A Modified Cross Correlation in the Frequency Domain for Fast Pattern Detection Using Neural Networks

Recently, neural networks have shown good results for detection of a certain pattern in a given image. In our previous papers [1-5], a fast algorithm for pattern detection using neural networks was presented. Such algorithm was designed based on cross correlation in the frequency domain between the input image and the weights of neural networks. Image conversion into symmetric shape was established so that fast neural networks can give the same results as conventional neural networks. Another configuration of symmetry was suggested in [3,4] to improve the speed up ratio. In this paper, our previous algorithm for fast neural networks is developed. The frequency domain cross correlation is modified in order to compensate for the symmetric condition which is required by the input image. Two new ideas are introduced to modify the cross correlation algorithm. Both methods accelerate the speed of the fast neural networks as there is no need for converting the input image into symmetric one as previous. Theoretical and practical results show that both approaches provide faster speed up ratio than the previous algorithm.

Analytical Study of Sedimentation Formation in Lined Canals using the SHARC Software- A Case Study of the Western Intake Structure in Dez Diversion Weir in Dezful, Iran

Sedimentation is a hydraulic phenomenon that is emerging as a serious challenge in river engineering. When the flow reaches a certain state that gather potential energy, it shifts the sediment load along channel bed. The transport of such materials can be in the form of suspended and bed loads. The movement of these along the river course and channels and the ways in which this could influence the water intakes is considered as the major challenges for sustainable O&M of hydraulic structures. This could be very serious in arid and semi-arid regions like Iran, where inappropriate watershed management could lead to shifting a great deal of sediments into the reservoirs and irrigation systems. This paper aims to investigate sedimentation in the Western Canal of Dez Diversion Weir in Iran, identifying factors which influence the process and provide ways in which to mitigate its detrimental effects by using the SHARC Software. For the purpose of this paper, data from the Dezful water authority and Dezful Hydrometric Station pertinent to a river course of about 6 Km were used. Results estimated sand and silt bed loads concentrations to be 193 ppm and 827ppm respectively. Given the available data on average annual bed loads and average suspended sediment loads of 165ppm and 837ppm, there was a significant statistical difference (16%) between the sand grains, whereas no significant difference (1.2%) was find in the silt grain sizes. One explanation for such finding being that along the 6 Km river course there was considerable meandering effects which explains recent shift in the hydraulic behavior along the stream course under investigation. The sand concentration in downstream relative to present state of the canal showed a steep descending curve. Sediment trapping on the other hand indicated a steep ascending curve. These occurred because the diversion weir was not considered in the simulation model.

Electromagnetic Imaging of Inhomogeneous Dielectric Cylinders Buried in a Slab Mediumby TE Wave Illumination

The electromagnetic imaging of inhomogeneous dielectric cylinders buried in a slab medium by transverse electric (TE) wave illumination is investigated. Dielectric cylinders of unknown permittivities are buried in second space and scattered a group of unrelated waves incident from first space where the scattered field is recorded. By proper arrangement of the various unrelated incident fields, the difficulties of ill-posedness and nonlinearity are circumvented, and the permittivity distribution can be reconstructed through simple matrix operations. The algorithm is based on the moment method and the unrelated illumination method. Numerical results are given to demonstrate the capability of the inverse algorithm. Good reconstruction is obtained even in the presence of additive Gaussian random noise in measured data. In addition, the effect of noise on the reconstruction result is also investigated.

Wavelet-Based Data Compression Technique for Wireless Sensor Networks

In this paper, we proposed an efficient data compression strategy exploiting the multi-resolution characteristic of the wavelet transform. We have developed a sensor node called “Smart Sensor Node; SSN". The main goals of the SSN design are lightweight, minimal power consumption, modular design and robust circuitry. The SSN is made up of four basic components which are a sensing unit, a processing unit, a transceiver unit and a power unit. FiOStd evaluation board is chosen as the main controller of the SSN for its low costs and high performance. The software coding of the implementation was done using Simulink model and MATLAB programming language. The experimental results show that the proposed data compression technique yields recover signal with good quality. This technique can be applied to compress the collected data to reduce the data communication as well as the energy consumption of the sensor and so the lifetime of sensor node can be extended.

CFD Modeling of High Temperature Seal Chamber

The purpose of this work is fast design optimization of the seal chamber. The study includes the mass transfer between lower and upper chamber on seal chamber for hot water application pumps. The use of Fluent 12.1 commercial code made it possible to capture complex flow with heat-mass transfer, radiation, Tailor instability, and buoyancy effect. Realizable k-epsilon model was used for turbulence modeling. Radiation heat losses were taken into account. The temperature distribution at seal region is predicted with respect to heat addition. Results show the possibilities of the model simplifications by excluding the water domain in low chamber from calculations. CFD simulations permit to improve seal chamber design to meet target water temperature around the seal. This study can be used for the analysis of different seal chamber configurations.

DODR : Delay On-Demand Routing

As originally designed for wired networks, TCP (transmission control protocol) congestion control mechanism is triggered into action when packet loss is detected. This implicit assumption for packet loss mostly due to network congestion does not work well in Mobile Ad Hoc Network, where there is a comparatively high likelihood of packet loss due to channel errors and node mobility etc. Such non-congestion packet loss, when dealt with by congestion control mechanism, causes poor TCP performance in MANET. In this study, we continue to investigate the impact of the interaction between transport protocols and on-demand routing protocols on the performance and stability of 802.11 multihop networks. We evaluate the important wireless networking events caused routing change, and propose a cross layer method to delay the unnecessary routing changes, only need to add a sensitivity parameter α , which represents the on-demand routing-s reaction to link failure of MAC layer. Our proposal is applicable to the plain 802.11 networking environment, the simulation results that this method can remarkably improve the stability and performance of TCP without any modification on TCP and MAC protocol.

IAS 41 Implementation Challenges – The Case of Romania

Although agriculture is an important part of the world economy, accounting in agriculture still has many shortcomings. The adoption of IAS 41 “Agriculture” has tried to improve this situation and increase the comparability of financial statements of entities in the agricultural sector. Although controversial, IAS 41 is the first step of a consistent transition to fair value assessment in the agricultural sector. The objective of our work is the analysis of IAS 41 and current accounting agricultural situation in Romania. Accounting regulations in Romania are in accordance with European directives and, in many respects, converged with IFRS referential. Provisions of IAS 41, however, are not reflected directly in Romanian regulations. With the increase of forest land transactions, it is expected that recognition and measurement of biological assets under IAS 41 to become a necessity.

RF Power Consumption Emulation Optimized with Interval Valued Homotopies

This paper presents a methodology towards the emulation of the electrical power consumption of the RF device during the cellular phone/handset transmission mode using the LTE technology. The emulation methodology takes the physical environmental variables and the logical interface between the baseband and the RF system as inputs to compute the emulated power dissipation of the RF device. The emulated power, in between the measured points corresponding to the discrete values of the logical interface parameters is computed as a polynomial interpolation using polynomial basis functions. The evaluation of polynomial and spline curve fitting models showed a respective divergence (test error) of 8% and 0.02% from the physically measured power consumption. The precisions of the instruments used for the physical measurements have been modeled as intervals. We have been able to model the power consumption of the RF device operating at 5MHz using homotopy between 2 continuous power consumptions of the RF device operating at the bandwidths 3MHz and 10MHz.

Operational- Economics Based Evaluation And Selection of A Power Plant Using Graph Theoretic Approach

This paper presents a methodology for operational and economic characteristics based evaluation and selection of a power plant using Graph theoretic approach. A universal evaluation index on the basis of Operational and economics characteristics of a plant is proposed which evaluates and ranks the various types of power plants. The index thus obtained from the pool of operational characteristics of the power plant attributes Digraph. The Digraph is developed considering Operational and economics attributes of the power plants and their relative importance for their smooth operation, installation and commissioning and prioritizing their selection. The sensitivity analysis of the attributes towards the objective has also been carried out in order to study the impact of attributes over the desired outcome i.e. the universal operational-economics index of the power plant.

Computing Fractal Dimension of Signals using Multiresolution Box-counting Method

In this paper, we have developed a method to compute fractal dimension (FD) of discrete time signals, in the time domain, by modifying the box-counting method. The size of the box is dependent on the sampling frequency of the signal. The number of boxes required to completely cover the signal are obtained at multiple time resolutions. The time resolutions are made coarse by decimating the signal. The loglog plot of total number of boxes required to cover the curve versus size of the box used appears to be a straight line, whose slope is taken as an estimate of FD of the signal. The results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method using parametric fractal signals. The estimation accuracy of the method is compared with that of Katz, Sevcik, and Higuchi methods. In addition, some properties of the FD are discussed.

The Utility of Wavelet Transform in Surface Electromyography Feature Extraction -A Comparative Study of Different Mother Wavelets

Electromyography (EMG) signal processing has been investigated remarkably regarding various applications such as in rehabilitation systems. Specifically, wavelet transform has served as a powerful technique to scrutinize EMG signals since wavelet transform is consistent with the nature of EMG as a non-stationary signal. In this paper, the efficiency of wavelet transform in surface EMG feature extraction is investigated from four levels of wavelet decomposition and a comparative study between different mother wavelets had been done. To recognize the best function and level of wavelet analysis, two evaluation criteria, scatter plot and RES index are recruited. Hereupon, four wavelet families, namely, Daubechies, Coiflets, Symlets and Biorthogonal are studied in wavelet decomposition stage. Consequently, the results show that only features from first and second level of wavelet decomposition yields good performance and some functions of various wavelet families can lead to an improvement in separability class of different hand movements.

Thermal Analysis of the Fuse with Unequal Fuse Links Using Finite Element Method

In this paper a three dimensional thermal model of high breaking capacity fuse with unequal fuse links is proposed for both steady-state or transient conditions. The influence of ambient temperature and electric current on the temperature distribution inside the fuse, has been investigated. A thermal analysis of the unbalanced distribution of the electric current through the fuse elements and their influence on fuse link temperature rise, has been performed. To validate the three dimensional thermal model, some experimental tests have been done. There is a good correlation between experimental and simulation results.

A Small-Scale Knowledge Management System for a Service-Oriented Department

This paper demonstrates an effort of a serviceoriented engineering department in improving the sharing and transfer of knowledge. Although the department consist of only six employees, but it provides services in various chemical application in an oil and gas business. The services provided span across Asia Pacific region mainly Indonesia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Brunei, Thailand and Singapore. Currently there are no effective tools or integrated systems that support the sharing or transfer and maintenance of knowledge so the department has considered preserving this valuable knowledge by developing a Knowledge Management System (KMS). This paper presents the development of a KMS to support the sharing of knowledge in a service-oriented engineering department of an oil and gas company. The embedded features in the KMS like blog and forum will encourage iterative process of knowledge sharing among the employees in the department. The information and knowledge being shared, discussed and communicated will be then achieved for future re-use. The re-use of the knowledge allows the department to reduce redundant efforts in providing consistent, up-to-date and cost effective of the best solution to the its clients.

Design and Implementation of Cyber Video Consultation System Using Hybrid P2P

This paper describes the design and implementation of cyber video consultation systems(CVCS) using hybrid P2P for video consultation between remote sites. The proposed system is based on client-server and P2P(Peer to Peer) architecture, where client-server is used for communication with the MCU(Multipoint Control Unit) and P2P is used for the cyber video consultation. The developed video consultation system decreases server traffic, and cuts down network expenses, as the multimedia data decentralizes to the client by hybrid P2P architecture. Also the developed system is tested by the group-type video consultation system using communication protocol and application software through Ethernet networks.

Sustainability: An Ethical Approach Towards Project Business Success

For any country the project management has been a vital part for its development. The highly competitive business world has created tremendous pressure on the project managers to achieve success. The pressure is derived from survival and profit building in business organizations which compels the project managers to pursue unethical practices. As a result unethical activities in business projects can be found easily where situations or issues arise due to dubious business practice, high corruption, or absolute violation of the law. The recent spur on Commonwealth games to be organized in New Delhi indicates towards the same. It has been seen that the project managers mainly focus on cost, time, and quality rather than social impact and long term effects of the project. Surprisingly the literature as well as the practitioner-s perspective also does not identify the role of ethics in project success. This paper identifies ethics as the fourth most important dimension in the project based organizations. The paper predicts that the approach of considering ethics will result in sustainability of the project. It will increase satisfaction and loyalty of the customers as well as create harmony, trust, brotherhood, values and morality among the team members. This paper is conceptual in nature as inadequate literature exists linking the project success with an ethical approach.

PTH Moment Exponential Stability of Stochastic Recurrent Neural Networks with Distributed Delays

In this paper, the issue of pth moment exponential stability of stochastic recurrent neural network with distributed time delays is investigated. By using the method of variation parameters, inequality techniques, and stochastic analysis, some sufficient conditions ensuring pth moment exponential stability are obtained. The method used in this paper does not resort to any Lyapunov function, and the results derived in this paper generalize some earlier criteria reported in the literature. One numerical example is given to illustrate the main results.

A Unified Framework for a Robust Conflict-Free Robot Navigation

Many environment specific methods and systems for Robot Navigation exist. However vast strides in the evolution of navigation technologies and system techniques create the need for a general unified framework that is scalable, modular and dynamic. In this paper a Unified Framework for a Robust Conflict-free Robot Navigation System that can be used for either a structured or unstructured and indoor or outdoor environments has been proposed. The fundamental design aspects and implementation issues encountered during the development of the module are discussed. The results of the deployment of three major peripheral modules of the framework namely the GSM based communication module, GIS Module and GPS module are reported in this paper.

Modelling and Analyzing a Hospital Procedureusing a Petri-Net Approach

Hierarchical high-level PNs (HHPNs) with time versions are a useful tool to model systems in a variety of application domains, ranging from logistics to complex workflows. This paper addresses an application domain which is receiving more and more attention: procedure that arranges the final inpatient charge in payment-s office and their management. We shall prove that Petri net based analysis is able to improve the delays during the procedure, in order that inpatient charges could be more reliable and on time.

Integrating Agents and Computational Intelligence Techniques in E-learning Environments

In this contribution a newly developed elearning environment is presented, which incorporates Intelligent Agents and Computational Intelligence Techniques. The new e-learning environment is constituted by three parts, the E-learning platform Front-End, the Student Questioner Reasoning and the Student Model Agent. These parts are distributed geographically in dispersed computer servers, with main focus on the design and development of these subsystems through the use of new and emerging technologies. These parts are interconnected in an interoperable way, using web services for the integration of the subsystems, in order to enhance the user modelling procedure and achieve the goals of the learning process.

Radioactivity of the Agricultural Soil in Northern Province of Serbia, Vojvodina

During the year 1999, Serbia (ex Yugoslavia) and their northern province, Vojvodina, has been bombarded. Because of that general public believe is that this region was contaminated by depleted uranium and that there is a potential contaminant of agricultural products due to soil radioactivity. This paper presents the repeated analysis of agricultural soil samples in Vojvodina. The same investigation was carried out during the year 2001, and it was concluded that, based on the gamma-spectrometric analysis of 50 soil samples taken from the region of Vojvodina, there haven-t been registered any increase of radioactivity that could endanger the food production. We continue with the monitoring of this region. The comparison between those two sets of results is presented.