Abstract: The purpose of the study was to investigate the
effectiveness of ICT training workshop of tutors of Allama Iqbal
Open University Pakistan. The study was delimited to tutors of
Multan region. The total sample comprised of 100 tutors. All the
tutors who participated in ICT training workshop in Multan region
were taken as sample in the study. A questionnaire having two parts,
based on five point rating scale was developed by the researcher. Part
one was about the competency level of computer skills while Part
two was based on items related to training delivery, structure and
content. Part One of questionnaire had five levels of competency
about computer skills. The questionnaire was personally administered
and collected back by the researcher himself on the last day of
workshop.
The collected data were analyzed by using descriptive statistics.
Through this study it was found that majority of the tutors strongly
agreed that training enhanced their computer skills. Majority of the
respondents consider themselves to be generally competent in the use
of computer. They also agreed that there was appropriate
infrastructure and technical support in lab during training workshop.
Moreover, it was found that the training imparted the knowledge of
pedagogy of using computers for distance education.
Abstract: In this paper, the trajectory tracking problem for carlike mobile robots have been studied. The system comprises of a leader and a follower robot. The purpose is to control the follower so that the leader-s trajectory is tracked with arbitrary desired clearance to avoid inter-robot collision while navigating in a terrain with obstacles. A set of artificial potential field functions is proposed using the Direct Method of Lyapunov for the avoidance of obstacles and attraction to their designated targets. Simulation results prove the efficiency of our control technique.
Abstract: This paper presents implementation of attitude controller for a small UAV using field programmable gate array (FPGA). Due to the small size constrain a miniature more compact and computationally extensive; autopilot platform is needed for such systems. More over UAV autopilot has to deal with extremely adverse situations in the shortest possible time, while accomplishing its mission. FPGAs in the recent past have rendered themselves as fast, parallel, real time, processing devices in a compact size. This work utilizes this fact and implements different attitude controllers for a small UAV in FPGA, using its parallel processing capabilities. Attitude controller is designed in MATLAB/Simulink environment. The discrete version of this controller is implemented using pipelining followed by retiming, to reduce the critical path and thereby clock period of the controller datapath. Pipelined, retimed, parallel PID controller implementation is done using rapidprototyping and testing efficient development tool of “system generator", which has been developed by Xilinx for FPGA implementation. The improved timing performance enables the controller to react abruptly to any changes made to the attitudes of UAV.
Abstract: The utilisation of Industrial Building System (IBS) in construction industry will lead to a safe site condition since minimum numbers of workers are required to be on-site, timely material delivery, systematic component storage, reduction of construction material and waste. These matters are being promoted in the Construction Industry Master Plan (CIMP 2006-2015). However, the enabling factors of IBS that will foster a safer working environment are indefinite; on that basis a research has been conducted. The purpose of this paper is to discuss and identify the relevant factors towards safety improvement for IBS. A quantitative research by way of questionnaire surveys have been conducted to 314 construction companies. The target group was Grade 5 to Grade 7 contractors registered with Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) which specialise in IBS. The findings disclosed seven factors linked to the safety improvement of IBS construction site in Malaysia. The factors were historical, economic, psychological, technical, procedural, organisational and the environmental factors. From the findings, a psychological factor ranked as the highest and most crucial factor contributing to safer IBS construction site. The psychological factor included the self-awareness and influences from workmates behaviour. Followed by organisational factors, where project management style will encourage the safety efforts. From the procedural factors, it was also found that training was one of the significant factors to improve safety culture of IBS construction site. Another important finding that formed as a part of the environmental factor was storage of IBS components, in which proper planning of the layout would able to contribute to a safer site condition. To conclude, in order to improve safety of IBS construction site, a welltrained and skilled workers are required for IBS projects, thus proper training is permissible and should be emphasised.
Abstract: The existing image coding standards generally degrades at low bit-rates because of the underlying block based Discrete Cosine Transform scheme. Over the past decade, the success of wavelets in solving many different problems has contributed to its unprecedented popularity. Due to implementation constraints scalar wavelets do not posses all the properties such as orthogonality, short support, linear phase symmetry, and a high order of approximation through vanishing moments simultaneously, which are very much essential for signal processing. New class of wavelets called 'Multiwavelets' which posses more than one scaling function overcomes this problem. This paper presents a new image coding scheme based on non linear approximation of multiwavelet coefficients along with multistage vector quantization. The performance of the proposed scheme is compared with the results obtained from scalar wavelets.
Abstract: This study deals with the experimental investigation
and theoretical modeling of Semi crystalline polymeric materials with
a rubbery amorphous phase (HDPE) subjected to a uniaxial cyclic
tests with various maximum strain levels, even at large deformation.
Each cycle is loaded in tension up to certain maximum strain and
then unloaded down to zero stress with N number of cycles. This
work is focuses on the measure of the volume strain due to the
phenomena of damage during this kind of tests. On the basis of
thermodynamics of relaxation processes, a constitutive model for
large strain deformation has been developed, taking into account the
damage effect, to predict the complex elasto-viscoelastic-viscoplastic
behavior of material. A direct comparison between the model
predictions and the experimental data show that the model accurately
captures the material response. The model is also capable of
predicting the influence damage causing volume variation.
Abstract: A feasibility study for the design and construction of a
pilot plant for the extraction of castor oil in South Africa was
conducted. The study emphasized the four critical aspects of project
feasibility analysis, namely technical, financial, market and
managerial aspects. The technical aspect involved research on
existing oil extraction technologies, namely: mechanical pressing and
solvent extraction, as well as assessment of the proposed production
site for both short and long term viability of the project. The site is
on the outskirts of Nkomazi village in the Mpumalanga province,
where connections for water and electricity are currently underway,
potential raw material supply proves to be reliable since the province
is known for its commercial farming. The managerial aspect was
evaluated based on the fact that the current producer of castor oil will
be fully involved in the project while receiving training and technical
assistance from Sasol Technology, the TSC and SEDA. Market and
financial aspects were evaluated and the project was considered
financially viable with a Net Present Value (NPV) of R2 731 687 and
an Internal Rate of Return (IRR) of 18% at an annual interest rate of
10.5%. The payback time is 6years for analysis over the first 10
years with a net income of R1 971 000 in the first year. The project
was thus found to be feasible with high chance of success while
contributing to socio-economic development. It was recommended
for lab tests to be conducted to establish process kinetics that would
be used in the initial design of the plant.
Abstract: Knowing about the customer behavior in a grocery has
been a long-standing issue in the retailing industry. The advent of
RFID has made it easier to collect moving data for an individual
shopper's behavior. Most of the previous studies used the traditional
statistical clustering technique to find the major characteristics of
customer behavior, especially shopping path. However, in using the
clustering technique, due to various spatial constraints in the store,
standard clustering methods are not feasible because moving data such
as the shopping path should be adjusted in advance of the analysis,
which is time-consuming and causes data distortion. To alleviate this
problem, we propose a new approach to spatial pattern clustering
based on the longest common subsequence. Experimental results using
real data obtained from a grocery confirm the good performance of the
proposed method in finding the hot spot, dead spot and major path
patterns of customer movements.
Abstract: Data security in u-Health system can be an important
issue because wireless network is vulnerable to hacking. However, it is
not easy to implement a proper security algorithm in an embedded
u-health monitoring because of hardware constraints such as low
performance, power consumption and limited memory size and etc. To
secure data that contain personal and biosignal information, we
implemented several security algorithms such as Blowfish, data
encryption standard (DES), advanced encryption standard (AES) and
Rivest Cipher 4 (RC4) for our u-Health monitoring system and the
results were successful. Under the same experimental conditions, we
compared these algorithms. RC4 had the fastest execution time.
Memory usage was the most efficient for DES. However, considering
performance and safety capability, however, we concluded that AES
was the most appropriate algorithm for a personal u-Health monitoring
system.
Abstract: The construction of a civil structure inside a urban
area inevitably modifies the outdoor microclimate at the building
site. Wind speed, wind direction, air pollution, driving rain, radiation
and daylight are some of the main physical aspects that are subjected
to the major changes. The quantitative amount of these modifications
depends on the shape, size and orientation of the building and on its
interaction with the surrounding environment.The flow field over a
flat roof model building has been numerically investigated in order to
determine two-dimensional CFD guidelines for the calculation of the
turbulent flow over a structure immersed in an atmospheric boundary
layer. To this purpose, a complete validation campaign has been
performed through a systematic comparison of numerical simulations
with wind tunnel experimental data.Several turbulence models and
spatial node distributions have been tested for five different vertical
positions, respectively from the upstream leading edge to the
downstream bottom edge of the analyzed model. Flow field
characteristics in the neighborhood of the building model have been
numerically investigated, allowing a quantification of the capabilities
of the CFD code to predict the flow separation and the extension of
the recirculation regions.The proposed calculations have allowed the
development of a preliminary procedure to be used as a guidance in
selecting the appropriate grid configuration and corresponding
turbulence model for the prediction of the flow field over a twodimensional
roof architecture dominated by flow separation.
Abstract: In recent years, the number of natural disasters in Laos has a trend to increase, especially the disaster of flood. To make a flood plan risk management in the future, it is necessary to understand and analyze the characteristics of the rainfall and Mekong River level data. To reduce the damage, this paper presents the flood risk analysis in Luangprabang and Vientiane, the prefecture of Laos. In detail, the relationship between the rainfall and the Mekong River level has evaluated and appropriate countermeasure for flood was discussed.
Abstract: This work is to study a roll of the fluctuating density
gradient in the compressible flows for the computational fluid dynamics
(CFD). A new anisotropy tensor with the fluctuating density
gradient is introduced, and is used for an invariant modeling technique
to model the turbulent density gradient correlation equation derived
from the continuity equation. The modeling equation is decomposed
into three groups: group proportional to the mean velocity, and that
proportional to the mean strain rate, and that proportional to the mean
density. The characteristics of the correlation in a wake are extracted
from the results by the two dimensional direct simulation, and shows
the strong correlation with the vorticity in the wake near the body.
Thus, it can be concluded that the correlation of the density gradient
is a significant parameter to describe the quick generation of the
turbulent property in the compressible flows.
Abstract: Flow through micro and mini channels requires relatively
high driving pressure due to the large fluid pressure drop
through these channels. Consequently the forces acting on the walls of
the channel due to the fluid pressure are also large. Due to these forces
there are displacement fields set up in the solid substrate containing
the channels. If the movement of the substrate is constrained at some
points, then stress fields are established in the substrate. On the other
hand, if the deformation of the channel shape is sufficiently large
then its effect on the fluid flow is important to be calculated. Such
coupled fluid-solid systems form a class of problems known as fluidstructure
interactions. In the present work a co-located finite volume
discretization procedure on unstructured meshes is described for
solving fluid-structure interaction type of problems. A linear elastic
solid is assumed for which the effect of the channel deformation
on the flow is neglected. Thus the governing equations for the
fluid and the solid are decoupled and are solved separately. The
procedure is validated by solving two benchmark problems, one from
fluid mechanics and another from solid mechanics. A fluid-structure
interaction problem of flow through a U-shaped channel embedded
in a plate is solved.
Abstract: Titanium alloys like Ti-6Al-2Sn-4Zr-6Mo (Ti-
6246) are widely used in aerospace applications. Component
manufacturing, however, is difficult and expensive as their
machinability is extremely poor. A thorough understanding of the
chip formation process is needed to improve related metal cutting
operations.In the current study, orthogonal cutting experiments have
been performed and theresulting chips were analyzed by optical
microscopy and scanning electron microscopy.Chips from aTi-
6246ingot were produced at different cutting speeds and cutting
depths. During the experiments, depending of the cutting conditions,
continuous or segmented chips were formed. Narrow, highly
deformed and grain oriented zones, the so-called shear zone,
separated individual segments. Different material properties have
been measured in the shear zones and the segments.
Abstract: This paper describes about the process of recognition and classification of brain images such as normal and abnormal based on PSO-SVM. Image Classification is becoming more important for medical diagnosis process. In medical area especially for diagnosis the abnormality of the patient is classified, which plays a great role for the doctors to diagnosis the patient according to the severeness of the diseases. In case of DICOM images it is very tough for optimal recognition and early detection of diseases. Our work focuses on recognition and classification of DICOM image based on collective approach of digital image processing. For optimal recognition and classification Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) are used. The collective approach by using PSO-SVM gives high approximation capability and much faster convergence.
Abstract: Today, building automation is advancing from simple
monitoring and control tasks of lightning and heating towards more
and more complex applications that require a dynamic perception
and interpretation of different scenes occurring in a building. Current
approaches cannot handle these newly upcoming demands. In this
article, a bionically inspired approach for multimodal, dynamic scene
perception and interpretation is presented, which is based on neuroscientific
and neuro-psychological research findings about the perceptual
system of the human brain. This approach bases on data from diverse
sensory modalities being processed in a so-called neuro-symbolic
network. With its parallel structure and with its basic elements being
information processing and storing units at the same time, a very
efficient method for scene perception is provided overcoming the
problems and bottlenecks of classical dynamic scene interpretation
systems.
Abstract: In this report, an OTA which is used in fully
differential pipelined ADC was described. Using gain-boost
architecture with difference-ended amplifier, this OTA achieve
high-gain and high-speed. Besides, the CMFB circuit is also used, and
some methods are concerned to improve the performance. Then, by
optimization the layout design, OTA-s mismatch was reduced. This
design was using TSMC 0.18um CMOS process and simulation both
schematic and layout in Cadence. The result of the simulation shows
that the OTA has a gain up to 80dB,a unity gain bandwidth of about
1.437GHz for a 2pF load, a slew rate is about 428V/μs, a output swing
is 0.2V~1.35V, with the power supply of 1.8V, the power
consumption is 88mW. This amplifier was used in a 10bit 150MHz
pipelined ADC.
Abstract: Safety, river environment, and sediment utilization are the elements of the target of sediment management. As a change in an element by sediment management, may affect the other two elements, and the priority among three elements depends on stakeholders. It is necessary to develop a method to evaluate the effect of sediment management on each element and an integrated evaluation method for socio-economic effect. In this study, taking Mount Merapi basin as an investigation field, the method for an active volcanic basin was developed. An integrated evaluation method for sediment management was discussed from a socio-economic point on safety, environment, and sediment utilization and a case study of sediment management was evaluated by means of this method. To evaluate the effect of sediment management, some parameters on safety, utilization, and environment have been introduced. From a utilization point of view, job opportunity, additional income of local people, and tax income to local government were used to evaluate the effectiveness of sediment management. The risk degree of river infrastructure was used to describe the effect of sediment management on a safety aspect. To evaluate the effects of sediment management on environment, the mean diameter of grain size distribution of riverbed surface was used. On the coordinate system designating these elements, the direction of change in basin condition by sediment management can be predicted, so that the most preferable sediment management can be decided. The results indicate that the cases of sediment management tend to give the negative impacts on sediment utilization. However, these sediment managements will give positive impacts on safety and environment condition. Evaluation result from a social-economic point of view shows that the case study of sediment management reduces job opportunity and additional income for inhabitants as well as tax income for government. Therefore, it is necessary to make another policy for creating job opportunity for inhabitants to support these sediment managements.
Abstract: This paper presents a sensing system for 3D sensing
and mapping by a tracked mobile robot with an arm-type sensor
movable unit and a laser range finder (LRF). The arm-type sensor
movable unit is mounted on the robot and the LRF is installed at the
end of the unit. This system enables the sensor to change position and
orientation so that it avoids occlusions according to terrain by this
mechanism. This sensing system is also able to change the height of
the LRF by keeping its orientation flat for efficient sensing. In this kind
of mapping, it may be difficult for moving robot to apply mapping
algorithms such as the iterative closest point (ICP) because sets of the
2D data at each sensor height may be distant in a common surface. In
order for this kind of mapping, the authors therefore applied
interpolation to generate plausible model data for ICP. The results of
several experiments provided validity of these kinds of sensing and
mapping in this sensing system.
Abstract: Visual inputs are one of the key sources from which
humans perceive the environment and 'understand' what is
happening. Artificial systems perceive the visual inputs as digital
images. The images need to be processed and analysed. Within the
human brain, processing of visual inputs and subsequent
development of perception is one of its major functionalities. In this
paper we present part of our research project, which aims at the
development of an artificial model for visual perception (or
'understanding') based on the human perceptive and cognitive
systems. We propose a new model for perception from visual inputs
and a way of understaning or interpreting images using the model.
We demonstrate the implementation and use of the model with a real
image data set.