Abstract: The production of activated carbon from low or zero cost of agricultural by-products or wastes has received great attention from academics and practitioners due to its economic and environmental benefits. In the production of bamboo furniture, a significant amount of bamboo waste is inevitably generated. Therefore, this research aimed to prepare activated carbons from bamboo furniture waste by chemical (KOH) activation and determine their properties and adsorption capacities for water treatment. The influence of carbonization time on the properties and adsorption capacities of activated carbons was also investigated. The finding showed that the bamboo-derived activated carbons had microporous characteristics. They exhibited high tendency for the reduction of impurities present in effluent water. Their adsorption capacities were comparable to the adsorption capacity of a commercial activated carbon regarding to the reduction in COD, TDS and turbidity of the effluent water.
Abstract: The problem of Small Area Estimation (SAE) is complex because of various information sources and insufficient data. In this paper, an approach for SAE is presented for decision-making at national, regional and local level. We propose an Empirical Best Linear Unbiased Predictor (EBLUP) as an estimator in order to combine several information sources to evaluate various indicators. First, we present the urban audit project and its environmental, social and economic indicators. Secondly, we propose an approach for decision making in order to estimate indicators. An application is used to validate the theoretical proposal. Finally, a decision support system is presented based on open-source environment.
Abstract: The last years have seen an increasing use of image analysis techniques in the field of biomedical imaging, in particular in microscopic imaging. The basic step for most of the image analysis techniques relies on a background image free of objects of interest, whether they are cells or histological samples, to perform further analysis, such as segmentation or mosaicing. Commonly, this image consists of an empty field acquired in advance. However, many times achieving an empty field could not be feasible. Or else, this could be different from the background region of the sample really being studied, because of the interaction with the organic matter. At last, it could be expensive, for instance in case of live cell analyses. We propose a non parametric and general purpose approach where the background is built automatically stemming from a sequence of images containing even objects of interest. The amount of area, in each image, free of objects just affects the overall speed to obtain the background. Experiments with different kinds of microscopic images prove the effectiveness of our approach.
Abstract: Text categorization techniques are widely used to many Information Retrieval (IR) applications. In this paper, we proposed a simple but efficient method that can automatically find the relationship between any pair of terms and documents, also an indexing matrix is established for text categorization. We call this method Indexing Matrix Categorization Machine (IMCM). Several experiments are conducted to show the efficiency and robust of our algorithm.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a novel concept of relative
distance measurement using Stereo Vision Technology and discuss
its implementation on a FPGA based real-time image processor. We
capture two images using two CCD cameras and compare them.
Disparity is calculated for each pixel using a real time dense disparity
calculation algorithm. This algorithm is based on the concept of
indexed histogram for matching. Disparity being inversely
proportional to distance (Proved Later), we can thus get the relative
distances of objects in front of the camera. The output is displayed on
a TV screen in the form of a depth image (optionally using pseudo
colors). This system works in real time on a full PAL frame rate (720
x 576 active pixels @ 25 fps).
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to compare the time
specification performance between conventional controller PID and
modern controller SMC for an inverted pendulum system. The goal is
to determine which control strategy delivers better performance with
respect to pendulum-s angle and cart-s position. The inverted
pendulum represents a challenging control problem, which
continually moves toward an uncontrolled state. Two controllers are
presented such as Sliding Mode Control (SMC) and Proportional-
Integral-Derivatives (PID) controllers for controlling the highly
nonlinear system of inverted pendulum model. Simulation study has
been done in Matlab Mfile and simulink environment shows that both
controllers are capable to control multi output inverted pendulum
system successfully. The result shows that Sliding Mode Control
(SMC) produced better response compared to PID control strategies
and the responses are presented in time domain with the details
analysis.
Abstract: This paper presented a proposed design for
transcutaneous inductive powering links. The design used to transfer
power and data to the implanted devices such as implanted
Microsystems to stimulate and monitoring the nerves and muscles.
The system operated with low band frequency 13.56 MHZ according
to industrial- scientific – medical (ISM) band to avoid the tissue
heating. For external part, the modulation index is 13 % and the
modulation rate 7.3% with data rate 1 Mbit/s assuming Tbit=1us. The
system has been designed using 0.35-μm fabricated CMOS
technology. The mathematical model is given and the design is
simulated using OrCAD P Spice 16.2 software tool and for real-time
simulation the electronic workbench MULISIM 11 has been used.
The novel circular plane (pancake) coils was simulated using
ANSOFT- HFss software.
Abstract: This paper proposes a three-phase four-wire currentcontrolled
Voltage Source Inverter (CC-VSI) for both power quality
improvement and PV energy extraction. For power quality
improvement, the CC-VSI works as a grid current-controlling shunt
active power filter to compensate for harmonic and reactive power of
loads. Then, the PV array is coupled to the DC bus of the CC-VSI
and supplies active power to the grid. The MPPT controller employs
the particle swarm optimization technique. The output of the MPPT
controller is a DC voltage that determines the DC-bus voltage
according to PV maximum power. The PSO method is simple and
effective especially for a partially shaded PV array. From computer
simulation results, it proves that grid currents are sinusoidal and inphase
with grid voltages, while the PV maximum active power is
delivered to loads.
Abstract: Health problems linked to urban growth are current
major concerns of developing countries. In 2002 and 2005, an
interdisciplinary program “Populations et Espaces ├á Risques
SANitaires" (PERSAN) was set up under the patronage of the
Development and Research Institute. Centered on health in
Cameroon-s urban environment, the program mainly sought to (i)
identify diarrhoea risk factors in Yaoundé, (ii) to measure their
prevalence and apprehend their spatial distribution. The crosssectional
epidemiological study that was carried out revealed a
diarrheic prevalence of 14.4% (437 cases of diarrhoea on the 3,034
children examined). Also, among risk factors studied, household
refuse management methods used by city dwellers were statistically
associated to these diarrhoeas. Moreover, it happened that levels of
diarrhoeal attacks varied consistently from one neighbourhood to
another because of the discrepancy urbanization process of the
Yaoundé metropolis.
Abstract: One of the disadvantages of using OFDM is the larger
peak to averaged power ratio (PAPR) in its time domain signal. The
larger PAPR signal would course the fatal degradation of bit error
rate performance (BER) due to the inter-modulation noise in the nonlinear
channel. This paper proposes an improved DSI (Dummy
Sequence Insertion) method, which can achieve the better PAPR and
BER performances. The feature of proposed method is to optimize
the phase of each dummy sub-carrier so as to reduce the PAPR
performance by changing all predetermined phase coefficients in the
time domain signal, which is calculated for data sub-carriers and
dummy sub-carriers separately. To achieve the better PAPR
performance, this paper also proposes to employ the time-frequency
domain swapping algorithm for fine adjustment of phase coefficient
of the dummy subcarriers, which can achieve the less complexity of
processing and achieves the better PAPR and BER performances
than those for the conventional DSI method. This paper presents
various computer simulation results to verify the effectiveness of
proposed method as comparing with the conventional methods in the
non-linear channel.
Abstract: Recently, there have been an increasing interest in RFID system and RFID systems have been applied to various applications. Load balancing is a fundamental technique for providing scalability of systems by moving workload from overloaded nodes to under-loaded nodes. This paper presents an approach to adaptive load balancing for RFID middlewares. Workloads of RFID middlewares can have a considerable variation according to the location of the connected RFID readers and can abruptly change at a particular instance. The proposed approach considers those characteristics of RFID middle- wares to provide an efficient load balancing.
Abstract: In this paper a tuning fork type structure of Ultra
Wideband (UWB) antenna is proposed. The antenna offers excellent
performance for UWB system, ranging from 3.7 GHz to 13.8 GHz.
The antenna exhibits a 10 dB return loss bandwidth over the entire
frequency band. The rectangular patch antenna is designed on FR4
substrate and fed with 50 ohms microstrip line by optimizing the
width of partial ground, the width and position of the feedline to
operate in UWB. The rectangular patch is then modified to tuning
fork structure by maintaining UWB frequency range.
Abstract: Lung cancer accounts for the most cancer related deaths for men as well as for women. The identification of cancer associated genes and the related pathways are essential to provide an important possibility in the prevention of many types of cancer. In this work two filter approaches, namely the information gain and the biomarker identifier (BMI) are used for the identification of different types of small-cell and non-small-cell lung cancer. A new method to determine the BMI thresholds is proposed to prioritize genes (i.e., primary, secondary and tertiary) using a k-means clustering approach. Sets of key genes were identified that can be found in several pathways. It turned out that the modified BMI is well suited for microarray data and therefore BMI is proposed as a powerful tool for the search for new and so far undiscovered genes related to cancer.
Abstract: Unlike this study focused extensively on trading
behavior of option market, those researches were just taken their
attention to model-driven option pricing. For example, Black-Scholes
(B-S) model is one of the most famous option pricing models.
However, the arguments of B-S model are previously mentioned by
some pricing models reviewing. This paper following suggests the
importance of the dynamic character for option pricing, which is also
the reason why using the genetic algorithm (GA). Because of its
natural selection and species evolution, this study proposed a hybrid
model, the Genetic-BS model which combining GA and B-S to
estimate the price more accurate. As for the final experiments, the
result shows that the output estimated price with lower MAE value
than the calculated price by either B-S model or its enhanced one,
Gram-Charlier garch (G-C garch) model. Finally, this work would
conclude that the Genetic-BS pricing model is exactly practical.
Abstract: Video sensor networks operate on stringent requirements
of latency. Packets have a deadline within which they have
to be delivered. Violation of the deadline causes a packet to be
treated as lost and the loss of packets ultimately affects the quality
of the application. Network latency is typically a function of many
interacting components. In this paper, we propose ways of reducing
the forwarding latency of a packet at intermediate nodes. The
forwarding latency is caused by a combination of processing delay
and queueing delay. The former is incurred in order to determine the
next hop in dynamic routing. We show that unless link failures in a
very specific and unlikely pattern, a vast majority of these lookups
are redundant. To counter this we propose source routing as the
routing strategy. However, source routing suffers from issues related
to scalability and being impervious to network dynamics. We propose
solutions to counter these and show that source routing is definitely
a viable option in practical sized video networks. We also propose a
fast and fair packet scheduling algorithm that reduces queueing delay
at the nodes. We support our claims through extensive simulation on
realistic topologies with practical traffic loads and failure patterns.
Abstract: Developing a supply chain management (SCM) system is costly, but important. However, because of its complicated nature, not many of such projects are considered successful. Few research publications directly relate to key success factors (KSFs) for implementing a SCM system. Motivated by the above, this research proposes a hierarchy of KSFs for SCM system implementation in the semiconductor industry by using a two-step approach. First, the literature review indicates the initial hierarchy. The second step includes a focus group approach to finalize the proposed KSF hierarchy by extracting valuable experiences from executives and managers that actively participated in a project, which successfully establish a seamless SCM integration between the world's largest semiconductor foundry manufacturing company and the world's largest assembly and testing company. Future project executives may refer the resulting KSF hierarchy as a checklist for SCM system implementation in semiconductor or related industries.
Abstract: This paper at first presents approximate analytical
solutions for systems of fractional differential equations using the
differential transform method. The application of differential
transform method, developed for differential equations of integer
order, is extended to derive approximate analytical solutions of
systems of fractional differential equations. The solutions of our
model equations are calculated in the form of convergent series with
easily computable components. After that a drive-response
synchronization method with linear output error feedback is
presented for “generalized projective synchronization" for a class of
fractional-order chaotic systems via a scalar transmitted signal.
Genesio_Tesi and Duffing systems are used to illustrate the
effectiveness of the proposed synchronization method.
Abstract: The basis of examines is survey of 500 in the years
2002-2010, which was selected according to homogeneity of land
cover and where 1090 revenues were evaluated. For achieved yields
of winter wheat is obtained multicriterial regression function
depending on the major factors influencing the consumption of
nitrogen. The coefficient of discrimination of the established model is
0.722. The increase in efficiency of fertilization is involved in supply
of organic nutrients, tillage, soil pH, past weather, the humus content
in the subsoil and grain content to 0.001 mm. The decrease in
efficiency was mainly influenced by the total dose of mineral
nitrogen, although it was divided into multiple doses, the proportion
loamy particles up to 0.01 mm, rainy, or conversely dry weather
during the vegetation. The efficiency of nitrogen was found to be the
smallest on undeveloped soils and the highest on chernozem and
alluvial soils.
Abstract: Nowadays, many manufacturing companies try to
reinforce their competitiveness or find a breakthrough by considering
collaboration. In Korea, more than 900 manufacturing companies are
using web-based collaboration systems developed by the
government-led project, referred to as i-Manufacturing. The system
supports some similar functions of Product Data Management (PDM)
as well as Project Management System (PMS). A web-based
collaboration system provides many useful functions for collaborative
works. This system, however, does not support new linking services
between buyers and suppliers. Therefore, in order to find new
collaborative partners, this paper proposes a framework which creates
new connections between buyers and suppliers facilitating their
collaboration, referred to as Excellent Manufacturer Scouting System
(EMSS). EMSS plays a role as a bridge between overseas buyers and
suppliers. As a part of study on EMSS, we also propose an evaluation
method of manufacturability of potential partners with six main factors.
Based on the results of evaluation, buyers may get a good guideline to
choose their new partners before getting into negotiation processes
with them.
Abstract: The goal of this work is to describe a new algorithm for finding the optimal variable order, number of nodes for any order and other ROBDD parameters, based on a tabular method. The tabular method makes use of a pre-built backend database table that stores the ROBDD size for selected combinations of min-terms. The user uses the backend table and the proposed algorithm to find the necessary ROBDD parameters, such as best variable order, number of nodes etc. Experimental results on benchmarks are given for this technique.