Abstract: The objective of this paper is to develop a neural
network-based residual generator to detect the fault in the actuators
for a specific communication satellite in its attitude control system
(ACS). First, a dynamic multilayer perceptron network with dynamic
neurons is used, those neurons correspond a second order linear
Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter and a nonlinear activation
function with adjustable parameters. Second, the parameters from the
network are adjusted to minimize a performance index specified by
the output estimated error, with the given input-output data collected
from the specific ACS. Then, the proposed dynamic neural network
is trained and applied for detecting the faults injected to the wheel,
which is the main actuator in the normal mode for the communication
satellite. Then the performance and capabilities of the proposed
network were tested and compared with a conventional model-based
observer residual, showing the differences between these two
methods, and indicating the benefit of the proposed algorithm to
know the real status of the momentum wheel. Finally, the application
of the methods in a satellite ground station is discussed.
Abstract: Fuel cells have become one of the major areas of
research in the academia and the industry. The goal of most fish
farmers is to maximize production and profits while holding labor
and management efforts to the minimum. Risk of fish kills, disease
outbreaks, poor water quality in most pond culture operations,
aeration offers the most immediate and practical solution to water
quality problems encountered at higher stocking and feeding rates.
Many units of aeration system are electrical units so using a
continuous, high reliability, affordable, and environmentally friendly
power sources is necessary. Aeration of water by using PEM fuel cell
power is not only a new application of the renewable energy, but
also, it provides an affordable method to promote biodiversity in
stagnant ponds and lakes. This paper presents a new design and
control of PEM fuel cell powered a diffused air aeration system for a
shrimp farm in Mersa Matruh in Egypt. Also Artificial intelligence
(AI) techniques control is used to control the fuel cell output power
by control input gases flow rate. Moreover the mathematical
modeling and simulation of PEM fuel cell is introduced. A
comparison study is applied between the performance of fuzzy logic
control (FLC) and neural network control (NNC). The results show
the effectiveness of NNC over FLC.
Abstract: CO2 is the primary anthropogenic greenhouse gas,
accounting for 77% of the human contribution to the greenhouse
effect in 2004. In the recent years, global concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere is increasing rapidly. CO2 emissions have an impact on
global climate change. Anthropogenic CO2 is emitted primarily from
fossil fuel combustion. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one
option for reducing CO2 emissions. There are three major approaches
for CCS: post-combustion capture, pre-combustion capture and
oxyfuel process. Post-combustion capture offers some advantages as
existing combustion technologies can still be used without radical
changes on them.
There are several post combustion gas separation and capture
technologies being investigated, namely; (a) absorption, (b)
cryogenic separation, (c) membrane separation (d) micro algal biofixation
and (e) adsorption. Apart from establishing new techniques,
the exploration of capture materials with high separation performance
and low capital cost are paramount importance. However, the
application of adsorption from either technology, require easily
regenerable and durable adsorbents with a high CO2 adsorption
capacity. It has recently been reported that the cost of the CO2
capture can be reduced by using this technology. In this paper, the
research progress (from experimental results) in adsorbents for CO2
adsorption, storage, and separations were reviewed and future
research directions were suggested as well.
Abstract: This paper aims at improving web server performance
by establishing a middleware layer between web and database
servers, which minimizes the overload on the database server. A
middleware system has been developed as a service mainly to
improve the performance. This system manages connection accesses
in a way that would result in reducing the overload on the database
server. In addition to the connection management, this system acts as
an object-oriented model for best utilization of operating system
resources. A web developer can use this Service Broker to improve
web server performance.
Abstract: detecting the deadlock is one of the important
problems in distributed systems and different solutions have been
proposed for it. Among the many deadlock detection algorithms,
Edge-chasing has been the most widely used. In Edge-chasing
algorithm, a special message called probe is made and sent along
dependency edges. When the initiator of a probe receives the probe
back the existence of a deadlock is revealed. But these algorithms are
not problem-free. One of the problems associated with them is that
they cannot detect some deadlocks and they even identify false
deadlocks. A key point not mentioned in the literature is that when
the process is waiting to obtain the required resources and its
execution has been blocked, how it can actually respond to probe
messages in the system. Also the question of 'which process should
be victimized in order to achieve a better performance when multiple
cycles exist within one single process in the system' has received
little attention. In this paper, one of the basic concepts of the
operating system - daemon - will be used to solve the problems
mentioned. The proposed Algorithm becomes engaged in sending
probe messages to the mandatory daemons and collects enough
information to effectively identify and resolve multi-cycle deadlocks
in distributed systems.
Abstract: Due to the excess of a vehicle operation through its life, some elements may face failure and deteriorate with time. This leads us to carry out maintenance, repair, tune up or full overhaul. After a certain period, the vehicle elements deteriorations increase with time which causes a very high increase of doing the maintenance operations and their costs. However, the logic decision at this point is to replace the current vehicle by a new one with minimum failure and maximum income. The importance of studying vehicle replacement problems come from the increase of stopping days due to many deteriorations in the vehicle parts. These deteriorations increase year after year causing an increase of operating costs and decrease the vehicle income. Vehicle replacement aims to determine the optimum time to keep, maintain, overhaul, renew and replace vehicles. This leads to an improvement in vehicle income, total operating costs, maintenance cost, fuel and oil costs, ton-kilometers, vehicle and engine performance, vehicle noise, vibration, and pollution. The aim of this paper is to find the optimum replacement policies of Kuwait Passenger Transport Company (KPTCP) fleet of busses. The objective of these policies is to maximize the busses pure profits. The dynamic programming (D.P.) technique is used to generate the busses optimal replacement policies
Abstract: In this paper an algorithm based on the adaptive
neuro-fuzzy controller is provided to enhance the tipover stability of
mobile manipulators when they are subjected to predefined
trajectories for the end-effector and the vehicle. The controller
creates proper configurations for the manipulator to prevent the robot
from being overturned. The optimal configuration and thus the most
favorable control are obtained through soft computing approaches
including a combination of genetic algorithm, neural networks, and
fuzzy logic. The proposed algorithm, in this paper, is that a look-up
table is designed by employing the obtained values from the genetic
algorithm in order to minimize the performance index and by using
this data base, rule bases are designed for the ANFIS controller and
will be exerted on the actuators to enhance the tipover stability of the
mobile manipulator. A numerical example is presented to
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Abstract: The search for competitive advantages as one of the
main activities of a company has become a principle of contemporary
theories on Strategic Management. Innovation facilitates a company's
adaptation to the global competitive environment, representing the
important strategic role that it has to play in relation to managerial
performance and, as such, underlines the growing importance of
innovation and the use of a company's technological assets. This
paper therefore studies the effect in the results of four dimensions of
technological innovation strategy on a sample of Spanish wineries,
situated in the Castilla La-Mancha region of Spain, all of which are
registered under the La Mancha Designation of Origin (DO).
Abstract: This survey of recent literature examines the link between growth and poverty. It is widely accepted that economic growth is a necessary condition for sustainable poverty reduction. But it is the fact that the economic growth of some countries has been pro-poor while others not. Some factors such as labor market, policies and demographic factors may lead to a weak relationship between economic performance and poverty rate. In this sense pro-growth policies should be pro-poor to increase the poverty alleviation effects of the growth. The purpose of this study is to review the recent studies on the effects of macroeconomic policies on poverty and inequality and to review the poverty analyses which examine the relationship between growth, poverty and inequality. Also this study provides some facts about the relationship between economic growth, inequality and poverty from Turkey. Keywordseconomic growth, inequality, macroeconomic policy, poverty
Abstract: Cements, which are intrinsically brittle materials, can
exhibit a degree of pseudo-ductility when reinforced with a sufficient
volume fraction of a fibrous phase. This class of materials, called
Engineered Cement Composites (ECC) has the potential to be used in
future tunneling applications where a level of pseudo-ductility is
required to avoid brittle failures. However uncertainties remain
regarding mechanical performance. Previous work has focused on
comparatively thin specimens; however for future civil engineering
applications, it is imperative that the behavior in tension of thicker
specimens is understood. In the present work, specimens containing
cement powder and admixtures have been manufactured following
two different processes and tested in tension. Multiple matrix
cracking has been observed during tensile testing, leading to a
“strain-hardening" behavior, confirming the possible suitability of
ECC material when used as thick sections (greater than 50mm) in
tunneling applications.
Abstract: Quality control is the crucial step for ISO 9001
Quality System Management Standard for companies. While
measuring the quality level of both raw material and semi
product/product, the calibration of the measuring device is an
essential requirement. Calibration suppliers are in the service sector
and therefore the calibration supplier selection is becoming a worthy
topic for improving service quality.
This study presents the results of a questionnaire about the
selection criteria of a calibration supplier. The questionnaire was
applied to 103 companies and the results are discussed in this paper.
The analysis was made with MINITAB 14.0 statistical programs.
“Competence of documentations" and “technical capability" are
defined as the prerequisites because of the ISO/IEC17025:2005
standard. Also “warranties and complaint policy", “communication",
“service features", “quality" and “performance history" are defined as
very important criteria for calibration supplier selection.
Abstract: Functioning of a biometric system in large part
depends on the performance of the similarity measure function.
Frequently a generalized similarity distance measure function such as
Euclidian distance or Mahalanobis distance is applied to the task of
matching biometric feature vectors. However, often accuracy of a
biometric system can be greatly improved by designing a customized
matching algorithm optimized for a particular biometric application.
In this paper we propose a tailored similarity measure function for
behavioral biometric systems based on the expert knowledge of the
feature level data in the domain. We compare performance of a
proposed matching algorithm to that of other well known similarity
distance functions and demonstrate its superiority with respect to the
chosen domain.
Abstract: Climate change and environmental pressures are
major international issues nowadays. It is time when governments,
businesses and consumers have to respond through more
environmentally friendly and aware practices, products and policies.
This is the prime time to develop alternative sustainable construction
materials, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, save energy, look to
renewable energy sources and recycled materials, and reduce waste.
The utilization of waste materials (slag, fly ash, glass beads, plastic
and so on) in concrete manufacturing is significant due to its
engineering, financial, environmental and ecological benefits. Thus,
utilization of waste materials in concrete production is very much
helpful to reach the goal of the sustainable construction. Therefore,
this study intends to use glass beads in concrete production.
The paper reports on the performance of 9 different concrete
mixes containing different ratios of glass crushed to 5 mm - 20 mm
maximum size and glass marble of 20 mm size as coarse aggregate.
Ordinary Portland cement type 1 and fine sand less than 0.5 mm were
used to produce standard concrete cylinders. Compressive strength
tests were carried out on concrete specimens at various ages. Test
results indicated that the mix having the balanced ratio of glass beads
and round marbles possess maximum compressive strength which is
3889 psi, as glass beads perform better in bond formation but have
lower strength, on the other hand marbles are strong in themselves
but not good in bonding. These mixes were prepared following a
specific W/C and aggregate ratio; more strength can be expected to
achieve from different W/C, aggregate ratios, adding admixtures like
strength increasing agents, ASR inhibitor agents etc.
Abstract: Determining how many virtual machines a Linux host
could run can be a challenge. One of tough missions is to find the
balance among performance, density and usability. Now KVM
hypervisor has become the most popular open source full
virtualization solution. It supports several ways of running guests with
more memory than host really has. Due to large differences between
minimum and maximum guest memory requirements, this paper
presents initial results on same-page merging, ballooning and live
migration techniques that aims at optimum memory usage on
KVM-based cloud platform. Given the design of initial experiments,
the results data is worth reference for system administrators. The
results from these experiments concluded that each method offers
different reliability tradeoff.
Abstract: Asphalt surfaces are exposed to various weather
conditions and dynamic loading caused by passing trucks and
vehicles. In such situations, asphalt cement shows so different
rheological-mechanical behavior. If asphalt cement isn-t compatible
enough, asphalt layer will be damaged immediately and expensive
repairing procedures should be performed then. To overcome this
problem, researchers study on mechanical improved asphalt cement.
In this study, bentonite was used in order to modify bitumen
characteristics and the modified bitumen's characteristics were
investigated by asphalt cement tests. Then, the optimal bitumen
content in various compounds was determined and asphalt samples
with different contents of additives were prepared and tested. Results
show using this kind of additive not only has caused improvement in
bitumen mechanical properties, but also improvement in Marshall
Parameters was achieved.
Abstract: There are a many of needs for the development of
SiC-based hydrogen sensor for harsh environment applications. We
fabricated and investigated Pd/Ta2O5/SiC-based hydrogen sensors
with MOS capacitor structure for high temperature process monitoring
and leak detection applications in such automotive, chemical and
petroleum industries as well as direct monitoring of combustion
processes. In this work, we used silicon carbide (SiC) as a substrate to
replace silicon which operating temperatures are limited to below
200°C. Tantalum oxide was investigated as dielectric layer which has
high permeability for hydrogen gas and high dielectric permittivity,
compared with silicon dioxide or silicon nitride. Then, electrical
response properties, such as I-V curve and dependence of capacitance
on hydrogen concentrations were analyzed in the temperature ranges
of room temperature to 500°C for performance evaluation of the
sensor.
Abstract: Classification of electroencephalogram (EEG) signals
extracted during mental tasks is a technique that is actively pursued
for Brain Computer Interfaces (BCI) designs. In this paper, we
compared the classification performances of univariateautoregressive
(AR) and multivariate autoregressive (MAR) models
for representing EEG signals that were extracted during different
mental tasks. Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) neural network (NN)
trained by the backpropagation (BP) algorithm was used to classify
these features into the different categories representing the mental
tasks. Classification performances were also compared across
different mental task combinations and 2 sets of hidden units (HU): 2
to 10 HU in steps of 2 and 20 to 100 HU in steps of 20. Five different
mental tasks from 4 subjects were used in the experimental study and
combinations of 2 different mental tasks were studied for each
subject. Three different feature extraction methods with 6th order
were used to extract features from these EEG signals: AR
coefficients computed with Burg-s algorithm (ARBG), AR
coefficients computed with stepwise least square algorithm (ARLS)
and MAR coefficients computed with stepwise least square
algorithm. The best results were obtained with 20 to 100 HU using
ARBG. It is concluded that i) it is important to choose the suitable
mental tasks for different individuals for a successful BCI design, ii)
higher HU are more suitable and iii) ARBG is the most suitable
feature extraction method.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new method to distinguish
between arousal and relaxation states by using multiple features
acquired from a photoplethysmogram (PPG) and support vector
machine (SVM). To induce arousal and relaxation states in subjects, 2
kinds of sound stimuli are used, and their corresponding biosignals are
obtained using the PPG sensor. Two features–pulse to pulse interval
(PPI) and pulse amplitude (PA)–are extracted from acquired PPG
data, and a nonlinear classification between arousal and relaxation is
performed using SVM.
This methodology has several advantages when compared with
previous similar studies. Firstly, we extracted 2 separate features from
PPG, i.e., PPI and PA. Secondly, in order to improve the classification
accuracy, SVM-based nonlinear classification was performed.
Thirdly, to solve classification problems caused by generalized
features of whole subjects, we defined each threshold according to
individual features.
Experimental results showed that the average classification
accuracy was 74.67%. Also, the proposed method showed the better
identification performance than the single feature based methods.
From this result, we confirmed that arousal and relaxation can be
classified using SVM and PPG features.
Abstract: In this article, some methods are mentioned for developing the theatrical language by giving information of “theatrical language" since the arising of the language in obsolete terms, and today, and also by examining the problems. Being able to talk meaningfully in the theater stage is a skillful art. Maybe, to be able to convey the idea of the poet, his/her world outlook and his/her feelings from the bottom of the heart as such, also conveying the speech norms without breaking them to the ear of audience in a fascinating way in adverse of a repellent way is the most difficult one. Because of this, “the word is the mirror of the idea". The importance of the theatrical language should not be perceived as only a post, it is “as the yarn that the culture carpet is weaved from". Thereby, it is a tool which transposes our culture and our life style from generation to generation. At the time of creativeness, the “word" comes out from the poet, “the word and feeling" art comes out from the actor. If it was not so, the audience could read the texts of the work himself/herself instead of going to the theater in order to see the performance. The fundamental works by the Turkish, Kazakh and English scientists have been taken as a basis for the research done.
Abstract: This paper presents a subjective job scheduler based
on a 3-layer Backpropagation Neural Network (BPNN) and a greedy
alignment procedure in order formulates a real-life situation. The
BPNN estimates critical values of jobs based on the given subjective
criteria. The scheduler is formulated in such a way that, at each time
period, the most critical job is selected from the job queue and is
transferred into a single machine before the next periodic job arrives.
If the selected job is one of the oldest jobs in the queue and its
deadline is less than that of the arrival time of the current job, then
there is an update of the deadline of the job is assigned in order to
prevent the critical job from its elimination. The proposed
satisfiability criteria indicates that the satisfaction of the scheduler
with respect to performance of the BPNN, validity of the jobs and the
feasibility of the scheduler.