Abstract: State-based testing is frequently used in software testing. Test data generation is one of the key issues in software testing. A properly generated test suite may not only locate the errors in a software system, but also help in reducing the high cost associated with software testing. It is often desired that test data in the form of test sequences within a test suite can be automatically generated to achieve required test coverage. This paper proposes an Ant Colony Optimization approach to test data generation for the state-based software testing.
Abstract: This paper presents methodologies for developing an
intelligent CAD system assisting in analysis and design of
reconfigurable special machines. It describes a procedure for
determining feasibility of utilizing these machines for a given part
and presents a model for developing an intelligent CAD system. The
system analyzes geometrical and topological information of the given
part to determine possibility of the part being produced by
reconfigurable special machines from a technical point of view. Also
feasibility of the process from a economical point of view is
analyzed. Then the system determines proper positioning of the part
considering details of machining features and operations needed.
This involves determination of operation types, cutting tools and the
number of working stations needed. Upon completion of this stage
the overall layout of the machine and machining equipment required
are determined.
Abstract: The European countries that during the past two
decades based their exchange rate regimes on currency board
arrangement (CBA) are usually analysed from the perspective of
corner solution choice’s stabilisation effects. There is an open
discussion on the positive and negative background of a strict
exchange rate regime choice, although it should be seen as part of the
transition process towards the monetary union membership. The
focus of the paper is on the Baltic countries that after two decades of
a rigid exchange rate arrangement and strongly influenced by global
crisis are finishing their path towards the euro zone. Besides the
stabilising capacity, the CBA is highly vulnerable regime, with
limited developing potential. The rigidity of the exchange rate (and
monetary) system, despite the ensured credibility, do not leave
enough (or any) space for the adjustment and/or active crisis
management. Still, the Baltics are in a process of recovery, with fiscal
consolidation measures combined with (painful and politically
unpopular) measures of internal devaluation. Today, two of them
(Estonia and Latvia) are members of euro zone, fulfilling their
ultimate transition targets, but de facto exchanging one fixed regime
with another.
The paper analyses the challenges for the CBA in unstable
environment since the fixed regimes rely on imported stability and
are sensitive to external shocks. With limited monetary instruments,
these countries were oriented to the fiscal policies and used a
combination of internal devaluation and tax policy measures. Despite
their rather quick recovery, our second goal is to analyse the long
term influence that the measures had on the national economy.
Abstract: For high-speed control of robots, a good knowledge of system modelling is necessary to obtain the desired bandwidth. In this paper, we present a cartesian robot with a pan/tilt unit in end-effector (5 dof). This robot is implemented with powerful direct drive AC induction machines. The dynamic model, parameter identification and model validation of the robot are studied (including actuators). This work considers the cartesian robot coupled and non linear (contrary to normal considerations for this type of robots). The mechanical and control architecture proposed in this paper is efficient for industrial and research application in which high speed, well known model and very high accuracy are required.
Abstract: This paper reviews various approaches that have been
used for the modeling and simulation of large-scale engineering
systems and determines their appropriateness in the development of a
RICS modeling and simulation tool. Bond graphs, linear graphs,
block diagrams, differential and difference equations, modeling
languages, cellular automata and agents are reviewed. This tool
should be based on linear graph representation and supports symbolic
programming, functional programming, the development of noncausal
models and the incorporation of decentralized approaches.
Abstract: A new approach for timestamp ordering problem in
serializable schedules is presented. Since the number of users using
databases is increasing rapidly, the accuracy and needing high
throughput are main topics in database area. Strict 2PL does not
allow all possible serializable schedules and so does not result high
throughput. The main advantages of the approach are the ability to
enforce the execution of transaction to be recoverable and the high
achievable performance of concurrent execution in central databases.
Comparing to Strict 2PL, the general structure of the algorithm is
simple, free deadlock, and allows executing all possible serializable
schedules which results high throughput. Various examples which
include different orders of database operations are discussed.
Abstract: One of the most common practices for strengthening
the reinforced concrete structures is the application of FRP (Fiber
Reinforce Plastic) sheets to increase the flexural and shear strengths
of the member. The elastic modulus of FRP is considerably higher
than that of concrete. This will result in debonding between the FRP
sheets and concrete surface. With conventional surface preparation of
concrete, the ultimate capacity of the FRP sheets can hardly be
achieved. New methods for preparation of the bonding surface have
shown improvements in reducing the premature debonding of FRP
sheets from concrete surface. The present experimental study focuses
on the application of grooving method to postpone debonding of the
FRP sheets attached to the side faces of concrete beams for shear
strengthening. Comparison has also been made with conventional
surface preparation method. This study clearly shows the efficiency
of grooving method compared to surface preparation method, in
preventing the debonding phenomenon and in increasing the load
carrying capacity of FRP.
Abstract: The modern Kazakh society is characterized by strengthen cross-cultural communication, the emergence of new powerful subcultures, accelerated change in social systems and values. The socio-political reforms in all fields have changed the quality of social relationships and spiritual life.Cross-cultural approach involves the analysis of different types of behavior and communication, including the manifestation of the conflict, and the formation of marginal destructive stereotypes.
Abstract: Fast forecasting of stock market prices is very important for
strategic planning. In this paper, a new approach for fast forecasting of
stock market prices is presented. Such algorithm uses new high speed
time delay neural networks (HSTDNNs). The operation of these
networks relies on performing cross correlation in the frequency
domain between the input data and the input weights of neural
networks. It is proved mathematically and practically that the number
of computation steps required for the presented HSTDNNs is less
than that needed by traditional time delay neural networks
(TTDNNs). Simulation results using MATLAB confirm the
theoretical computations.
Abstract: In the present study, changes of morphology and
mechanical characteristics in the lumbar vertebrae of the
ovariectomised (OVX) rat were investigated. In previous researches,
there were many studies about morphology like volume fraction and
trabecular thickness based on Micro - Computed Tomography (Micro
- CT). However, detecting and tracking long-term changes in the
trabecular bone of the lumbar vertebrae for the OVX rat were few. For
this study, one female Sprague-Dawley rat was used: an OVX rat. The
4th Lumbar of the OVX rat was subjected to in-vivo micro-CT.
Detecting and tracking long-term changes could be investigated in the
trabecular bone of the lumbar vertebrae for an OVX rat using in-vivo
micro-CT. An OVX rat was scanned at week 0 (just before surgery), at
week 4, at week 8, week 16, week 22 and week 56 after surgery. Finite
element (FE) analysis was used to investigate mechanical
characteristics of the lumbar vertebrae for an OVX rat. When the OVX
rat (at week 56) was compared with the OVX rat (at week 0), volume
fraction was decreased by 80% and effective modulus was decreased
by 75%.
Abstract: An experimental and numerical study has been conducted to clarify heat transfer characteristics and effectiveness of a cross-flow heat exchanger employing staggered wing-shaped tubes at different angels of attack. The water-side Rew and the air-side Rea were at 5 x 102 and at from 1.8 x 103 to 9.7 x 103, respectively. The tubes arrangements were employed with various angles of attack θ1,2,3 from 0° to 330° at the considered Rea range. Correlation of Nu, St, as well as the heat transfer per unit pumping power (ε) in terms of Rea, design parameters for the studied bundle were presented. The temperature fields around the staggered wing-shaped tubes bundle were predicted by using commercial CFD FLUENT 6.3.26 software package. Results indicated that the heat transfer was increased by increasing the angle of attack from 0° to 45°, while the opposite was true for angles of attack from 135° to 180°. The best thermal performance and hence η of studied bundle was occurred at the lowest Rea and/or zero angle of attack. Comparisons between the experimental and numerical results of the present study and those, previously, obtained for similar available studies showed good agreements.
Abstract: We consider optimal channel equalization for MIMO
(multi-input/multi-output) time-varying channels in the sense of
MMSE (minimum mean-squared-error), where the observation noise
can be non-stationary. We show that all ZF (zero-forcing) receivers
can be parameterized in an affine form which eliminates completely
the ISI (inter-symbol-interference), and optimal channel equalizers
can be designed through minimization of the MSE (mean-squarederror)
between the detected signals and the transmitted signals,
among all ZF receivers. We demonstrate that the optimal channel
equalizer is a modified Kalman filter, and show that under the AWGN
(additive white Gaussian noise) assumption, the proposed optimal
channel equalizer minimizes the BER (bit error rate) among all
possible ZF receivers. Our results are applicable to optimal channel
equalization for DWMT (discrete wavelet multitone), multirate transmultiplexers,
OFDM (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing),
and DS (direct sequence) CDMA (code division multiple access)
wireless data communication systems. A design algorithm for optimal
channel equalization is developed, and several simulation examples
are worked out to illustrate the proposed design algorithm.
Abstract: The hospital and the health-care center of a
community, as a place for people-s life-care and health-care settings,
must provide more and better services for patients or residents. After
Establishing Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system -which is a
necessity- in the hospital, providing pervasive services is a further
step. Our objective in this paper is to use pervasive computing in a
case study of healthcare, based on EMR database that coordinates
application services over network to form a service environment for
medical and health-care. Our method also categorizes the hospital
spaces into 3 spaces: Public spaces, Private spaces and Isolated
spaces. Although, there are many projects about using pervasive
computing in healthcare, but all of them concentrate on the disease
recognition, designing smart cloths, or provide services only for
patient. The proposed method is implemented in a hospital. The
obtained results show that it is suitable for our purpose.
Abstract: This paper describes studies carried out to investigate
the viability of using wireless cameras as a tool in monitoring
changes in air quality. A camera is used to monitor the change in
colour of a chemically responsive polymer within view of the camera
as it is exposed to varying chemical species concentration levels. The
camera captures this image and the colour change is analyzed by
averaging the RGB values present. This novel chemical sensing
approach is compared with an established chemical sensing method
using the same chemically responsive polymer coated onto LEDs. In
this way, the concentration levels of acetic acid in the air can be
tracked using both approaches. These approaches to chemical plume
tracking have many applications for air quality monitoring.
Abstract: ZnO heteronanostructured nanowires arrays have
been fabricated by low temperature solution method. Various
heterostructures were synthesized including CdS/ZnO,
CdSe/CdS/ZnO nanowires and Co3O4/ZnO, ZnO/SiC
nanowires. These multifunctional heterostructure nanowires
showed important applications in photocatalysts, sensors,
wettability control and solar energy conversion.
Abstract: An enhanced particle swarm optimization algorithm
(PSO) is presented in this work to solve the non-convex OPF
problem that has both discrete and continuous optimization variables.
The objective functions considered are the conventional quadratic
function and the augmented quadratic function. The latter model
presents non-differentiable and non-convex regions that challenge
most gradient-based optimization algorithms. The optimization
variables to be optimized are the generator real power outputs and
voltage magnitudes, discrete transformer tap settings, and discrete
reactive power injections due to capacitor banks. The set of equality
constraints taken into account are the power flow equations while the
inequality ones are the limits of the real and reactive power of the
generators, voltage magnitude at each bus, transformer tap settings,
and capacitor banks reactive power injections. The proposed
algorithm combines PSO with Newton-Raphson algorithm to
minimize the fuel cost function. The IEEE 30-bus system with six
generating units is used to test the proposed algorithm. Several cases
were investigated to test and validate the consistency of detecting
optimal or near optimal solution for each objective. Results are
compared to solutions obtained using sequential quadratic
programming and Genetic Algorithms.
Abstract: Development of artificial neural network (ANN) for
prediction of aluminum workpieces' surface roughness in ultrasonicvibration
assisted turning (UAT) has been the subject of the present
study. Tool wear as the main cause of surface roughness was also
investigated. ANN was trained through experimental data obtained
on the basis of full factorial design of experiments. Various
influential machining parameters were taken into consideration. It
was illustrated that a multilayer perceptron neural network could
efficiently model the surface roughness as the response of the
network, with an error less than ten percent. The performance of the
trained network was verified by further experiments. The results of
UAT were compared with the results of conventional turning
experiments carried out with similar machining parameters except for
the vibration amplitude whence considerable reduction was observed
in the built-up edge and the surface roughness.
Abstract: A reduced-bit multiplication algorithm based on the ancient Vedic multiplication formulae is proposed in this paper. Both the Vedic multiplication formulae, Urdhva tiryakbhyam and Nikhilam, are first discussed in detail. Urdhva tiryakbhyam, being a general multiplication formula, is equally applicable to all cases of multiplication. It is applied to the digital arithmetic and is shown to yield a multiplier architecture which is very similar to the popular array multiplier. Due to its structure, it leads to a high carry propagation delay in case of multiplication of large numbers. Nikhilam Sutra, on the other hand, is more efficient in the multiplication of large numbers as it reduces the multiplication of two large numbers to that of two smaller numbers. The framework of the proposed algorithm is taken from this Sutra and is further optimized by use of some general arithmetic operations such as expansion and bit-shifting to take advantage of bit-reduction in multiplication. We illustrate the proposed algorithm by reducing a general 4x4-bit multiplication to a single 2 x 2-bit multiplication operation.
Abstract: In this paper, a method for deriving a group priority vector in the Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP) is proposed. By introducing importance weights of multiple decision makers (DMs) based on their experiences, the Fuzzy Preferences Programming Method (FPP) is extended to a fuzzy group prioritization problem in the FANP. Additionally, fuzzy pair-wise comparison judgments are presented rather than exact numerical assessments in order to model the uncertainty and imprecision in the DMs- judgments and then transform the fuzzy group prioritization problem into a fuzzy non-linear programming optimization problem which maximize the group satisfaction. Unlike the known fuzzy prioritization techniques, the new method proposed in this paper can easily derive crisp weights from incomplete and inconsistency fuzzy set of comparison judgments and does not require additional aggregation producers. Detailed numerical examples are used to illustrate the implement of our approach and compare with the latest fuzzy prioritization method.
Abstract: The changes in quality properties and nutritional
components in two fermented mugworts (Artemisia capillaries
Thumberg, Artemisiaeasiaticae Nakai) were characterized followed
by the rapid pattern analysis of volatile flavor compounds by Electric
Nose based on SAW(Surface Acoustic Wave) sensor in GC system.
There were remarkable decreases in the pH and small changes in the
total soluble solids after fermentation. The L (lightness) and b
(yellowness) values in Hunter's color system were shown to be
decreased, whilst the a (redness) value was increased by fermentation.
The HPLC analysis demonstrated that total amino acids were
increased in quantity and the essential amino acids were contained
higher in A. asiaticaeNakai than in A. capillaries Thumberg. While
the total polyphenol contents were not affected by fermentation, the
total sugar contents were dramatically decreased. Scopoletinwere
highly abundant in A. capillarisThumberg, however, it was not
detected in A. asiaticaeNakai. Volatile flavor compounds by Electric
Nose showed that the intensity of several peaks were increased much
and seven additional flavor peaks were newly produced after
fermentation. The flavor differences of two mugworts were clearly
distinguished from the image patterns of VaporPrintTM which indicate
that the fermentation enables the two mugworts to have subtle flavor
differences.