit side forces. A number of samples are analyzed with ANN for parameters of bit side force and the results are compared with exact analysis. Back Propagation Neural network (BPN) is used to approximation of bit side forces. Resultant low relative error value of the test indicates the usability of the BPN in this area.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, BHA, Horizontal Well, Stabilizer.

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Authors: S.Shanmugam, V.G. Srisanthi, S.Ramachandran

Abstract:

Reinforced concrete has good durability and excellent structural performance. But there are cases of early deterioration due to a number of factors, one prominent factor being corrosion of steel reinforcement. The process of corrosion sets in due to ingress of moisture, oxygen and other ingredients into the body of concrete, which is unsound, permeable and absorbent. Cracks due to structural and other causes such as creep, shrinkage, etc also allow ingress of moisture and other harmful ingredients and thus accelerate the rate of corrosion. There are several interactive factors both external and internal, which lead to corrosion of reinforcement and ultimately failure of structures. Suitable addition of mineral admixture like silica fume (SF) in concrete improves the strength and durability of concrete due to considerable improvement in the microstructure of concrete composites, especially at the transition zone. Secondary reinforcement in the form of fibre is added to concrete, which provides three dimensional random reinforcement in the entire mass of concrete. Reinforced concrete beams of size 0.1 m X 0.15 m and length 1m have been cast using M 35 grade of concrete. The beams after curing process were subjected to corrosion process by impressing an external Direct Current (Galvanostatic Method) for a period of 15 days under stressed and unstressed conditions. The corroded beams were tested by applying two point loads to determine the ultimate load carrying capacity and cracking pattern and the results of specimens were compared with that of the companion specimens. Gravimetric method is used to quantify corrosion that has occurred.

Keywords: Carbonation, Corrosion, Cracking, Spalling.

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Authors: S. Imbin, S. Dullah, H. Asrah, P. S. Kumar, M. E. Rahman, M. A. Mannan

Abstract:

Service life of existing reinforced concrete (RC) structures in coastal towns of Sabah has been affected very much. Concrete crack, spalling of concrete cover and reinforcement rusting of RC buildings are seen even within 5 years of construction in Sabah. Hence, in this study a new mix design of concrete grout was developed using locally available materials and investigated under two curing conditions and workability, compressive strength, Accelerated Mortar Bar Test (AMBT), water absorption, volume of permeable voids (VPV), Sorptivity and 90-days salt ponding test were conducted. The compressive strength of concrete grout at the age 90 days was found to be 44.49 N/mm2 under water curing. It was observed that the percentage of mortar bar length change was below 1% for developed concrete grout. The water absorption of the concrete grout was in between the range of 0.88 % to 3.60 % under two different curing up to the age 90 days. It was also observed that the VPV of concrete was in the range of 0 % to 9.75 and 2.44% to 13.05% under water curing and site curing respectively. It was found that the Sorptivity of the concrete grout under water curing at the age of 28 days is 0.211mm/√min and at the age 90 day are 0.067 mm/√min. The chloride content decreased greatly, 90% after a depth of 15 mm. It was noticed that the site cured samples showed higher chloride contents near surface compared to water cured samples. This investigation suggested that the developed mix design of concrete grout using locally available construction materials can be used for crack repairing of existing RC structures in Sabah.

Keywords: Concrete grout, Salt ponding, Sorptivity, Water absorption.

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Authors: Sayyed R Mousavi

Abstract:

The Far From Most Strings Problem (FFMSP) is to obtain a string which is far from as many as possible of a given set of strings. All the input and the output strings are of the same length, and two strings are said to be far if their hamming distance is greater than or equal to a given positive integer. FFMSP belongs to the class of sequences consensus problems which have applications in molecular biology. The problem is NP-hard; it does not admit a constant-ratio approximation either, unless P = NP. Therefore, in addition to exact and approximate algorithms, (meta)heuristic algorithms have been proposed for the problem in recent years. On the other hand, in the recent years, hybrid algorithms have been proposed and successfully used for many hard problems in a variety of domains. In this paper, a new metaheuristic algorithm, called Constructive Beam and Local Search (CBLS), is investigated for the problem, which is a hybridization of constructive beam search and local search algorithms. More specifically, the proposed algorithm consists of two phases, the first phase is to obtain several candidate solutions via the constructive beam search and the second phase is to apply local search to the candidate solutions obtained by the first phase. The best solution found is returned as the final solution to the problem. The proposed algorithm is also similar to memetic algorithms in the sense that both use local search to further improve individual solutions. The CBLS algorithm is compared with the most recent published algorithm for the problem, GRASP, with significantly positive results; the improvement is by order of magnitudes in most cases.

Keywords: Bioinformatics, Far From Most Strings Problem, Hybrid metaheuristics, Matheuristics, Sequences consensus problems.

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Authors: Izian Abd. Karim, Kachalla Mohammed, Nora Farah A. A. Aziz, Law Teik Hua

Abstract:

The economic use and ease of construction of profiled deck composite slab is marred with the complex and un-economic strength verification required for the serviceability and general safety considerations. Beside these, albeit factors such as shear span length, deck geometries and mechanical frictions greatly influence the longitudinal shear strength, that determines the ultimate strength of profiled deck composite slab, and number of methods available for its determination; partial shear and slope-intercept are the two methods according to Euro-code 4 provision. However, the complexity associated with shear behavior of profiled deck composite slab, the use of these methods in determining the load carrying capacities of such slab yields different and conflicting values. This couple with the time and cost constraint associated with the strength verification is a source of concern that draws more attentions nowadays, the issue is critical. Treating some of these known shear strength influencing factors as random variables, the load carrying capacity violation of profiled deck composite slab from the use of the two-methods defined according to Euro-code 4 are determined using reliability approach, and comparatively studied. The study reveals safety values from the use of m-k method shows good standing compared with that from the partial shear method.

Keywords: Composite slab, first order reliability method, longitudinal shear, partial shear connection, slope-intercept.

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