Abstract: In this paper, we consider a new particle filter inspired
by biological evolution. In the standard particle filter, a resampling
scheme is used to decrease the degeneracy phenomenon and improve
estimation performance. Unfortunately, however, it could cause the
undesired the particle deprivation problem, as well. In order to
overcome this problem of the particle filter, we propose a novel
filtering method called the genetic filter. In the proposed filter, we
embed the genetic algorithm into the particle filter and overcome the
problems of the standard particle filter. The validity of the proposed
method is demonstrated by computer simulation.
Abstract: Facial features are frequently used to represent local
properties of a human face image in computer vision applications. In
this paper, we present a fast algorithm that can extract the facial
features online such that they can give a satisfying representation of a
face image. It includes one step for a coarse detection of each facial
feature by AdaBoost and another one to increase the accuracy of the
found points by Active Shape Models (ASM) in the regions of interest.
The resulted facial features are evaluated by matching with artificial
face models in the applications of physiognomy. The distance measure
between the features and those in the fate models from the database is
carried out by means of the Hausdorff distance. In the experiment, the
proposed method shows the efficient performance in facial feature
extractions and online system of physiognomy.
Abstract: Infrastructure investments are important in developing
countries, it will not only help to foster the economic growth of a
nation, but it will also act as a platform in which new forms of
partnership and collaboration can be developed mainly in East Asian
countries. Since the last two decades, many infrastructure projects
had been completed through build-operate-transfer (BOT) type of
procurement. The developments of BOT have attracted participation
of local and foreign private sector investor to secure funding and to
deliver projects on time, within the budget and to the required
specifications. Private sectors are preferred by the government in
East Asia to participate in BOT projects due to lack of public
funding. The finding has resulted that the private sector or promoter
of the BOT projects is exposed to multiple risks which have been
discussed in this paper. Effective risk management methods and
good managerial skills are required in ensuring the success of the
project. The review indicated that mitigation measures should be
employed by the promoter throughout the concession period and
support from the host government is also required in ensuring the
success of the BOT project.
Abstract: Oxyleotris marmorata is considered as
undomesticated fish, and its culture occasionally faces a problem of
food deprivation. The present study aims to evaluate alteration of
hematological indices, blood chemical associated with liver function
during 4 weeks of fasting. A non-linear relationships between fasting
days and hematological parameters (red blood cell number; y = -
0.002x2 + 0.041x + 1.249; R2=0.915, P0.05), mean corpuscular
volume; y = -0.180x2 + 2.183x + 149.61; R2=0.732, P>0.05, mean
corpuscular hemoglobin; y = -0.041x2 + 0.862x + 29.864; R2=0.818,
P>0.05 and mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration; y = -
0.044x2 + 0.711x + 21.580; R2=0.730, P>0.05) were demonstrated.
Significant change in hematocrit (Ht) during fasting period was
observed. Ht elevated sharply increase at the first weeks of fasting
period. Higher Ht also was detected during week 2-4 of fasting time.
The significant reduction of hepatosomatic index was observed (y = -
0.007x2 - 0.096x + 1.414; R2=0.968, P0.05, serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase;
y = 0.005x2 – 0.201x2 + 1.297x + 33.256; R2=1, P0.05). Taken together, prolonged fasting has
deleterious effects on hematological indices, liver mass and enzyme
associated in liver function. The marked adverse effects occurred
after the first week of fasting state.
Abstract: Pabdeh shaly formation (Paleocene-Oligomiocene)
has been expanded in Fars, Khozestan and Lorestan. The lower
lithostratigraphic limit of this formation in Shiraz area is
distinguished from Gurpi formation by purple shale. Its upper limit is
gradational and conformable with Asmari formation. In order to
study sequence stratigraphy and microfacies of Pabdeh formation in
Shiraz area, one stratigraphic section have been chosen (Zanjiran
section). Petrographic studies resulted in the identification of 9
pelagic and calciturbidite microfacies. The calciturbidite microfacies
have been formed when the sea level was high, the rate of carbonate
deposition was high and it slumped into the deep marine. Sequence
stratigraphy studies show that Pabdeh formation in the studied zone
consists of two depositional sequences (DS) that the lower contact is
erosional (purple shale - type one, SBI or type two, SB2) and the
upper contact is correlative conformity (type two, SB2).
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to estimate realistic
principal extrusion process parameters by means of artificial neural
network. Conventionally, finite element analysis is used to derive
process parameters. However, the finite element analysis of the
extrusion model does not consider the manufacturing process
constraints in its modeling. Therefore, the process parameters
obtained through such an analysis remains highly theoretical.
Alternatively, process development in industrial extrusion is to a
great extent based on trial and error and often involves full-size
experiments, which are both expensive and time-consuming. The
artificial neural network-based estimation of the extrusion process
parameters prior to plant execution helps to make the actual extrusion
operation more efficient because more realistic parameters may be
obtained. And so, it bridges the gap between simulation and real
manufacturing execution system. In this work, a suitable neural
network is designed which is trained using an appropriate learning
algorithm. The network so trained is used to predict the
manufacturing process parameters.
Abstract: An optical fiber Fabry-Perot interferometer (FFPI) is
proposed and demonstrated for dynamic measurements in a
mechanical vibrating target. A polishing metal with a low reflectance
value adhered to a mechanical vibrator was excited via a function
generator at various excitation frequencies. Output interference
fringes were generated by modulating the reference and sensing
signal at the output arm. A fringe-counting technique was used for
interpreting the displacement information on the dedicated computer.
The fiber interferometer has been found the capability of the
displacement measurements of 1.28 μm – 96.01 μm. A commercial
displacement sensor was employed as a reference sensor for
investigating the measurement errors from the fiber sensor. A
maximum percentage measurement error of approximately 1.59 %
was obtained.
Abstract: Shortening of natural resources will impose greater
limitations of electric energy consumption in various fields including
water treatment technologies. Small water treatment installations
supplied with electric energy from solar sources are perfect example of
zero-emission technology. Possibility of solar energy application, as
one of the alternative energy resources for decontamination processes
is strongly dependent on geographical location. Various examples of
solar driven water purification systems are given and design of
solar-water treatment installation based on ozone for the geographical
conditions in Poland are presented.
Abstract: In this paper a new robust and efficient algorithm to automatic text extraction from colored book and journal cover sheets is proposed. First, we perform wavelet transform. Next for edge detecting from detail wavelet coefficient, we use dynamic threshold. By blurring approximate coefficients with alternative heuristic thresholding, achieve effective edge,. Afterward, with ROI technique get binary image. Finally text boxes would be extracted with new projection profile.
Abstract: In our current political climate of assessment and
accountability initiatives we are failing to prepare our children for a
participatory role in the creative economy. The field of education is
increasingly falling prey to didactic methodologies which train a
nation of competent test takers, foregoing the opportunity to educate
students to find problems and develop multiple solutions. No where is
this more evident than in the area of art education. Due to a myriad of
issues including budgetary shortfalls, time constraints and a general
misconception that anyone who enjoys the arts is capable of teaching
the arts, our students are not developing the skills they require to
become fully literate in critical thinking and creative processing.
Although art integrated curriculum is increasingly being viewed as a
reform strategy for motivating students by offering alternative
presentation of concepts and representation of knowledge acquisition,
misinformed administrators are often excluding the art teacher from
the integration equation. The paper to follow addresses the problem
of the need for divergent thinking and conceptualization in our
schools. Furthermore, this paper explores the role of education, and
specifically, art education in the development of a creatively literate
citizenry.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a robust scheme to work face alignment and recognition under various influences. For face representation, illumination influence and variable expressions are the important factors, especially the accuracy of facial localization and face recognition. In order to solve those of factors, we propose a robust approach to overcome these problems. This approach consists of two phases. One phase is preprocessed for face images by means of the proposed illumination normalization method. The location of facial features can fit more efficient and fast based on the proposed image blending. On the other hand, based on template matching, we further improve the active shape models (called as IASM) to locate the face shape more precise which can gain the recognized rate in the next phase. The other phase is to process feature extraction by using principal component analysis and face recognition by using support vector machine classifiers. The results show that this proposed method can obtain good facial localization and face recognition with varied illumination and local distortion.
Abstract: This paper presents a fuzzy logic controlled shunt
active power filter used to compensate for harmonic distortion in three-phase four-wire systems. The shunt active filter employs a
simple method for the calculation of the reference compensation current based of Fast Fourier Transform. This presented filter is able
to operate in both balanced and unbalanced load conditions. A fuzzy
logic based current controller strategy is used to regulate the filter current and hence ensure harmonic free supply current. The validity
of the presented approach in harmonic mitigation is verified via
simulation results of the proposed test system under different loading
conditions.
Abstract: Star graphs are Cayley graphs of symmetric groups of permutations, with transpositions as the generating sets. A star graph is a preferred interconnection network topology to a hypercube for its ability to connect a greater number of nodes with lower degree. However, an attractive property of the hypercube is that it has a Hamiltonian decomposition, i.e. its edges can be partitioned into disjoint Hamiltonian cycles, and therefore a simple routing can be found in the case of an edge failure. The existence of Hamiltonian cycles in Cayley graphs has been known for some time. So far, there are no published results on the much stronger condition of the existence of Hamiltonian decompositions. In this paper, we give a construction of a Hamiltonian decomposition of the star graph 5-star of degree 4, by defining an automorphism for 5-star and a Hamiltonian cycle which is edge-disjoint with its image under the automorphism.
Abstract: This paper present the implementation of a new ordering strategy on Successive Overrelaxation scheme on two dimensional boundary value problems. The strategy involve two directions alternatingly; from top and bottom of the solution domain. The method shows to significantly reduce the iteration number to converge. Four numerical experiments were carried out to examine the performance of the new strategy.
Abstract: Distant-talking voice-based HCI system suffers from
performance degradation due to mismatch between the acoustic
speech (runtime) and the acoustic model (training). Mismatch is
caused by the change in the power of the speech signal as observed at
the microphones. This change is greatly influenced by the change in
distance, affecting speech dynamics inside the room before reaching
the microphones. Moreover, as the speech signal is reflected, its
acoustical characteristic is also altered by the room properties. In
general, power mismatch due to distance is a complex problem. This
paper presents a novel approach in dealing with distance-induced
mismatch by intelligently sensing instantaneous voice power variation
and compensating model parameters. First, the distant-talking speech
signal is processed through microphone array processing, and the
corresponding distance information is extracted. Distance-sensitive
Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs), pre-trained to capture both
speech power and room property are used to predict the optimal
distance of the speech source. Consequently, pre-computed statistic
priors corresponding to the optimal distance is selected to correct
the statistics of the generic model which was frozen during training.
Thus, model combinatorics are post-conditioned to match the power
of instantaneous speech acoustics at runtime. This results to an
improved likelihood in predicting the correct speech command at
farther distances. We experiment using real data recorded inside two
rooms. Experimental evaluation shows voice recognition performance
using our method is more robust to the change in distance compared
to the conventional approach. In our experiment, under the most
acoustically challenging environment (i.e., Room 2: 2.5 meters), our
method achieved 24.2% improvement in recognition performance
against the best-performing conventional method.
Abstract: Transesterified vegetable oils (biodiesel) are promising alternative fuel for diesel engines. Used vegetable oils are disposed from restaurants in large quantities. But higher viscosity restricts their direct use in diesel engines. In this study, used cooking oil was dehydrated and then transesterified using an alkaline catalyst. The combustion, performance and emission characteristics of Used Cooking oil Methyl Ester (UCME) and its blends with diesel oil are analysed in a direct injection C.I. engine. The fuel properties and the combustion characteristics of UCME are found to be similar to those of diesel. A minor decrease in thermal efficiency with significant improvement in reduction of particulates, carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons is observed compared to diesel. The use of transesterified used cooking oil and its blends as fuel for diesel engines will reduce dependence on fossil fuels and also decrease considerably the environmental pollution.
Abstract: The study of effect of laser scanning speed on
material efficiency in Ti6Al4V application is very important because unspent powder is not reusable because of high temperature oxygen
pick-up and contamination. This study carried out an extensive study
on the effect of scanning speed on material efficiency by varying the
speed between 0.01 to 0.1m/sec. The samples are wire brushed and
cleaned with acetone after each deposition to remove un-melted
particles from the surface of the deposit. The substrate is weighed before and after deposition. A formula was developed to calculate the
material efficiency and the scanning speed was compared with the
powder efficiency obtained. The results are presented and discussed.
The study revealed that the optimum scanning speed exists for this study at 0.01m/sec, above and below which the powder efficiency
will drop
Abstract: Webcam systems now function as the new privileged
vantage points from which to view the city. This transformation of
CCTV technology from surveillance to promotional tool is significant
because its'scopic regime' presents, back to the public, a new virtual
'site' that sits alongside its real-time counterpart. Significantly,
thisraw 'image' data can, in fact,be co-optedand processed so as to
disrupt their original purpose. This paper will demonstrate this
disruptive capacity through an architectural project. It will reveal how
the adaption the webcam image offers a technical springboard by
which to initiate alternate urban form making decisions and subvert
the disciplinary reliance on the 'flat' orthographic plan. In so doing,
the paper will show how this 'digital material' exceeds the imagistic
function of the image; shiftingit from being a vehicle of signification
to a site of affect.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to understand the main
sources of copper (Cu) accumulation in target organs of tilapia
(Oreochromis mossambicus) and to investigate how the organism
mediate the process of Cu accumulation under prolonged conditions.
By measuring both dietary and waterborne Cu accumulation and total
concentrations in tilapia with biokinetic modeling approach, we were
able to clarify the biokinetic coping mechanisms for the long term Cu
accumulation. This study showed that water and food are both the
major source of Cu for the muscle and liver of tilapia. This implied
that control the Cu concentration in these two routes will be correlated
to the Cu bioavailability for tilapia. We found that exposure duration
and level of waterborne Cu drove the Cu accumulation in tilapia. The
ability for Cu biouptake and depuration in organs of tilapia were
actively mediated under prolonged exposure conditions. Generally,
the uptake rate, depuration rate and net bioaccumulation ability in all
selected organs decreased with the increasing level of waterborne Cu
and extension of exposure duration.Muscle tissues accounted for over
50%of the total accumulated Cu and played a key role in buffering the
Cu burden in the initial period of exposure, alternatively, the liver
acted a more important role in the storage of Cu with the extension of
exposures. We concluded that assumption of the constant biokinetic
rates could lead to incorrect predictions with overestimating the
long-term Cu accumulation in ecotoxicological risk assessments.
Abstract: Crosstalk is the major limiting issue in very high bit-rate digital subscriber line (VDSL) systems in terms of bit-rate or service coverage. At the central office side, joint signal processing accompanied by appropriate power allocation enables complex multiuser processors to provide near capacity rates. Unfortunately complexity grows with the square of the number of lines within a binder, so by taking into account that there are only a few dominant crosstalkers who contribute to main part of crosstalk power, the canceller structure can be simplified which resulted in a much lower run-time complexity. In this paper, a multiuser power control scheme, namely iterative waterfilling, is combined with previously proposed partial crosstalk cancellation approaches to demonstrate the best ever achieved performance which is verified by simulation results.