Abstract: Changes in stem diameter of orchid plants were
investigated in a control growing climate. Previous studies have
focused on stem diameter in relation to plant water on terrestrial
plants in order to schedule the irrigation. The objective of this work
was to evaluate the ability of the strain gauges to capture changes in
the epiphytes plant stem. Experiments were carried out by using the
sympodial orchid, Dendrobium Sonia in a stressed condition. From
the findings, the sensor can detect changes in the plant stem and the
result can easily be used as a reference for further studies for the
development of a proper watering system.
Abstract: Recently, as the scale of construction projects has
increases, more ground excavation for foundations is carried out than ever before. Consequently, damage to underground ducts (gas, water/sewage or oil pipelines, communication cables or power cable ducts) or superannuated pipelines frequently cause serious accidents
resulting in damage to life and property. (In Korea, the total length of city water pipelines was approximately 2,000 km as of the end of 2009.) In addition, large amounts of damage caused by fractures, water
and gas leakage caused by superannuation or damage to underground
ducts in construction has been reported. Therefore, a system is required to precisely detect defects and deterioration in underground
pipelines and the locations of such defects, for timely and accurate
maintenance or replacement of the ducts. In this study, a system was
developed which can locate underground structures (gas and water
pipelines, power cable ducts, etc.) in 3D-coordinates and monitor the
degree and position of defects using an Inertial Measurement Unit
(IMU) sensing technique. The system can prevent damage to underground ducts and superannuated pipelines during construction,
and provide reliable data for maintenance. The utility of the IMU sensing technique used in aircraft and ships in civil applications was
verified.
Abstract: Retinal vascularity assessment plays an important role in diagnosis of ophthalmic pathologies. The employment of digital images for this purpose makes possible a computerized approach and has motivated development of many methods for automated vascular tree segmentation. Metrics based on contingency tables for binary classification have been widely used for evaluating performance of these algorithms and, concretely, the accuracy has been mostly used as measure of global performance in this topic. However, this metric shows very poor matching with human perception as well as other notable deficiencies. Here, a new similarity function for measuring quality of retinal vessel segmentations is proposed. This similarity function is based on characterizing the vascular tree as a connected structure with a measurable area and length. Tests made indicate that this new approach shows better behaviour than the current one does. Generalizing, this concept of measuring descriptive properties may be used for designing functions for measuring more successfully segmentation quality of other complex structures.
Abstract: Social resilience has role to govern the local community and coastal fisheries resources toward sustainable fisheries development in tsunami affected area. This paper asses, explore and investigates of indigenous institutions, external and internal facilitators toward strengthening social resilience. Identification of the genuine organizations role had been conducted twice by using Rapid Assessment Appraisal, Focus Group Discussion, and in-depth interview for collecting primary and secondary data. Local wisdom had a contribution and adaptable to rebound social resilience. The Panglima Laot Lhok (sea commander) had determined and adapted role on recovery of the fishing community, particularly facilitated aid delivery to fishermen, as shown in anchovy fisheries relief case in Krueng Raya Bay. Toke Bangku (financial trader) had stimulated for reinforcement of advance payment and market channel. The other institutions supported upon linking and bridging connectivity among stakeholders. Collaborative governance can avoid conflict, reduce donor dependency and strengthen social resilience within fishing community.
Abstract: As mobile service's subscriber is increasing; mobile
contents services are getting more and more variables. So, mobile
contents development needs not only contents design but also
guideline for just mobile. And when mobile contents are developed, it
is important to pass the limit and restriction of the mobile. The
restrictions of mobile are small browser and screen size, limited
download size and uncomfortable navigation. So each contents of
mobile guideline will be presented for user's usability, easy of
development and consistency of rule. This paper will be proposed
methodology which is each contents of mobile guideline. Mobile web
will be developed by mobile guideline which I proposed.
Abstract: Drilling is the most common machining operation and it forms the highest machining cost in many manufacturing activities including automotive engine production. The outcome of this operation depends upon many factors including utilization of proper cutting tool geometry, cutting tool material and the type of coating used to improve hardness and resistance to wear, and also cutting parameters. With the availability of a large array of tool geometries, materials and coatings, is has become a challenging task to select the best tool and cutting parameters that would result in the lowest machining cost or highest profit rate. This paper describes an algorithm developed to help achieve good performances in drilling operations by automatically determination of proper cutting tools and cutting parameters. It also helps determine machining sequences resulting in minimum tool changes that would eventually reduce machining time and cost where multiple tools are used.
Abstract: Groundwater is one of the most important water
resources in Fars province. Based on this study, 95 percent of the
total annual water consumption in Fars is used for agriculture,
whereas the percentages for domestic and industrial uses are 4 and 1
percent, respectively. Population growth, urban and industrial
growth, and agricultural development in Fars have created a
condition of water stress. In this province, farmers and other users are
pumping groundwater faster than its natural replenishment rate,
causing a continuous drop in groundwater tables and depletion of this
resource. In this research variation of groundwater level, their effects
and ways to help control groundwater levels in aquifer of the Kavar-
Maharloo plains in Fars plain were evaluated .Excessive
exploitation of groundwater in this aquifer caused the groundwater
levels fall too fast or to unacceptable levels. The average drawdown
of the groundwater level in this plain were 17 meters during
1995 to 2006. The purpose of this study is to evaluate water level
changes in the Kavar-Maharloo Aquifer in the Fars province in order
to determine the areas of greatest depletion, the cause of depletion,
and predict the remaining life of the aquifer.
Abstract: The main aim of Supply Chain Management (SCM) is
to produce, distribute, logistics and deliver goods and equipment in
right location, right time, right amount to satisfy costumers, with
minimum time and cost waste. So implementing techniques that
reduce project time and cost, and improve productivity and
performance is very important. Emerging technologies such as the
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) are now making it possible to
automate supply chains in a real time manner and making them more
efficient than the simple supply chain of the past for tracing and
monitoring goods and products and capturing data on movements of
goods and other events. This paper considers concepts, components
and RFID technology characteristics by concentration of warehouse
and inventories management. Additionally, utilization of RFID in the
role of improving information management in supply chain is
discussed. Finally, the facts of installation and this technology-s
results in direction with warehouse and inventory management and
business development will be presented.
Abstract: This paper deals with e-government issues at several
levels. Initially we look at the concept of e-government itself in order
to give it a sound framework. Than we look at the e-government
issues at three levels, first we analyse it at the global level, second we
analyse it at the level of transition economies, and finally we take a
closer look on developments in Croatia. The analysis includes actual
progress being made in selected transition economies given the Euro
area averages, along with e-government potential in future
demanding period.
Abstract: Improvement in CAE methods has an important role for shortening of the vehicle product development time. It is provided that validation of the design and improvements in terms of durability can be done without hardware prototype production. In recent years, several different methods have been developed in order to investigate fatigue damage of the vehicle. The intended goal among these methods is prediction of fatigue damage in a short time with reduced costs. This study developed a new fatigue damage prediction method in the automotive sector using power spectrum densities of accelerations. This study also confirmed that the weak region in vehicle can be easily detected with the method developed in this study which results were compared with conventional method.
Abstract: The Spiral development model has been used
successfully in many commercial systems and in a good number of
defense systems. This is due to the fact that cost-effective
incremental commitment of funds, via an analogy of the spiral model
to stud poker and also can be used to develop hardware or integrate
software, hardware, and systems. To support adaptive, semantic
collaboration between domain experts and knowledge engineers, a
new knowledge engineering process, called Spiral_OWL is proposed.
This model is based on the idea of iterative refinement, annotation
and structuring of knowledge base. The Spiral_OWL model is
generated base on spiral model and knowledge engineering
methodology. A central paradigm for Spiral_OWL model is the
concentration on risk-driven determination of knowledge engineering
process. The collaboration aspect comes into play during knowledge
acquisition and knowledge validation phase. Design rationales for the
Spiral_OWL model are to be easy-to-implement, well-organized, and
iterative development cycle as an expanding spiral.
Abstract: Construction projects generally take place in
uncontrolled and dynamic environments where construction waste is
a serious environmental problem in many large cities. The total
amount of waste and carbon dioxide emissions from transportation
vehicles are still out of control due to increasing construction
projects, massive urban development projects and the lack of
effective tools for minimizing adverse environmental impacts in
construction. This research is about utilization of the integrated
applications of automated advanced tracking and data storage
technologies in the area of environmental management to monitor
and control adverse environmental impacts such as construction
waste and carbon dioxide emissions. Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) integrated with the Global Position System (GPS) provides
an opportunity to uniquely identify materials, components, and
equipments and to locate and track them using minimal or no worker
input. The transmission of data to the central database will be carried
out with the help of Global System for Mobile Communications
(GSM).
Abstract: Model Predictive Control (MPC) is increasingly being
proposed for real time applications and embedded systems. However
comparing to PID controller, the implementation of the MPC in
miniaturized devices like Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA)
and microcontrollers has historically been very small scale due to its
complexity in implementation and its computation time requirement.
At the same time, such embedded technologies have become an
enabler for future manufacturing enterprises as well as a transformer
of organizations and markets. Recently, advances in microelectronics
and software allow such technique to be implemented in embedded
systems. In this work, we take advantage of these recent advances
in this area in the deployment of one of the most studied and
applied control technique in the industrial engineering. In fact in
this paper, we propose an efficient framework for implementation
of Generalized Predictive Control (GPC) in the performed STM32
microcontroller. The STM32 keil starter kit based on a JTAG interface
and the STM32 board was used to implement the proposed GPC
firmware. Besides the GPC, the PID anti windup algorithm was
also implemented using Keil development tools designed for ARM
processor-based microcontroller devices and working with C/Cµ
langage. A performances comparison study was done between both
firmwares. This performances study show good execution speed and
low computational burden. These results encourage to develop simple
predictive algorithms to be programmed in industrial standard hardware.
The main features of the proposed framework are illustrated
through two examples and compared with the anti windup PID
controller.
Abstract: There are many approaches proposed for solving
Sudoku puzzles. One of them is by modelling the puzzles as block
world problems. There have been three model for Sudoku solvers
based on this approach. Each model expresses Sudoku solver as
a parameterized multi agent systems. In this work, we propose a
new model which is an improvement over the existing models. This
paper presents the development of a Sudoku solver that implements
all the proposed models. Some experiments have been conducted to
determine the performance of each model.
Abstract: The development of entrepreneurial competences of
farmers has been pointed out as a necessary condition for the
modernization of land in facing the phenomenon of globalization.
However, the educational processes involved in such a development
have been studied little, especially in emerging economies. This
research aims to enlighten some of the critical issues behind the early
stages of the transformation of farmers into entrepreneurs, through in
depth interviews with farmers, entrepreneurial promoters and public
officials participating in a public pilot project in Mexico. Although
major impacts were expected only in the long run, important positive
changes in the mind set of farmers and other participants were found
in early stages of the intervention. Apparently, the farmers started a
process of becoming more conscious about the importance of
preserving the aquiferous resources, as well as more market and
entrepreneurial oriented.
Abstract: Amongst the consistently fluctuating conditions
prevailing today, changeability represents a strategic key factor for a
manufacturing company to achieve success on the international
markets. In order to cope with turbulences and the increasing level of
incalculability, not only the flexible design of production systems but
in particular the employee as enabler of change provide the focus
here. It is important to enable employees from manufacturing
companies to participate actively in change events and in change
decisions. To this end, the learning factory has been created, which is
intended to serve the development of change-promoting competences
and the sensitization of employees for the necessity of changes.
Abstract: A computer model of Quantum Theory (QT) has been
developed by the author. Major goal of the computer model was
support and demonstration of an as large as possible scope of QT.
This includes simulations for the major QT (Gedanken-) experiments
such as, for example, the famous double-slit experiment.
Besides the anticipated difficulties with (1) transforming exacting
mathematics into a computer program, two further types of problems
showed up, namely (2) areas where QT provides a complete mathematical
formalism, but when it comes to concrete applications the
equations are not solvable at all, or only with extremely high effort;
(3) QT rules which are formulated in natural language and which do
not seem to be translatable to precise mathematical expressions, nor
to a computer program.
The paper lists problems in all three categories and describes also
the possible solutions or circumventions developed for the computer
model.
Abstract: Nowadays, under developed countries for progress in
science and technology and decreasing the technologic gap with
developed countries, increasing the capacities and technology
transfer from developed countries. To remain competitive, industry is
continually searching for new methods to evolve their products.
Business model is one of the latest buzzwords in the Internet and
electronic business world. To be successful, organizations must look
into the needs and wants of their customers. This research attempts to
identify a specific feature of the company with a strong competitive
advantage by analyzing the cause of Customer satisfaction. Due to
the rapid development of knowledge and information technology,
business environments have become much more complicated.
Information technology can help a firm aiming to gain a competitive
advantage. This study explores the role and effect of Information
Communication Technology in Business Models and Customer
satisfaction on firms and also relationships between ICTs and
Outsourcing strategic.
Abstract: Cognitive models allow predicting some aspects of utility
and usability of human machine interfaces (HMI), and simulating
the interaction with these interfaces. The action of predicting is based
on a task analysis, which investigates what a user is required to do
in terms of actions and cognitive processes to achieve a task. Task
analysis facilitates the understanding of the system-s functionalities.
Cognitive models are part of the analytical approaches, that do not
associate the users during the development process of the interface.
This article presents a study about the evaluation of a human
machine interaction with a contextual assistant-s interface using ACTR
and GOMS cognitive models. The present work shows how these
techniques may be applied in the evaluation of HMI, design and
research by emphasizing firstly the task analysis and secondly the
time execution of the task. In order to validate and support our
results, an experimental study of user performance is conducted at
the DOMUS laboratory, during the interaction with the contextual
assistant-s interface. The results of our models show that the GOMS
and ACT-R models give good and excellent predictions respectively
of users performance at the task level, as well as the object level.
Therefore, the simulated results are very close to the results obtained
in the experimental study.
Abstract: This paper proposes a framework for product
development including hardware and software components. It
provides separation of hardware dependent software, modifications of
current product development process, and integration of software
modules with existing product configuration models and assembly
product structures. In order to decide the dependent software, the
framework considers product configuration modules and engineering
changes of associated software and hardware components. In order to
support efficient integration of the two different hardware and
software development, a modified product development process is
proposed. The process integrates the dependent software development
into product development through the interchanges of specific product
information. By using existing product data models in Product Data
Management (PDM), the framework represents software as modules
for product configurations and software parts for product structure.
The framework is applied to development of a robot system in order to
show its effectiveness.