Modeling and Control Design of a Centralized Adaptive Cruise Control System

A vehicle driving with an Adaptive Cruise Control System (ACC) is usually controlled decentrally, based on the information of radar systems and in some publications based on C2X-Communication (CACC) to guarantee stable platoons. In this paper we present a Model Predictive Control (MPC) design of a centralized, server-based ACC-System, whereby the vehicular platoon is modeled and controlled as a whole. It is then proven that the proposed MPC design guarantees asymptotic stability and hence string stability of the platoon. The Networked MPC design is chosen to be able to integrate system constraints optimally as well as to reduce the effects of communication delay and packet loss. The performance of the proposed controller is then simulated and analyzed in an LTE communication scenario using the LTE/EPC Network Simulator LENA, which is based on the ns-3 network simulator.

Ethnobotanical Survey of Vegetable Plants Traditionally Used in Kalasin Thailand

Use of plants grown in local area for edible has a long tradition in different culture. The indigenous knowledge such as usage of plants as vegetables by local people is risk to disappear when no records are done. In order to conserve and transfer this valuable heritage to the new generation, ethnobotanical study should be investigated and documented. The survey of vegetable plants traditionally used was carried out in the year 2012. Information was accumulated via questionnaires and oral interviewing from 100 people living in 36 villages of 9 districts in Amphoe Huai Mek, Kalasin, Thailand. Local plant names, utilized parts and preparation methods of the plants were recorded. Each mentioned plant species were collected and voucher specimens were prepared. A total of 55 vegetable plant species belonging to 34 families and 54 genera were identified. The plant habits were tree, shrub, herb, climber, and shrubby fern at 21.82%, 18.18%, 38.18%, 20.00% and 1.82% respectively. The most encountered vegetable plant families were Leguminosae (20%), Cucurbitaceae (7.27%), Apiaceae (5.45%), whereas families with 3.64% uses were Araceae, Bignoniaceae, Lamiaceae, Passifloraceae, Piperaceae and Solanaceae. The most common consumptions were fresh or brief boiled young shoot or young leaf as side dishes of ‘jaeo, laab, namprik, pon’ or curries. Most locally known vegetables included 45% of the studied plants which grow along road side, backyard garden, hedgerow, open forest and rice field.

Active Learning in Computer Exercises on Electronics

Modelling and simulation provide effective way to acquire engineering experience. An active approach to modelling and simulation proposed in the paper involves, beside the compulsory part directed by the traditional step-by-step instructions, the new optional part basing on the human’s habits to design thus stimulating the efforts towards success in active learning. Computer exercises as a part of engineering curriculum incorporate a set of effective activities. In addition to the knowledge acquired in theoretical training, the described educational arrangement helps to develop problem solutions, computation skills, and experimentation performance along with enhancement of practical experience and qualification.

The Influences of Accountants’ Potential Performance on Their Working Process: Government Savings Bank, Northeast, Thailand

The purpose of this research was to study the influence of accountants’ potential performance on their working process, a case study of Government Savings Banks in the northeast of Thailand. The independent variables included accounting knowledge, accounting skill, accounting value, accounting ethics, and accounting attitude, while the dependent variable included the success of the working process. A total of 155 accountants working for Government Savings Banks were selected by random sampling. A questionnaire was used as a tool for collecting data. Descriptive statistics in this research included percentage, mean, and multiple regression analyses. The findings revealed that the majority of accountants were female with an age between 35-40 years old. Most of the respondents had an undergraduate degree with ten years of experience. Moreover, the factors of accounting knowledge, accounting skill, accounting a value and accounting ethics and accounting attitude were rated at a high level. The findings from regression analysis of observation data revealed a causal relationship in that the observation data could explain at least 51 percent of the success in the accountants’ working process.

Experimental Study on Ultrasonic Shot Peening Forming and Surface Properties of AALY12

Ultrasonic shot peening (USP) on AALY12 sheet was studied. Several parameters (arc heights, surface roughness, surface topography and micro hardness) with different USP process parameters were measured. The research proposes that radius of curvature of shot peened sheet increases with time and electric current decreasing, while increases with pin diameter increasing, and radius of curvature reaches a saturation level after a specific processing time and electric current. An empirical model of the relationship between radius of curvature and pin diameter, electric current, time was also obtained. The research shows that the increment of surface and vertical micro hardness of material is more obvious with longer time and higher value of electric current, which can be up to 20% and 28% respectively.

Qualitative Characteristics of Meat from Lambs Fed Hydrolyzed Sugarcane

We used 24 Ile de France lambs, weighing between 15 and 32 kg (BW). Treatments were supplemented with concentrate: “in nature” sugarcane (IN), sugarcane hydrolyzed using 0.6% calcium oxide (CaO) under aerobic condition (AER), and sugarcane hydrolyzed using 0.6% CaO under anaerobic condition (ANA), constituting a completely randomized design with eight repetitions per treatment. Lambs were housed in individual stalls and fed into the through, allowing 10% of leftovers. Lambs were slaughtered when body weight reached 32 kg. The following parameters were determined on Longissimu lumborum muscle of hot and cold carcasses: pH and color, 45 minutes and 24 hours after slaughtering. Qualitative analysis of the meat were performed in the loins, water-holding capacity (WHC), cooking loss (CL), and shear force (SF). We used a completely randomized design with three treatments and eight repetitions. Means were compared by Tukey test at 5% significance. A higher value for redness (a*) 45 minutes after slaughter (10.48) were found for lambs fed hydrolyzed under anaerobic conditions sugarcane. The other qualitative characteristics of meat were not affected by treatments (P >0.05). The comparison of meat quality resulting from the treatments shows that it is possible to feed in nature sugarcane to lambs, thus waiving hydrolyses process and the spending with alkalizing agent.

Exploring the Factors of Inter-Organizational Knowledge Sharing

Interorganizational knowledge sharing is the major driving force to maximize the operational benefits across supply chain. Trust is considered as the key to facilitate knowledge sharing. This research proposes shared values and relational embeddedness as antecedents of interorganizational trust. Survey based on managers in major industrial parks in Taiwan confirm that trust is enforced when organizations develop shared values and formed social relational embeddedness. Trust leads to interorganizational knowledge sharing. This research has theoretical and practical implications.

Air Cargo Overbooking Model under Stochastic Weight and Volume Cancellation

Overbooking is an approach of selling more goods or services than available capacities because sellers anticipate that some buyers will not show-up or may cancel their bookings. At present, many airlines deploy overbooking strategy in order to deal with the uncertainty of their customers. Particularly, some airlines sell more cargo capacity than what they have available to freight forwarders with beliefs that some of them will cancel later. In this paper, we propose methods to find the optimal overbooking level of volume and weight for air cargo in order to minimize the total cost, containing cost of spoilage and cost of offloaded. Cancellations of volume and weight are jointly random variables with a known joint distribution. Heuristic approaches applying the idea of weight and volume independency is considered to find an appropriate answer to the full problem. Computational experiments are used to explore the performance of approaches presented in this paper, as compared to a naïve method under different scenarios.

Brand Position Communication Channel for Rajabhat University

The objective of this research was to study Brand Position Communication Channel in Brand Building in Rajabhat University Affecting Decision Making of Higher Education from of qualitative research and in-depth interview with executive members Rajabhat University and also quantitative by questionnaires which are personal data of students, study of the acceptance and the finding of the information of Rajabhat University, study of pattern or Brand Position Communication Channel affecting the decision making of studying in Rajabhat University and the result of the communication in Brand Position Communication Channel. It is found that online channel and word of mount are highly important and necessary for education business since media channel is a tool and the management of marketing communication to create brand awareness, brand credibility and to achieve the high acclaim in terms of bringing out qualified graduates. Also, off-line channel can enable the institution to survive from the high competition especially in education business regarding management of the Rajabhat University. Therefore, Rajabhat University has to communicate by the various communication channel strategies for brand building for attractive student to make decision making of higher education.

The Effects of NaF Concentration on the Zinc Coating Electroplated in Supercritical CO2 Mixed Zinc Chloride Bath

This research studies the electroplating of zinc coating in the zinc chloride bath mixed with supercritical CO2. The sodium fluoride (NaF) was used as the bath additive to change the structure and property of the coating, and therefore the roughness and corrosion resistance of the zinc coating was investigated. The surface characterization was performed using optical microscope (OM), X-ray diffractometer (XRD), and α-step profilometer. Moreover, the potentiodynamic polarization measurement in 3% NaCl solution was employed in the corrosion resistance evaluation. Because of the emulsification of the electrolyte mixed in Sc-CO2, the electroplated zinc produced the coating with smoother surface, smaller grain, better throwing power and higher corrosion resistance. The main role played by the NaF was to reduce the coating’s roughness and grain size. In other words, the CO2 mixed with the electrolyte under the supercritical condition performed the similar function as brighter and leveler in zinc electroplating to enhance the throwing power and corrosion resistance of the coating.

Performance Evaluation of Content Based Image Retrieval Using Indexed Views

Digital information is expanding in exponential order in our life. Information that is residing online and offline are stored in huge repositories relating to every aspect of our lives. Getting the required information is a task of retrieval systems. Content based image retrieval (CBIR) is a retrieval system that retrieves the required information from repositories on the basis of the contents of the image. Time is a critical factor in retrieval system and using indexed views with CBIR system improves the time efficiency of retrieved results.

Contribution to Active and Passive Control of Flow around a Cylinder

This numerical study aims to develop a coupled, passive and active control strategy of the flow around a cylinder of diameter D, and Re=4000. The strategy consists to put a cylindrical rod in front of a deforming cylinder. The quasi- elliptical deformation of cylinder follow a sinusoidal law in order to reduce the drag force. To analyze the evolution of unsteady vortices, the Large Eddy Simulation approach is used in this 2D simulation, carried out using ANSYS – Fluent. The movement of deformation is reproduced using an internal subroutine, introduced in the form of a User Defined Function UDF. Two diameters of the rod were tested for a rod placed at a distance L = 3 ×d, with an amplitudes of deformation A = 5%, A = 25% and A = 50% of the cylinder diameter, the frequency of deformation take the values fd = 1fn, 5fn and 8fn, which fn represents the naturel vortex shedding frequency. The results show substantial changes in the flow behavior and for a rod of 6mm (1% D) with amplitude A = 25%, and with a 2fn frequency, drag reduction of 60% was recorded.

Higher Order Statistics for Identification of Minimum Phase Channels

This paper describes a blind algorithm, which is compared with two another algorithms proposed in the literature, for estimating of the minimum phase channel parameters. In order to identify blindly the impulse response of these channels, we have used Higher Order Statistics (HOS) to build our algorithm. The simulation results in noisy environment, demonstrate that the proposed method could estimate the phase and magnitude with high accuracy of these channels blindly and without any information about the input, except that the input excitation is identically and independent distribute (i.i.d) and non-Gaussian.

Studies on Ti/Al Sheet Joint Using Laser Beam Welding – A Review

Laser beam welding has wide acceptability due to least welding distortion, low labour costs and convenient operation. However, laser welding for dissimilar titanium and aluminium alloys is a new area which is having wider applications in aerospace, aircraft, automotive, electronics and other industries. The present study is concerned with welding parameters namely laser power, welding speed, focusing distance and type of shielding gas and thereby evaluate welding performance of titanium and aluminium alloy thin sheets. This paper reviews the basic concepts associated with different parameters of Ti/Al sheet joint using Laser beam welding.

TRACE/FRAPTRAN Analysis of Kuosheng Nuclear Power Plant Dry-Storage System

The dry-storage systems of nuclear power plants (NPPs) in Taiwan have become one of the major safety concerns. There are two steps considered in this study. The first step is the verification of the TRACE by using VSC-17 experimental data. The results of TRACE were similar to the VSC-17 data. It indicates that TRACE has the respectable accuracy in the simulation and analysis of the dry-storage systems. The next step is the application of TRACE in the dry-storage system of Kuosheng NPP (BWR/6). Kuosheng NPP is the second BWR NPP of Taiwan Power Company. In order to solve the storage of the spent fuels, Taiwan Power Company developed the new dry-storage system for Kuosheng NPP. In this step, the dry-storage system model of Kuosheng NPP was established by TRACE. Then, the steady state simulation of this model was performed and the results of TRACE were compared with the Kuosheng NPP data. Finally, this model was used to perform the safety analysis of Kuosheng NPP dry-storage system. Besides, FRAPTRAN was used tocalculate the transient performance of fuel rods.

Error Analysis of English Inflection among Thai University Students

The linguistic competence of Thai university students majoring in Business English was examined in the context of knowledge of English language inflection, and also various linguistic elements. Errors analysis was applied to the results of the testing. Levels of errors in inflection, tense and linguistic elements were shown to be significantly high for all noun, verb and adjective inflections. Findings suggest that students do not gain linguistic competence in their use of English language inflection, because of interlanguage interference. Implications for curriculum reform and treatment of errors in the classroom are discussed.

Enhancement of Learning Style in Kolej Poly-Tech MARA (KPTM) via Mobile EEF Learning System (MEEFLS)

Mobile communication provides access to the outside world without borders everywhere and at any time. The learning method that related to mobile communication technology is known as mobile learning (M-learning). It is a method that communicates learning materials with mobile device technology. The purpose of this method is to increase the interest in learning among students and assist them in obtaining learning materials at Kolej Poly-Tech MARA (KPTM) in order to improve the student’s performance in their study and to encourage educators to diversify the teaching practices. This paper discusses the student’s awareness for enhancement of learning style using mobile technologies and their readiness to apply the elements of mobile learning in learning to improve performance and interest in learning among students. An application called Mobile EEF Learning System (MEEFLS) has been developed as a tool to be used as a pilot test in KPTM.

Enhanced Face Recognition with Daisy Descriptors Using 1BT Based Registration

In this paper, it is proposed to improve Daisy Descriptor based face recognition using a novel One-Bit Transform (1BT) based pre-registration approach. The 1BT based pre-registration procedure is fast and has low computational complexity. It is shown that the face recognition accuracy is improved with the proposed approach. The proposed approach can facilitate highly accurate face recognition using DAISY descriptor with simple matching and thereby facilitate a low-complexity approach.

Students´ Knowledge, or Random Choice in ESP?

As widely accepted, didactic multiple-choice tests are referred as a tool providing feedback easily and quickly. Despite the final test scores are corrected by a special formula and number of high plausibility distractors is taken into consideration, the results may be influenced by the random choice. The survey was held in three academic years at the Faculty of Informatics and Management, University of Hradec Kralove, Czech Republic, where the multiple-choice test scores were compared to the open-answer ones. The research sample included 567 respondents. The collected data were processed by the NCSS2007 statistic software by the method of frequency and multiple regression analysis and presented in the form of figures and tables. The results proved statistically significant differences in test scores in academic years 2 and 3, and were discussed from the point of the credit system and conditions for teaching/learning English in the Czech education system.

Impact of Node Density and Transmission Range on the Performance of OLSR and DSDV Routing Protocols in VANET City Scenarios

Vehicular Ad hoc Network (VANET) is a special case of Mobile Ad hoc Network (MANET) used to establish communications and exchange information among nearby vehicles and between vehicles and nearby fixed infrastructure. VANET is seen as a promising technology used to provide safety, efficiency, assistance and comfort to the road users. Routing is an important issue in Vehicular Ad Hoc Network to find and maintain communication between vehicles due to the highly dynamic topology, frequently disconnected network and mobility constraints. This paper evaluates the performance of two most popular proactive routing protocols OLSR and DSDV in real city traffic scenario on the basis of three metrics namely Packet delivery ratio, throughput and average end to end delay by varying vehicles density and transmission range.