Abstract: European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) is the European reference for interoperable and safer signaling systems to efficiently manage trains running. If implemented, it allows trains cross seamlessly intra-European national borders. ERTMS has defined a secure communication protocol, EURORADIO, based on open communication networks. Its RadioInfill function can improve the reaction of the signaling system to changes in line conditions, avoiding unnecessary braking: its advantages in terms of power saving and travel time has been analyzed. In this paper a software implementation of the EURORADIO protocol with RadioInfill for ERTMS Level 1 using GSM-R is illustrated as part of the SR-Secure Italian project. In this building-blocks architecture the EURORADIO layers communicates together through modular Application Programm Interfaces. Security coding rules and railway industry requirements specified by EN 50128 standard have been respected. The proposed implementation has successfully passed conformity tests and has been tested on a computer-based simulator.
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: Removal of PCP by a system combining
biodegradation by biofilm and adsorption was investigated here.
Three studies were conducted employing batch tests, sequencing
batch reactor (SBR) and continuous biofilm activated carbon
column reactor (BACCOR). The combination of biofilm-GAC
batch process removed about 30% more PCP than GAC adsorption
alone. For the SBR processes, both the suspended and attached
biomass could remove more than 90% of the PCP after
acclimatisation. BACCOR was able to remove more than 98% of
PCP-Na at concentrations ranging from 10 to 100 mg/L, at empty
bed contact time (EBCT) ranging from 0.75 to 4 hours. Pure and
mixed cultures from BACCOR were tested for use of PCP as sole
carbon and energy source under aerobic conditions. The isolates
were able to degrade up to 42% of PCP under aerobic conditions in
pure cultures. However, mixed cultures were found able to degrade
more than 99% PCP indicating interdependence of species.
Abstract: This paper presents a real time force sensing instrument that is designed for human gait analysis purposes. This instrument mainly consists of three main elements: the force sensing mat, signal conditioning and switching circuit and data acquisition
device. In order to control and to process the incoming signals from the force sensing mat, Force-Logger and Force-Reloader program are
developed using Labview 8.0. This paper describes the architecture of the force sensing mat, signal conditioning and switching circuit and the real time streaming of the incoming data from the force
sensing mat.
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: 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: Landscape connectivity combines a description of the
physical structure of the landscape with special species- response to
that structure, which forms the theoretical background of applying
landscape connectivity principles in the practices of landscape
planning and design. In this study, a residential development project in
the southern United States was used to explore the meaning of
landscape connectivity and its application in town planning. The vast
rural landscape in the southern United States is conspicuously
characterized by the hedgerow trees or groves. The patchwork
landscape of fields surrounded by high hedgerows is a traditional and
familiar feature of the American countryside. Hedgerows are in effect
linear strips of trees, groves, or woodlands, which are often critical
habitats for wildlife and important for the visual quality of the
landscape. Based on geographic information system (GIS) and
statistical analysis (FRAGSTAT), this study attempts to quantify the
landscape connectivity characterized by hedgerows in south Alabama
where substantial areas of authentic hedgerow landscape are being
urbanized due to the ever expanding real estate industry and high
demand for new residential development. The results of this study
shed lights on how to balance the needs of new urban development and
biodiversity conservation by maintaining a higher level of landscape
connectivity, thus will inform the design intervention.
Abstract: Video watermarking is usually considered as watermarking of a set of still images. In frame-by-frame watermarking approach, each video frame is seen as a single watermarked image, so collusion attack is more critical in video watermarking. If the same or redundant watermark is used for embedding in every frame of video, the watermark can be estimated and then removed by watermark estimate remodolulation (WER) attack. Also if uncorrelated watermarks are used for every frame, these watermarks can be washed out with frame temporal filtering (FTF). Switching watermark system or so-called SS-N system has better performance against WER and FTF attacks. In this system, for each frame, the watermark is randomly picked up from a finite pool of watermark patterns. At first SS-N system will be surveyed and then a new collusion attack for SS-N system will be proposed using a new algorithm for separating video frame based on watermark pattern. So N sets will be built in which every set contains frames carrying the same watermark. After that, using WER attack in every set, N different watermark patterns will be estimated and removed later.
Abstract: This paper presents the benchmarking results and
performance evaluation of differentclustersbuilt atthe National Center
for High-Performance Computingin Taiwan. Performance of
processor, memory subsystem andinterconnect is a critical factor in the
overall performance of high performance computing platforms. The
evaluation compares different system architecture and software
platforms. Most supercomputer used HPL to benchmark their system
performance, in accordance with the requirement of the TOP500 List.
In this paper we consider system memory access factors that affect
benchmark performance, such as processor and memory
performance.We hope these works will provide useful information for
future development and construct cluster system.
Abstract: Automatic reading of handwritten cheque is a computationally
complex process and it plays an important role in financial
risk management. Machine vision and learning provide a viable
solution to this problem. Research effort has mostly been focused
on recognizing diverse pitches of cheques and demand drafts with an
identical outline. However most of these methods employ templatematching
to localize the pitches and such schemes could potentially
fail when applied to different types of outline maintained by the
bank. In this paper, the so-called outline problem is resolved by
a cheque information tree (CIT), which generalizes the localizing
method to extract active-region-of-entities. In addition, the weight
based density plot (WBDP) is performed to isolate text entities and
read complete pitches. Recognition is based on texture features using
neural classifiers. Legal amount is subsequently recognized by both
texture and perceptual features. A post-processing phase is invoked
to detect the incorrect readings by Type-2 grammar using the Turing
machine. The performance of the proposed system was evaluated
using cheque and demand drafts of 22 different banks. The test data
consists of a collection of 1540 leafs obtained from 10 different
account holders from each bank. Results show that this approach
can easily be deployed without significant design amendments.
Abstract: Vehicle which are turning or maneuvering at high speeds
are susceptible to sliding and subsequently deviate from desired path. In
this paper the dynamics governing the Yaw/Roll behavior of a vehicle
has been simulated. Two different simulations have been used one for
the real vehicle, for which a fuzzy controller is designed to increase its
directional stability property. The other simulation is for a hypothetical
vehicle with much higher tire cornering stiffness which is capable of
developing the required lateral forces at the tire-ground patch contact to
attain the desired lateral acceleration for the vehicle to follow the
desired path without slippage. This simulation model is our reference
model.
The logic for keeping the vehicle on the desired track in the cornering
or maneuvering state is to have some braking forces on the inner or
outer tires based on the direction of vehicle deviation from the desired
path. The inputs to our vehicle simulation model is steer angle δ and
vehicle velocity V , and the outputs can be any kinematical parameters
like yaw rate, yaw acceleration, side slip angle, rate of side slip angle
and so on. The proposed fuzzy controller is a feed forward controller.
This controller has two inputs which are steer angle δ and vehicle
velocity V, and the output of the controller is the correcting moment M,
which guides the vehicle back to the desired track. To develop the
membership functions for the controller inputs and output and the fuzzy
rules, the vehicle simulation has been run for 1000 times and the
correcting moment have been determined by trial and error. Results of
the vehicle simulation with fuzzy controller are very promising
and show the vehicle performance is enhanced greatly over the
vehicle without the controller. In fact the vehicle performance
with the controller is very near the performance of the reference
ideal model.
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 mainly studies the analyses of parameters
in the intersection collision avoidance (ICA) system based on the radar
sensors. The parameters include the positioning errors, the repeat
period of the radar sensor, the conditions of potential collisions of two
cross-path vehicles, etc. The analyses of the parameters can provide
the requirements, limitations, or specifications of this ICA system. In
these analyses, the positioning errors will be increased as the measured
vehicle approach the intersection. In addition, it is not necessary to
implement the radar sensor in higher position since the positioning
sensitivities become serious as the height of the radar sensor increases.
A concept of the safety buffer distances for front and rear of the
measured vehicle is also proposed. The conditions for potential
collisions of two cross-path vehicles are also presented to facilitate the
computation algorithm.
Abstract: An economic operation scheduling problem of a
hydro-thermal power generation system has been properly solved by
the proposed multipath adaptive tabu search algorithm (MATS). Four
reservoirs with their own hydro plants and another one thermal plant
are integrated to be a studied system used to formulate the objective
function under complicated constraints, eg water managements,
power balance and thermal generator limits. MATS with four subsearch
units (ATSs) and two stages of discarding mechanism (DM),
has been setting and trying to solve the problem through 25 trials
under function evaluation criterion. It is shown that MATS can
provide superior results with respect to single ATS and other
previous methods, genetic algorithms (GA) and differential evolution
(DE).
Abstract: Salinity level may affect early development of
biofuel feedstock crops. The biofuel feedstock crops canola
(Brassica napus L.), sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench], and
sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.); and the potential feedstock crop
sweet corn (Zea mays L.) were planted in media in pots and treated
with aqueous solutions of 0, 0.1, 0.5 and 1.0 M NaCl once at: 1)
planting; 2) 7-10 days after planting or 3) first true leaf expansion.
An additional treatment (4) comprised of one-half strength of the 0.1,
0.5 and 1.0 M (concentrations 0.05, 0.25, 0.5 M at each application)
was applied at first true leaf expansion and four days later. Survival
of most crops decreased below 90% above 0.5 M; survival of canola
decreased above 0.1 M. Application timing had little effect on crop
survival. For canola root fresh and dry weights improved when
application was at plant emergence; for sorghum top and root fresh
weights improved when the split application was used. When
application was at planting root dry weight was improved over most
other applications. Sunflower top fresh weight was among the
highest when saline solutions were split and top dry weight was
among the highest when application was at plant emergence. Sweet
corn root fresh weight was improved when the split application was
used or application was at planting. Sweet corn root dry weight was
highest when application was at planting or plant emergence. Even at
high salinity rates survival rates greater than what might be expected
occurred. Plants that survived appear to be able to adjust to saline
during the early stages of development.
Abstract: Recently, several designs of single fed circularly
polarized microstrip antennas have been studied. Relatively, a few
designs for achieving circular polarization using triangular microstrip
antenna are available. Typically existing design of single fed
circularly polarized triangular microstrip antennas include the use of
equilateral triangular patch with a slit or a horizontal slot on the patch
or addition a narrow band stub on the edge or a vertex of triangular
patch.
In other word, with using a narrow band tune stub on middle of an
edge of triangle causes of facility to compensate the possible
fabrication error and substrate materials with easier adjusting the
tuner stub length. Even though disadvantages of this method is very
long of stub (approximate 1/3 length of triangle edge). In this paper,
instead of narrow band stub, a wide band stub has been applied,
therefore the length of stub by this method has been decreased
around 1/10 edge of triangle in addition changing the aperture angle
of stub, provides more facility for designing and producing circular
polarization wave.
Abstract: Fisheries management all around the world is
hampered by the lack, or poor quality, of critical data on fish
resources and fishing operations. The main reasons for the chronic
inability to collect good quality data during fishing operations is the
culture of secrecy common among fishers and the lack of modern
data gathering technology onboard most fishing vessels. In response,
OLRAC-SPS, a South African company, developed fisheries datalogging
software (eLog in short) and named it Olrac. The Olrac eLog
solution is capable of collecting, analysing, plotting, mapping,
reporting, tracing and transmitting all data related to fishing
operations. Olrac can be used by skippers, fleet/company managers,
offshore mariculture farmers, scientists, observers, compliance
inspectors and fisheries management authorities. The authors believe
that using eLog onboard fishing vessels has the potential to
revolutionise the entire process of data collection and reporting
during fishing operations and, if properly deployed and utilised,
could transform the entire commercial fleet to a provider of good
quality data and forever change the way fish resources are managed.
In addition it will make it possible to trace catches back to the actual
individual fishing operation, to improve fishing efficiency and to
dramatically improve control of fishing operations and enforcement
of fishing regulations.
Abstract: This paper solves the environmental/ economic dispatch
power system problem using the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic
Algorithm-II (NSGA-II) and its hybrid with a Convergence Accelerator
Operator (CAO), called the NSGA-II/CAO. These multiobjective
evolutionary algorithms were applied to the standard IEEE 30-bus
six-generator test system. Several optimization runs were carried out
on different cases of problem complexity. Different quality measure
which compare the performance of the two solution techniques were
considered. The results demonstrated that the inclusion of the CAO
in the original NSGA-II improves its convergence while preserving
the diversity properties of the solution set.
Abstract: Irradiated material is a typical example of a complex
system with nonlinear coupling between its elements. During
irradiation the radiation damage is developed and this development
has bifurcations and qualitatively different kinds of behavior.
The accumulation of primary defects in irradiated crystals is
considered in frame work of nonlinear evolution of complex system.
The thermo-concentration nonlinear feedback is carried out as a
mechanism of self-oscillation development.
It is shown that there are two ways of the defect density evolution
under stationary irradiation. The first is the accumulation of defects;
defect density monotonically grows and tends to its stationary state
for some system parameters. Another way that takes place for
opportune parameters is the development of self-oscillations of the
defect density.
The stationary state, its stability and type are found. The
bifurcation values of parameters (environment temperature, defect
generation rate, etc.) are obtained. The frequency of the selfoscillation
and the conditions of their development is found and
rated. It is shown that defect density, heat fluxes and temperature
during self-oscillations can reach much higher values than the
expected steady-state values. It can lead to a change of typical
operation and an accident, e.g. for nuclear equipment.
Abstract: Collaborative working environments for distance
education can be considered as a more generic form of contemporary
remote labs. At present, the majority of existing real laboratories are
not constructed to allow the involved participants to collaborate in
real time. To make this revolutionary learning environment possible
we must allow the different users to carry out an experiment
simultaneously. In recent times, multi-user environments are
successfully applied in many applications such as air traffic control
systems, team-oriented military systems, chat-text tools, multi-player
games etc. Thus, understanding the ideas and techniques behind these
systems could be of great importance in the contribution of ideas to
our e-learning environment for collaborative working. In this
investigation, collaborative working environments from theoretical
and practical perspectives are considered in order to build an
effective collaborative real laboratory, which allows two students or
more to conduct remote experiments at the same time as a team. In
order to achieve this goal, we have implemented distributed system
architecture, enabling students to obtain an automated help by either
a human tutor or a rule-based e-tutor.