Abstract: In this paper, a new alignment method based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique is presented. The PSO algorithm is used for locating the optimal coupling position with the highest optical power with three-degrees of freedom alignment. This algorithm gives an interesting results without a need to go thru the complex mathematical modeling of the alignment system. The proposed algorithm is validated considering practical tests considering the alignment of two Single Mode Fibers (SMF) and the alignment of SMF and PCF fibers.
Abstract: Clustering is one of an interesting data mining topics
that can be applied in many fields. Recently, the problem of cluster
analysis is formulated as a problem of nonsmooth, nonconvex optimization,
and an algorithm for solving the cluster analysis problem
based on nonsmooth optimization techniques is developed. This
optimization problem has a number of characteristics that make it
challenging: it has many local minimum, the optimization variables
can be either continuous or categorical, and there are no exact
analytical derivatives. In this study we show how to apply a particular
class of optimization methods known as pattern search methods
to address these challenges. These methods do not explicitly use
derivatives, an important feature that has not been addressed in
previous studies. Results of numerical experiments are presented
which demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Abstract: Unstructured peer-to-peer networks are popular due to
its robustness and scalability. Query schemes that are being used in
unstructured peer-to-peer such as the flooding and interest-based
shortcuts suffer various problems such as using large communication
overhead long delay response. The use of routing indices has been a
popular approach for peer-to-peer query routing. It helps the query
routing processes to learn the routing based on the feedbacks
collected. In an unstructured network where there is no global
information available, efficient and low cost routing approach is
needed for routing efficiency.
In this paper, we propose a novel mechanism for query-feedback
oriented routing indices to achieve routing efficiency in unstructured
network at a minimal cost. The approach also applied information
retrieval technique to make sure the content of the query is
understandable and will make the routing process not just based to
the query hits but also related to the query content. Experiments have
shown that the proposed mechanism performs more efficient than
flood-based routing.
Abstract: This comparison of valuation techniques for bone age
assessment is a work carried out by the Telemedicine Research Group
of the Military University - TIGUM, as a preliminary to the Design
and development a treatment system of hand and wrist radiological
images for children aged 0-6 years to bone age assessment . In this
paper the techniques mentioned for decades have been the most
widely used and the statistically significant.
Althought, initially with the current project, it wants to work with
children who have limit age, this comparison and evaluation
techniques work will help in the future to expand the study subject in
the system to bone age assessment, implementing more techniques,
tools and deeper analysis to accomplish this purpose.
Abstract: Current practice of indigenous Mapping production based on GIS, are mostly produced by professional GIS personnel. Given such persons maintain control over data collection and authoring, it is possible to conceive errors due to misrepresentation or cognitive misunderstanding, causing map production inconsistencies. In order to avoid such issues, this research into tribal GIS interface focuses not on customizing interfaces for individual tribes, but rather generalizing the interface and features based on indigenous tribal user needs. The methods employed differs from the traditional expert top-down approach, and instead gaining deeper understanding into indigenous Mappings and user needs, prior to applying mapping techniques and feature development.
Abstract: The paper presents a comparative performance of the
models developed to predict 28 days compressive strengths using
neural network techniques for data taken from literature (ANN-I) and
data developed experimentally for SCC containing bottom ash as
partial replacement of fine aggregates (ANN-II). The data used in the
models are arranged in the format of six and eight input parameters
that cover the contents of cement, sand, coarse aggregate, fly ash as
partial replacement of cement, bottom ash as partial replacement of
sand, water and water/powder ratio, superplasticizer dosage and an
output parameter that is 28-days compressive strength and
compressive strengths at 7 days, 28 days, 90 days and 365 days,
respectively for ANN-I and ANN-II. The importance of different
input parameters is also given for predicting the strengths at various
ages using neural network. The model developed from literature data
could be easily extended to the experimental data, with bottom ash as
partial replacement of sand with some modifications.
Abstract: In order to derive important parameters concerning
mobile subscriber MS with ongoing calls in Low Earth Orbit Mobile
Satellite Systems LEO MSSs, a positioning system had to be
integrated into MSS in order to localize mobile subscribers MSs and
track them during the connection. Such integration is regarded as a
complex implementation. We propose in this paper a novel method
based on advantages of mobility model of Low Earth Orbit Mobile
Satellite System LEO MSS which allows the evaluation of instant of
subsequent handover of a MS even if its location is unknown. This
method is utilized to propose a Dynamic Channel Reservation DCRlike
scheme based on the DCR scheme previously proposed in
literature. Results presented show that DCR-like technique gives
different QoS performance than DCR. Indeed, an improve in
handover blocking probability and an increase in new call blocking
probability are observed for the DCR-like technique.
Abstract: Several optimization algorithms specifically applied to
the problem of Operation Planning of Hydrothermal Power Systems
have been developed and are used. Although providing solutions to
various problems encountered, these algorithms have some
weaknesses, difficulties in convergence, simplification of the original
formulation of the problem, or owing to the complexity of the
objective function. Thus, this paper presents the development of a
computational tool for solving optimization problem identified and to
provide the User an easy handling. Adopted as intelligent
optimization technique, Genetic Algorithms and programming
language Java. First made the modeling of the chromosomes, then
implemented the function assessment of the problem and the
operators involved, and finally the drafting of the graphical interfaces
for access to the User. The program has managed to relate a coherent
performance in problem resolution without the need for
simplification of the calculations together with the ease of
manipulating the parameters of simulation and visualization of output
results.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to investigate on the internalflow
patterns in a plate heat exchanger channel, which affect the
rate of sedimentation fouling on the heat transfer surface of the
plate heat exchanger. The research methodologies were the
computer simulation using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)
and the experimental works. COMSOL MULTIPHYSICS™
Version 3.3 was used to simulate the velocity flow fields to verify
the low and high flow regions. The results from the CFD technique
were then compared with the images obtained from the
experiments in which the fouling test rig was set up with a singlechannel
plate heat exchanger to monitor the fouling of calcium
carbonate. Two parameters were varied i.e., the crossing angle of
the two plate: 55/55, 10/10, and 55/10 degree, and the fluid flow
rate at the inlet: 0.0566, 0.1132 and 0.1698 m/s. The type of plate
“GX-12" (the surface area 0.12 m2, the depth 2.9 mm, the width of
fluid flow 215 mm and the thickness of stainless plate of 0.5 mm)
was used in this study. The results indicated that the velocity
distribution for the case of 55/55 degree seems to be very well
organized when compared with the others. Also, an increase in the
inlet velocity resulted in the reduction of fouling rate on the surface
of plate heat exchangers.
Abstract: Thailand is one of the world-s leaders of rice
producers and exporters. Farmers have to increase the rice cultivation
frequency for serving the national increasing of export-s demand. It
leads to an elimination of rice residues by open burning which is the
quickest and costless management method. The open burning of rice
residue is one of the major causes of air pollutants and greenhouse
gas (GHG) emission. Under ASEAN agreement on trans-boundary
haze, Thailand set the master plan to mitigate air pollutant emission
from open burning of agricultural residues. In this master plan,
residues incorporation is promoted as alternative management
method to open burning. However, the assessment of both options in
term of GHG emission in order to investigate their contribution to
long-term global warming is still scarce or inexistent. In this study, a
method on rice residues assessment was first developed in order to
estimate and compare GHG emissions from rice cultivation under
rice residues open burning and the case with incorporation of the
same amount of rice residues, using 2006 IPCC guidelines for
emission estimation and Life Cycle Analysis technique. The
emission from rice cultivation in different preparing area practice
was also discussed.
Abstract: Space-time block codes (STBC) and spatial multiplexing
(SM) are promising techniques that effectively exploit multipleinput
multiple-output (MIMO) transmission to achieve more reliable
communication and a higher multiplexing rate, respectively. In this
paper, we study a practical design for hybrid scheme with multi-input
multi-output orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMOOFDM)
systems to flexibly maximize the tradeoff between diversity
and multiplexing gains. Unlike the existing STBC and SM designs
which are suitable for the integer multiplexing rate, the proposed
design can achieve arbitrary number of multiplexing rate.
Abstract: In the modern manufacturing systems, the use of
thermal cutting techniques using oxyfuel, plasma and laser have
become indispensable for the shape forming of high quality complex
components; however, the conventional chip removal production
techniques still have its widespread space in the manufacturing
industry. Both these types of machining operations require the
positioning of end effector tool at the edge where the cutting process
commences. This repositioning of the cutting tool in every machining
operation is repeated several times and is termed as non-productive
time or airtime motion. Minimization of this non-productive
machining time plays an important role in mass production with high
speed machining. As, the tool moves from one region to the other by
rapid movement and visits a meticulous region once in the whole
operation, hence the non-productive time can be minimized by
synchronizing the tool movements. In this work, this problem is
being formulated as a general travelling salesman problem (TSP) and
a genetic algorithm approach has been applied to solve the same. For
improving the efficiency of the algorithm, the GA has been
hybridized with a noble special heuristic and simulating annealing
(SA). In the present work a novel heuristic in the combination of GA
has been developed for synchronization of toolpath movements
during repositioning of the tool. A comparative analysis of new Meta
heuristic techniques with simple genetic algorithm has been
performed. The proposed metaheuristic approach shows better
performance than simple genetic algorithm for minimization of nonproductive
toolpath length. Also, the results obtained with the help of
hybrid simulated annealing genetic algorithm (HSAGA) are also
found better than the results using simple genetic algorithm only.
Abstract: Multidrug resistant organisms have been taunting the
medical world for the last few decades. Even with new antibiotics
developed, resistant strains have emerged soon after. With the
advancement of nanotechnology, we investigated colloidal silver
nanoparticles for its antimicrobial activity against Pseudomonas
aeruginosa. This organism is a multidrug resistant which contributes
to the high morbidity and mortality in immunocompromised patients.
Five multidrug resistant strains were used in this study. The
antimicrobial effect was studied using the disc diffusion and broth
dilution techniques. An inhibition zone of 11 mm was observed with
10 μg dose of the nanoparticles. The nanoparticles exhibited MIC of
50 μg/ml when added at the lag phase and the subinhibitory
concentration was measured as 100 μg/ml. The MIC50 value showed
to be 15 μg/ml. This study suggests that silver nanoparticles can be
further developed as an antimicrobial agent, hence decreasing the
burden of the multidrug resistance phenomena.
Abstract: Computer worm detection is commonly performed by
antivirus software tools that rely on prior explicit knowledge of the
worm-s code (detection based on code signatures). We present an
approach for detection of the presence of computer worms based on
Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) using the computer's behavioral
measures. Identification of significant features, which describe the
activity of a worm within a host, is commonly acquired from security
experts. We suggest acquiring these features by applying feature
selection methods. We compare three different feature selection
techniques for the dimensionality reduction and identification of the
most prominent features to capture efficiently the computer behavior
in the context of worm activity. Additionally, we explore three
different temporal representation techniques for the most prominent
features. In order to evaluate the different techniques, several
computers were infected with five different worms and 323 different
features of the infected computers were measured. We evaluated
each technique by preprocessing the dataset according to each one
and training the ANN model with the preprocessed data. We then
evaluated the ability of the model to detect the presence of a new
computer worm, in particular, during heavy user activity on the
infected computers.
Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of peak-to-average
power ratio (PAPR) in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing
(OFDM) systems. It also introduces a new PAPR reduction technique
based on adaptive square-rooting (SQRT) companding process. The
SQRT process of the proposed technique changes the statistical
characteristics of the OFDM output signals from Rayleigh
distribution to Gaussian-like distribution. This change in statistical
distribution results changes of both the peak and average power
values of OFDM signals, and consequently reduces significantly the
PAPR. For the 64QAM OFDM system using 512 subcarriers, up to 6
dB reduction in PAPR was achieved by square-rooting technique
with fixed degradation in bit error rate (BER) equal to 3 dB.
However, the PAPR is reduced at the expense of only -15 dB out-ofband
spectral shoulder re-growth below the in-band signal level. The
proposed adaptive SQRT technique is superior in terms of BER
performance than the original, non-adaptive, square-rooting
technique when the required reduction in PAPR is no more than 5
dB. Also, it provides fixed amount of PAPR reduction in which it is
not available in the original SQRT technique.
Abstract: Many organisations are nowadays interested to adopt
lean manufacturing strategy that would enable them to compete in
this competitive globalisation market. In this respect, it is necessary
to assess the implementation of lean manufacturing in different
organisations so that the important best practices can be identified.
This paper describes the development of key areas which will be
used to assess the adoption and implementation of lean
manufacturing practices. There are some key areas developed to
evaluate and reduce the most optimal projects so as to enhance their
production efficiency and increase the purpose of the economic
benefits of the manufacturing unit.
Lean manufacturing is becoming lean enterprise by treating its
customers and suppliers as partners. This gives the extra edge in
today-s cost and time competitive markets. The organisation is
becoming strong in all the conventional competition points. They are
Price, Quality and Delivery. Lean enterprise owners can deliver high
quality products quickly, with low price.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to study the oblique
stagnation point flow on vertical plate with uniform surface heat flux
in presence of magnetic field. Using Stream function, partial
differential equations corresponding to the momentum and energy
equations are converted into non-linear ordinary differential
equations. Numerical solutions of these equations are obtained using
Runge-Kutta Fehlberg method with the help of shooting technique.
In the present work the effects of striking angle, magnetic field
parameter, Grashoff number, the Prandtl number on velocity and heat
transfer characteristics have been discussed. Effect of above
mentioned parameter on the position of stagnation point are also
studied.
Abstract: In this paper we used data mining techniques to
identify outlier patients who are using large amount of drugs over a
long period of time. Any healthcare or health insurance system
should deal with the quantities of drugs utilized by chronic diseases
patients. In Kingdom of Bahrain, about 20% of health budget is spent
on medications. For the managers of healthcare systems, there is no
enough information about the ways of drug utilization by chronic
diseases patients, is there any misuse or is there outliers patients. In
this work, which has been done in cooperation with information
department in the Bahrain Defence Force hospital; we select the data
for Cardiac patients in the period starting from 1/1/2008 to
December 31/12/2008 to be the data for the model in this paper. We
used three techniques for finding the drug utilization for cardiac
patients. First we applied a clustering technique, followed by
measuring of clustering validity, and finally we applied a decision
tree as classification algorithm. The clustering results is divided into
three clusters according to the drug utilization, for 1603 patients, who
received 15,806 prescriptions during this period can be partitioned
into three groups, where 23 patients (2.59%) who received 1316
prescriptions (8.32%) are classified to be outliers. The classification
algorithm shows that the use of average drug utilization and the age,
and the gender of the patient can be considered to be the main
predictive factors in the induced model.
Abstract: Construction cost in India is increasing at around 50
per cent over the average inflation levels. It have registered increase
of up to 15 per cent every year, primarily due to cost of basic
building materials such as steel, cement, bricks, timber and other
inputs as well as cost of labour. As a result, the cost of construction
using conventional building materials and construction is becoming
beyond the affordable limits particularly for low-income groups of
population as well as a large cross section of the middle - income
groups. Therefore, there is a need to adopt cost-effective construction
methods either by up-gradation of traditional technologies using local
resources or applying modern construction materials and techniques
with efficient inputs leading to economic solutions. This has become
the most relevant aspect in the context of the large volume of housing
to be constructed in both rural and urban areas and the consideration
of limitations in the availability of resources such as building
materials and finance. This paper makes an overview of the housing
status in India and adoption of appropriate and cost effective
technologies in the country.
Abstract: The field of biomedical materials plays an imperative
requisite and a critical role in manufacturing a variety of biological
artificial replacements in a modern world. Recently, titanium (Ti)
materials are being used as biomaterials because of their superior
corrosion resistance and tremendous specific strength, free- allergic
problems and the greatest biocompatibility compared to other
competing biomaterials such as stainless steel, Co-Cr alloys,
ceramics, polymers, and composite materials. However, regardless of
these excellent performance properties, Implantable Ti materials have
poor shear strength and wear resistance which limited their
applications as biomaterials. Even though the wear properties of Ti
alloys has revealed some improvements, the crucial effectiveness of
biomedical Ti alloys as wear components requires a comprehensive
deep understanding of the wear reasons, mechanisms, and techniques
that can be used to improve wear behavior. This review examines
current information on the effect of thermal and thermomechanical
processing of implantable Ti materials on the long-term prosthetic
requirement which related with wear behavior. This paper focuses
mainly on the evolution, evaluation and development of effective
microstructural features that can improve wear properties of bio
grade Ti materials using thermal and thermomechanical treatments.