Abstract: In this paper a novel method was presented for
evaluating the fabric pills using digital image processing techniques. This work provides a novel technique for
detecting pills and also measuring their heights, surfaces and
volumes. Surely, measuring the intensity of defects by human vision is an inaccurate method for quality control; as a result, this problem became a motivation for employing digital image processing techniques for detection of defects of fabric
surface. In the former works, the systems were just limited to measuring of the surface of defects, but in the presented
method the height and the volume of defects were also
measured, which leads to a more accurate quality control. An algorithm was developed to first, find pills and then measure their average intensity by using three criteria of height, surface
and volume. The results showed a meaningful relation
between the number of rotations and the quality of pilled fabrics.
Abstract: The main objectives of this paper are to measure
pollutants concentrations in the oil refinery area in Kuwait over three
periods during one year, obtain recent emission inventory for the
three refineries of Kuwait, use AERMOD and the emission inventory
to predict pollutants concentrations and distribution, compare model
predictions against measured data, and perform numerical
experiments to determine conditions at which emission rates and the
resulting pollutant dispersion is below maximum allowable limits.
Abstract: Mechanical and water transport properties of high
performance concrete (HPC) containing natural zeolite as partial
replacement of Portland cement are studied. Experimental results
show that in the investigated mixes the use of natural zeolite leads to
an increase of porosity, decrease of compressive strength and
increase of moisture diffusivity and water vapor diffusion coefficient,
as compared with the reference HPC. However, for the replacement
level up to 20% of the mass of Portland cement the concretes still
maintain their high performance character and exhibit acceptable
water transport properties. Therefore, natural zeolite can be
considered an environmental friendly binder with a potential to
replace a part of Portland cement in concrete in building industry.
Abstract: Knowledge about the magnetic quantities in a magnetic circuit is always of great interest. On the one hand, this information is needed for the simulation of a transformer. On the other hand, parameter studies are more reliable, if the magnetic quantities are derived from a well established model. One possibility to model the 3-phase transformer is by using a magnetic equivalent circuit (MEC). Though this is a well known system, it is often not an easy task to set up such a model for a large number of lumped elements which additionally includes the nonlinear characteristic of the magnetic material. Here we show the setup of a solver for a MEC and the results of the calculation in comparison to measurements taken. The equations of the MEC are based on a rearranged system of the nodal analysis. Thus it is possible to achieve a minimum number of equations, and a clear and simple structure. Hence, it is uncomplicated in its handling and it supports the iteration process. Additional helpful tasks are implemented within the solver to enhance the performance. The electric circuit is described by an electric equivalent circuit (EEC). Our results for the 3-phase transformer demonstrate the computational efficiency of the solver, and show the benefit of the application of a MEC.
Abstract: A theoretical study is conducted to design and explore
the effect of different parameters such as heat loads, the tube size of
piping system, wick thickness, porosity and hole size on the
performance and capability of a Loop Heat Pipe(LHP). This paper
presents a steady state model that describes the different phenomena
inside a LHP. Loop Heat Pipes(LHPs) are two-phase heat transfer
devices with capillary pumping of a working fluid. By their original
design comparing with heat pipes and special properties of the
capillary structure, they-re capable of transferring heat efficiency for
distances up to several meters at any orientation in the gravity field,
or to several meters in a horizontal position. This theoretical model is
described by different relations to satisfy important limits such as
capillary and nucleate boiling. An algorithm is developed to predict
the size of the LHP satisfying the limitations mentioned above for a
wide range of applied loads. Finally, to assess and evaluate the
algorithm and all the relations considered, we have used to design a
new kind of LHP to recover the heat from the exhaust of an actual
Gas Turbine. By finding the results, it showed that we can use the
LHP as a very high efficient device to recover the heat even in high
amount of loads(exhaust of a gas turbine). The sizes of all parts of the
LHP were obtained using the developed algorithm.
Abstract: A new method of adaptation in a partially integrated learning environment that includes electronic textbook (ET) and integrated tutoring system (ITS) is described. The algorithm of adaptation is described in detail. It includes: establishment of Interconnections of operations and concepts; estimate of the concept mastering level (for all concepts); estimate of student-s non-mastering level on the current learning step of information on each page of ET; creation of a rank-order list of links to the e-manual pages containing information that require repeated work.
Abstract: Switched-mode converters play now a significant role in
modern society. Their operation are often crucial in various electrical
applications affecting the every day life. Therefore, the quality of
the converters needs to be reliably verified. Recent studies have
shown that the converters can be fully characterized by a set of
frequency responses which can be efficiently used to validate the
proper operation of the converters. Consequently, several methods
have been proposed to measure the frequency responses fast and
accurately. Most often correlation-based techniques have been applied.
The presented measurement methods are highly sensitive to
external errors and system nonlinearities. This fact has been often
forgotten and the necessary uncertainty analysis of the measured
responses has been neglected. This paper presents a simple approach
to analyze the noise and nonlinearities in the frequency-response
measurements of switched-mode converters. Coherence analysis is
applied to form a confidence interval characterizing the noise and
nonlinearities involved in the measurements. The presented method is
verified by practical measurements from a high-frequency switchedmode
converter.
Abstract: The values of managers and employees in organizations are phenomena that have captured the interest of researchers at large. Despite this attention, there continues to be a lack of agreement on what values are and how they influence individuals, or how they are constituted in individuals- mind. In this article content-based approach is presented as alternative reference frame for exploring values. In content-based approach human thinking in different contexts is set at the focal point. Differences in valuations can be explained through the information contents of mental representations. In addition to the information contents, attention is devoted to those cognitive processes through which mental representations of values are constructed. Such informational contents are in decisive role for understanding human behavior. By applying content-based analysis to an examination of values as mental representations, it is possible to reach a deeper to the motivational foundation of behaviors, such as decision making in organizational procedures, through understanding the structure and meanings of specific values at play.
Abstract: Granular computing deals with representation of information in the form of some aggregates and related methods for transformation and analysis for problem solving. A granulation scheme based on clustering and Rough Set Theory is presented with focus on structured conceptualization of information has been presented in this paper. Experiments for the proposed method on four labeled data exhibit good result with reference to classification problem. The proposed granulation technique is semi-supervised imbibing global as well as local information granulation. To represent the results of the attribute oriented granulation a tree structure is proposed in this paper.
Abstract: The main focus of this paper is on the human induced
forces. Almost all existing force models for this type of load (defined
either in the time or frequency domain) are developed from the
assumption of perfect periodicity of the force and are based on force
measurements conducted on rigid (i.e. high frequency) surfaces. To
verify the different authors conclusions the vertical pressure
measurements invoked during the walking was performed, using
pressure gauges in various configurations. The obtained forces are
analyzed using Fourier transformation. This load is often decisive in
the design of footbridges. Design criteria and load models proposed
by widely used standards and other researchers were introduced and a
comparison was made.
Abstract: Numerous experimental tests for post-installed anchor systems drilled in hardened concrete were conducted in order to estimate pull-out and shear strength accounting for uncertainties such as torque ratios, embedment depths and different diameters in demands. In this study, the strength of the systems was significantly changed by the effect of those three uncertainties during pull-out experimental tests, whereas the shear strength of the systems was not affected by torque ratios. It was also shown that concrete cone failure or damage mechanism was generally investigated during and after pull-out tests and in shear strength tests, mostly the anchor systems were failed prior to failure of primary structural system. Furthermore, 3D finite element model for the anchor systems was created by ABAQUS for the numerical analysis. The verification of finite element model was identical till the failure points to the load-displacement relationship specified by the experimental tests.
Abstract: Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) combined
with the Confocal Microscopy, as a noninvasive method, permits the
determinations of materials defects in the ceramic layers depth. For
this study 256 anterior and posterior metal and integral ceramic fixed
partial dentures were used, made with Empress (Ivoclar), Wollceram
and CAD/CAM (Wieland) technology. For each investigate area 350
slices were obtain and a 3D reconstruction was perform from each
stuck. The Optical Coherent Tomography, as a noninvasive method,
can be used as a control technique in integral ceramic technology,
before placing those fixed partial dentures in the oral cavity. The
purpose of this study is to evaluate the capability of En face Optical
Coherence Tomography (OCT) combined with a fluorescent method
in detection and analysis of possible material defects in metalceramic
and integral ceramic fixed partial dentures. As a conclusion,
it is important to have a non invasive method to investigate fixed
partial prostheses before their insertion in the oral cavity in order to
satisfy the high stress requirements and the esthetic function.
Abstract: Segmentation in ultrasound images is challenging due to the interference from speckle noise and fuzziness of boundaries. In this paper, a segmentation scheme using fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering incorporating both intensity and texture information of images is proposed to extract breast lesions in ultrasound images. Firstly, the nonlinear structure tensor, which can facilitate to refine the edges detected by intensity, is used to extract speckle texture. And then, a spatial FCM clustering is applied on the image feature space for segmentation. In the experiments with simulated and clinical ultrasound images, the spatial FCM clustering with both intensity and texture information gets more accurate results than the conventional FCM or spatial FCM without texture information.
Abstract: Motivated by Microsoft Co. Academic Program
initiative, the department of Information Technology in King Saud
University has adopted Microsoft products in three courses. The
initiative aimed at enhancing the abilities of the university graduates
and equipping them with skills that would help them in the job
market. A number of methods of collecting assessment data were
used to evaluate the course adoption initiative. Assessment data
indicated that the goal of the course adoption is being achieved and
that the students were much better prepared to design applications
and administrate networks.
Abstract: This paper deals with the synthesis of fuzzy state feedback controller of induction motor with optimal performance. First, the Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model is employed to approximate a non linear system in the synchronous d-q frame rotating with electromagnetic field-oriented. Next, a fuzzy controller is designed to stabilise the induction motor and guaranteed a minimum disturbance attenuation level for the closed-loop system. The gains of fuzzy control are obtained by solving a set of Linear Matrix Inequality (LMI). Finally, simulation results are given to demonstrate the controller-s effectiveness.
Abstract: SAD (Sum of Absolute Difference) algorithm is
heavily used in motion estimation which is computationally highly
demanding process in motion picture encoding. To enhance the
performance of motion picture encoding on a VLIW processor, an
efficient implementation of SAD algorithm on the VLIW processor is
essential. SAD algorithm is programmed as a nested loop with a
conditional branch. In VLIW processors, loop is usually optimized by
software pipelining, but researches on optimal scheduling of software
pipelining for nested loops, especially nested loops with conditional
branches are rare. In this paper, we propose an optimal scheduling and
implementation of SAD algorithm with conditional branch on a VLIW
DSP processor. The proposed optimal scheduling first transforms the
nested loop with conditional branch into a single loop with conditional
branch with consideration of full utilization of ILP capability of the
VLIW processor and realization of earlier escape from the loop. Next,
the proposed optimal scheduling applies a modulo scheduling
technique developed for single loop. Based on this optimal scheduling
strategy, optimal implementation of SAD algorithm on TMS320C67x,
a VLIW DSP is presented. Through experiments on TMS320C6713
DSK, it is shown that H.263 encoder with the proposed SAD
implementation performs better than other H.263 encoder with other
SAD implementations, and that the code size of the optimal SAD
implementation is small enough to be appropriate for embedded
environments.
Abstract: This paper proposes a Web service and serviceoriented
architecture (SOA) for a computer-adaptive testing (CAT)
process on e-learning systems. The proposed architecture is
developed to solve an interoperability problem of the CAT process by
using Web service. The proposed SOA and Web service define all
services needed for the interactions between systems in order to
deliver items and essential data from Web service to the CAT Webbased
application. These services are implemented in a XML-based
architecture, platform independence and interoperability between the
Web service and CAT Web-based applications.
Abstract: A clustering is process to identify a homogeneous
groups of object called as cluster. Clustering is one interesting topic
on data mining. A group or class behaves similarly characteristics.
This paper discusses a robust clustering process for data images with
two reduction dimension approaches; i.e. the two dimensional
principal component analysis (2DPCA) and principal component
analysis (PCA). A standard approach to overcome this problem is
dimension reduction, which transforms a high-dimensional data into
a lower-dimensional space with limited loss of information. One of
the most common forms of dimensionality reduction is the principal
components analysis (PCA). The 2DPCA is often called a variant of
principal component (PCA), the image matrices were directly treated
as 2D matrices; they do not need to be transformed into a vector so
that the covariance matrix of image can be constructed directly using
the original image matrices. The decomposed classical covariance
matrix is very sensitive to outlying observations. The objective of
paper is to compare the performance of robust minimizing vector
variance (MVV) in the two dimensional projection PCA (2DPCA)
and the PCA for clustering on an arbitrary data image when outliers
are hiden in the data set. The simulation aspects of robustness and
the illustration of clustering images are discussed in the end of
paper
Abstract: A numerical investigation has carried out to understand the melting characteristics of phase change material (PCM) in a fin type latent heat storage with the addition of embedded aluminum spiral fillers. It is known that melting performance of PCM can be significantly improved by increasing the number of embedded metallic fins in the latent heat storage system but to certain values where only lead to small improvement in heat transfer rate. Hence, adding aluminum spiral fillers within the fin gap can be an option to improve heat transfer internally. This paper presents extensive computational visualizations on the PCM melting patterns of the proposed fin-spiral fillers configuration. The aim of this investigation is to understand the PCM-s melting behaviors by observing the natural convection currents movement and melting fronts formation. Fluent 6.3 simulation software was utilized in producing twodimensional visualizations of melting fractions, temperature distributions and flow fields to illustrate the melting process internally. The results show that adding aluminum spiral fillers in Fin type latent heat storage can promoted small but more active natural convection currents and improve melting of PCM.
Abstract: In managing healthcare logistics, cost is not the only
factor to be considered. The level of items- criticality used in patient
care services plays an important role as well. A stock-out incident of
a high critical item could threaten a patient's life. In this paper, the
DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) methodology is
used to drive improvement projects based on customer driven critical
to quality characteristics at a Jordanian hospital. This paper shows
how the application of Six Sigma improves the performance of the
case hospital logistics system by reducing the number of stock-out
incidents.