Abstract: Soccer simulation is an effort to motivate researchers and practitioners to do artificial and robotic intelligence research; and at the same time put into practice and test the results. Many researchers and practitioners throughout the world are continuously working to polish their ideas and improve their implemented systems. At the same time, new groups are forming and they bring bright new thoughts to the field. The research includes designing and executing robotic soccer simulation algorithms. In our research, a soccer simulation player is considered to be an intelligent agent that is capable of receiving information from the environment, analyze it and to choose the best action from a set of possible ones, for its next move. We concentrate on developing a two-phase method for the soccer player agent to choose its best next move. The method is then implemented into our software system called Nexus simulation team of Ferdowsi University. This system is based on TsinghuAeolus[1] team that was the champion of the world RoboCup soccer simulation contest in 2001 and 2002.
Abstract: Liquidity risk management ranks to key concepts
applied in finance. Liquidity is defined as a capacity to obtain
funding when needed, while liquidity risk means as a threat to this
capacity to generate cash at fair costs. In the paper we present
challenges of liquidity risk management resulting from the 2007-
2009 global financial upheaval. We see five main regulatory
liquidity risk management issues requiring revision in coming
years: liquidity measurement, intra-day and intra-group liquidity
management, contingency planning and liquidity buffers, liquidity
systems, controls and governance, and finally models testing the
viability of business liquidity models.
Abstract: Advent enhancements in the field of computing have
increased massive use of web based electronic documents. Current
Copyright protection laws are inadequate to prove the ownership for
electronic documents and do not provide strong features against
copying and manipulating information from the web. This has
opened many channels for securing information and significant
evolutions have been made in the area of information security.
Digital Watermarking has developed into a very dynamic area of
research and has addressed challenging issues for digital content.
Watermarking can be visible (logos or signatures) and invisible
(encoding and decoding). Many visible watermarking techniques
have been studied for text documents but there are very few for web
based text. XML files are used to trade information on the internet
and contain important information. In this paper, two invisible
watermarking techniques using Synonyms and Acronyms are
proposed for XML files to prove the intellectual ownership and to
achieve the security. Analysis is made for different attacks and
amount of capacity to be embedded in the XML file is also noticed.
A comparative analysis for capacity is also made for both methods.
The system has been implemented using C# language and all tests are
made practically to get the results.
Abstract: Prestressing in structure increases ratio of load-bearing capacity to weight. Suspendomes are single-layer braced domes reinforced with cable and strut. Prestressing of cables alter value and distribution of stress in structure. In this study two configuration, diamatic and lamella domes is selected. Investigated domes have span of 100m with rise-to-span ratios of 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3. Single layer domes loaded under service load combinations according to ISO code. After geometric nonlinear analysis, models are designed with tubular and I-shaped sections then reinforced with cable and strut and converted to suspendomes. Displacements and stresses of some groups of nodes and elements in all of single-layer domes and suspendomes for three load combinations, symmetric snow, asymmetric snow and wind are compared. Variation due to suspending system is investigated. Suspendomes are redesigned and minimum possible weight after addition of cable and strut is obtained.
Abstract: The purpose of planned islanding is to construct a
power island during system disturbances which are commonly
formed for maintenance purpose. However, in most of the cases
island mode operation is not allowed. Therefore distributed
generators (DGs) must sense the unplanned disconnection from the
main grid. Passive technique is the most commonly used method for
this purpose. However, it needs improvement in order to identify the
islanding condition. In this paper an effective method for
identification of islanding condition based on phase space and neural
network techniques has been developed. The captured voltage
waveforms at the coupling points of DGs are processed to extract the
required features. For this purposed a method known as the phase
space techniques is used. Based on extracted features, two neural
network configuration namely radial basis function and probabilistic
neural networks are trained to recognize the waveform class.
According to the test result, the investigated technique can provide
satisfactory identification of the islanding condition in the
distribution system.
Abstract: Cellular networks provide voice and data services to the users with mobility. To deliver services to the mobile users, the cellular network is capable of tracking the locations of the users, and allowing user movement during the conversations. These capabilities are achieved by the location management. Location management in mobile communication systems is concerned with those network functions necessary to allow the users to be reached wherever they are in the network coverage area. In a cellular network, a service coverage area is divided into smaller areas of hexagonal shape, referred to as cells. The cellular concept was introduced to reuse the radio frequency. Continued expansion of cellular networks, coupled with an increasingly restricted mobile spectrum, has established the reduction of communication overhead as a highly important issue. Much of this traffic is used in determining the precise location of individual users when relaying calls, with the field of location management aiming to reduce this overhead through prediction of user location. This paper describes and compares various location management schemes in the cellular networks.
Abstract: The use of externally bonded Carbon Fiber
Reinforced Polymer (CFRP) reinforcement has proven to be an
effective technique to strengthen steel structures. An experimental
study on CFRP bonded steel plate with double strap joint has been
conducted and specimens are tested under tensile loadings. An
empirical model has been developed using stress-based approach to
predict ultimate capacity of the CFRP bonded steel structure. The
results from the model are comparable with the experimental result
with a reasonable accuracy.
Abstract: The design of a complete expansion that allows for
compact representation of certain relevant classes of signals is a
central problem in signal processing applications. Achieving such a
representation means knowing the signal features for the purpose of
denoising, classification, interpolation and forecasting. Multilayer
Neural Networks are relatively a new class of techniques that are
mathematically proven to approximate any continuous function
arbitrarily well. Radial Basis Function Networks, which make use of
Gaussian activation function, are also shown to be a universal
approximator. In this age of ever-increasing digitization in the
storage, processing, analysis and communication of information,
there are numerous examples of applications where one needs to
construct a continuously defined function or numerical algorithm to
approximate, represent and reconstruct the given discrete data of a
signal. Many a times one wishes to manipulate the data in a way that
requires information not included explicitly in the data, which is
done through interpolation and/or extrapolation.
Tidal data are a very perfect example of time series and many
statistical techniques have been applied for tidal data analysis and
representation. ANN is recent addition to such techniques. In the
present paper we describe the time series representation capabilities
of a special type of ANN- Radial Basis Function networks and
present the results of tidal data representation using RBF. Tidal data
analysis & representation is one of the important requirements in
marine science for forecasting.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of
setting up a learning community within an elementary school in
Ontario, Canada. The description is provided through reflection and
examination of field notes taken during the yearlong training and
implementation process. Specifically the impact of teachers- capacity
on the creation of a learning community was of interest. This paper is
intended to inform and add to the debate around the tensions that
exist in implementing a bottom-up professional development model
like the learning community in a top-down organizational structure.
My reflections of the process illustrate that implementation of the
learning community professional development model may be
difficult and yet transformative in the professional lives of the
teachers, students, and administration involved in the change process.
I conclude by suggesting the need for a new model of professional
development that requires a transformative shift in power dynamics
and a shift in the view of what constitutes effective professional
learning.
Abstract: In the present work, we have developed a symmetric electrochemical capacitor based on the nanostructured iron oxide (Fe3O4)-activated carbon (AC) nanocomposite materials. The physical properties of the nanocomposites were characterized by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The electrochemical performances of the composite electrode in 1.0 M Na2SO3 and 1.0 M Na2SO4 aqueous solutions were evaluated using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). The composite electrode with 4 wt% of iron oxide nanomaterials exhibits the highest capacitance of 86 F/g. The experimental results clearly indicate that the incorporation of iron oxide nanomaterials at low concentration to the composite can improve the capacitive performance, mainly attributed to the contribution of the pseudocapacitance charge storage mechanism and the enhancement on the effective surface area of the electrode. Nevertheless, there is an optimum threshold on the amount of iron oxide that needs to be incorporated into the composite system. When this optimum threshold is exceeded, the capacitive performance of the electrode starts to deteriorate, as a result of the undesired particle aggregation, which is clearly indicated in the SEM analysis. The electrochemical performance of the composite electrode is found to be superior when Na2SO3 is used as the electrolyte, if compared to the Na2SO4 solution. It is believed that Fe3O4 nanoparticles can provide favourable surface adsorption sites for sulphite (SO3 2-) anions which act as catalysts for subsequent redox and intercalation reactions.
Abstract: UML is a collection of notations for capturing a software system specification. These notations have a specific syntax defined by the Object Management Group (OMG), but many of their constructs only present informal semantics. They are primarily graphical, with textual annotation. The inadequacies of standard UML as a vehicle for complete specification and implementation of real-time embedded systems has led to a variety of competing and complementary proposals. The Real-time UML profile (UML-RT), developed and standardized by OMG, defines a unified framework to express the time, scheduling and performance aspects of a system. We present in this paper a framework approach aimed at deriving a complete specification of a real-time system. Therefore, we combine two methods, a semiformal one, UML-RT, which allows the visual modeling of a realtime system and a formal one, CSP+T, which is a design language including the specification of real-time requirements. As to show the applicability of the approach, a correct design of a real-time system with hard real time constraints by applying a set of mapping rules is obtained.
Abstract: The theoretical investigation is carried out to describe
the effect of increase of pressure waves amplitude in clean and bubbly liquid. The goal of the work is to capture the regime of multiple magnification of acoustic and shock waves in the liquid,
which enables to get appropriate conditions to enlarge collapses of
micro-bubbles. The influence of boundary conditions and frequency
of the governing acoustic field is studied for the case of the
cylindrical acoustic resonator. It has been observed the formation of
standing waves with large amplitude at resonant frequencies. The
interaction of the compression wave with gas and vapor bubbles is
investigated for the convergent channel. It is shown theoretically that
the chemical reactions, which occur inside gas bubbles, provide additional impulse to the wave, that affect strongly on the collapses
of the vapor bubbles
Abstract: In this study, the use of silicon NAM (Non-Audible
Murmur) microphone in automatic speech recognition is presented.
NAM microphones are special acoustic sensors, which are attached
behind the talker-s ear and can capture not only normal (audible)
speech, but also very quietly uttered speech (non-audible murmur).
As a result, NAM microphones can be applied in automatic speech
recognition systems when privacy is desired in human-machine communication.
Moreover, NAM microphones show robustness against
noise and they might be used in special systems (speech recognition,
speech conversion etc.) for sound-impaired people. Using a small
amount of training data and adaptation approaches, 93.9% word
accuracy was achieved for a 20k Japanese vocabulary dictation
task. Non-audible murmur recognition in noisy environments is also
investigated. In this study, further analysis of the NAM speech has
been made using distance measures between hidden Markov model
(HMM) pairs. It has been shown the reduced spectral space of NAM
speech using a metric distance, however the location of the different
phonemes of NAM are similar to the location of the phonemes
of normal speech, and the NAM sounds are well discriminated.
Promising results in using nonlinear features are also introduced,
especially under noisy conditions.
Abstract: State Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE) approach is
a modification of the well studied LQR method. It has the capability of being applied to control nonlinear systems. In this paper the technique
has been applied to control the single inverted pendulum (SIP) which represents a rich class of nonlinear underactuated systems. SIP
modeling is based on Euler-Lagrange equations. A procedure is developed
for judicious selection of weighting parameters and constraint handling. The controller designed by SDRE technique here gives better results than existing controllers designed by energy based techniques.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to identify the most suitable
model for churn prediction based on three different techniques. The
paper identifies the variables that affect churn in reverence of
customer complaints data and provides a comparative analysis of
neural networks, regression trees and regression in their capabilities
of predicting customer churn.
Abstract: The adoption of building information modeling (BIM)
is increasing in the construction industry. However, quantity
surveyors are slow in adoption compared to other professions due to
lack of awareness of the BIM’s potential in their profession. It is still
unclear on how BIM application can enhance quantity surveyors’
work performance and project performance. The aim of this research
is to identify the capabilities of BIM in quantity surveying practices
and examine the relationship between BIM capabilities and project
performance. Questionnaire survey and interviews were adopted for
data collection. Literature reviews identified there are eleven BIM
capabilities in quantity surveying practice. Questionnaire results
showed that there are several BIM capabilities significantly
correlated with project performance in time, cost and quality aspects
and the results were validated through interviews. These findings
show that BIM has the capabilities to enhance quantity surveyors’
performances and subsequently improved project performance.
Abstract: As one result of the project “Reactive Construction
Project Scheduling using Real Time Construction Logistic Data and
Simulation”, a procedure for using data about uncertain resource
availability assumptions in reactive scheduling processes has been
developed. Prediction data about resource availability is generated in
a formalized way using real-time monitoring data e.g. from auto-ID
systems on the construction site and in the supply chains. The paper
focusses on the formalization of the procedure for monitoring
construction logistic processes, for the detection of disturbance and
for generating of new and uncertain scheduling assumptions for the
reactive resource constrained simulation procedure that is and will be
further described in other papers.
Abstract: Pepper spray use has gained momentum since 1992
and although the active ingredient is readily available, it is considered
a weapon with restricted use in many regions, including The
Bahamas. In light of controversy in the literature regarding the
severity of presenting respiration complaints among individuals postacute
exposure of pepper spray inhalation, this descriptive case series
study was conducted to assess the respiratory status of persons
evaluated during a mass casualty in The Bahamas. Parameters noted
were patients- demographics and respiration severity determined via
clinical examination findings, disposition and follow-up review of the
20 persons. Their most common complaint was difficulty breathing
post exposure. Two required admission and stayed for
Abstract: In recent times there has been a growing interest in the
development of quasi-two-dimensional niobium pentoxide (Nb2O5)
as a semiconductor for the potential electronic applications such as
capacitors, filtration, dye-sensitised solar cells and gas sensing
platforms. Therefore once the purpose is established, Nb2O5 can be
prepared in a number of nano- and sub-micron-structural
morphologies that include rods, wires, belts and tubes. In this study
films of Nb2O5 were prepared on gold plated silicon substrate using
spin-coating technique and subsequently by mechanical exfoliation.
The reason this method was employed was to achieve layers of less
than 15nm in thickness. The sintering temperature of the specimen
was 800oC. The morphology and structural characteristics of the
films were analyzed by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Raman
Spectroscopy, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS).
Abstract: This study examines regional convergence in per capita personal income in the US and Canada. We find that the disparity in real per capita income levels across US states (Canadian provinces) has declined, but income levels are not identical. Income levels become more aligned once costs of living are accounted for in relative per capita income series. US states (Canadian provinces) converge at an annual rate of between 1.3% and 2.04% (between 2.15% and 2.37%). A pattern of σ and β-convergence in per capita personal income across regions evident over the entire sample period, is reversed over 1979-1989 (1976-1990) period. The reversal may be due to sectoral or region-specific shocks that have highly persistent effects. The latter explanation might be true for half of the US and most of Canada.