A Survey: Bandwidth Management in an IP Based Network

this paper presented a survey analysis subjected on network bandwidth management from published papers referred in IEEE Explorer database in three years from 2009 to 2011. Network Bandwidth Management is discussed in today-s issues for computer engineering applications and systems. Detailed comparison is presented between published papers to look further in the IP based network critical research area for network bandwidth management. Important information such as the network focus area, a few modeling in the IP Based Network and filtering or scheduling used in the network applications layer is presented. Many researches on bandwidth management have been done in the broad network area but fewer are done in IP Based network specifically at the applications network layer. A few researches has contributed new scheme or enhanced modeling but still the issue of bandwidth management still arise at the applications network layer. This survey is taken as a basic research towards implementations of network bandwidth management technique, new framework model and scheduling scheme or algorithm in an IP Based network which will focus in a control bandwidth mechanism in prioritizing the network traffic the applications layer.

Thermoelastic Damping of Inextensional Hemispherical Shell

In this work, thermoelastic damping effect on the hemi- spherical shells is investigated. The material is selected silicon, and heat conduction equation for thermal flow is solved to obtain the temperature profile in which bending approximation with inextensional assumption of the model. Using the temperature profile, eigen-value analysis is performed to get the natural frequencies of hemispherical shells. Effects of mode numbers, radii and radial thicknesses of the model on the natural frequencies are analyzed in detail. Furthermore, the quality factor (Q-factor) is defined, and discussed for the ring and hemispherical shell.

Automation of Heat Exchanger using Neural Network

In this paper the development of a heat exchanger as a pilot plant for educational purpose is discussed and the use of neural network for controlling the process is being presented. The aim of the study is to highlight the need of a specific Pseudo Random Binary Sequence (PRBS) to excite a process under control. As the neural network is a data driven technique, the method for data generation plays an important role. In light of this a careful experimentation procedure for data generation was crucial task. Heat exchange is a complex process, which has a capacity and a time lag as process elements. The proposed system is a typical pipe-in- pipe type heat exchanger. The complexity of the system demands careful selection, proper installation and commissioning. The temperature, flow, and pressure sensors play a vital role in the control performance. The final control element used is a pneumatically operated control valve. While carrying out the experimentation on heat exchanger a welldrafted procedure is followed giving utmost attention towards safety of the system. The results obtained are encouraging and revealing the fact that if the process details are known completely as far as process parameters are concerned and utilities are well stabilized then feedback systems are suitable, whereas neural network control paradigm is useful for the processes with nonlinearity and less knowledge about process. The implementation of NN control reinforces the concepts of process control and NN control paradigm. The result also underlined the importance of excitation signal typically for that process. Data acquisition, processing, and presentation in a typical format are the most important parameters while validating the results.

Intelligent Design of Reconfigurable Machines

This paper presents methodologies for developing an intelligent CAD system assisting in analysis and design of reconfigurable special machines. It describes a procedure for determining feasibility of utilizing these machines for a given part and presents a model for developing an intelligent CAD system. The system analyzes geometrical and topological information of the given part to determine possibility of the part being produced by reconfigurable special machines from a technical point of view. Also feasibility of the process from a economical point of view is analyzed. Then the system determines proper positioning of the part considering details of machining features and operations needed. This involves determination of operation types, cutting tools and the number of working stations needed. Upon completion of this stage the overall layout of the machine and machining equipment required are determined.

Extraction of Graphene-Titanium Contact Resistances using Transfer Length Measurement and a Curve-Fit Method

Graphene-metal contact resistance limits the performance of graphene-based electrical devices. In this work, we have fabricated both graphene field-effect transistors (GFET) and transfer length measurement (TLM) test devices with titanium contacts. The purpose of this work is to compare the contact resistances that can be numerically extracted from the GFETs and measured from the TLM structures. We also provide a brief review of the work done in the field to solve the contact resistance problem.

Currency Boards in Crisis: Experience of Baltic Countries

The European countries that during the past two decades based their exchange rate regimes on currency board arrangement (CBA) are usually analysed from the perspective of corner solution choice’s stabilisation effects. There is an open discussion on the positive and negative background of a strict exchange rate regime choice, although it should be seen as part of the transition process towards the monetary union membership. The focus of the paper is on the Baltic countries that after two decades of a rigid exchange rate arrangement and strongly influenced by global crisis are finishing their path towards the euro zone. Besides the stabilising capacity, the CBA is highly vulnerable regime, with limited developing potential. The rigidity of the exchange rate (and monetary) system, despite the ensured credibility, do not leave enough (or any) space for the adjustment and/or active crisis management. Still, the Baltics are in a process of recovery, with fiscal consolidation measures combined with (painful and politically unpopular) measures of internal devaluation. Today, two of them (Estonia and Latvia) are members of euro zone, fulfilling their ultimate transition targets, but de facto exchanging one fixed regime with another. The paper analyses the challenges for the CBA in unstable environment since the fixed regimes rely on imported stability and are sensitive to external shocks. With limited monetary instruments, these countries were oriented to the fiscal policies and used a combination of internal devaluation and tax policy measures. Despite their rather quick recovery, our second goal is to analyse the long term influence that the measures had on the national economy.

Pervasive Computing in Healthcare Systems

The hospital and the health-care center of a community, as a place for people-s life-care and health-care settings, must provide more and better services for patients or residents. After Establishing Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system -which is a necessity- in the hospital, providing pervasive services is a further step. Our objective in this paper is to use pervasive computing in a case study of healthcare, based on EMR database that coordinates application services over network to form a service environment for medical and health-care. Our method also categorizes the hospital spaces into 3 spaces: Public spaces, Private spaces and Isolated spaces. Although, there are many projects about using pervasive computing in healthcare, but all of them concentrate on the disease recognition, designing smart cloths, or provide services only for patient. The proposed method is implemented in a hospital. The obtained results show that it is suitable for our purpose.

A Reduced-Bit Multiplication Algorithm for Digital Arithmetic

A reduced-bit multiplication algorithm based on the ancient Vedic multiplication formulae is proposed in this paper. Both the Vedic multiplication formulae, Urdhva tiryakbhyam and Nikhilam, are first discussed in detail. Urdhva tiryakbhyam, being a general multiplication formula, is equally applicable to all cases of multiplication. It is applied to the digital arithmetic and is shown to yield a multiplier architecture which is very similar to the popular array multiplier. Due to its structure, it leads to a high carry propagation delay in case of multiplication of large numbers. Nikhilam Sutra, on the other hand, is more efficient in the multiplication of large numbers as it reduces the multiplication of two large numbers to that of two smaller numbers. The framework of the proposed algorithm is taken from this Sutra and is further optimized by use of some general arithmetic operations such as expansion and bit-shifting to take advantage of bit-reduction in multiplication. We illustrate the proposed algorithm by reducing a general 4x4-bit multiplication to a single 2 x 2-bit multiplication operation.

Prioritization Method in the Fuzzy Analytic Network Process by Fuzzy Preferences Programming Method

In this paper, a method for deriving a group priority vector in the Fuzzy Analytic Network Process (FANP) is proposed. By introducing importance weights of multiple decision makers (DMs) based on their experiences, the Fuzzy Preferences Programming Method (FPP) is extended to a fuzzy group prioritization problem in the FANP. Additionally, fuzzy pair-wise comparison judgments are presented rather than exact numerical assessments in order to model the uncertainty and imprecision in the DMs- judgments and then transform the fuzzy group prioritization problem into a fuzzy non-linear programming optimization problem which maximize the group satisfaction. Unlike the known fuzzy prioritization techniques, the new method proposed in this paper can easily derive crisp weights from incomplete and inconsistency fuzzy set of comparison judgments and does not require additional aggregation producers. Detailed numerical examples are used to illustrate the implement of our approach and compare with the latest fuzzy prioritization method.

A New Version of Annotation Method with a XML-based Knowledge Base

Machine-understandable data when strongly interlinked constitutes the basis for the SemanticWeb. Annotating web documents is one of the major techniques for creating metadata on the Web. Annotating websitexs defines the containing data in a form which is suitable for interpretation by machines. In this paper, we present a better and improved approach than previous [1] to annotate the texts of the websites depends on the knowledge base.

Selective Sulfidation of Copper, Zinc and Nickelin Plating Wastewater using Calcium Sulfide

The present work is concerned with sulfidation of Cu, Zn and Ni containing plating wastewater with CaS. The sulfidation experiments were carried out at a room temperature by adding solid CaS to simulated metal solution containing either single-metal of Ni, Zn and Cu, or Ni-Zn-Cu mixture. At first, the experiments were conducted without pH adjustment and it was found that the complete sulfidation of Zn and Ni was achieved at an equimolar ratio of CaS to a particular metal. However, in the case of Cu, a complete copper sulfidation was achieved at CaS to Cu molar ratio of about 2. In the case of the selective sulfidation, a simulated plating solution containing Cu, Zn and Ni at the concentration of 100 mg/dm3 was treated with CaS under various pH conditions. As a result, selective precipitation of metal sulfides was achieved by a sulfidation treatment at different pH values. Further, the precipitation agents of NaOH, Na2S and CaS were compared in terms of the average specific filtration resistance and compressibility coefficients of metal sulfide slurry. Consequently, based on the lowest filtration parameters of the produced metal sulfides, it was concluded that CaS was the most effective precipitation agent for separation and recovery of Cu, Zn and Ni.

Balanced Scorecard in SMEs – A Proposal for Small Gas Stations in Portugal

As current business environment is demanding a constant adaptation of companies, the planning and strategic management should be an ongoing and natural process in all kind of organizations. The use of management and monitoring strategic performance tools such as the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) have been popular; even to Small and Medium-sized Enterprises. This paper aims to investigate whether the BSC is being used in monitoring the performance of small businesses, particularly in small fuel retailers companies, which are competing in co-branding; and if not, it aims to identify its strategic orientation in order to recommend a possible strategy map for those managers that are willing to adopt this model as an alternative to traditional ones for organizational performance evaluation, which often focus only on evaluation of the organizational financial performance.

Optimization of Communication Protocols by stochastic Delay Mechanisms

The paper is concerned with developing stochastic delay mechanisms for efficient multicast protocols and for smooth mobile handover processes which are capable of preserving a given Quality of Service (QoS). In both applications the participating entities (receiver nodes or subscribers) sample a stochastic timer and generate load after a random delay. In this way, the load on the networking resources is evenly distributed which helps to maintain QoS communication. The optimal timer distributions have been sought in different p.d.f. families (e.g. exponential, power law and radial basis function) and the optimal parameter have been found in a recursive manner. Detailed simulations have demonstrated the improvement in performance both in the case of multicast and mobile handover applications.

Study of Microbial Critical Points of Saffron from Farm to Factory in Iran

In this research saffron samples were prepared from farms and sampling was done in four states contain : sampling from fresh saffron of petal with forceps , sampling from fresh saffron of petal by hands, sampling from dried sample by warm air in shadow, sampling from dried sample which dried by dryer. Samples collected and kept in sterile tubes and containers and carried to laboratory and maintained until experiment. Microbial experiments were performed to determine microbial load such as total count, Staphylococcus aureus, coli form, E.coli, mold and yeast. Results showed that in picking and drying stages the contamination amount increases in saffron samples. There was a significant difference between the microbial load of picked up saffron by forceps and by hands, and also between dried saffron by warm air in shadow and by dryer.

Oxidation of Carbon Monoxide in a Monolithic Reactor

Solution for the complete removal of carbon monoxide from the exhaust gases still poses a challenge to the researchers and this problem is still under development. Modeling for reduction of carbon monoxide is carried out using heterogeneous reaction using low cost non-noble metal based catalysts for the purpose of controlling emissions released to the atmosphere. A simple one-dimensional model was developed for the monolith using hopcalite catalyst. The converter is assumed to be an adiabatic monolith operating under warm-up conditions. The effect of inlet gas temperatures and catalyst loading on carbon monoxide reduction during cold start period in the converter is analysed.

Optimal Measures in Production Developing an Universal Decision Supporter for Evaluating Measures in a Production

Due to the recovering global economy, enterprises are increasingly focusing on logistics. Investing in logistic measures for a production generates a large potential for achieving a good starting point within a competitive field. Unlike during the global economic crisis, enterprises are now challenged with investing available capital to maximize profits. In order to be able to create an informed and quantifiably comprehensible basis for a decision, enterprises need an adequate model for logistically and monetarily evaluating measures in production. The Collaborate Research Centre 489 (SFB 489) at the Institute for Production Systems (IFA) developed a Logistic Information System which provides support in making decisions and is designed specifically for the forging industry. The aim of a project that has been applied for is to now transfer this process in order to develop a universal approach to logistically and monetarily evaluate measures in production.

Weld Defect Detection in Industrial Radiography Based Digital Image Processing

Industrial radiography is a famous technique for the identification and evaluation of discontinuities, or defects, such as cracks, porosity and foreign inclusions found in welded joints. Although this technique has been well developed, improving both the inspection process and operating time, it does suffer from several drawbacks. The poor quality of radiographic images is due to the physical nature of radiography as well as small size of the defects and their poor orientation relatively to the size and thickness of the evaluated parts. Digital image processing techniques allow the interpretation of the image to be automated, avoiding the presence of human operators making the inspection system more reliable, reproducible and faster. This paper describes our attempt to develop and implement digital image processing algorithms for the purpose of automatic defect detection in radiographic images. Because of the complex nature of the considered images, and in order that the detected defect region represents the most accurately possible the real defect, the choice of global and local preprocessing and segmentation methods must be appropriated.

Application of Wavelet Neural Networks in Optimization of Skeletal Buildings under Frequency Constraints

The main goal of the present work is to decrease the computational burden for optimum design of steel frames with frequency constraints using a new type of neural networks called Wavelet Neural Network. It is contested to train a suitable neural network for frequency approximation work as the analysis program. The combination of wavelet theory and Neural Networks (NN) has lead to the development of wavelet neural networks. Wavelet neural networks are feed-forward networks using wavelet as activation function. Wavelets are mathematical functions within suitable inner parameters, which help them to approximate arbitrary functions. WNN was used to predict the frequency of the structures. In WNN a RAtional function with Second order Poles (RASP) wavelet was used as a transfer function. It is shown that the convergence speed was faster than other neural networks. Also comparisons of WNN with the embedded Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and with approximate techniques and also with analytical solutions are available in the literature.

A Formative Assessment Tool for Effective Feedback

In this study we present our developed formative assessment tool for students' assignments. The tool enables lecturers to define assignments for the course and assign each problem in each assignment a list of criteria and weights by which the students' work is evaluated. During assessment, the lecturers feed the scores for each criterion with justifications. When the scores of the current assignment are completely fed in, the tool automatically generates reports for both students and lecturers. The students receive a report by email including detailed description of their assessed work, their relative score and their progress across the criteria along the course timeline. This information is presented via charts generated automatically by the tool based on the scores fed in. The lecturers receive a report that includes summative (e.g., averages, standard deviations) and detailed (e.g., histogram) data of the current assignment. This information enables the lecturers to follow the class achievements and adjust the learning process accordingly. The tool was examined on two pilot groups of college students that study a course in (1) Object-Oriented Programming (2) Plane Geometry. Results reveal that most of the students were satisfied with the assessment process and the reports produced by the tool. The lecturers who used the tool were also satisfied with the reports and their contribution to the learning process.

Environmental and Technical Modeling of Industrial Solid Waste Management Using Analytical Network Process; A Case Study: Gilan-IRAN

Proper management of residues originated from industrial activities is considered as one of the serious challenges faced by industrial societies due to their potential hazards to the environment. Common disposal methods for industrial solid wastes (ISWs) encompass various combinations of solely management options, i.e. recycling, incineration, composting, and sanitary landfilling. Indeed, the procedure used to evaluate and nominate the best practical methods should be based on environmental, technical, economical, and social assessments. In this paper an environmentaltechnical assessment model is developed using analytical network process (ANP) to facilitate the decision making practice for ISWs generated at Gilan province, Iran. Using the results of performed surveys on industrial units located at Gilan, the various groups of solid wastes in the research area were characterized, and four different ISW management scenarios were studied. The evaluation process was conducted using the above-mentioned model in the Super Decisions software (version 2.0.8) environment. The results indicates that the best ISW management scenario for Gilan province is consist of recycling the metal industries residues, composting the putrescible portion of ISWs, combustion of paper, wood, fabric and polymeric wastes as well as energy extraction in the incineration plant, and finally landfilling the rest of the waste stream in addition with rejected materials from recycling and compost production plants and ashes from the incineration unit.