Abstract: Internet infrastructures in most places of the world
have been supported by the advancement of optical fiber technology,
most notably wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system.
Optical technology by means of WDM system has revolutionized
long distance data transport and has resulted in high data capacity,
cost reductions, extremely low bit error rate, and operational
simplification of the overall Internet infrastructure. This paper
analyses and compares the system impairments, which occur at data
transmission rates of 2.5Gb/s and 10 Gb/s per wavelength channel in
our proposed optical WDM system for Internet infrastructure in
Tanzania. The results show that the data transmission rate of 2.5 Gb/s
has minimum system impairments compared with a rate of 10 Gb/s
per wavelength channel, and achieves a sufficient system
performance to provide a good Internet access service.
Abstract: There are two types of drought as conceptual drought
and operational drought. The three parameters as the beginning, the
end and the degree of severity of the drought can be identifying in
operational drought by average precipitation in the whole region. One
of the methods classified to measure drought is Reconnaissance
Drought Index (RDI). Evapotranspiration is calculated using
Penman-Monteith method by analyzing thirty nine years prolong
climatic data. The evapotranspiration is then utilized in RDI to
classify normalized and standardized RDI. These RDI classifications
led to what kind of drought faced in Bhavnagar region on 12 month
time scale basis. The comparison between actual drought conditions
and RDI method used to find out drought are also illustrated. It can
be concluded that the index results of drought in a particular year are
same in both methods but having different index values where as
severity remain same.
Abstract: The sanitary sewerage connection rate becomes an
important indicator of advanced cities. Following the construction of
sanitary sewerages, the maintenance and management systems are
required for keeping pipelines and facilities functioning well. These
maintenance tasks often require sewer workers to enter the manholes
and the pipelines, which are confined spaces short of natural
ventilation and full of hazardous substances. Working in sewers could
be easily exposed to a risk of adverse health effects. This paper
proposes the use of Bayesian belief networks (BBN) as a higher level
of noncarcinogenic health risk assessment of sewer workers. On the
basis of the epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance
records and expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the
probabilistic relationships between the hazardous substances in sewers
and their adverse health effects, and accordingly inferring the
morbidity and mortality of the adverse health effects. The provision of
the morbidity and mortality rates of the related diseases is more
informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of conventional methods.
Abstract: The security of power systems against malicious cyberphysical
data attacks becomes an important issue. The adversary
always attempts to manipulate the information structure of the power
system and inject malicious data to deviate state variables while
evading the existing detection techniques based on residual test. The
solutions proposed in the literature are capable of immunizing the
power system against false data injection but they might be too costly
and physically not practical in the expansive distribution network.
To this end, we define an algebraic condition for trustworthy power
system to evade malicious data injection. The proposed protection
scheme secures the power system by deterministically reconfiguring
the information structure and corresponding residual test. More
importantly, it does not require any physical effort in either microgrid
or network level. The identification scheme of finding meters being
attacked is proposed as well. Eventually, a well-known IEEE 30-bus
system is adopted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed
schemes.
Abstract: The request for a sustainable development challenges
both managers and consumers to rethink habitual practices and
activities. While consumers are challenged to develop sustainable
consumption patterns, companies are asked to establish managerial
systems and structures considering economical, ecological, and social
issues. As this is in particular true for housing associations, this paper
aims first, at providing an understanding of sustainability strategy in
residential trade and industry (RTI) by identifying relevant facets of
this construct and second, at conceptually analyzing the impact of
sustainability strategy in RTI on operational efficiency and
performance of municipal housing companies. The author develops a
model of sustainability strategy in RTI and its effects and further,
sheds light in priorities for future research.
Abstract: In this study Vitaton (an organic supplement which
contains fermentative β-carotene) and synthetic astaxanthin
(CAROPHYLL® Pink) were evaluated as pro-growth factors in
Rainbow trout diet. An 8 week feeding trial was conducted to
determine the effects of Vitaton versus astaxanthin on rearing factors,
survival rate and visual flesh color of Rainbow trout
(Oncorhnchynchus mykiss) with initial weight of 196±5. Four
practical diets were formulated to contain 50 and 80 (ppm) of β-
carotene and astaxanthin and also a control diet was prepared without
any pigment. Each diet was fed to triplicate groups of fish rearing in
fresh water. Fish were fed twice daily. The water temperature
fluctuated from 12 to 15 (C˚) and also dissolved oxygen content was
between 7 to 7.5 (mg/lit) during the experimental period. At the end
of the experiment, growth and food utilization parameters and
survival rate were unaffected by dietary treatments (p>0.05). Also,
there was no significant difference between carcass yield within
treatments (p>0.05). No significant difference recognized between
visual flesh color (SalmoFan score) of fish fed Vitaton-containing
diets. On the contrary, feeding on diets containing 50 and 80 (ppm)
of astaxanthin, increased SalmoFan score (flesh astaxanthin
concentration) from
Abstract: The measurement of aerodynamic forces and moments
acting on an aircraft model is important for the development of wind
tunnel measurement technology to predict the performance of the full
scale vehicle. The potentials of an aircraft model with and without
winglet and aerodynamic characteristics with NACA wing No. 65-3-
218 have been studied using subsonic wind tunnel of 1 m × 1 m
rectangular test section and 2.5 m long of Aerodynamics Laboratory
Faculty of Engineering (University Putra Malaysia). Focusing on
analyzing the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft model, two
main issues are studied in this paper. First, a six component wind
tunnel external balance is used for measuring lift, drag and pitching
moment. Secondly, Tests are conducted on the aircraft model with
and without winglet of two configurations at Reynolds numbers
1.7×105, 2.1×105, and 2.5×105 for different angle of attacks. Fuzzy
logic approach is found as efficient for the representation,
manipulation and utilization of aerodynamic characteristics.
Therefore, the primary purpose of this work was to investigate the
relationship between lift and drag coefficients, with free-stream
velocities and angle of attacks, and to illustrate how fuzzy logic
might play an important role in study of lift aerodynamic
characteristics of an aircraft model with the addition of certain
winglet configurations. Results of the developed fuzzy logic were
compared with the experimental results. For lift coefficient analysis,
the mean of actual and predicted values were 0.62 and 0.60
respectively. The coreelation between actual and predicted values
(from FLS model) of lift coefficient in different angle of attack was
found as 0.99. The mean relative error of actual and predicted valus
was found as 5.18% for the velocity of 26.36 m/s which was found to
be less than the acceptable limits (10%). The goodness of fit of
prediction value was 0.95 which was close to 1.0.
Abstract: The fuel cost of the motor vehicle operating on its
common route is an important part of the operating cost. Therefore,
the importance of the fuel saving is increasing day by day. One of the
parameters which improve fuel saving is the regulation of driving
characteristics. The number and duration of stop is increased by the
heavy traffic load. It is possible to improve the fuel saving with
regulation of traffic flow and driving characteristics. The researches
show that the regulation of the traffic flow decreases fuel
consumption, but it is not enough to improve fuel saving without the
regulation of driving characteristics. This study analyses the fuel
consumption of two trips of city bus operating on its common route
and determines the effect of traffic density and driving characteristics
on fuel consumption. Finally it offers some suggestions about
regulation of driving characteristics to improve the fuel saving. Fuel
saving is determined according to the results obtained from
simulation program. When experimental and simulation results are
compared, it has been found that the fuel saving was reached up the
to 40 percent ratios.
Abstract: Coastal resource management, community empowerment and socio economic development are the cornerstones for uplifting the lives of coastal area inhabitants. This paper aims to identify the positive impacts of coastal management projects toward fishermen-s economic well-being, to analyze the role of fishermen and their families in effecting economic change and to analyze the roles of stakeholders in managing coastal resources. Structured and semi-structured questionnaires were prepared to obtain qualitative data, and interviews were conducted with fishermen. Findings show that community empowerment and conservation of coastal resources through local and central government projects have exerted positive impact on the coastal community. Some activities involved women who are more active particularly in “off-fishing" season. Traditionally, local fishermen together with local stakeholders have set up a zoning system to minimize conflicts between fishermen. In addition, zoning is used to protect certain ecosystems that can provide benefits well into the future.
Abstract: Introducing Electromagnetic Interference and Electromagnetic Compatibility, or “The Art of Black Magic", for engineering students might be a terrifying experience both for students and tutors. Removing the obstacle of large, expensive facilities like a fully fitted EMC laboratory and hours of complex theory, this paper demonstrates a design of a laboratory setup for student exercises, giving students experience in the basics of EMC/EMI problems that may challenge the functionality and stability of embedded system designs. This is done using a simple laboratory installation and basic measurement equipment such as a medium cost digital storage oscilloscope, at the cost of not knowing the exact magnitude of the noise components, but rather if the noise is significant or not, as well as the source of the noise. A group of students have performed a trial exercise with good results and feedback.
Abstract: SDMA (Space-Division Multiple Access) is a MIMO
(Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output) based wireless communication
network architecture which has the potential to significantly increase
the spectral efficiency and the system performance. The maximum
likelihood (ML) detection provides the optimal performance, but its
complexity increases exponentially with the constellation size of
modulation and number of users. The QR decomposition (QRD)
MUD can be a substitute to ML detection due its low complexity and
near optimal performance. The minimum mean-squared-error
(MMSE) multiuser detection (MUD) minimises the mean square
error (MSE), which may not give guarantee that the BER of the
system is also minimum. But the minimum bit error rate (MBER)
MUD performs better than the classic MMSE MUD in term of
minimum probability of error by directly minimising the BER cost
function. Also the MBER MUD is able to support more users than
the number of receiving antennas, whereas the rest of MUDs fail in
this scenario. In this paper the performance of various MUD
techniques is verified for the correlated MIMO channel models based
on IEEE 802.16n standard.
Abstract: This paper presents an optimization of the hull
separation, i.e. transverse clearance. The main objective is to identify
the feasible speed ranges and find the optimum transverse clearance
considering the minimum wave-making resistance. The dimensions
and the weight of hardware systems installed in the catamaran
structured fuel cell powered USV (Unmanned Surface Vehicle) were
considered as constraints. As the CAE (Computer Aided Engineering)
platform FRIENDSHIP-Framework was used. The hull surface
modeling, DoE (Design of Experiment), Tangent search optimization,
tool integration and the process automation were performed by
FRIENDSHIP-Framework. The hydrodynamic result was evaluated
by XPAN the potential solver of SHIPFLOW.
Abstract: General as well as the MSW management in Thailand is reviewed in this paper. Topics include the MSW generation, sources, composition, and trends. The review, then, moves to sustainable solutions for MSW management, sustainable alternative approaches with an emphasis on an integrated MSW management. Information of waste in Thailand is also given at the beginning of this paper for better understanding of later contents. It is clear that no one single method of MSW disposal can deal with all materials in an environmentally sustainable way. As such, a suitable approach in MSW management should be an integrated approach that could deliver both environmental and economic sustainability. With increasing environmental concerns, the integrated MSW management system has a potential to maximize the useable waste materials as well as produce energy as a by-product. In Thailand, the compositions of waste (86%) are mainly organic waste, paper, plastic, glass, and metal. As a result, the waste in Thailand is suitable for an integrated MSW management. Currently, the Thai national waste management policy starts to encourage the local administrations to gather into clusters to establish central MSW disposal facilities with suitable technologies and reducing the disposal cost based on the amount of MSW generated.
Abstract: An approach and its implementation in 0.18 m CMOS process of the multichannel ASIC for capacitive (up to 30 pF) sensors are described in the paper. The main design aim was to study an analog data-driven architecture. The design was done for an analog derandomizing function of the 128 to 16 structure. That means that the ASIC structure should provide a parallel front-end readout of 128 input analog sensor signals and after the corresponding fast commutation with appropriate arbitration logic their processing by means of 16 output chains, including analog-to-digital conversion. The principal feature of the ASIC is a low power consumption within 2 mW/channel (including a 9-bit 20Ms/s ADC) at a maximum average channel hit rate not less than 150 kHz.
Abstract: This paper studies the dependability of componentbased
applications, especially embedded ones, from the diagnosis
point of view. The principle of the diagnosis technique is to
implement inter-component tests in order to detect and locate the
faulty components without redundancy. The proposed approach for
diagnosing faulty components consists of two main aspects. The first
one concerns the execution of the inter-component tests which
requires integrating test functionality within a component. This is the
subject of this paper. The second one is the diagnosis process itself
which consists of the analysis of inter-component test results to
determine the fault-state of the whole system. Advantage of this
diagnosis method when compared to classical redundancy faulttolerant
techniques are application autonomy, cost-effectiveness and
better usage of system resources. Such advantage is very important
for many systems and especially for embedded ones.
Abstract: It is known that symmetric encryption algorithms are
fast and easy to implement in hardware. Also elliptic curves have
proved to be a good choice for building encryption system. Although
most of the symmetric systems have been broken, we can create a
hybrid system that has the same properties of the symmetric
encryption systems and in the same time, it has the strength of
elliptic curves in encryption. As DES algorithm is considered the
core of all successive symmetric encryption systems, we modified
DES using elliptic curves and built a new DES algorithm that is hard
to be broken and will be the core for all other symmetric systems.
Abstract: In this paper, an automated algorithm to estimate and remove the continuous baseline from measured spectra containing both continuous and discontinuous bands is proposed. The algorithm uses previous information contained in a Continuous Database Spectra (CDBS) to obtain a linear basis, with minimum number of sampled vectors, capable of representing a continuous baseline. The proposed algorithm was tested by using a CDBS of flame spectra where Principal Components Analysis and Non-negative Matrix Factorization were used to obtain linear bases. Thus, the radical emissions of natural gas, oil and bio-oil flames spectra at different combustion conditions were obtained. In order to validate the performance in the baseline estimation process, the Goodness-of-fit Coefficient and the Root Mean-squared Error quality metrics were evaluated between the estimated and the real spectra in absence of discontinuous emission. The achieved results make the proposed method a key element in the development of automatic monitoring processes strategies involving discontinuous spectral bands.
Abstract: A long-term campaign for monitoring the
concentration of atmospheric Particulate Matter (PM) was conducted
at multiple sites located in the center and suburbs of the Tokyo
Metropolitan Area in Japan. The concentration of fine PM has shown a
declining trend over the last two decades. A positive matrix
factorization model elucidated that the contribution of combustion
sources was drastically reduced. In Japan, the regulations on vehicle
exhaust emissions were phased in and gradually tightened over the last
two decades, which has triggered a notable reduction in PM emissions
from automobiles and has contributed to the mitigation of the problem
of fine PM pollution.
Abstract: This project focuses on the development of a line
follower algorithm for a Two Wheels Balancing Robot. In this
project, ATMEGA32 is chosen as the brain board controller to react
towards the data received from Balance Processor Chip on the
balance board to monitor the changes of the environment through
two infra-red distance sensor to solve the inclination angle problem.
Hence, the system will immediately restore to the set point (balance
position) through the implementation of internal PID algorithms at
the balance board. Application of infra-red light sensors with the PID
control is vital, in order to develop a smooth line follower robot. As a
result of combination between line follower program and internal self
balancing algorithms, we are able to develop a dynamically
stabilized balancing robot with line follower function.