Abstract: Information on weed distribution within the field is
necessary to implement spatially variable herbicide application.
Since hand labor is costly, an automated weed control system could be
feasible. This paper deals with the development of an algorithm for
real time specific weed recognition system based on Histogram
Analysis of an image that is used for the weed classification. This
algorithm is specifically developed to classify images into broad and
narrow class for real-time selective herbicide application. The
developed system has been tested on weeds in the lab, which have
shown that the system to be very effectiveness in weed identification.
Further the results show a very reliable performance on images of
weeds taken under varying field conditions. The analysis of the results
shows over 95 percent classification accuracy over 140 sample images
(broad and narrow) with 70 samples from each category of weeds.
Abstract: Shippers are concentrating on the core competency to
stay competitive and outsourcing the logistic activities to the third
party who is expert in this field. This third party logistics (3PL) is
drawing the due attention at government, industrial, academicians
and practitioner-s levels. If the logistics cost in India can be brought
down from the current level of 13% of GDP to 9% (level in the U.S.),
the savings would be around Rs 3 lakh crore approximately per
annum. But the problem with the shippers is to select the suitable
3PL provider. Various criteria for selection of 3PL have been listed
in the literature which are discussed in the present literature review.
Every shipper will select the criteria suitable to its own requirement
which have to be dynamically reviewed time to time so as to fit in the
ever changing environment.
Abstract: The mitigation of crop loss due to damaging freezes
requires accurate air temperature prediction models. Previous work
established that the Ward-style artificial neural network (ANN) is a
suitable tool for developing such models. The current research
focused on developing ANN models with reduced average prediction
error by increasing the number of distinct observations used in
training, adding additional input terms that describe the date of an
observation, increasing the duration of prior weather data included in
each observation, and reexamining the number of hidden nodes used
in the network. Models were created to predict air temperature at
hourly intervals from one to 12 hours ahead. Each ANN model,
consisting of a network architecture and set of associated parameters,
was evaluated by instantiating and training 30 networks and
calculating the mean absolute error (MAE) of the resulting networks
for some set of input patterns. The inclusion of seasonal input terms,
up to 24 hours of prior weather information, and a larger number of
processing nodes were some of the improvements that reduced
average prediction error compared to previous research across all
horizons. For example, the four-hour MAE of 1.40°C was 0.20°C, or
12.5%, less than the previous model. Prediction MAEs eight and 12
hours ahead improved by 0.17°C and 0.16°C, respectively,
improvements of 7.4% and 5.9% over the existing model at these
horizons. Networks instantiating the same model but with different
initial random weights often led to different prediction errors. These
results strongly suggest that ANN model developers should consider
instantiating and training multiple networks with different initial
weights to establish preferred model parameters.
Abstract: Elastic light single-scattering spectroscopy system
with a single optical fiber probe was employed to differentiate cancerous prostate tissue from non-cancerous prostate tissue ex-vivo just after radical prostatectomy. First, ELSSS spectra were acquired
from cancerous prostate tissue to define its spectral features. Then,
spectra were acquired from normal prostate tissue to define difference in spectral features between the cancerous and normal
prostate tissues. Of the total 66 tissue samples were evaluated from
nine patients by ELSSS system. Comparing of histopathology results
and ELSSS measurements revealed that sign of the spectral slopes of
cancerous prostate tissue is negative and non-cancerous tissue is positive in the wavelength range from 450 to 750 nm. Based on the
correlation between histopathology results and sign of the spectral
slopes, ELSSS system differentiates cancerous prostate tissue from
non- cancerous with a sensitivity of 0.95 and a specificity of 0.94.
Abstract: The Brazilian Agricultural Products Wholesale Market fits well as example of residues generating system, reaching 750 metric tons per month of total residues, from which 600 metric tons are organic material and 150 metric tons are recyclable materials. Organic material is basically composed of fruit, vegetables and flowers leftovers from the products commercialization. The recyclable compounds are generate from packing material employed in the commercialization process. This research work devoted efforts in carrying quantitative analysis of the residues generated in the agricultural enterprise at its final destination. Data survey followed the directions implemented by the Residues Management Program issued by the agricultural enterprise. It was noticed from that analysis the necessity of changing the logistics applied to the recyclable material collecting process. However, composting process was elected as the organic compounds destination which is considered adequate for a material composed of significant percentage of organic matter far higher than wood, cardboard and plastics contents.
Abstract: The tracing methods determine the contribution the
power system sources have in their supplying. These methods can be
used to assess the transmission prices, but also to recover the
transmission fixed cost. In this paper is presented the influence of the
modification of commons structure has on the specific price of transfer
and on active power losses. The authors propose a power losses
allocation method, based on Kirschen-s method. The system operator
must make use of a few basic principles about allocation. The only
necessary information is the power flows on system branches and the
modifications applied to power system buses. In order to illustrate this
method, the 25-bus test system is used, elaborated within the Electrical
Power Engineering Department, from Timisoara, Romania.
Abstract: In the various working field, vibration may cause injurious to human body. Especially, in case of the vibration which is constantly and repeatedly transferred to the human. That gives serious physical problem, so called, Reynaud phenomenon. In this paper, we propose a vibration transmissibility reduction module with flexure mechanism for personal tools. At first, we select a target personal tool, grass cutter, and measure the level of vibration transmissibility on the hand. And then, we develop the concept design of the module that has stiffness for reduction the vibration transmissibility more than 20%, where the vibration transmissibility is measured with an accelerometer. In addition, the vibration reduction can be enhanced when the interior gap between inner and outer body is filled with silicone gel. This will be verified by the further experiment.
Abstract: Architecture education was based on apprenticeship
models and its nature has not changed much during long period but
the Source of changes was its evaluation process and system. It is
undeniable that art and architecture education is completely based on
transmitting knowledge from instructor to students. In contrast to
other majors this transmitting is by iteration and practice and studio
masters try to control the design process and improving skills in the
form of supervision and criticizing. Also the evaluation will end by
giving marks to students- achievements. Therefore the importance of
the evaluation and assessment role is obvious and it is not irrelevant
to say that if we want to know about the architecture education
system, we must first study its assessment procedures. The evolution
of these changes in western countries has literate and documented
well. However it seems that this procedure has unregarded in
Malaysia and there is a severe lack of research and documentation in
this area. Malaysia as an under developing and multicultural country
which is involved different races and cultures is a proper origin for
scrutinizing and understanding the evaluation systems and
acceptability amount of current implemented models to keep the
evaluation and assessment procedure abreast with needs of different
generations, cultures and even genders. This paper attempts to
answer the questions of how evaluation and assessments are
performed and how students perceive this evaluation system in the
context Malaysia. The main advantage of this work is that it
contributes in international debate on evaluation model.
Abstract: This paper aims to fabricated high quality anodic
aluminum oxide (AAO) film by anodization method. AAO pore size,
pore density, and film thickness can be controlled in 10~500 nm,
108~1011 pore．cm-2, and 1~100 μm. AAO volume and surface area can
be computed based on structural parameters such as thickness, pore
size, pore density, and sample size. Base on the thetorical calculation,
AAO has 100 μm thickness with 15 nm, 60 nm, and 500 nm pore
diameters AAO surface areas are 1225.2 cm2, 3204.4 cm2, and 549.7
cm2, respectively. The large unit surface area which is useful for
adsorption application. When AAO adsorbed pH indictor of
bromphenol blue presented a sensitive pH detection of solution
change. This testing method can further be used for the precise
measurement of biotechnology, convenience measurement of
industrial engineering.
Abstract: Feed is one of the factors which play an important role in determining a successful development of an aquaculture industry. It is always critical to produce the best aquaculture diet at a minimum cost in order to trim down the operational cost and gain more profit. However, the feed mix problem becomes increasingly difficult since many issues need to be considered simultaneously. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to review the current techniques used by nutritionist and researchers to tackle the issues. Additionally, this paper introduce an enhance algorithm which is deemed suitable to deal with all the issues arise. The proposed technique refers to Hybrid Genetic Algorithm which is expected to obtain the minimum cost diet for farmed animal, while satisfying nutritional requirements. Hybrid GA technique with artificial bee algorithm is expected to reduce the penalty function and provide a better solution for the feed mix problem.
Abstract: The automatic discrimination of seismic signals is an important practical goal for earth-science observatories due to the large amount of information that they receive continuously. An essential discrimination task is to allocate the incoming signal to a group associated with the kind of physical phenomena producing it. In this paper, two classes of seismic signals recorded routinely in geophysical laboratory of the National Center for Scientific and Technical Research in Morocco are considered. They correspond to signals associated to local earthquakes and chemical explosions. The approach adopted for the development of an automatic discrimination system is a modular system composed by three blocs: 1) Representation, 2) Dimensionality reduction and 3) Classification. The originality of our work consists in the use of a new wavelet called "modified Mexican hat wavelet" in the representation stage. For the dimensionality reduction, we propose a new algorithm based on the random projection and the principal component analysis.
Abstract: Grid scheduling is the process of mapping grid jobs to resources over multiple administrative domains. Traditionally, application-level schedulers have been tightly integrated with the application itself and were not easily applied to other applications. This design is generic that decouples the scheduler core (the search procedure) from the application-specific (e.g. application performance models) and platform-specific (e.g. collection of resource information) components used by the search procedure. In this decoupled approach the application details are not revealed completely to broker, but customer will give the application to resource provider for execution. In a decoupled approach, apart from scheduling, the resource selection can be performed independently in order to achieve scalability.
Abstract: This research presents the development of simulation
modeling for WIP management in semiconductor fabrication.
Manufacturing simulation modeling is needed for productivity
optimization analysis due to the complex process flows involved
more than 35 percent re-entrance processing steps more than 15 times
at same equipment. Furthermore, semiconductor fabrication required
to produce high product mixed with total processing steps varies from
300 to 800 steps and cycle time between 30 to 70 days. Besides the
complexity, expansive wafer cost that potentially impact the
company profits margin once miss due date is another motivation to
explore options to experiment any analysis using simulation
modeling. In this paper, the simulation model is developed using
existing commercial software platform AutoSched AP, with
customized integration with Manufacturing Execution Systems
(MES) and Advanced Productivity Family (APF) for data collections
used to configure the model parameters and data source. Model
parameters such as processing steps cycle time, equipment
performance, handling time, efficiency of operator are collected
through this customization. Once the parameters are validated, few
customizations are made to ensure the prior model is executed. The
accuracy for the simulation model is validated with the actual output
per day for all equipments. The comparison analysis from result of
the simulation model compared to actual for achieved 95 percent
accuracy for 30 days. This model later was used to perform various
what if analysis to understand impacts on cycle time and overall
output. By using this simulation model, complex manufacturing
environment like semiconductor fabrication (fab) now have
alternative source of validation for any new requirements impact
analysis.
Abstract: This study reports the preparation of soft magnetic
ribbons of Fe-based amorphous alloys using the single-roller melt-spinning technique. Ribbon width varied from 142 mm to 213
mm and, with a thickness of approximately 22 μm ± 2 μm. The microstructure and magnetic properties of the ribbons were
characterized by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and electrical resistivity measurements (ERM). The amorphous material
properties dependence of the cooling rate and nozzle pressure have uneven surface in ribbon thicknesses are investigated. Magnetic
measurement results indicate that some region of the ribbon exhibits good magnetic properties, higher saturation induction and lower coercivity. However, due to the uneven surface of 213 mm wide
ribbon, the magnetic responses are not uniformly distributed. To
understand the transformer magnetic performances, this study analyzes the measurements of a three-phase 2 MVA amorphous-cored transformer. Experimental results confirm that the transformer with a
ribbon width of 142 mm has better magnetic properties in terms of lower core loss, exciting power, and audible noise.
Abstract: The concept of housing affordability is a contested
issue, but a pressing and widespread problem for many countries.
Simple ratio measures based on housing expenditure and income are
habitually used to defined and assess housing affordability. However,
conceptualising and measuring affordability in this manner focuses
only on financial attributes and fails to deal with wider issues such as
housing quality, location and access to services and facilities.
The research is based on the notion that the housing affordability
problem encompasses more than the financial costs of housing and a
households ability to meet such costs and must address larger issues
such as social and environmental sustainability and the welfare of
households. Therefore, the need arises for a broad and more
encompassing set of attributes by which housing affordability can be
assessed. This paper presents a system of criteria by which the
affordability of different housing locations could be assessed in a
comprehensive and sustainable manner. Moreover, the paper explores
the way in which such criteria could be measured.
Abstract: This paper reports the study results on neural network
training algorithm of numerical optimization techniques multiface
detection in static images. The training algorithms involved are scale
gradient conjugate backpropagation, conjugate gradient
backpropagation with Polak-Riebre updates, conjugate gradient
backpropagation with Fletcher-Reeves updates, one secant
backpropagation and resilent backpropagation. The final result of
each training algorithms for multiface detection application will also
be discussed and compared.
Abstract: “Dengue" is an African word meaning “bone
breaking" because it causes severe joint and muscle pain that feels
like bones are breaking. It is an infectious disease mainly transmitted
by female mosquito, Aedes aegypti, and causes four serotypes of
dengue viruses. In recent years, a dramatic increase in the dengue
fever confirmed cases around the equator-s belt has been reported.
Several conventional indices have been designed so far to monitor the
transmitting vector populations known as House Index (HI),
Container Index (CI), Breteau Index (BI). However, none of them
describes the adult mosquito population size which is important to
direct and guide comprehensive control strategy operations since
number of infected people has a direct relationship with the vector
density. Therefore, it is crucial to know the population size of the
transmitting vector in order to design a suitable and effective control
program. In this context, a study is carried out to report a new
statistical index, ABURAS Index, using Poisson distribution based
on the collection of vector population in Jeddah Governorate, Saudi Arabia.
Abstract: Location selection is one of the most important
decision making process which requires to consider several criteria
based on the mission and the strategy. This study-s object is to
provide a decision support model in order to help the bank selecting
the most appropriate location for a bank-s branch considering a case
study in Turkey. The object of the bank is to select the most
appropriate city for opening a branch among six alternatives in the
South-Eastern of Turkey. The model in this study was consisted of
five main criteria which are Demographic, Socio-Economic, Sectoral
Employment, Banking and Trade Potential and twenty one subcriteria
which represent the bank-s mission and strategy. Because of
the multi-criteria structure of the problem and the fuzziness in the
comparisons of the criteria, fuzzy AHP is used and for the ranking of
the alternatives, TOPSIS method is used.
Abstract: In the present research, two nutraceuticals made from
red grape and walnut that showed previously to improve kidney
dysfunction were incorporated separately into functional foods' bread
made from barley and rice bran. The functional foods were evaluated
in rats in which chronic renal failure was induced through feeding
diet rich in adenine and phosphate (APD). The evaluation based on
assessing kidney function, oxidative stress, inflammatory biomarkers
and body weight gain. Results showed induction of chronic kidney
failure reflected in significant increase in plasma urea, creatinine,
malondialdehyde, tumor necrosis factor- α and low density
lipoprotein cholesterol along with significant reduction of plasma
albumin, and total antioxidant and creatinine clearance and body
weight gain on feeding APD compared to control healthy group.
Feeding the functional foods produced amelioration in the different
biochemical parameters and body weight gain indicating
improvement in kidney function.
Abstract: A dual-reciprocity boundary element method is presented
for the numerical solution of a class of axisymmetric elastodynamic
problems. The domain integrals that arise in the integrodifferential
formulation are converted to line integrals by using the
dual-reciprocity method together suitably constructed interpolating
functions. The second order time derivatives of the displacement
in the governing partial differential equations are suppressed by
using Laplace transformation. In the Laplace transform domain, the
problem under consideration is eventually reduced to solving a system
of linear algebraic equations. Once the linear algebraic equations are
solved, the displacement and stress fields in the physical domain can
be recovered by using a numerical technique for inverting Laplace
transforms.