Abstract: In this work, we propose a hybrid heuristic in order to
solve the Team Orienteering Problem (TOP). Given a set of points (or
customers), each with associated score (profit or benefit), and a team
that has a fixed number of members, the problem to solve is to visit a
subset of points in order to maximize the total collected score. Each
member performs a tour starting at the start point, visiting distinct
customers and the tour terminates at the arrival point. In addition,
each point is visited at most once, and the total time in each tour
cannot be greater than a given value. The proposed heuristic combines
beam search and a local optimization strategy. The algorithm was
tested on several sets of instances and encouraging results were
obtained.
Abstract: Existing ground movement surveillance technologies
at airports are subjected to limitations due to shadowing effects or
multiple reflections. Therefore, there is a strong demand for a new
sensing technology, which will be cost effective and will provide
detection of non-cooperative targets under any weather conditions.
This paper aims to present a new intelligent system, developed
within the framework of the EC-funded ISMAEL project, which is
based on a new magnetic sensing technology and provides detection,
tracking and automatic classification of targets moving on the airport
surface. The system is currently being installed at two European
airports. Initial experimental results under real airport traffic
demonstrate the great potential of the proposed system.
Abstract: This paper presents an adaptive technique for generation
of data required for construction of artificial neural network-based
performance model of nano-scale CMOS inverter circuit. The training
data are generated from the samples through SPICE simulation. The
proposed algorithm has been compared to standard progressive sampling
algorithms like arithmetic sampling and geometric sampling.
The advantages of the present approach over the others have been
demonstrated. The ANN predicted results have been compared with
actual SPICE results. A very good accuracy has been obtained.
Abstract: Increasing the demand for effectively use of the
production facility requires the tools for sharing the manufacturing
facility through remote operation of the machining process. This
research introduces the methodology of machining technology for
direct remote operation of networked milling machine. The
integrated tools with virtual simulation, remote desktop protocol and
Setup Free Attachment for remote operation of milling process are
proposed. Accessing and monitoring of machining operation is
performed by remote desktop interface and 3D virtual simulations.
Capability of remote operation is supported by an auto setup
attachment with a reconfigurable pin type setup free technology
installed on the table of CNC milling machine to perform unattended
machining process. The system is designed using a computer server
and connected to a PC based controlled CNC machine for real time
monitoring. A client will access the server through internet
communication and virtually simulate the machine activity. The
result has been presented that combination between real time virtual
simulation and remote desktop tool is enabling to operate all machine
tool functions and as well as workpiece setup..
Abstract: The 20th century has brought much development to the practice of Architecture worldwide, and technology has bridged inhabitation limits in many regions of the world with high levels of comfort and conveniences, most times at high costs to the environment. Throughout the globe, the tropical countries are being urbanized at an unprecedented rate and housing has become a major issue worldwide, in light of increased demand and lack of appropriate infra-structure and planning. Buildings and urban spaces designed in tropical cities have mainly adopted external concepts that in most cases do not fit the needs of the inhabitants living in such harsh climatic environment, and when they do, do so at high financial, environmental and cultural costs. Traditional architectural practices can provide valuable understanding on how self-reliance and autonomy of construction can be reinforced in rural-urban tropical environments. From traditional housing knowledge, it is possible to derive lessons for the development of new construction materials that are affordable, environmentally friendly, culturally acceptable and accesible to all.Specifically to the urban context, such solutions are of outmost importance, given the needs to a more democratic society, where access to housing is considered high in the agenda for development. Traditional or rural constructions are also ongoing through extensive changes eventhough they have mostly adopted climate-responsive building practices relying on local resources (with minimum embodied energy) and energy (for comfort and quality of life). It is important to note that many of these buildings can actually be called zero-energy, and hold potential answers to enable transition from high energy, high cost, low comfort urban habitations to zero/low energy habitations with high quality urban livelihood. Increasing access to modern urban lifestyels have also an effect on the aspirations from people in terms of performance, comfort and convenience in terms of their housing and the way it is produced and used. These aspirations are resulting in transitions from localresource dependent habitations- to non-local resource based highenergy urban style habitations. And such transitions are resulting in the habitations becoming increasingly unsuited to the local climatic conditions with increasing discomfort, ill-health, and increased CO2 emissions and local environmental disruption. This research studies one specific transition group in the context of 'water communities' in tropical-equatorial regions: Ribeirinhos housing typology (Amazonas, Brazil). The paper presents the results of a qualitative sustainability assessment of the housing typologies under transition, found at the Ribeirinhos communities.
Abstract: Graph has become increasingly important in modeling
complicated structures and schemaless data such as proteins, chemical
compounds, and XML documents. Given a graph query, it is desirable
to retrieve graphs quickly from a large database via graph-based
indices. Different from the existing methods, our approach, called
VFM (Vertex to Frequent Feature Mapping), makes use of vertices
and decision features as the basic indexing feature. VFM constructs
two mappings between vertices and frequent features to answer graph
queries. The VFM approach not only provides an elegant solution to
the graph indexing problem, but also demonstrates how database
indexing and query processing can benefit from data mining,
especially frequent pattern mining. The results show that the proposed
method not only avoids the enumeration method of getting subgraphs
of query graph, but also effectively reduces the subgraph isomorphism
tests between the query graph and graphs in candidate answer set in
verification stage.
Abstract: Gaussian mixture background model is widely used in
moving target detection of the image sequences. However, traditional
Gaussian mixture background model usually considers the time
continuity of the pixels, and establishes background through statistical
distribution of pixels without taking into account the pixels- spatial
similarity, which will cause noise, imperfection and other problems.
This paper proposes a new Gaussian mixture modeling approach,
which combines the color and gradient of the spatial information, and
integrates the spatial information of the pixel sequences to establish
Gaussian mixture background. The experimental results show that the
movement background can be extracted accurately and efficiently, and
the algorithm is more robust, and can work in real time in tracking
applications.
Abstract: The concept of privacy, seen in connection to the consumer's private space and personalization, has recently gained a higher importance as a consequence of the increasing marketing efforts of the organizations based on the capturing, processing and usage of consumer-s personal data.Paper intends to provide a definition of the consumer-s private space based on the types of personal data the consumer is willing to disclose, to assess the attitude toward personalization and to identify the means preferred by consumers to control their personal data and defend their private space. Several implications generated through the definition of the consumer-s private space are identified and weighted from both the consumers- and organizations- perspectives.
Abstract: The calculation of buckling length factor (K) for steel
frames columns is a major and governing processes to determine the
dimensions steel frame columns cross sections during design. The
buckling length of steel frames columns has a direct effect on the cost
(weight) of using cross section. A new formula is required to
determine buckling length factor (K) by simplified way. In this
research a new formula for buckling length factor (K) was established
to determine by accurate method for a limited interval of columns
ends rigidity (GA, GB). The new formula can be used ease to
evaluate the buckling length factor without needing to complicated
equations or difficult charts.
Abstract: The plastic flow of metal in the extrusion process is
an important factor in controlling the mechanical properties of the
extruded products. It is, however, difficult to predict the metal flow
in three dimensional extrusions of sections due to the involvement of
re-entrant corners. The present study is to find an upper bound
solution for the extrusion of triangular sectioned through taper dies
from round sectioned billet. A discontinuous kinematically
admissible velocity field (KAVF) is proposed. From the proposed
KAVF, the upper bound solution on non-dimensional extrusion
pressure is determined with respect to the chosen process parameters.
The theoretical results are compared with experimental results to
check the validity of the proposed velocity field. An extrusion setup
is designed and fabricated for the said purpose, and all extrusions are
carried out using circular billets. Experiments are carried out with
commercially available lead at room temperature.
Abstract: Many Wireless Sensor Network (WSN) applications necessitate secure multicast services for the purpose of broadcasting delay sensitive data like video files and live telecast at fixed time-slot. This work provides a novel method to deal with end-to-end delay and drop rate of packets. Opportunistic Routing chooses a link based on the maximum probability of packet delivery ratio. Null Key Generation helps in authenticating packets to the receiver. Markov Decision Process based Adaptive Scheduling algorithm determines the time slot for packet transmission. Both theoretical analysis and simulation results show that the proposed protocol ensures better performance in terms of packet delivery ratio, average end-to-end delay and normalized routing overhead.
Abstract: There has been a growing interest in utilizing surfactants in remediation processes to separate the hydrophobic volatile organic compounds (HVOCs) from aqueous solution. One attractive process is cloud point extraction (CPE), which utilizes nonionic surfactants as a separating agent. Since the surfactant cost is a key determination of the economic viability of the process, it is important that the surfactants are recycled and reused. This work aims to study the performance of the co-current vacuum stripping using a packed column for HVOCs removal from contaminated surfactant solution. Six types HVOCs are selected as contaminants. The studied surfactant is the branched secondary alcohol ethoxylates (AEs), Tergitol TMN-6 (C14H30O2). The volatility and the solubility of HVOCs in surfactant system are determined in terms of an apparent Henry’s law constant and a solubilization constant, respectively. Moreover, the HVOCs removal efficiency of vacuum stripping column is assessed in terms of percentage of HVOCs removal and the overall liquid phase volumetric mass transfer coefficient. The apparent Henry’s law constant of benzenz , toluene, and ethyl benzene were 7.00×10-5, 5.38×10-5, 3.35× 10-5 respectively. The solubilization constant of benzene, toluene, and ethyl benzene were 1.71, 2.68, 7.54 respectively. The HVOCs removal for all solute were around 90 percent.
Abstract: Everyday the usages of the Internet increase and simply a world of the data become accessible. Network providers do not want to let the provided services to be used in harmful or terrorist affairs, so they used a variety of methods to protect the special regions from the harmful data. One of the most important methods is supposed to be the firewall. Firewall stops the transfer of such packets through several ways, but in some cases they do not use firewall because of its blind packet stopping, high process power needed and expensive prices. Here we have proposed a method to find a discriminate function to distinguish between usual packets and harmful ones by the statistical processing on the network router logs. So an administrator can alarm to the user. This method is very fast and can be used simply in adjacent with the Internet routers.
Abstract: Molar excess Volumes, VE ijk and speeds of sound , uijk of 2-pyrrolidinone (i) + benzene or toluene (j) + ethanol (k) ternary mixture have been measured as a function of composition at 308.15 K. The observed speeds of sound data have been utilized to determine excess isentropic compressiblities, ( E S κ )ijk of ternary (i + j + k) mixtures. Molar excess volumes, VE ijk and excess isentropic compressibilities, ( E S κ )ijk data have fitted to the Redlich-Kister equation to calculate ternary adjustable parameters and standard deviations. The Moelywn-Huggins concept (Huggins in Polymer 12: 389-399, 1971) of connectivity between the surfaces of the constituents of binary mixtures has been extended to ternary mixtures (using the concept of a connectivity parameter of third degree of molecules, 3ξ , which inturn depends on its topology) to obtain an expression that describes well the measured VE ijk and ( E S κ )ijk data.
Abstract: In this paper, the criteria of Ψ-eventual stability have been established for generalized impulsive differential systems of multiple dependent variables. The sufficient conditions have been obtained using piecewise continuous Lyapunov function. An example is given to support our theoretical result.
Abstract: In this study concept of experimental design is
successfully applied for the determination of optimum condition to
produce PP/SWCNT (Polypropylene/Single wall carbon nanotube)
nanocomposite. Central composite design as one of experimental
design techniques is employed for the optimization and statistical
determination of the significant factors influencing on the tensile
modulus and yield stress as mechanical properties of this
nanocomposite. The significant factors are SWCNT weight fraction
and acid treatment time for functionalizing the nanoparticles.
Optimum conditions are in 0.7 % of SWCNT weight fraction and 210
min as acid treatment time for 1112.75 ± 28 MPa as maximum tensile
modulus and in 216 min and 0.65 % as acid treatment time and
SWCNT weight fraction respectively for 40.26 ± 0.3 MPa as
maximum yield stress. Also after setting new experiments for test
these optimum conditions, found excelent agreement with predicted
values.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a supervised method for
color image classification based on a multilevel sigmoidal neural
network (MSNN) model. In this method, images are classified into
five categories, i.e., “Car", “Building", “Mountain", “Farm" and
“Coast". This classification is performed without any segmentation
processes. To verify the learning capabilities of the proposed method,
we compare our MSNN model with the traditional Sigmoidal Neural
Network (SNN) model. Results of comparison have shown that the
MSNN model performs better than the traditional SNN model in the
context of training run time and classification rate. Both color
moments and multi-level wavelets decomposition technique are used
to extract features from images. The proposed method has been
tested on a variety of real and synthetic images.
Abstract: Tourists- eyes will often be attracted by the unique
phenomenon of the roadsides: betel nut beauties (pronounced as
binlang xishi in Mandarin), if they drive on the roads of Taiwan.
Sitting in the neon-lit glass stalls with attractive dress on the roadsides,
betel nut beauties usually sell betel nuts to the passing truckers or car
drivers with much of their efforts. Moreover, in order to attract
peoples- eyesight and increase the sales volume, the young girls are in
skimpy clothing to promote betel nuts or beverages to their customers.
Therefore, when the Chinese tourists come to Taiwan, to see the
unique betel nut beauty phenomenon has become one of their greatly
interested things or even a “must see". This paper describes betel but
beauties in Taiwan, explained why the Chinese tourists like to see
them in Taiwan and proposed propositions for examination.
Abstract: Virtual environment induces simulator sickness effect
for some users. The purpose of this research is to compare the
simulation sickness relative with parallax affect in one-screen and
three-screen HoloStageTM system, measured by Simulation Sickness
Questionnaire (SSQ). The results show the subjects tested in
three-screen has less sickness than one-screen and effect from the
Oculomotor (O) more than from the Disorientation (D) and more than
from the Nausea (N) or represented in O>D>N.
Abstract: This paper reports on a receding horizon filtering for
mobile robot systems with cross-correlated sensor noises and
uncertainties. Also, the effect of uncertain parameters in the state of
the tracking error model performance is considered. A distributed
fusion receding horizon filter is proposed. The distributed fusion
filtering algorithm represents the optimal linear combination of the
local filters under the minimum mean square error criterion. The
derivation of the error cross-covariances between the local receding
horizon filters is the key of this paper. Simulation results of the
tracking mobile robot-s motion demonstrate high accuracy and
computational efficiency of the distributed fusion receding horizon
filter.