Abstract: Importance of environmental efficiency of electric power industry stems from high demand for energy combined with global warming concerns. It is especially essential for the world largest economies like that of the United States. The paper introduces a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) model of environmental efficiency using indicators of fossil fuels utilization, emissions rate, and electric power losses. Using DEA is advantageous in this situation over other approaches due to its nonparametric nature. The paper analyzes data for the period of 1990 - 2006 by comparing actual yearly levels in each dimension with the best values of partial indicators for the period. As positive factors of efficiency, tendency to the decline in emissions rates starting 2000, and in electric power losses starting 2004 may be mentioned together with increasing trend of fuel utilization starting 1999. As a result, dynamics of environmental efficiency is positive starting 2002. The main concern is the decline in fossil fuels utilization in 2006. This negative change should be reversed to comply with ecological and economic requirements.
Abstract: Energy and exergy study of air-water combined solar collector which is called dual purpose solar collector (DPSC) is investigated. The method of ε - NTU is used. Analysis is performed for triangle channels. Parameters like the air flow rate and water inlet temperature are studied. Results are shown that DPSC has better energy and exergy efficiency than single collector. In addition, the triangle passage with water inlet temperature of 60O C has shown better exergy and energy efficiency.
Abstract: It is important to provide possibility of so called
“handover" for the mobile subscriber from GSM network to Wi-Fi
network and back. To solve specified problem it is necessary to
estimate connection time between base station and wireless access
point. Difficulty to estimate this parameter is that it doesn-t described
in specifications of the standard and, hence, no recommended value
is given.
In this paper, the analytical model is presented that allows the
estimating connection time between base station and IEEE 802.11
access point.
Abstract: When trying to enumerate all BIBD-s for given parameters,
their natural solution space appears to be huge and grows extremely with the number of points of the design. Therefore,
constructive enumerations are often carried out by assuming additional
constraints on design-s structure, automorphisms being mostly used ones. It remains a hard task to construct designs with trivial
automorphism group – those with no additional symmetry – although it is believed that most of the BIBD-s belong to that case. In
this paper, very many new designs with parameters 2-(13, 5, 5), 2-(16, 6, 5) and 2-(21, 6, 4) are constructed, assuming an action of an
automorphism of order 3. Even more, it was possible to construct millions of such designs with no non-trivial automorphisms.
Abstract: Fatigue behaviors of Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT)
ceramics under different amplitude of bipolar electrical loads have
been investigated. Fatigue behavior is represented by the change of
hysteresis loops and remnant polarization. Three levels of electrical
load amplitudes (1.00, 1.25 and 1.50 kV /mm) were applied in this
experimental. It was found that the remnant polarization decreased
significantly with the number of loading cycles. The degree of fatigue
degradation depends on the amplitude of electric field. The higher
amplitude exhibits the greater fatigue degradation.
Abstract: In this paper we have proposed three and two
stage still gray scale image compressor based on BTC. In our
schemes, we have employed a combination of four techniques
to reduce the bit rate. They are quad tree segmentation, bit
plane omission, bit plane coding using 32 visual patterns and
interpolative bit plane coding. The experimental results show
that the proposed schemes achieve an average bit rate of 0.46
bits per pixel (bpp) for standard gray scale images with an
average PSNR value of 30.25, which is better than the results
from the exiting similar methods based on BTC.
Abstract: This study examines the inelastic behavior of adjacent planar reinforced concrete (R.C.) frames subjected to strong ground motions. The investigation focuses on the effects of vertical ground motion on the seismic pounding. The examined structures are modeled and analyzed by RUAUMOKO dynamic nonlinear analysis program using reliable hysteretic models for both structural members and contact elements. It is found that the vertical ground motion mildly affects the seismic response of adjacent buildings subjected to structural pounding and, for this reason, it can be ignored from the displacement and interstorey drifts assessment. However, the structural damage is moderately affected by the vertical component of earthquakes.
Abstract: Recently, there are significant improvements in the
capabilities of mobile devices; rendering large terrain is tedious
because of the constraint in resources of mobile devices. This
paper focuses on the implementation of terrain rendering on
mobile device to observe some issues and current constraints
occurred. Experiments are performed using two datasets with
results based on rendering speed and appearance to ascertain both
the issues and constraints. The result shows a downfall of frame
rate performance because of the increase of triangles. Since the
resolution between computer and mobile device is different, the
terrain surface on mobile device looks more unrealistic compared
to on a computer. Thus, more attention in the development of
terrain rendering on mobile devices is required. The problems
highlighted in this paper will be the focus of future research and
will be a great importance for 3D visualization on mobile device.
Abstract: This article presents a current-mode universal biquadratic filter. The proposed circuit can apparently provide standard functions of the biquad filter: low-pass, high-pass, bandpass, band-reject and all-pass functions. The circuit uses 4 current controlled transconductance amplifiers (CCTAs) and 2 grounded capacitors. In addition, the pole frequency and quality factor can be adjusted by electronic method by adjusting the bias currents of the CCTA. The proposed circuit uses only grounded capacitors without additional external resistors, the proposed circuit is considerably appropriate to further developing into an integrated circuit. The results of PSPICE simulation program are corresponding to the theoretical analysis.
Abstract: In this paper, we present a new method for solving quadratic programming problems, not strictly convex. Constraints of the problem are linear equalities and inequalities, with bounded variables. The suggested method combines the active-set strategies and support methods. The algorithm of the method and numerical experiments are presented, while comparing our approach with the active set method on randomly generated problems.
Abstract: Fuzzy Load forecasting plays a paramount role in the operation and management of power systems. Accurate estimation of future power demands for various lead times facilitates the task of generating power reliably and economically. The forecasting of future loads for a relatively large lead time (months to few years) is studied here (long term load forecasting). Among the various techniques used in forecasting load, artificial intelligence techniques provide greater accuracy to the forecasts as compared to conventional techniques. Fuzzy Logic, a very robust artificial intelligent technique, is described in this paper to forecast load on long term basis. The paper gives a general algorithm to forecast long term load. The algorithm is an Extension of Short term load forecasting method to Long term load forecasting and concentrates not only on the forecast values of load but also on the errors incorporated into the forecast. Hence, by correcting the errors in the forecast, forecasts with very high accuracy have been achieved. The algorithm, in the paper, is demonstrated with the help of data collected for residential sector (LT2 (a) type load: Domestic consumers). Load, is determined for three consecutive years (from April-06 to March-09) in order to demonstrate the efficiency of the algorithm and to forecast for the next two years (from April-09 to March-11).
Abstract: Data Warehouses (DWs) are repositories which contain the unified history of an enterprise for decision support. The data must be Extracted from information sources, Transformed and integrated to be Loaded (ETL) into the DW, using ETL tools. These tools focus on data movement, where the models are only used as a means to this aim. Under a conceptual viewpoint, the authors want to innovate the ETL process in two ways: 1) to make clear compatibility between models in a declarative fashion, using correspondence assertions and 2) to identify the instances of different sources that represent the same entity in the real-world. This paper presents the overview of the proposed framework to model the ETL process, which is based on the use of a reference model and perspective schemata. This approach provides the designer with a better understanding of the semantic associated with the ETL process.
Abstract: Finding the shortest path between two positions is a
fundamental problem in transportation, routing, and communications
applications. In robot motion planning, the robot should pass around
the obstacles touching none of them, i.e. the goal is to find a
collision-free path from a starting to a target position. This task has
many specific formulations depending on the shape of obstacles,
allowable directions of movements, knowledge of the scene, etc.
Research of path planning has yielded many fundamentally different
approaches to its solution, mainly based on various decomposition
and roadmap methods. In this paper, we show a possible use of
visibility graphs in point-to-point motion planning in the Euclidean
plane and an alternative approach using Voronoi diagrams that
decreases the probability of collisions with obstacles. The second
application area, investigated here, is focused on problems of finding
minimal networks connecting a set of given points in the plane using
either only straight connections between pairs of points (minimum
spanning tree) or allowing the addition of auxiliary points to the set
to obtain shorter spanning networks (minimum Steiner tree).
Abstract: The study of non-equilibrium systems has attracted
increasing interest in recent years, mainly due to the lack of
theoretical frameworks, unlike their equilibrium counterparts.
Studying the steady state and/or simple systems is thus one of the
main interests. Hence in this work we have focused our attention on
the driven lattice gas model (DLG model) consisting of interacting
particles subject to an external field E. The dynamics of the system
are given by hopping of particles to nearby empty sites with rates
biased for jumps in the direction of E. Having used small two
dimensional systems of DLG model, the stochastic properties at nonequilibrium
steady state were analytically studied. To understand the
non-equilibrium phenomena, we have applied the analytic approach
via master equation to calculate probability function and analyze
violation of detailed balance in term of the fluctuation-dissipation
theorem. Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to validate
the analytic results.
Abstract: In built-up structures, one of the effective ways of
dissipating unwanted vibration is to exploit the occurrence of slip at
the interfaces of structural laminates. The present work focuses on
the dynamic analysis of welded structures. A mathematical
formulation has been developed for the mechanism of slip damping
in layered and welded mild steel beams with unequal thickness
subjected to both periodic and non-periodic forces. It is observed that
a number of vital parameters such as; thickness ratio, pressure
distribution characteristics, relative slip and kinematic co-efficient of
friction at the interfaces, nature of exciting forces, length and
thickness of the beam specimen govern the damping characteristics of
these structures. Experimental verification has been carried out to
validate the analysis and study the effect of these parameters. The
developed damping model for the structure is found to be in fairly
good agreement with the measured data. Finally, the results of the
analysis are discussed and rationalized.
Abstract: In this paper, we proposed a new framework to incorporate an intelligent agent software robot into a crisis communication portal (CCNet) in order to send alert news to subscribed users via email and other mobile services such as Short Message Service (SMS), Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) and General Packet Radio Services (GPRS). The content on the mobile services can be delivered either through mobile phone or Personal Digital Assistance (PDA). This research has shown that with our proposed framework, the embodied conversation agents system can handle questions intelligently with our multilayer architecture. At the same time, the extended framework can take care of delivery content through a more humanoid interface on mobile devices.
Abstract: In the last decade digital watermarking procedures have
become increasingly applied to implement the copyright protection
of multimedia digital contents distributed on the Internet. To this
end, it is worth noting that a lot of watermarking procedures
for images and videos proposed in literature are based on spread
spectrum techniques. However, some scepticism about the robustness
and security of such watermarking procedures has arisen because
of some documented attacks which claim to render the inserted
watermarks undetectable. On the other hand, web content providers
wish to exploit watermarking procedures characterized by flexible and
efficient implementations and which can be easily integrated in their
existing web services frameworks or platforms. This paper presents
how a simple spread spectrum watermarking procedure for MPEG-2
videos can be modified to be exploited in web contexts. To this end,
the proposed procedure has been made secure and robust against some
well-known and dangerous attacks. Furthermore, its basic scheme
has been optimized by making the insertion procedure adaptive with
respect to the terminals used to open the videos and the network transactions
carried out to deliver them to buyers. Finally, two different
implementations of the procedure have been developed: the former
is a high performance parallel implementation, whereas the latter is
a portable Java and XML based implementation. Thus, the paper
demonstrates that a simple spread spectrum watermarking procedure,
with limited and appropriate modifications to the embedding scheme,
can still represent a valid alternative to many other well-known and
more recent watermarking procedures proposed in literature.
Abstract: This paper presents an effective traffic lights detection
method at the night-time. First, candidate blobs of traffic lights are
extracted from RGB color image. Input image is represented on the
dominant color domain by using color transform proposed by Ruta,
then red and green color dominant regions are selected as candidates.
After candidate blob selection, we carry out shape filter for noise
reduction using information of blobs such as length, area, area of
boundary box, etc. A multi-class classifier based on SVM (Support
Vector Machine) applies into the candidates. Three kinds of features
are used. We use basic features such as blob width, height, center
coordinate, area, area of blob. Bright based stochastic features are also
used. In particular, geometric based moment-s values between
candidate region and adjacent region are proposed and used to improve
the detection performance. The proposed system is implemented on
Intel Core CPU with 2.80 GHz and 4 GB RAM and tested with the
urban and rural road videos. Through the test, we show that the
proposed method using PF, BMF, and GMF reaches up to 93 % of
detection rate with computation time of in average 15 ms/frame.
Abstract: OpenMP is an API for parallel programming model of shared memory multiprocessors. Novice OpenMP programmers often produce the code that compiler cannot find human errors. It was investigated how compiler coped with the common mistakes that can occur in OpenMP code. The latest version(4.4.3) of GCC is used for this research. It was found that GCC compiled the codes without any errors or warnings. In this paper the programming aid tool is presented for OpenMP programs. It can check 12 common mistakes that novice programmer can commit during the programming of OpenMP. It was demonstrated that the programming aid tool can detect the various common mistakes that GCC failed to detect.
Abstract: Hybridization refers to the crossing breeding of two
plants. Coefficient of Parentage (COP) is used by the plant breeders
to determine the genetic diversity across various varieties so as to
incorporate the useful characters of the two varieties to develop a
new crop variety with particular useful characters. Genetic Diversity
is the prerequisite for any cultivar development program. Genetic
Diversity depends upon the pedigree information of the varieties
based on particular levels. Pedigree refers to the parents of a
particular variety at various levels. This paper discusses the searching
and analyses of different possible pairs of varieties selected on the
basis of morphological characters, Climatic conditions and Nutrients
so as to obtain the most optimal pair that can produce the required
crossbreed variety. An algorithm was developed to determine the
coefficient of parentage (COP) between the selected wheat varieties.
Dummy values were used wherever actual data was not available.