Abstract: Estimates of temperature values at a specific time of day, from daytime and daily profiles, are needed for a number of environmental, ecological, agricultural and technical applications, ranging from natural hazards assessments, crop growth forecasting to design of solar energy systems. The scope of this research is to investigate the efficiency of data mining techniques in estimating minimum, maximum and mean temperature values. For this reason, a number of experiments have been conducted with well-known regression algorithms using temperature data from the city of Patras in Greece. The performance of these algorithms has been evaluated using standard statistical indicators, such as Correlation Coefficient, Root Mean Squared Error, etc.
Abstract: Supply network management adopts a systematic
and integrative approach to managing the operations and
relationships of various parties in a supply network. The objective
of the manufactures in their supply network is to reduce inventory
costs and increase customer satisfaction levels. One way of doing
that is to synchronize delivery performance. A supply network can
be described by nodes representing the companies and the links
(relationships) between these nodes. Uncertainty in delivery time
depends on type of network relationship between suppliers. The
problem is to understand how the individual uncertainties influence
the total uncertainty of the network and identify those parts of the
network, which has the highest potential for improving the total
delivery time uncertainty.
Abstract: Constant amplitude fatigue crack growth (FCG) tests
were performed on dissimilar metal welded plates of Type 316L
Stainless Steel (SS) and IS 2062 Grade A Carbon steel (CS). The
plates were welded by TIG welding using SS E309 as electrode. FCG
tests were carried on the Side Edge Notch Tension (SENT)
specimens of 5 mm thickness, with crack initiator (notch) at base
metal region (BM), weld metal region (WM) and heat affected zones
(HAZ). The tests were performed at a test frequency of 10 Hz and at
load ratios (R) of 0.1 & 0.6. FCG rate was found to increase with
stress ratio for weld metals and base metals, where as in case of
HAZ, FCG rates were almost equal at high ΔK. FCG rate of HAZ of
stainless steel was found to be lowest at low and high ΔK. At
intermediate ΔK, WM showed the lowest FCG rate. CS showed
higher crack growth rate at all ΔK. However, the scatter band of data
was found to be narrow. Fracture toughness (Kc) was found to vary
in different locations of weldments. Kc was found lowest for the
weldment and highest for HAZ of stainless steel. A novel method of
characterizing the FCG behavior using an Infrared thermography
(IRT) camera was attempted. By monitoring the temperature rise at
the fast moving crack tip region, the amount of plastic deformation
was estimated.
Abstract: Innovations and innovative activity get the increasing
value for successful financial and economic activity of the countries
and regions. The level of innovative sphere development determines
place of a country or a region in world economy and forms a basis of
steady economic growth. This article is devoted to different aspects
of organization of the national economic safety in the conditions of
innovative development, its problems, risks and threats. Economy
can be considered as aspiring for transition to innovative way only
with finding of economic safety: financial independence, power
stability and technological progress. There are statistical indicators,
defining the level of economic security and factors, threatening
economic safety of the state. The research is based on the analysis of
factors and indicators in conditions of innovative development. The
paper is illustrated by the examples of possible estimated system of
the economic safety level.
Abstract: Verapamil has been shown to inhibit fentanyl uptake in vitro and is a potent P-glycoprotein inhibitor. Tissue partitioning of loperamide, a commercially available opioid, is closely controlled by the P-gp efflux transporter. The following studies were designed to evaluate the effect of opioids on verapamil partitioning in the lung and brain, in vivo. Opioid (fentanyl or loperamide) was administered by intravenous infusion to Sprague Dawley rats alone or in combination with verapamil and plasma, with lung and brain tissues were collected at 1, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 60 minutes. Drug dispositions were modeled by recirculatory pharmacokinetic models. Fentanyl slightly increased the verapamil lung (PL) partition coefficient yet decreased the brain (PB) partition coefficient. Furthermore, loperamide significantly increased PLand PB. Fentanyl reduced the verapamil volume of distribution (V1) and verapamil elimination clearance (ClE). Fentanyl decreased verapamil brain partitioning, yet increased verapamil lung partitioning. Also, loperamide increased lung and brain partitioning in vivo. These results suggest that verapamil and fentanyl may be substrates of an unidentified inward transporter in brain tissue and confirm that verapamil and loperamide are substrates of the efflux transporter P-gp.
Abstract: Subsonic wind tunnel experiments were conducted to
study the effect of tripped boundary layer on the pressure distribution
in the contraction region of the tunnel. Measurements were
performed by installing trip strip at two different positions in the
concave portion of the contraction. The results show that installation
of the trip strips, have significant effects on both turbulence and
pressure distribution. The reduction in the free stream turbulence and
reduction of the wall static pressure distribution deferred signified
with the location of the trip strip.
Abstract: An exact algorithm for a n-link manipulator movement amidst arbitrary unknown static obstacles is presented.
The algorithm guarantees the reaching of a target configuration of the manipulator in a finite number of steps. The algorithm is
reduced to a finite number of calls of a subroutine for planning a trajectory in the presence of known forbidden states. The polynomial approximation algorithm which is used as the subroutine is presented. The results of the exact algorithm
implementation for the control of a seven link (7 degrees of
freedom, 7DOF) manipulator are given.
Abstract: High level synthesis (HLS) is a process which
generates register-transfer level design for digital systems from
behavioral description. There are many HLS algorithms and
commercial tools. However, most of these algorithms consider a
behavioral description for the system when a single token is
presented to the system. This approach does not exploit extra
hardware efficiently, especially in the design of digital filters where
common operations may exist between successive tokens. In this
paper, we modify the behavioral description to process multiple
tokens in parallel. However, this approach is unlike the full
processing that requires full hardware replication. It exploits the
presence of common operations between successive tokens. The
performance of the proposed approach is better than sequential
processing and approaches that of full parallel processing as the
hardware resources are increased.
Abstract: With the popularity of the multi-core and many-core architectures there is a great requirement for software frameworks which can support parallel programming methodologies. In this paper we introduce an Eclipse toolkit, JConqurr which is easy to use and provides robust support for flexible parallel progrmaming. JConqurr is a multi-core and many-core programming toolkit for Java which is capable of providing support for common parallel programming patterns which include task, data, divide and conquer and pipeline parallelism. The toolkit uses an annotation and a directive mechanism to convert the sequential code into parallel code. In addition to that we have proposed a novel mechanism to achieve the parallelism using graphical processing units (GPU). Experiments with common parallelizable algorithms have shown that our toolkit can be easily and efficiently used to convert sequential code to parallel code and significant performance gains can be achieved.
Abstract: In this paper, free vibration analysis of carbon nanotube (CNT) reinforced laminated composite panels is presented. Three types of panels such as flat, concave and convex are considered for study. Numerical simulation is carried out using commercially available finite element analysis software ANSYS. Numerical homogenization is employed to calculate the effective elastic properties of randomly distributed carbon nanotube reinforced composites. To verify the accuracy of the finite element method, comparisons are made with existing results available in the literature for conventional laminated composite panels and good agreements are obtained. The results of the CNT reinforced composite materials are compared with conventional composite materials under different boundary conditions.
Abstract: Aggressive scaling of MOS devices requires use of ultra-thin gate oxides to maintain a reasonable short channel effect and to take the advantage of higher density, high speed, lower cost etc. Such thin oxides give rise to high electric fields, resulting in considerable gate tunneling current through gate oxide in nano regime. Consequently, accurate analysis of gate tunneling current is very important especially in context of low power application. In this paper, a simple and efficient analytical model has been developed for channel and source/drain overlap region gate tunneling current through ultra thin gate oxide n-channel MOSFET with inevitable deep submicron effect (DSME).The results obtained have been verified with simulated and reported experimental results for the purpose of validation. It is shown that the calculated tunnel current is well fitted to the measured one over the entire oxide thickness range. The proposed model is suitable enough to be used in circuit simulator due to its simplicity. It is observed that neglecting deep sub-micron effect may lead to large error in the calculated gate tunneling current. It is found that temperature has almost negligible effect on gate tunneling current. It is also reported that gate tunneling current reduces with the increase of gate oxide thickness. The impact of source/drain overlap length is also assessed on gate tunneling current.
Abstract: A better understanding of cloud forest characteristic in a tropical montane cloud forest at Khao Nan, Nakhon Si Thammarat on climatic, vegetation, soil and hydrology were studied during 18-21 April 2007. The results showed that as air temperature at Sanyen cloud forest increased, the percent relative humidity decreased. The amount of solar radiation at Sanyen cloud forest had a positive association with the amount of solar radiation at Parah forest. The amount of solar radiation at Sanyen cloud forest was very low with a range of 0-19 W/m2. On the other hand, the amount of solar radiation at Parah forest was high with a range of 0-1000 W/m2. There was no difference between leaf width, leaf length, leaf thickness and leaf area with increasing in elevations. As the elevations increased, bush height and tree height decreased. There was no association between bush width and bush ratio with elevation. As the elevations increased, the percent epiphyte cover and the percent soil moisture increased but water temperature, conductivity, and dissolved oxygen decreased. The percent soil moistures and organic contents were higher at elevations above 900 m than elevations below.
Abstract: A numerical study of flow in a horizontally channel
partially filled with a porous screen with non-uniform inlet has been
performed by lattice Boltzmann method (LBM). The flow in porous
layer has been simulated by the Brinkman-Forchheimer model.
Numerical solutions have been obtained for variable porosity models
and the effects of Darcy number and porosity have been studied in
detail. It is found that the flow stabilization is reliant on the Darcy
number. Also the results show that the stabilization of flow field and
heat transfer is depended to Darcy number. Distribution of stream
field becomes more stable by decreasing Darcy number. Results
illustrate that the effect of variable porosity is significant just in the
region of the solid boundary. In addition, difference between constant
and variable porosity models is decreased by decreasing the Darcy
number.
Abstract: This study investigated morphology of the Spanner Barb (Puntius lateristriga Valenciennes, 1842) and water quality at Thepchana waterfall. This study was conducted at Thepchana Waterfall, Khao Nan National Park from March to May 2007. There were 40 Spanner Barb collected with 20 males and 20 females. Males had an average of 5.57 cm in standard length, 6.62 cm in total length and 5.18 g in total body weight. Females had an average of 7.25 cm in standard length, 8.24 cm in total length and 10.96 g in total body weight. The length (L) – weight (W) relationships for combining sexes, males and females were LogW = -2.137 + 3.355logL, log W = -0.068 + 3.297logL, and log W = -2.068 + 3.297logL, respectively. The Spanner Barb were smaller size fish with a compressed form; terminal mouth; villiform teeth; ctenoid scale; concave tail; general body color yellowish olive, with slight reddish tint to fins; vertical band beginning below dorsal and horizontal stripe from base of tail almost to vertical band. They also had a vertical band midway between the eye and first vertical band. There was a black spot above anal fin. The bladder looked like J-shape. Inside of the bladder was found small insects and insect lava. The body length and the bowels length was 1:1 ratio. The water temperature ranged from 25.00 – 27.00 °C which was appropriate for their habitat characteristics. Acid - alkalinity ranged from 6.65 – 6.90 mg/l. Dissolved oxygen ranged from 4.55 – 4.70 mg/l. Water hardness ranged from 31.00 – 48.00 mg/l. The amount of ammonia was about 0.25 mg/l.
Abstract: Today automobile and aerospace industries realise Laser Beam Welding for a clean and non contact source of heating and fusion for joining of sheets. The welding performance is mainly based on by the laser welding parameters. Some concepts related to Artificial Neural Networks and how can be applied to model weld bead geometry and mechanical properties in terms of equipment parameters are reported in order to evaluate the accuracy and compare it with traditional modeling schemes. This review reveals the output features of Titanium and Aluminium weld bead geometry and mechanical properties such as ultimate tensile strength, yield strength, elongation and reduction of the area of the weld using Artificial Neural Network.
Abstract: Green Roofs offers numerous advantages, including lowering ambient temperature, which is of increasing interest due to global warming concerns. However, there are technical problems pertaining to waterproofing to be resolved. Currently, the only recognized green roof waterproofing test is the German standard FLL. This paper examines the potential of replicating the test in tropical climate and reducing the test duration by using pre-grown plants. A three year old sample and a new setup were used for this experimental study. The new setup was prepared with close reference to the FLL standards and was compared against the three year old sample. Results showed that the waterproofing membrane was damaged by plant roots in both setups. Joints integrity was also challenged.
Abstract: Industrial robots play a vital role in automation
however only little effort are taken for the application of robots in
machining work such as Grinding, Cutting, Milling, Drilling,
Polishing etc. Robot parallel manipulators have high stiffness,
rigidity and accuracy, which cannot be provided by conventional
serial robot manipulators. The aim of this paper is to perform the
modeling and the workspace analysis of a 3 DOF Parallel
Manipulator (3 DOF PM). The 3 DOF PM was modeled and
simulated using 'ADAMS'. The concept involved is based on the
transformation of motion from a screw joint to a spherical joint
through a connecting link. This paper work has been planned to
model the Parallel Manipulator (PM) using screw joints for very
accurate positioning. A workspace analysis has been done for the
determination of work volume of the 3 DOF PM. The position of the
spherical joints connected to the moving platform and the
circumferential points of the moving platform were considered for
finding the workspace. After the simulation, the position of the joints
of the moving platform was noted with respect to simulation time and
these points were given as input to the 'MATLAB' for getting the
work envelope. Then 'AUTOCAD' is used for determining the work
volume. The obtained values were compared with analytical
approach by using Pappus-Guldinus Theorem. The analysis had been
dealt by considering the parameters, link length and radius of the
moving platform. From the results it is found that the radius of
moving platform is directly proportional to the work volume for a
constant link length and the link length is also directly proportional
to the work volume, at a constant radius of the moving platform.
Abstract: A registration framework for image-guided robotic
surgery is proposed for three emergency neurosurgical procedures,
namely Intracranial Pressure (ICP) Monitoring, External Ventricular
Drainage (EVD) and evacuation of a Chronic Subdural Haematoma
(CSDH). The registration paradigm uses CT and white light as
modalities. This paper presents two simulation studies for a
preliminary evaluation of the registration protocol: (1) The loci of the
Target Registration Error (TRE) in the patient-s axial, coronal and
sagittal views were simulated based on a Fiducial Localisation Error
(FLE) of 5 mm and (2) Simulation of the actual framework using
projected views from a surface rendered CT model to represent white
light images of the patient. Craniofacial features were employed as
the registration basis to map the CT space onto the simulated
intraoperative space. Photogrammetry experiments on an artificial
skull were also performed to benchmark the results obtained from the
second simulation. The results of both simulations show that the
proposed protocol can provide a 5mm accuracy for these
neurosurgical procedures.
Abstract: In this paper, a new model order reduction
phenomenon is introduced at the design stage of linear phase digital
IIR filter. The complexity of a system can be reduced by adopting the
model order reduction method in their design. In this paper a mixed
method of model order reduction is proposed for linear IIR filter. The
proposed method employs the advantages of factor division technique
to derive the reduced order denominator polynomial and the reduced
order numerator is obtained based on the resultant denominator
polynomial. The order reduction technique is used to reduce the delay
units at the design stage of IIR filter. The validity of the proposed
method is illustrated with design example in frequency domain and
stability is also examined with help of nyquist plot.
Abstract: An experimental study of Reinforced Concrete, RC, columns strengthened using a steel jacketing technique was conducted. The jacketing technique consisted of four steel vertical angles installed at the corners of the column joined by horizontal steel straps confining the column externally. The effectiveness of the technique was evaluated by testing the RC column specimens under eccentric monotonic loading until failure occurred. Strain gauges were installed to monitor the strains in the internal reinforcement as well as the external jacketing system. The effectiveness of the jacketing technique was demonstrated, and the parameters affecting the technique were studied.