Abstract: Automatic reading of handwritten cheque is a computationally
complex process and it plays an important role in financial
risk management. Machine vision and learning provide a viable
solution to this problem. Research effort has mostly been focused
on recognizing diverse pitches of cheques and demand drafts with an
identical outline. However most of these methods employ templatematching
to localize the pitches and such schemes could potentially
fail when applied to different types of outline maintained by the
bank. In this paper, the so-called outline problem is resolved by
a cheque information tree (CIT), which generalizes the localizing
method to extract active-region-of-entities. In addition, the weight
based density plot (WBDP) is performed to isolate text entities and
read complete pitches. Recognition is based on texture features using
neural classifiers. Legal amount is subsequently recognized by both
texture and perceptual features. A post-processing phase is invoked
to detect the incorrect readings by Type-2 grammar using the Turing
machine. The performance of the proposed system was evaluated
using cheque and demand drafts of 22 different banks. The test data
consists of a collection of 1540 leafs obtained from 10 different
account holders from each bank. Results show that this approach
can easily be deployed without significant design amendments.
Abstract: Thermal load calculations have been performed for
multi-layered walls that are composed of three different parts; a
common (sand and cement) plaster, and two types of locally
produced soft and hard bricks. The masonry construction of these
layered walls was based on concrete-backed stone masonry made of
limestone bricks joined by mortar. These multilayered walls are
forming the outer walls of the building envelope of a typical Libyan
house. Based on the periodic seasonal weather conditions, within the
Libyan cost region during summer and winter, measured thermal
conductivity values were used to implement such seasonal variation
of heat flow and the temperature variations through the walls. The
experimental measured thermal conductivity values were obtained
using the Hot Disk technique. The estimation of the thermal
resistance of the wall layers ( R-values) is based on measurements
and calculations. The numerical calculations were done using a
simplified analytical model that considers two different wall
constructions which are characteristics of such houses. According to
the obtained results, the R-values were quite low and therefore,
several suggestions have been proposed to improve the thermal
loading performance that will lead to a reasonable human comfort
and reduce energy consumption.
Abstract: Analytical seismic response of multi-story building
supported on base isolation system is investigated under real
earthquake motion. The superstructure is idealized as a shear type
flexible building with lateral degree-of-freedom at each floor. The
force-deformation behaviour of the isolation system is modelled by
the bi-linear behaviour which can be effectively used to model all
isolation systems in practice. The governing equations of motion of
the isolated structural system are derived. The response of the system
is obtained numerically by step-by-method under three real recorded
earthquake motions and pulse motions associated in the near-fault
earthquake motion. The variation of the top floor acceleration, interstory
drift, base shear and bearing displacement of the isolated
building is studied under different initial stiffness of the bi-linear
isolation system. It was observed that the high initial stiffness of the
isolation system excites higher modes in base-isolated structure and
generate floor accelerations and story drift. Such behaviour of the
base-isolated building especially supported on sliding type of
isolation systems can be detrimental to sensitive equipment installed
in the building. On the other hand, the bearing displacement and base
shear found to reduce marginally with the increase of the initial
stiffness of the initial stiffness of the isolation system. Further, the
above behaviour of the base-isolated building was observed for
different parameters of the bearing (i.e. post-yield stiffness and
characteristic strength) and earthquake motions (i.e. real time history
as well as pulse type motion).
Abstract: The present energy situation and the concerns
about global warming has stimulated active research interest
in non-petroleum, carbon free compounds and non-polluting
fuels, particularly for transportation, power generation, and
agricultural sectors. Environmental concerns and limited
amount of petroleum fuels have caused interests in the
development of alternative fuels for internal combustion (IC)
engines. The petroleum crude reserves however, are declining
and consumption of transport fuels particularly in the
developing countries is increasing at high rates. Severe
shortage of liquid fuels derived from petroleum may be faced
in the second half of this century. Recently more and more
stringent environmental regulations being enacted in the USA
and Europe have led to the research and development
activities on clean alternative fuels. Among the gaseous fuels
hydrogen is considered to be one of the clean alternative fuel.
Hydrogen is an interesting candidate for future internal
combustion engine based power trains. In this experimental
investigation, the performance and combustion analysis were
carried out on a direct injection (DI) diesel engine using
hydrogen with diesel following the TMI(Time Manifold
Injection) technique at different injection timings of 10
degree,45 degree and 80 degree ATDC using an electronic
control unit (ECU) and injection durations were controlled.
Further, the tests have been carried out at a constant speed of
1500rpm at different load conditions and it can be observed
that brake thermal efficiency increases with increase in load
conditions with a maximum gain of 15% at full load
conditions during all injection strategies of hydrogen. It was
also observed that with the increase in hydrogen energy share
BSEC started reducing and it reduced to a maximum of 9% as
compared to baseline diesel at 10deg ATDC injection during
maximum injection proving the exceptional combustion
properties of hydrogen.
Abstract: To understand the material characteristics of singleand
poly-crystals of pure copper, the respective relationships between
crystallographic orientations and microstructures, and the bending
and mechanical properties were examined. And texture distribution
is also analyzed. A bending test is performed in a SEM apparatus and
while its behaviors are observed in situ. Furthermore, some
analytical results related to crystal direction maps, inverse pole
figures, and textures were obtained from EBSD analyses.
Abstract: The new status generated by technological advancements and changes in the global economy raises important issues on how communities and organisations need to innovate upon their traditional processes in order to adapt to the challenges of the Knowledge Society. The DialogoS+ European project aims to study the role of and promote social dialogue in the banking sector, strengthen the link between old and new members and make social dialogue at the European level a force for innovation and change, also given the context of the international crisis emerging in 2008- 2009. Under the scope of DialogoS+, this paper describes how the community of Europe-s banking sector trade unions attempted to adapt to the challenges of the Knowledge Society by exploiting the benefits of new channels of communication, learning, knowledge generation and diffusion focusing on the concept of roadmapping. Important dimensions of social dialogue such as collective bargaining and working conditions are addressed.
Abstract: Graduate attributes have received increasing attention
over recent years as universities incorporate these attributes into the
curriculum. Graduates who have adequate technical knowledge only
are not sufficiently equipped to compete effectively in the work
place; they also need non disciplinary skills ie, graduate attributes.
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of an eportfolio
in a technical communication course to enhance engineering
students- graduate attributes: namely, learning of communication,
critical thinking and problem solving and teamwork skills. Two
questionnaires were used to elicit information from the students: one
on their preferred and the other on the actual learning process. In
addition, student perceptions of the use of eportfolio as a learning
tool were investigated. Preliminary findings showed that most of the
students- expectations have been met with their actual learning. This
indicated that eportfolio has the potential as a tool to enhance
students- graduate attributes.
Abstract: To solve the quick and accurate level-adjusting
problem in the process of spacecraft precise mating, automatic leveling
and equalizing hoist device for spacecraft is developed. Based on
lifting point adjustment by utilizing XY-workbench, the leveling and
equalizing controller by a self-adaptive control algorithm is proposed.
By simulation analysis and lifting test using engineering prototype,
validity and reliability of the hoist device is verified, which can meet
the precision mating requirements of practical applications for
spacecraft.
Abstract: This article considers the main features of party
construction in the course of political modernization of Kazakhstan.
Along with consideration of party construction author analyzed how
the transformation of the party system was fulfilled in Kazakhstan.
Besides the basic stages in the course of party construction were
explained by the author. The statistical data is cited.
Abstract: The distressing flood scenarios that occur in
recent years at the surrounding areas of Sarawak River have
left damages of properties and indirectly caused disruptions of
productive activities. This study is meant to reconstruct a 100-year
flood event that took place in this river basin. Sarawak River Subbasin
was chosen and modeled using the one-dimensional
hydrodynamic modeling approach using InfoWorks River Simulation
(RS), in combination with Geographical Information System (GIS).
This produces the hydraulic response of the river and its floodplains
in extreme flooding conditions. With different parameters introduced
to the model, correlations of observed and simulated data are
between 79% – 87%. Using the best calibrated model, flood
mitigation structures are imposed along the sub-basin. Analysis is
done based on the model simulation results. Result shows that the
proposed retention ponds constructed along the sub-basin provide the
most efficient reduction of flood by 34.18%.
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to establish the experimental conditions for removal of Cibacron Brilliant Yellow 3G-P dye (CBY) from aqueous solutions by sorption onto coffee husks as a low-cost sorbent. The effects of various experimental parameters (e.g. initial CBY dye concentration, sorbent mass, pH, temperature) were examined and the optimal experimental conditions were determined. The results indicated that the removal of the dye was pH dependent and at initial pH of 2, the dye was removed effectively. The CBY dye sorption data were fitted to Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich equilibrium models. The maximum sorption capacity of CBY dye ions onto coffee husks increased from 24.04 to 35.04 mg g-1 when the temperature was increased from 293 to 313 K. The calculated sorption thermodynamic parameters including ΔG°, ΔH°, and ΔS° indicated that the CBY dye sorption onto coffee husks is a spontaneous, endothermic and mainly physical in nature.
Abstract: Many experimental results suggest that more precise spike timing is significant in neural information processing. We construct a self-organization model using the spatiotemporal pat-terns, where Spike-Timing Dependent Plasticity (STDP) tunes the conduction delays between neurons. We show that, for highly syn-chronized inputs, the fluctuation of conduction delays causes globally continuous and locally distributed firing patterns through the self-organization.
Abstract: In this paper, we argue the security protocols of
ZigBee wireless sensor network in MAC layer. AES 128-bit
encryption algorithm in CCM* mode is secure transferred data;
however, AES-s secret key will be break within nearest future.
Efficient public key algorithm, ECC has been mixed with AES to
rescue the ZigBee wireless sensor from cipher text and replay attack.
Also, the proposed protocol can parallelize the integrity function to
increase system performance.
Abstract: In the present paper, we use generalized B-Spline curve in trigonometric form on circular domain, to capture the transcendental nature of circle involute curve and uncertainty characteristic of design. The required involute curve get generated within the given tolerance limit and is useful in gear design.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a new criterion for solving
the problem of channel shortening in multi-carrier systems. In a
discrete multitone receiver, a time-domain equalizer (TEQ) reduces
intersymbol interference (ISI) by shortening the effective duration of
the channel impulse response. Minimum mean square error (MMSE)
method for TEQ does not give satisfactory results. In [1] a new
criterion for partially equalizing severe ISI channels to reduce the
cyclic prefix overhead of the discrete multitone transceiver (DMT),
assuming a fixed transmission bandwidth, is introduced. Due to
specific constrained (unit morm constraint on the target impulse
response (TIR)) in their method, the freedom to choose optimum
vector (TIR) is reduced. Better results can be obtained by avoiding
the unit norm constraint on the target impulse response (TIR). In
this paper we change the cost function proposed in [1] to the cost
function of determining the maximum of a determinant subject to
linear matrix inequality (LMI) and quadratic constraint and solve the
resulting optimization problem. Usefulness of the proposed method
is shown with the help of simulations.
Abstract: Carboneous catalytical methane decomposition is an
attractive process because it produces two valuable products:
hydrogen and carbon. Furthermore, this reaction does not emit any
green house or hazardous gases. In the present study, experiments
were conducted in a thermo gravimetric analyzer using Fluka 05120
as carboneous catalyst to analyze its effectiveness in methane
decomposition. Various temperatures and methane partial pressures
were chosen and carbon mass gain was observed as a function of
time. Results are presented in terms of carbon formation rate,
hydrogen production and catalytical activity. It is observed that there
is linearity in carbon deposition amount by time at lower reaction
temperature (780 °C). On the other hand, it is observed that carbon
and hydrogen formation rates are increased with increasing
temperature. Finally, we observed that the carbon formation rate is
highest at 950 °C within the range of temperatures studied.
Abstract: This paper is a continuation of our interest in the influence of temperature on specific retention volumes and the resulting infinite dilution activity coefficients. This has a direct effect in the design of absorption and stripping columns for the abatement of volatile organic compounds. The interaction of 13 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) at varying temperatures was studied by gas liquid chromatography (GLC). Infinite dilution activity coefficients and specific retention volumes obtained in this study were found to be in agreement with those obtained from static headspace and group contribution methods by the authors as well as literature values for similar systems. Temperature variation also allows for transport calculations for different seasons. The results of this work confirm that PDMS is well suited for the scrubbing of VOCs from waste gas streams. Plots of specific retention volumes against temperature gave linear van-t Hoff plots.
Abstract: A color image edge detection algorithm is proposed in
this paper using Pseudo-complement and matrix rotation operations.
First, pseudo-complement method is applied on the image for each
channel. Then, matrix operations are applied on the output image of
the first stage. Dominant pixels are obtained by image differencing
between the pseudo-complement image and the matrix operated
image. Median filtering is carried out to smoothen the image thereby
removing the isolated pixels. Finally, the dominant or core pixels
occurring in at least two channels are selected. On plotting the
selected edge pixels, the final edge map of the given color image is
obtained. The algorithm is also tested in HSV and YCbCr color
spaces. Experimental results on both synthetic and real world images
show that the accuracy of the proposed method is comparable to
other color edge detectors. All the proposed procedures can be
applied to any image domain and runs in polynomial time.
Abstract: Extracting and elaborating software requirements and
transforming them into viable software architecture are still an
intricate task. This paper defines a solution architecture which is
based on the blurred amalgamation of problem space and solution
space. The dependencies between domain constraints, requirements
and architecture and their importance are described that are to be
considered collectively while evolving from problem space to
solution space. This paper proposes a revised version of Twin Peaks
Model named Win Peaks Model that reconciles software
requirements and architecture in more consistent and adaptable
manner. Further the conflict between stakeholders- win-requirements
is resolved by proposed Voting methodology that is simple
adaptation of win-win requirements negotiation model and QARCC.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a direct method based on the
real Schur factorization for solving the projected Sylvester equation
with relatively small size. The algebraic formula of the solution of
the projected continuous-time Sylvester equation is presented. The
computational cost of the direct method is estimated. Numerical
experiments show that this direct method has high accuracy.