Abstract: In this paper, a worm-like micro robot designed for inpipe
application with intelligent active force control (AFC) capability
is modelled and simulated. The motion of the micro robot is based on
an impact drive mechanism (IDM) that is actuated using piezoelectric
device. The trajectory tracking performance of the modelled micro
robot is initially experimented via a conventional proportionalintegral-
derivative (PID) controller in which the dynamic response of
the robot system subjected to different input excitations is
investigated. Subsequently, a robust intelligent method known as
active force control with fuzzy logic (AFCFL) is later incorporated
into the PID scheme to enhance the system performance by
compensating the unwanted disturbances due to the interaction of the
robot with its environment. Results show that the proposed AFCFL
scheme is far superior than the PID control counterpart in terms of
the system-s tracking capability in the wake of the disturbances.
Abstract: The growing health hazardous impact of arsenic (As)
contamination in environment is the impetus of the present
investigation. Application of lactic acid bacteria (LAB) for the
removal of toxic and heavy metals from water has been reported.
This study was performed in order to isolate and characterize the Asresistant
LAB from mud and sludge samples for using as efficient As
uptaking probiotic. Isolation of As-resistant LAB colonies was
performed by spread plate technique using bromocresol purple
impregnated-MRS (BP-MRS) agar media provided with As @ 50
μg/ml. Isolated LAB were employed for probiotic characterization
process, acid and bile tolerance, lactic acid production, antibacterial
activity and antibiotic tolerance assays. After As-resistant and
removal characterizations, the LAB were identified using 16S rDNA
sequencing. A total of 103 isolates were identified as As-resistant
strains of LAB. The survival of 6 strains (As99-1, As100-2, As101-3,
As102-4, As105-7, and As112-9) was found after passing through the
sequential probiotic characterizations. Resistant pattern pronounced
hollow zones at As concentration >2000 μg/ml in As99-1, As100-2,
and As101-3 LAB strains, whereas it was found at ~1000 μg/ml in
rest 3 strains. Among 6 strains, the As uptake efficiency of As102-4
(0.006 μg/h/mg wet weight of cell) was higher (17 – 209%)
compared to remaining LAB. 16S rDNA sequencing data of 3 (As99-
1, As100-2, and As101-3) and 3 (As102-4, As105-7, and As112-9)
LAB strains clearly showed 97 to 99% (340 bp) homology to
Pediococcus dextrinicus and Pediococcus acidilactici, respectively.
Though, there was no correlation between the metal resistant and
removal efficiency of LAB examined but identified elevated As
removing LAB would probably be a potential As uptaking probiotic
agent. Since present experiment concerned with only As removal
from pure water, As removal and removal mechanism in natural
condition of intestinal milieu should be assessed in future studies.
Abstract: In the context of large volume Big Divisor (nearly)
SLagy D3/D7 μ-Split SUSY [1], after an explicit identification
of first generation of SM leptons and quarks with fermionic superpartners
of four Wilson line moduli, we discuss the identification of
gravitino as a potential dark matter candidate by explicitly calculating
the decay life times of gravitino (LSP) to be greater than age of
universe and lifetimes of decays of the co-NLSPs (the first generation
squark/slepton and a neutralino) to the LSP (the gravitino) to be
very small to respect BBN constraints. Interested in non-thermal
production mechanism of gravitino, we evaluate the relic abundance
of gravitino LSP in terms of that of the co-NLSP-s by evaluating
their (co-)annihilation cross sections and hence show that the former
satisfies the requirement for a potential Dark Matter candidate. We
also show that it is possible to obtain a 125 GeV light Higgs in our
setup.
Abstract: For decades, the defense business has been plagued by
not having a reliable, deterministic method to know when the Kalman
filter solution for passive ranging application is reliable for use by the
fighter pilot. This has made it hard to accurately assess when the
ranging solution can be used for situation awareness and weapons
use. To date, we have used ad hoc rules-of-thumb to assess when we
think the estimate of the Kalman filter standard deviation on range is
reliable. A reliable algorithm has been developed at BAE Systems
Electronics & Integrated Solutions that monitors the Kalman gain
matrix elements – and a patent is pending. The “settling" of the gain
matrix elements relates directly to when we can assess the time when
the passive ranging solution is within the 10 percent-of-truth value.
The focus of the paper is on surface-based passive ranging – but the
method is applicable to airborne targets as well.
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: As the Internet technology has developed rapidly, the
number of identities (IDs) managed by each individual person has
increased and various ID management technologies have been
developed to assist users. However, most of these technologies are
vulnerable to the existing hacking methods such as phishing attacks
and key-logging. If the administrator-s password is exposed, an
attacker can access the entire contents of the stolen user-s data files in
other devices. To solve these problems, we propose here a new ID
management scheme based on a Single Password Protocol. The paper
presents the details of the new scheme as well as a formal analysis of
the method using BAN Logic.
Abstract: In rotating machinery one of the critical components
that is prone to premature failure is the rolling bearing.
Consequently, early warning of an imminent bearing failure is much
critical to the safety and reliability of any high speed rotating
machines. This study is concerned with the application of Recurrence
Quantification Analysis (RQA) in fault detection of rolling element
bearings in rotating machinery. Based on the results from this study it
is reported that the RQA variable, percent determinism, is sensitive
to the type of fault investigated and therefore can provide useful
information on bearing damage in rolling element bearings.
Abstract: In industrial scale of Gas to Liquid (GTL) process in
Fischer-Tropsch (FT) synthesis, a part of reactor outlet gases such as
CO2 and CH4 as side reaction products, is usually recycled. In this
study, the influence of CO2 and CH4 on the performance and
selectivity of Co-Ru/Al2O3 catalyst is investigated by injection of
these gases (0-20 vol. % of feed) to the feed stream. The effect of
temperature and feed flow rate, are also inspected. The results show
that low amounts of CO2 in the feed stream, doesn`t change the
catalyst activity significantly but increasing the amount of CO2 (more
than 10 vol. %) cause the CO conversion to decrease and the
selectivity of heavy components to increase. Methane acts as an inert
gas and doesn`t affect the catalyst performance. Increasing feed flow
rate has negative effect on both CO conversion and heavy component
selectivity. By raising the temperature, CO conversion will increase
but there are more volatile components in the product. The effect of
CO2 on the catalyst deactivation is also investigated carefully and a
mechanism is suggested to explain the negative influence of CO2 on
catalyst deactivation.
Abstract: This work aims to explore the factors that have an incidence in reading comprehension process, with different type of texts. In a recent study with 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade children, it was observed that reading comprehension of narrative texts was better than comprehension of expository texts. Nevertheless it seems that not only the type of text but also other textual factors would account for comprehension depending on the cognitive processing demands posed by the text. In order to explore this assumption, three narrative and three expository texts were elaborated with different degree of complexity. A group of 40 fourth grade Spanish-speaking children took part in the study. Children were asked to read the texts and answer orally three literal and three inferential questions for each text. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of children responses showed that children had difficulties in both, narrative and expository texts. The problem was to answer those questions that involved establishing complex relationships among information units that were present in the text or that should be activated from children’s previous knowledge to make an inference. Considering the data analysis, it could be concluded that there is some interaction between the type of text and the cognitive processing load of a specific text.
Abstract: Scale defects are common surface defects in hot steel rolling. The modelling of such defects is problematic and their causes are not straightforward. In this study, we investigated genetic algorithms in search for a mathematical solution to scale formation. For this research, a high-dimensional data set from hot steel rolling process was gathered. The synchronisation of the variables as well as the allocation of the measurements made on the steel strip were solved before the modelling phase.
Abstract: The birdhouses and dovecotes, which are the indicator
of naturalness and human-animal relationship, are one of the
traditional cultural values of Turkey. With their structures compatible
with nature and respectful to humans the bird houses and dovecotes,
which have an important position in local urbanization models as a
representative of the civil architecture with their unique form and
function are important subjects that should be evaluated in a wide
frame comprising from architecture to urbanism, from ecologic
agriculture to globalization. The traditional bird houses and
dovecotes are disregarded due to the insensitivity affecting the city
life and the change in the public sense of art. In this study, the
characteristic properties of traditional dovecotes and birdhouses,
started in 13th century and ended in 19th century in Anatolia, are
tried to be defined for the sustainability of the tradition and for giving
a new direction to the designers.
Abstract: Frequently a group of people jointly decide and authorize
a specific person as a representative in some business/poitical
occasions, e.g., the board of a company authorizes the chief executive
officer to close a multi-billion acquisition deal. In this paper, an
integrated proxy multi-signature scheme that allows anonymously
vetoable delegation is proposed. This protocol integrates mechanisms
of private veto, distributed proxy key generation, secure transmission
of proxy key, and existentially unforgeable proxy multi-signature
scheme. First, a provably secure Guillou-Quisquater proxy signature
scheme is presented, then the “zero-sharing" protocol is extended
over a composite modulus multiplicative group, and finally the above
two are combined to realize the GQ proxy multi-signature with
anonymously vetoable delegation. As a proxy signature scheme, this
protocol protects both the original signers and the proxy signer.
The modular design allows simplified implementation with less
communication overheads and better computation performance than
a general secure multi-party protocol.
Abstract: Polynomial maps offer analytical properties used to obtain better performances in the scope of chaos synchronization under noisy channels. This paper presents a new method to simplify equations of the Exact Polynomial Kalman Filter (ExPKF) given in [1]. This faster algorithm is compared to other estimators showing that performances of all considered observers vanish rapidly with the channel noise making application of chaos synchronization intractable. Simulation of ExPKF shows that saturation drawn on the emitter to keep it stable impacts badly performances for low channel noise. Then we propose a particle filter that outperforms all other Kalman structured observers in the case of noisy channels.
Abstract: The possibility of intrinsic electromagnetic fields
within living cells and their resonant self-interaction and interaction
with ambient electromagnetic fields is suggested on the basis of a
theoretical and experimental study. It is reported that intrinsic
electromagnetic fields are produced in the form of radio-frequency
and infra-red photons within atoms (which may be coupled or
uncoupled) in cellular structures, such as the cell cytoskeleton and
plasma membrane. A model is presented for the interaction of these
photons among themselves or with atoms under a dipole-dipole
coupling, induced by single-photon or two-photon processes. This
resonance is manifested by conspicuous field amplification and it is
argued that it is possible for these resonant photons to undergo
tunnelling in the form of evanescent waves to a short range (of a few
nanometers to micrometres). This effect, suggested as a resonant
photon tunnelling mechanism in this report, may enable these fields
to act as intracellular signal communication devices and as bridges
between macromolecules or cellular structures in the cell
cytoskeleton, organelles or membrane. A brief overview of an
experimental technique and a review of some preliminary results are
presented, in the detection of these fields produced in living cell
membranes under physiological conditions.
Abstract: An automated wood recognition system is designed to
classify tropical wood species.The wood features are extracted based
on two feature extractors: Basic Grey Level Aura Matrix (BGLAM)
technique and statistical properties of pores distribution (SPPD)
technique. Due to the nonlinearity of the tropical wood species
separation boundaries, a pre classification stage is proposed which
consists ofKmeans clusteringand kernel discriminant analysis (KDA).
Finally, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) classifier and KNearest
Neighbour (KNN) are implemented for comparison purposes.
The study involves comparison of the system with and without pre
classification using KNN classifier and LDA classifier.The results
show that the inclusion of the pre classification stage has improved
the accuracy of both the LDA and KNN classifiers by more than
12%.
Abstract: After the Terengganu state government decided to give a boost in teaching and learning through the allocation of free ebooks to all Primary five and six students; it was time to examine the presence of e-books in the classrooms. A survey was conducted on 101 students to determine how they felt about using the e-book and their experiences. It was discovered that a majority of these students liked using the e-book. However, although they had little problems using the e-book and the e-book helped to lighten the schoolbags, these new-age textbooks were not fully utilized. It is implied that perhaps the school administrators, teachers and students may not be able to overcome the unfamiliar characteristics of the e-book and its limitations.
Abstract: A shaft-type activated sludge reactor has been
developed in order to study the feasibility of high-rate wastewater
treatment. The reactor having volume of about 14.5 L was operated
with the acclimated mixed activated sludge under batch and
continuous mode using a synthetic wastewater as feed. The batch
study was performed with varying chemical oxygen demand (COD)
concentrations of 1000–3500 mg·L-1 for a batch period up to 9 h. The
kinetic coefficients: Ks, k, Y and kd were obtained as 2040.2 mg·L-1
and 0.105 h-1, 0.878 and 0.0025 h-1 respectively from Monod-s
approach. The continuous study showed a stable and steady state
operation for a hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 8 h and influent
COD of about 1000 mg·L-1. A maximum COD removal efficiency of
about 80% was attained at a COD loading rate and food-tomicroorganism
(F/M) ratio (COD basis) of 3.42 kg·m-3d-1 and 1.0
kg·kg-1d-1 respectively under a HRT of 8 h. The reactor was also
found to handle COD loading rate and F/M ratio of 10.8 kg·m-3d-1
and 2.20 kg·kg-1d-1 respectively showing a COD removal efficiency
of about 46%.
Abstract: Thermally insulating ceramic coatings also known as
thermal barrier coatings (TBCs) have been essential technologies to
improve the performance and efficiency of advanced gas turbines in
service at extremely high temperatures. The damage mechanisms of
air-plasma sprayed YSZ thermal barrier coatings (TBC) with various
microstructures were studied by microscopic techniques after thermal
cycling. The typical degradation of plasma TBCs that occurs during
cyclic furnace testing of an YSZ and alumina coating on a Titanium
alloy are analyzed. During the present investigation the effects of
topcoat thickness, bond coat oxidation, thermal cycle lengths and test
temperature are investigated using thermal cycling. These results
were correlated with stresses measured by a spectroscopic technique
in order to understand specific damage mechanism. The failure
mechanism of former bond coats was found to involve fracture
initiation at the thermally grown oxide (TGO) interface and at the
TGO bond coat interface. The failure mechanism of the YZ was
found to involve combination of fracture along the interface between
TGO and bond coat.
Abstract: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the most common
nosocomial infection in surgical patients resulting in significant
increases in postoperative morbidity and mortality. The commonly
causative bacteria developed resistance to virtually all antibiotics
available. The aim of this study was to isolation and identification the
most common bacteria that cause SSIs in Medical Research Institute,
and to compare their sensitivity to selected group of antibiotics and
natural products (garlic, oregano, olive, and Nigella sativa oils). The
isolated pathogens collected from infected surgical wounds were
identified, and their sensitivities to the antibiotics commonly
available for clinical use, and also to the different concentrations of
the used natural products were investigated. The results indicate to
the potential therapeutic effect of the tested natural products in
treatment of surgical wound infections.
Abstract: Each year many people are reported missing in most of the countries in the world owing to various reasons. Arrangements have to be made to find these people after some time. So the investigating agencies are compelled to make out these people by using manpower. But in many cases, the investigations carried out to find out an absconding for a long time may not be successful. At a time like that it may be difficult to identify these people by examining their old photographs, because their facial appearance might have changed mainly due to the natural aging process. On some occasions in forensic medicine if a dead body is found, investigations should be held to make sure that this corpse belongs to the same person disappeared some time ago. With the passage of time the face of the person might have changed and there should be a mechanism to reveal the person-s identity. In order to make this process easy, we must guess and decide as to how he will look like by now. To address this problem this paper presents a way of synthesizing a facial image with the aging effects.