Abstract: This paper presents a method for determining the
uniaxial tensile properties such as Young-s modulus, yield strength
and the flow behaviour of a material in a virtually non-destructive
manner. To achieve this, a new dumb-bell shaped miniature
specimen has been designed. This helps in avoiding the removal of
large size material samples from the in-service component for the
evaluation of current material properties. The proposed miniature
specimen has an advantage in finite element modelling with respect
to computational time and memory space. Test fixtures have been
developed to enable the tension tests on the miniature specimen in a
testing machine. The studies have been conducted in a chromium
(H11) steel and an aluminum alloy (AR66). The output from the
miniature test viz. load-elongation diagram is obtained and the finite
element simulation of the test is carried out using a 2D plane stress
analysis. The results are compared with the experimental results. It is
observed that the results from the finite element simulation
corroborate well with the miniature test results. The approach seems
to have potential to predict the mechanical properties of the
materials, which could be used in remaining life estimation of the
various in-service structures.
Abstract: This paper describes new computer vision algorithms
that have been developed to track moving objects as part of a
long-term study into the design of (semi-)autonomous vehicles. We
present the results of a study to exploit variable kernels for tracking in
video sequences. The basis of our work is the mean shift
object-tracking algorithm; for a moving target, it is usual to define a
rectangular target window in an initial frame, and then process the data
within that window to separate the tracked object from the background
by the mean shift segmentation algorithm. Rather than use the
standard, Epanechnikov kernel, we have used a kernel weighted by the
Chamfer distance transform to improve the accuracy of target
representation and localization, minimising the distance between the
two distributions in RGB color space using the Bhattacharyya
coefficient. Experimental results show the improved tracking
capability and versatility of the algorithm in comparison with results
using the standard kernel. These algorithms are incorporated as part of
a robot test-bed architecture which has been used to demonstrate their
effectiveness.
Abstract: Model-based approaches have been applied successfully
to a wide range of tasks such as specification, simulation, testing, and
diagnosis. But one bottleneck often prevents the introduction of these
ideas: Manual modeling is a non-trivial, time-consuming task.
Automatically deriving models by observing and analyzing running
systems is one possible way to amend this bottleneck. To
derive a model automatically, some a-priori knowledge about the
model structure–i.e. about the system–must exist. Such a model
formalism would be used as follows: (i) By observing the network
traffic, a model of the long-term system behavior could be generated
automatically, (ii) Test vectors can be generated from the model,
(iii) While the system is running, the model could be used to diagnose
non-normal system behavior.
The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a model
formalism called 'probabilistic regression automaton' suitable for the
tasks mentioned above.
Abstract: The presence of cold air with the convergent
topography of the Lut valley over the valley-s sloping terrain can
generate Low Level Jets (LLJ). Moreover, the valley-parallel
pressure gradients and northerly LLJ are produced as a result of the
large-scale processes. In the numerical study the regional MM5
model was run leading to achieve an appropriate dynamical analysis
of flows in the region for summer and winter. The results of this
study show the presence of summer synoptical systems cause the
formation of north-south pressure gradients in the valley which could
be led to the blowing of winds with the velocity more than 14 ms-1
and vulnerable dust and wind storms lasting more than 120 days.
Whereas the presence of cold air masses in the region in winter,
cause the average speed of LLJs decrease. In this time downslope
flows are noticeable in creating the night LLJs.
Abstract: Bioinformatics and computational biology involve
the use of techniques including applied mathematics,
informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence,
chemistry, and biochemistry to solve biological problems
usually on the molecular level. Research in computational
biology often overlaps with systems biology. Major research
efforts in the field include sequence alignment, gene finding,
genome assembly, protein structure alignment, protein structure
prediction, prediction of gene expression and proteinprotein
interactions, and the modeling of evolution. Various
global rearrangements of permutations, such as reversals and
transpositions,have recently become of interest because of their
applications in computational molecular biology. A reversal is
an operation that reverses the order of a substring of a permutation.
A transposition is an operation that swaps two adjacent
substrings of a permutation. The problem of determining the
smallest number of reversals required to transform a given
permutation into the identity permutation is called sorting by
reversals. Similar problems can be defined for transpositions
and other global rearrangements. In this work we perform a
study about some genome rearrangement primitives. We show
how a genome is modelled by a permutation, introduce some
of the existing primitives and the lower and upper bounds
on them. We then provide a comparison of the introduced
primitives.
Abstract: This paper explores the knowledge and attitude of
women and men in decision making on pap smear screening. This
qualitative study recruited 52 respondents with 44 women and 8 men,
using the purposive sampling with snowballing technique through indepth
interviews. This study demonstrates several key findings:
Female respondents have better knowledge compared to male. Most
of the women perceived that pap smear screening is beneficial and
important, but to proceed with the test is still doubtful. Male
respondents were supportive in terms of sending their spouses to the
health facilities or give more freedom to their wives to choose and
making decision on their own health due to prominent reason that
women know best on their own health. It is expected that the results
from this study will provide useful guideline for healthcare providers
to prepare any action/intervention to provide an extensive education
to improve people-s knowledge and attitude towards pap smear.
Abstract: Support vector machines (SVMs) have shown
superior performance compared to other machine learning techniques,
especially in classification problems. Yet one limitation of SVMs is
the lack of an explanation capability which is crucial in some
applications, e.g. in the medical and security domains. In this paper, a
novel approach for eclectic rule-extraction from support vector
machines is presented. This approach utilizes the knowledge acquired
by the SVM and represented in its support vectors as well as the
parameters associated with them. The approach includes three stages;
training, propositional rule-extraction and rule quality evaluation.
Results from four different experiments have demonstrated the value
of the approach for extracting comprehensible rules of high accuracy
and fidelity.
Abstract: The Portuguese Constitution, in article 22, instituted
the general principle of tort liability of the State and other public law
entities.
Consequently, ordinary legislation established the tort liability of
the State into the Portuguese Legal Order, by means of Decree-Law
48051, of 1967.
This decree, which was criticised extensively, was amended by
virtue of Law 67/2007, of 31st December, establishing the regime for
tort liability arising from losses caused by third parties, due to the
acts of public management in relation to all the functions of the State,
i.e. i) administrative, ii) legislative, and iii) jurisdictional.
Abstract: In this study, the contact problem of a layered composite which consists of two materials with different elastic constants and heights resting on two rigid flat supports with sharp edges is considered. The effect of gravity is neglected. While friction between the layers is taken into account, it is assumed that there is no friction between the supports and the layered composite so that only compressive tractions can be transmitted across the interface. The layered composite is subjected to a uniform clamping pressure over a finite portion of its top surface. The problem is reduced to a singular integral equation in which the contact pressure is the unknown function. The singular integral equation is evaluated numerically and the results for various dimensionless quantities are presented in graphical forms.
Abstract: In this paper, a multi-agent robot system is presented. The system consists of four robots. The developed robots are able to automatically enter and patrol a harmful environment, such as the building infected with virus or the factory with leaking hazardous gas. Further, every robot is able to perform obstacle avoidance and search for the victims. Several operation modes are designed: remote control, obstacle avoidance, automatic searching, and so on.
Abstract: Video Mosaicing is the stitching of selected frames of
a video by estimating the camera motion between the frames and
thereby registering successive frames of the video to arrive at the
mosaic. Different techniques have been proposed in the literature for
video mosaicing. Despite of the large number of papers dealing with
techniques to generate mosaic, only a few authors have investigated
conditions under which these techniques generate good estimate of
motion parameters. In this paper, these techniques are studied under
different videos, and the reasons for failures are found. We propose
algorithms with incorporation of outlier removal algorithms for better
estimation of motion parameters.
Abstract: Isobaric vapor-liquid equilibrium measurements are
reported for the binary mixture of Methyl acetate and
Isopropylbenzene at 97.3 kPa. The measurements have been
performed using a vapor recirculating type (modified Othmer's)
equilibrium still. The mixture shows positive deviation from ideality
and does not form an azeotrope. The activity coefficients have been
calculated taking into consideration the vapor phase nonideality. The
data satisfy the thermodynamic consistency tests of Herington and
Black. The activity coefficients have been satisfactorily correlated by
means of the Margules, NRTL, and Black equations. A comparison
of the values of activity coefficients obtained by experimental data
with the UNIFAC model has been made.
Abstract: Based on Traub-s methods for solving nonlinear
equation f(x) = 0, we develop two families of third-order
methods for solving system of nonlinear equations F(x) = 0. The
families include well-known existing methods as special cases.
The stability is corroborated by numerical results. Comparison
with well-known methods shows that the present methods are
robust. These higher order methods may be very useful in the
numerical applications requiring high precision in their computations
because these methods yield a clear reduction in number of iterations.
Abstract: In this paper we illuminate a frequency domain based
classification method for video scenes. Videos from certain topical
areas often contain activities with repeating movements. Sports
videos, home improvement videos, or videos showing mechanical
motion are some example areas. Assessing main and side frequencies
of each repeating movement gives rise to the motion type. We
obtain the frequency domain by transforming spatio-temporal motion
trajectories. Further on we explain how to compute frequency features
for video clips and how to use them for classifying. The focus of
the experimental phase is on transforms utilized for our system.
By comparing various transforms, experiments show the optimal
transform for a motion frequency based approach.
Abstract: Ethanol has been known for a long time, being
perhaps the oldest product obtained through traditional biotechnology
fermentation. Agriculture waste as substrate in fermentation is vastly
discussed as alternative to replace edible food and utilization of
organic material. Pineapple peel, highly potential source as substrate
is a by-product of the pineapple processing industry. Bio-ethanol
from pineapple (Ananas comosus) peel extract was carried out by
controlling fermentation without any treatment. Saccharomyces
ellipsoides was used as inoculum in this fermentation process as it is
naturally found at the pineapple skin. In this study, the capability of
Response Surface Methodology (RSM) for optimization of ethanol
production from pineapple peel extract using Saccharomyces
ellipsoideus in batch fermentation process was investigated. Effect of
five test variables in a defined range of inoculum concentration 6-
14% (v/v), pH (4.0-6.0), sugar concentration (14-22°Brix),
temperature (24-32°C) and time of incubation (30-54 hrs) on the
ethanol production were evaluated. Data obtained from experiment
were analyzed with RSM of MINITAB Software (Version 15)
whereby optimum ethanol concentration of 8.637% (v/v) was
determined. The optimum condition of 14% (v/v) inoculum
concentration, pH 6, 22°Brix, 26°C and 30hours of incubation. The
significant regression equation or model at the 5% level with
correlation value of 99.96% was also obtained.
Abstract: The article investigates how 14- to 15- year-olds build informal conceptions of inferential statistics as they engage in a modelling process and build their own computer simulations with dynamic statistical software. This study proposes four primary phases of informal inferential reasoning for the students in the statistical modeling and simulation process. Findings show shifts in the conceptual structures across the four phases and point to the potential of all of these phases for fostering the development of students- robust knowledge of the logic of inference when using computer based simulations to model and investigate statistical questions.
Abstract: In this paper we examine the use of global texture analysis based approaches for the purpose of Persian font recognition in machine-printed document images. Most existing methods for font recognition make use of local typographical features and connected component analysis. However derivation of such features is not an easy task. Gabor filters are appropriate tools for texture analysis and are motivated by human visual system. Here we consider document images as textures and use Gabor filter responses for identifying the fonts. The method is content independent and involves no local feature analysis. Two different classifiers Weighted Euclidean Distance and SVM are used for the purpose of classification. Experiments on seven different type faces and four font styles show average accuracy of 85% with WED and 82% with SVM classifier over typefaces
Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to establish a
methodology for testing and optimizing GPRS performance over
Libya GSM network as well as to propose a suitable optimization
technique to improve performance. Some measurements of
download, upload, throughput, round-trip time, reliability, handover,
security enhancement and packet loss over a GPRS access network
were carried out. Measured values are compared to the theoretical
values that could be calculated beforehand. This data should be
processed and delivered by the server across the wireless network to
the client. The client on the fly takes those pieces of the data and
process immediately. Also, we illustrate the results by describing the
main parameters that affect the quality of service. Finally, Libya-s
two mobile operators, Libyana Mobile Phone and Al-Madar al-
Jadeed Company are selected as a case study to validate our
methodology.
Abstract: The paper proposes the novel design of a 3T XOR gate combining complementary CMOS with pass transistor logic. The design has been compared with earlier proposed 4T and 6T XOR gates and a significant improvement in silicon area and power-delay product has been obtained. An eight transistor full adder has been designed using the proposed three-transistor XOR gate and its performance has been investigated using 0.15um and 0.35um technologies. Compared to the earlier designed 10 transistor full adder, the proposed adder shows a significant improvement in silicon area and power delay product. The whole simulation has been carried out using HSPICE.
Abstract: The paper describes the evaluation of quality of
control for cases of controlled non-minimal phase plants. Control
circuits containing non-minimal phase plants have different
properties, they manifest reversed reaction at the beginning of unit
step response. For these types of plants are developed special
criterion of quality of control, which considers the difference and can
be helpful for synthesis of optimal controller tuning. All results are
clearly presented using Matlab/Simulink models.