Abstract: Modern manufacturing facilities are large scale,
highly complex, and operate with large number of variables under
closed loop control. Early and accurate fault detection and diagnosis
for these plants can minimise down time, increase the safety of plant
operations, and reduce manufacturing costs. Fault detection and
isolation is more complex particularly in the case of the faulty analog
control systems. Analog control systems are not equipped with
monitoring function where the process parameters are continually
visualised. In this situation, It is very difficult to find the relationship
between the fault importance and its consequences on the product
failure. We consider in this paper an approach to fault detection and
analysis of its effect on the production quality using an adaptive
centring and scaling in the pickling process in cold rolling. The fault
appeared on one of the power unit driving a rotary machine, this
machine can not track a reference speed given by another machine.
The length of metal loop is then in continuous oscillation, this affects
the product quality. Using a computerised data acquisition system,
the main machine parameters have been monitored. The fault has
been detected and isolated on basis of analysis of monitored data.
Normal and faulty situation have been obtained by an artificial neural
network (ANN) model which is implemented to simulate the normal
and faulty status of rotary machine. Correlation between the product
quality defined by an index and the residual is used to quality
classification.
Abstract: Having a very many number of pipelines all over the
country, Iran is one of the countries consists of various ecosystems
with variable degrees of fragility and robusticity as well as
geographical conditions. This study presents a state-of-the-art method
to estimate environmental risks of pipelines by recommending
rational equations including FES, URAS, SRS, RRS, DRS, LURS
and IRS as well as FRS to calculate the risks. This study was carried
out by a relative semi-quantitative approach based on land uses and
HVAs (High-Value Areas). GIS as a tool was used to create proper
maps regarding the environmental risks, land uses and distances. The
main logic for using the formulas was the distance-based approaches
and ESI as well as intersections. Summarizing the results of the
study, a risk geographical map based on the ESIs and final risk score
(FRS) was created. The study results showed that the most sensitive
and so of high risk area would be an area comprising of mangrove
forests located in the pipeline neighborhood. Also, salty lands were
the most robust land use units in the case of pipeline failure
circumstances. Besides, using a state-of-the-art method, it showed
that mapping the risks of pipelines out with the applied method is of
more reliability and convenience as well as relative
comprehensiveness in comparison to present non-holistic methods for
assessing the environmental risks of pipelines. The focus of the
present study is “assessment" than that of “management". It is
suggested that new policies are to be implemented to reduce the
negative effects of the pipeline that has not yet been constructed
completely
Abstract: The motorway segment between Tangier and Oued
R’mel has experienced, since the beginning of building works,
significant instability and landslides linked to a number of geological,
hydrogeological and geothermic factors affecting the different
formations.
The landslides observed are not fully understood, despite many
studies conducted on this segment. This study aims at producing new
methods to better explain the phenomena behind the landslides,
taking into account the geotechnical and geothermic contexts. This
analysis builds up on previous studies and geotechnical data collected
in the field.
The final body of data collected shall be processed through the
Plaxis software for a better and customizable view of the landslide
problems in the area, which will help tofind solutions and stabilize
land in the area.
Abstract: Film, as an art form playing a vital role and is a powerful tool in documenting, influencing and shaping the society. Films are the collective creation of a large number of separate individuals, each contributing with creative input, unique talents, and technical expertise to the project. Recently, the Malaysian Independent (or “Indie") filmmakers have made their presence felt by winning awards at various international film festivals. Working in the digital video (DV) format, a number of independent filmmakers really hit their stride with a range of remarkably strong titles and international recognition has been quick in coming and their works are now regularly in exhibition or in competition, winning many top prizes at prestigious festivals around the world. The interaction factors among crewmembers are emphasized as imperative for group success. An in-depth interview is conducted to analyze the social interactions and exchanges between filmmakers through Social Exchanges Theory (SET). Certainly the new millennium that was marked as the digital technology revolution has changed the face of filmmaking in Malaysia. There is a clear need to study the Malaysian independent cinema especially from the perspective of understanding what causes the independent filmmakers to work so well given all of the difficulties and constraints.
Abstract: The production of glass, ceramic materials and many non-ferrous metals (Zn, Cu, Pb, etc.), ferrous metals (pig iron) and others is connected with the use of a considerable number of initial solid raw materials. Before carrying out the basic technological processes (oxidized roasting, melting, agglomeration, baking) it is necessary to mix and homogenize the raw materials that have different chemical and phase content, granulometry and humidity. For this purpose zinc sulfide concentrates differing in origin are studied for their more complete characteristics using chemical, X-ray diffraction analyses, DTA and TGA as well as Mössbauer spectroscopy. The phases established in most concentrates are: β-ZnS, mZnS.nFeS, FeS2, CuFeS2, PbS, SiO2 (α-quartz). With the help of the developed by us a Web-based information system for a continued period of time different mix proportions from zinc concentrates are calculated and used in practice (roasting in fluidized bed reactor), which have to conform to the technological requirements of the zinc hydrometallurgical technological scheme.
Abstract: This is an applied research to propose the method for
price quotation for a contract electronics manufacturer. It has had a
precise price quoting method but such method could not quickly
provide a result as the customer required. This reduces the ability of
company to compete in this kind of business. In this case, the cause
of long time quotation process was analyzed. A lot of product
features have been demanded by customer. By checking routine
processes, it was found that high fraction of quoting time was used
for production time estimating which has effected to the
manufacturing or production cost. Then the historical data of
products including types, number of components, assembling
method, and their assembling time were used to analyze the key
components affecting to production time. The price quoting model
then was proposed. The implementation of proposed model was able
to remarkably reduce quoting time with an acceptable required
precision.
Abstract: In this work, we incorporated a quartic bond potential
into a coarse-grained bead-spring model to study lubricant adsorption
on a solid surface as well as depletion instability. The surface tension
density and the number density profiles were examined to verify the
solid-liquid and liquid-vapor interfaces during heat treatment. It was
found that both the liquid-vapor interfacial thickness and the
solid-vapor separation increase with the temperatureT* when T*is
below the phase transition temperature Tc
*. At high temperatures
(T*>Tc
*), the solid-vapor separation decreases gradually as the
temperature increases. In addition, we evaluated the lubricant weight
and bond loss profiles at different temperatures. It was observed that
the lubricant desorption is favored over decomposition and is the main
cause of the lubricant failure at the head disk interface in our
simulations.
Abstract: The design of distributed systems involves dividing the system into partitions (or components) and then allocating these partitions to physical nodes. There have been several techniques proposed for both the partitioning and allocation processes. These existing techniques suffer from a number of limitations including lack of support for replication. Replication is difficult to use effectively but has the potential to greatly improve the performance of a distributed system. This paper presents a new technique technique for allocating objects in order to improve performance in a distributed system that supports replication. The performance of the proposed technique is demonstrated and tested on an example system. The performance of the new technique is compared with the performance of an existing technique in order to demonstrate both the validity and superiority of the new technique when developing a distributed system that can utilise object replication.
Abstract: F-actin fibrils are the cytoskeleton of osteocytes. They react in a dynamic manner to mechanical loading, and strength and
reposition their efforts to reinforce the cells structure. We hypothesize that f-actin is temporarly disrupted after loading and repolymerizes
in a new orientation to oppose the applied load. In vitro studies are conducted to determine f-actin disruption after varying mechanical stimulus parameters that are known to affect bone
formation. Results indicate that the f-actin cytoskeleton is disrupted in vitro as a function of applied mechanical stimulus parameters and
that the f-actin bundles reassemble after loading induced disruption
within 3 minutes after cessation of loading. The disruption of the factin
cytoskeleton depends on the magnitude of stretch, the numbers
of loading cycles, frequency, the insertion of rest between loading
cycles and extracellular calcium. In vivo studies also demonstrate
disruption of the f-actin cytoskeleton in cells embedded in the bone
matrix immediately after mechanical loading. These studies suggest
that adaptation of the f-actin fiber bundles of the cytoskeleton in
response to applied loads occurs by disruption and subsequent repolymerization.
Abstract: The Boundary Representation of a 3D manifold contains
FACES (connected subsets of a parametric surface S : R2 -!
R3). In many science and engineering applications it is cumbersome
and algebraically difficult to deal with the polynomial set and
constraints (LOOPs) representing the FACE. Because of this reason, a
Piecewise Linear (PL) approximation of the FACE is needed, which is
usually represented in terms of triangles (i.e. 2-simplices). Solving the
problem of FACE triangulation requires producing quality triangles
which are: (i) independent of the arguments of S, (ii) sensitive to the
local curvatures, and (iii) compliant with the boundaries of the FACE
and (iv) topologically compatible with the triangles of the neighboring
FACEs. In the existing literature there are no guarantees for the point
(iii). This article contributes to the topic of triangulations conforming
to the boundaries of the FACE by applying the concept of parameterindependent
Gabriel complex, which improves the correctness of the
triangulation regarding aspects (iii) and (iv). In addition, the article
applies the geometric concept of tangent ball to a surface at a point to
address points (i) and (ii). Additional research is needed in algorithms
that (i) take advantage of the concepts presented in the heuristic
algorithm proposed and (ii) can be proved correct.
Abstract: Most, if not all, public hospitals in Thailand have encountered a common problem regarding the increasing demand for medical services. The increasing number of patients causes so much strain on the hospital-s services, over-crowded, overloaded working hours, staff fatigue, medical error and long waiting time. This research studied the characteristics of operational processes of the medical care services at the medicine department in a large public university hospital. The research focuses on details regarding methods, procedures, processes, resources, and time management in overall processes. The simulation model is used as a tool to analyze the impact of various improvement strategies.
Abstract: Cybercrime is now becoming a big challenge in Nigeria apart from the traditional crime. Inability to identify perpetrators is one of the reasons for the growing menace. This paper proposes a design for monitoring internet users’ activities in order to curbing cybercrime. It requires redefining the operations of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which will now mandate users to be authenticated before accessing the internet. In implementing this work which can be adapted to a larger scale, a virtual router application is developed and configured to mimic a real router device. A sign-up portal is developed to allow users to register with the ISP. The portal asks for identification information which will include bio-data and government issued identification data like National Identity Card number, et cetera. A unique username and password are chosen by the user to enable access to the internet which will be used to reference him to an Internet Protocol Address (IP Address) of any system he uses on the internet and thereby associating him to any criminal act related to that IP address at that particular time. Questions such as “What happen when another user knows the password and uses it to commit crime?” and other pertinent issues are addressed.
Abstract: Morgan-s refinement calculus (MRC) is one of the
well-known methods allowing the formality presented in the program
specification to be continued all the way to code. On the other hand,
Object-Z (OZ) is an extension of Z adding support for classes and
objects. There are a number of methods for obtaining code from OZ
specifications that can be categorized into refinement and animation
methods. As far as we know, only one refinement method exists
which refines OZ specifications into code. However, this method
does not have fine-grained refinement rules and thus cannot be
automated. On the other hand, existing animation methods do not
present mapping rules formally and do not support the mapping of
several important constructs of OZ, such as all cases of operation
expressions and most of constructs in global paragraph. In this paper,
with the aim of providing an automatic path from OZ specifications
to code, we propose an approach to map OZ specifications into their
counterparts in MRC in order to use fine-grained refinement rules of
MRC. In this way, having counterparts of our specifications in MRC,
we can refine them into code automatically using MRC tools such as
RED. Other advantages of our work pertain to proposing mapping
rules formally, supporting the mapping of all important constructs of
Object-Z, and considering dynamic instantiation of objects while OZ
itself does not cover this facility.
Abstract: Impinging jets are used in various industrial areas as a cooling and drying technique. The current research is concerned with the means of improving the heat transfer for configurations with a minimum distance of the nozzle to the impingement surface. The impingement heat transfer is described using numerical methods over a wide range of parameters for an array of planar jets. These parameters include varying jet flow speed, width of nozzle, distance of nozzle, angle of the jet flow, velocity and geometry of the impingement surface. Normal pressure and shear stress are computed as additional parameters. Using dimensionless characteristic numbers the parameters and the results are correlated to gain generalized equations. The results demonstrate the effect of the investigated parameters on the flow.
Abstract: Dengue virus is transmitted from person to person
through the biting of infected Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes. DEN-1,
DEN-2, DEN-3 and DEN-4 are four serotypes of this virus. Infection
with one of these four serotypes apparently produces permanent
immunity to it, but only temporary cross immunity to the others. The
length of time during incubation of dengue virus in human and
mosquito are considered in this study. The dengue patients are
classified into infected and infectious classes. The infectious human
can transmit dengue virus to susceptible mosquitoes but infected
human can not. The transmission model of this disease is formulated.
The human population is divided into susceptible, infected, infectious
and recovered classes. The mosquito population is separated into
susceptible, infected and infectious classes. Only infectious
mosquitoes can transmit dengue virus to the susceptible human. We
analyze this model by using dynamical analysis method. The
threshold condition is discussed to reduce the outbreak of this
disease.
Abstract: Losses reduction initiatives in distribution systems
have been activated due to the increasing cost of supplying
electricity, the shortage in fuel with ever-increasing cost to produce
more power, and the global warming concerns. These initiatives have
been introduced to the utilities in shape of incentives and penalties.
Recently, the electricity distribution companies in Oman have been
incentivized to reduce the distribution technical and non-technical
losses with an equal annual reduction rate for 6 years. In this paper,
different techniques for losses reduction in Mazoon Electricity
Company (MZEC) are addressed. In this company, high numbers of
substation and feeders were found to be non-compliant with the
Distribution System Security Standard (DSSS). Therefore, 33
projects have been suggested to bring non-complying 29 substations
and 28 feeders to meet the planed criteria and to comply with the
DSSS. The largest part of MZEC-s network (South Batinah region)
was modeled by ETAP software package. The model has been
extended to implement the proposed projects and to examine their
effects on losses reduction. Simulation results have shown that the
implementation of these projects leads to a significant improvement
in voltage profile, and reduction in the active and the reactive power
losses. Finally, the economical analysis has revealed that the
implementation of the proposed projects in MZEC leads to an annual
saving of about US$ 5 million.
Abstract: Many researchers are working on information hiding
techniques using different ideas and areas to hide their secrete data.
This paper introduces a robust technique of hiding secret data in
image based on LSB insertion and RSA encryption technique. The
key of the proposed technique is to encrypt the secret data. Then the
encrypted data will be converted into a bit stream and divided it into
number of segments. However, the cover image will also be divided
into the same number of segments. Each segment of data will be
compared with each segment of image to find the best match
segment, in order to create a new random sequence of segments to be
inserted then in a cover image. Experimental results show that the
proposed technique has a high security level and produced better
stego-image quality.
Abstract: This paper presents the feasibility study of CO2 sequestration from the sources to the sinks in the prospective of Italian Industries. CO2 produced at these sources captured, compressed to supercritical pressures, transported via pipelines and stored in underground geologic formations such as depleted oil and natural gas reservoirs, un-minable coal seams and deep saline aquifers. In this work, we present the optimized pipeline infrastructure for the CO2 with appropriate constraints to find lower cost system by the use of nonlinear optimization software LINGO 11.0. This study was conducted on CO2 transportation complex network of Italian Industries, to find minimum cost network for transporting the CO2 from sources to the sinks.
Abstract: Intelligent deep-drawing is an instrumental research field in sheet metal forming. A set of 28 different experimental data have been employed in this paper, investigating the roles of die radius, punch radius, friction coefficients and drawing ratios for axisymmetric workpieces deep drawing. This paper focuses an evolutionary neural network, specifically, error back propagation in collaboration with genetic algorithm. The neural network encompasses a number of different functional nodes defined through the established principles. The input parameters, i.e., punch radii, die radii, friction coefficients and drawing ratios are set to the network; thereafter, the material outputs at two critical points are accurately calculated. The output of the network is used to establish the best parameters leading to the most uniform thickness in the product via the genetic algorithm. This research achieved satisfactory results based on demonstration of neural networks.
Abstract: Quality of Service (QoS) Routing aims to find path between source and destination satisfying the QoS requirements which efficiently using the network resources and underlying routing algorithm and to fmd low-cost paths that satisfy given QoS constraints. One of the key issues in providing end-to-end QoS guarantees in packet networks is determining feasible path that satisfies a number of QoS constraints. We present a Optimized Multi- Constrained Routing (OMCR) algorithm for the computation of constrained paths for QoS routing in computer networks. OMCR applies distance vector to construct a shortest path for each destination with reference to a given optimization metric, from which a set of feasible paths are derived at each node. OMCR is able to fmd feasible paths as well as optimize the utilization of network resources. OMCR operates with the hop-by-hop, connectionless routing model in IP Internet and does not create any loops while fmding the feasible paths. Nodes running OMCR not necessarily maintaining global view of network state such as topology, resource information and routing updates are sent only to neighboring nodes whereas its counterpart link-state routing method depend on complete network state for constrained path computation and that incurs excessive communication overhead.