Abstract: In this paper, many techniques for blind identification of moving average (MA) process are presented. These methods utilize third- and fourth-order cumulants of the noisy observations of the system output. The system is driven by an independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) non-Gaussian sequence that is not observed. Two nonlinear optimization algorithms, namely the Gradient Descent and the Gauss-Newton algorithms are exposed. An algorithm based on the joint-diagonalization of the fourth-order cumulant matrices (FOSI) is also considered, as well as an improved version of the classical C(q, 0, k) algorithm based on the choice of the Best 1-D Slice of fourth-order cumulants. To illustrate the effectiveness of our methods, various simulation examples are presented.
Abstract: The National Blood Center, Thai Red Cross Society is
responsible for providing blood to hospitals all over the country.
When any hospital needs blood, it will have to send the vehicle to
pick up at the NBC. There are a lot of vehicles to pick up blood at the
NBC every day. Each vehicle is usually empty for inbound trip and a
little loaded for outbound. The NBC realized such waste or loss and
there have been the third party offered to distribute blood and charge
for fee. This paper proposes to apply the vehicle routing problem
(VRP) for estimating the fair price. The idea is tested with the real
data during seven-day period of 6 – 12 July 2010 to estimate the fair
price for transporting blood in Bangkok Metropolitan Region.
Abstract: The paper describes the workings for four models of
CONWIP systems used till date; the basic CONWIP system, the
hybrid CONWIP system, the multi-product CONWIP system, and the
parallel CONWIP system. The final novel model is introduced in this
paper in a general form. These models may be adopted for analysis
for both simulation studies and implementation on the shop floor. For
each model, input parameters of interest are highlighted and their
impacts on several system performance measures are addressed.
Abstract: Thousands of masters athletes participate
quadrennially in the World Masters Games (WMG), yet this cohort
of athletes remains proportionately under-investigated. Due to a
growing global obesity pandemic in context of benefits of physical
activity across the lifespan, the BMI trends for this unique population
was of particular interest. The nexus between health, physical
activity and aging is complex and has raised much interest in recent
times due to the realization that a multifaceted approach is necessary
in order to counteract the obesity pandemic. By investigating age
based trends within a population adhering to competitive sport at
older ages, further insight might be gleaned to assist in understanding
one of many factors influencing this relationship.BMI was derived
using data gathered on a total of 6,071 masters athletes (51.9% male,
48.1% female) aged 25 to 91 years ( =51.5, s =±9.7), competing at
the Sydney World Masters Games (2009). Using linear and loess
regression it was demonstrated that the usual tendency for prevalence
of higher BMI increasing with age was reversed in the sample. This
trend in reversal was repeated for both male and female only sub-sets
of the sample participants, indicating the possibility of improved
prevalence of BMI with increasing age for both the sample as a
whole and these individual sub-groups.This evidence of improved
classification in one index of health (reduced BMI) for masters
athletes (when compared to the general population) implies there are
either improved levels of this index of health with aging due to
adherence to sport or possibly the reduced BMI is advantageous and
contributes to this cohort adhering (or being attracted) to masters
sport at older ages.
Abstract: This paper describes the development of an
autonomous robot for painting the interior walls of buildings. The
robot consists of a painting arm with an end effector roller that scans
the walls vertically and a mobile platform to give horizontal feed to
paint the whole area of the wall. The painting arm has a planar twolink
mechanism with two joints. Joints are driven from a stepping
motor through a ball screw-nut mechanism. Four ultrasonic sensors
are attached to the mobile platform and used to maintain a certain
distance from the facing wall and to avoid collision with side walls.
When settled on adjusted distance from the wall, the controller starts
the painting process autonomously. Simplicity, relatively low weight
and short painting time were considered in our design. Different
modules constituting the robot have been separately tested then
integrated. Experiments have shown successfulness of the robot in its
intended tasks.
Abstract: It is expected that ubiquitous era will come soon. A ubiquitous environment has features like peer-to-peer and nomadic environments. Such features can be represented by peer-to-peer systems and mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs). The features of P2P systems and MANETs are similar, appealing for implementing P2P systems in MANET environment. It has been shown that, however, the performance of the P2P systems designed for wired networks do not perform satisfactorily in mobile ad-hoc environment. Subsequently, this paper proposes a method to improve P2P performance using cross-layer design and the goodness of a node as a peer. The proposed method uses routing metric as well as P2P metric to choose favorable peers to connect. It also utilizes proactive approach for distributing peer information. According to the simulation results, the proposed method provides higher query success rate, shorter query response time and less energy consumption by constructing an efficient overlay network.
Abstract: The voice signal in Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) system is processed through the best effort policy based IP network, which leads to the network degradations including delay, packet loss jitter. The work in this paper presents the implementation of finite impulse response (FIR) filter for voice quality improvement in the VoIP system through distributed arithmetic (DA) algorithm. The VoIP simulations are conducted with AMR-NB 6.70 kbps and G.729a speech coders at different packet loss rates and the performance of the enhanced VoIP signal is evaluated using the perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ) measurement for narrowband signal. The results show reduction in the computational complexity in the system and significant improvement in the quality of the VoIP voice signal.
Abstract: Natural Language Understanding Systems (NLU) will not be widely deployed unless they are technically mature and cost effective to develop. Cost effective development hinges on the availability of tools and techniques enabling the rapid production of NLU applications through minimal human resources. Further, these tools and techniques should allow quick development of applications in a user friendly way and should be easy to upgrade in order to continuously follow the evolving technologies and standards. This paper presents a visual tool for the structuring and editing of dialog forms, the key element of driving conversation in NLU applications based on IBM technology. The main focus is given on the basic component used to describe Human – Machine interactions of that kind, the Dialogue Manager. In essence, the description of a tool that enables the visual representation of the Dialogue Manager mainly during the implementation phase is illustrated.
Abstract: This study describes the preparation of a novel proton
conducting membranes based on bacterial cellulose (BC) modified by
grafting of 2-acrylamido-2-methyl-1 -propanesulfonic acid (AMPS)
through UV-induced graft polymerization. These AMPS-g-BC
membranes have been characterized by various techniques including
FTIR, SEM and TGA, to find their successful grafting of AMPS on
BC, surface morphology and thermal stability, respectively. Physical
properties of AMPS-g-BC membranes have been assessed in terms of
Lamda value( λ ), ion exchange capacity(IEC) and proton
conductivity. The relationship between degree of grafting and AMPS
concentration used for grafting has been determined by weight gain
method. An optimum proton conductivity equal to 2.89x10-2 S cm-1
and IEC value equal to 1.79 mmol g-1 have been obtained when 20
wt% AMPS concentration is used for grafting (i.e. the corresponding
membrane is notated as AMPS20-g-BC).
Abstract: This paper describes the design considerations of an
experimental setup for research and exploring the drives of batteryfed
electric vehicles. Effective setup composition and its components
are discussed. With experimental setup described in this paper,
durability and functional tests can be procured to the customers.
Multiple experiments are performed in the form of steady-state
system exploring, acceleration programs, multi-step tests (speed
control, torque control), load collectives or close-to-reality driving
tests (driving simulation). Main focus of the functional testing is on
the measurements of power and energy efficiency and investigations
in driving simulation mode, which are used for application purposes.
In order to enable the examination of the drive trains beyond
standard modes of operation, different other parameters can be
studied also.
Abstract: Two different superhydrophobic surfaces were
elaborated and their oil repellency behavior was evaluated using
several liquid with different surface tension. A silicone rubber/SiO2
nanocomposite coated (A) on aluminum substrate by “spin-coating"
and the sample B was an anodized aluminum surface covered by
Teflon-like coating. A high static contact angle about ∼162° was
measured for two prepared surfaces on which the water droplet rolloff.
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed the presence of
micro/nanostructures for both sample A and B similar to that of lotus
leaf.
However the sample A presented significantly different behaviour
of wettability against the low surface tension liquid. Sample A has
been wetted totally by oil (dodecan) droplet while sample B showed
oleophobic behaviour. Oleophobic property of Teflon like coating
can be contributed to the presence of CF2 and CF3 functional group
which was shown by XPS analysis.
Abstract: In the traditional concept of product life cycle management, the activities of design, manufacturing, and assembly are performed in a sequential way. The drawback is that the considerations in design may contradict the considerations in manufacturing and assembly. The different designs of components can lead to different assembly sequences. Therefore, in some cases, a good design may result in a high cost in the downstream assembly activities. In this research, an integrated design evaluation and assembly sequence planning model is presented. Given a product requirement, there may be several design alternative cases to design the components for the same product. If a different design case is selected, the assembly sequence for constructing the product can be different. In this paper, first, the designed components are represented by using graph based models. The graph based models are transformed to assembly precedence constraints and assembly costs. A particle swarm optimization (PSO) approach is presented by encoding a particle using a position matrix defined by the design cases and the assembly sequences. The PSO algorithm simultaneously performs design evaluation and assembly sequence planning with an objective of minimizing the total assembly costs. As a result, the design cases and the assembly sequences can both be optimized. The main contribution lies in the new concept of integrated design evaluation and assembly sequence planning model and the new PSO solution method. The test results show that the presented method is feasible and efficient for solving the integrated design evaluation and assembly planning problem. In this paper, an example product is tested and illustrated.
Abstract: This paper proposes an implementation for the
directed diffusion paradigm aids in studying this paradigm-s
operations and evaluates its behavior according to this
implementation. The directed diffusion is evaluated with respect to
the loss percentage, lifetime, end-to-end delay, and throughput.
From these evaluations some suggestions and modifications are
proposed to improve the directed diffusion behavior according to
this implementation with respect to these metrics. The proposed
modifications reflect the effect of local path repair by introducing a
technique called Loop-free Local Path Repair (LLPR) which
improves the directed diffusion behavior especially with respect to
packet loss percentage by about 92.69%. Also LLPR improves the
throughput and end-to-end delay by about 55.31% and 14.06%
respectively, while the lifetime decreases by about 29.79%.
Abstract: This paper describes the architecture for a collaborative Car Pooling System based on a credits mechanism to motivate the cooperation among users. Users can spend the accumulated credits on parking facilities. For this, we propose a business model to support the collaboration between a car pooling system and parking facilities. The Portuguese Lisbon-s Metropolitan area is used as application scenario.
Abstract: The main objectif of this paper is to present a tool that
we have developed subject to characterize and modelling indoor radio
channel propagation at millimetric wave. The tool is based on the
ray tracing technique (RTT). As, in realistic environment we cannot
neglect the significant impact of Human Body Shadowing and other
objects in motion on indoor 60 GHz propagation channel. Hence,
our proposed model allows a simulation of propagation in a dynamic
indoor environment. First, we describe a model of human body.
Second, RTT with this model is used to simulate the propagation
of millimeter waves in the presence of persons in motion. Results
of the simulation show that this tool gives results in agreement with
those reported in the literature. Specially, the effects of people motion
on temporal channel properties.
Abstract: An original Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) method to tackle the problem of particulate flows at moderate to high concentration and finite Reynolds number is presented. Our method is built on the framework established by Glowinski and his coworkers [1] in the sense that we use their Distributed Lagrange Multiplier/Fictitious Domain (DLM/FD) formulation and their operator-splitting idea but differs in the treatment of particle collisions. The novelty of our contribution relies on replacing the simple artificial repulsive force based collision model usually employed in the literature by an efficient Discrete Element Method (DEM) granular solver. The use of our DEM solver enables us to consider particles of arbitrary shape (at least convex) and to account for actual contacts, in the sense that particles actually touch each other, in contrast with the simple repulsive force based collision model. We recently upgraded our serial code, GRIFF 1 [2], to full MPI capabilities. Our new code, PeliGRIFF 2, is developed under the framework of the full MPI open source platform PELICANS [3]. The new MPI capabilities of PeliGRIFF open new perspectives in the study of particulate flows and significantly increase the number of particles that can be considered in a full DNS approach: O(100000) in 2D and O(10000) in 3D. Results on the 2D/3D sedimentation/fluidization of isometric polygonal/polyedral particles with collisions are presented.
Abstract: The parametrical study of Shrouded Contra-rotating
Rotor was done in this paper based on 2D axisymmetric simulations.
The calculations were made with an actuator disk as double rotor
model. It objects to explore and quantify the effects of different shroud
geometry parameters mainly using the performance of power loading
(PL), which could evaluate the whole propulsion system capability as
5 Newtontotal thrust generationfor hover demand. The numerical
results show that:The increase of nozzle radius is desired but limited
by the flow separation, its optimal design is around 1.15 times rotor
radius, the viscosity effects greatly constraint the influence of nozzle
shape, the divergent angle around 10.5° performs best for chosen
nozzle length;The parameters of inlet such as leading edge curvature,
radius and internal shape do not affect thrust great but play an
important role in pressure distribution which could produce most part
of shroud thrust, they should be chosen according to the reduction of
adverse pressure gradients to reduce the risk of boundary separation.
Abstract: This paper describes a steady state model of a multiple
effect evaporator system for simulation and control purposes. The
model includes overall as well as component mass balance equations,
energy balance equations and heat transfer rate equations for area
calculations for all the effects. Each effect in the process is
represented by a number of variables which are related by the energy
and material balance equations for the feed, product and vapor flow
for backward, mixed and split feed. For simulation 'fsolve' solver in
MATLAB source code is used. The optimality of three sequences i.e.
backward, mixed and splitting feed is studied by varying the various
input parameters.
Abstract: Human immunodeficiency virus infection and
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a global pandemic with
cases reporting from virtually every country and continues to be a
common infection in developing country like India.
Microalbuminuria is a manifestation of human immunodeficiency
virus associated nephropathy. Therefore, microalbuminuria may be
an early marker of human immunodeficiency virus associated
nephropathy, and screening for its presence may be beneficial. A
strikingly high prevalence of microalbuminuria among human
immunodeficiency virus infected patients has been described in
various studies. Risk factors for clinically significant proteinuria
include African - American race, higher human immunodeficiency
virus ribonucleic acid level and lower CD4 lymphocyte count. The
cardiovascular risk factors of increased systolic blood pressure and
increase fasting blood sugar level are strongly associated with
microalbuminuria in human immunodeficiency virus patient. These
results suggest that microalbuminuria may be a sign of current
endothelial dysfunction and micro-vascular disease and there is
substantial risk of future cardiovascular disease events. Positive
contributing factors include early kidney disease such as human
immunodeficiency virus associated nephropathy, a marker of end
organ damage related to co morbidities of diabetes or hypertension,
or more diffuse endothelial cells dysfunction. Nevertheless after
adjustment for non human immunodeficiency virus factors, human
immunodeficiency virus itself is a major risk factor. The presence of
human immunodeficiency virus infection is independent risk to
develop microalbuminuria in human immunodeficiency virus patient.
Cardiovascular risk factors appeared to be stronger predictors of
microalbuminuria than markers of human immunodeficiency virus
severity person with human immunodeficiency virus infection and
microalbuminuria therefore appear to potentially bear the burden of
two separate damage related to known vascular end organ damage
related to know vascular risk factors, and human immunodeficiency
virus specific processes such as the direct viral infection of kidney
cells.The higher prevalence of microalbuminuria among the human
immunodeficiency virus infected could be harbinger of future
increased risks of both kidney and cardiovascular disease. Further
study defining the prognostic significance of microalbuminuria
among human immunodeficiency virus infected persons will be
essential. Microalbuminuria seems to be a predictor of cardiovascular
disease in diabetic and non diabetic subjects, hence it can also be
used for early detection of micro vascular disease in human
immunodeficiency virus positive patients, thus can help to diagnose
the disease at the earliest.
Abstract: The nickel and gold nanoclusters as supported
catalysts were analyzed by XAS, XRD and XPS in order to
determine their local, global and electronic structure. The present
study has pointed out a strong deformation of the local structure of
the metal, due to its interaction with oxide supports. The average
particle size, the mean squares of the microstrain, the particle size
distribution and microstrain functions of the supported Ni and Au
catalysts were determined by XRD method using Generalized Fermi
Function for the X-ray line profiles approximation. Based on EXAFS
analysis we consider that the local structure of the investigated
systems is strongly distorted concerning the atomic number pairs.
Metal-support interaction is confirmed by the shape changes of the
probability densities of electron transitions: Ni K edge (1s →
continuum and 2p), Au LIII-edge (2p3/2 → continuum, 6s, 6d5/2 and
6d3/2). XPS investigations confirm the metal-support interaction at
their interface.