Abstract: An exploration in the competency of the optical
multilevel Mapping Multiplexing Technique (MMT) system in
tolerating to the impact of nonlinearities as Self Phase Modulation
(SPM) during the presence of dispersion compensation methods. The
existence of high energy pulses stimulates deterioration in the chirp
compression process attained by SPM which introduces an upper
power boundary limit. An evaluation of the post and asymmetric prepost
fiber compensation methods have been deployed on the MMT
system compared with others of the same bit rate modulation formats.
The MMT 40 Gb/s post compensation system has 1.4 dB
enhancements to the 40 Gb/s 4-Arysystem and less than 3.9 dB
penalty compared to the 40 Gb/s OOK-RZsystem. However, the
optimized Pre-Post asymmetric compensation has an enhancement of
4.6 dB compared to the Post compensation MMT configuration for a
30% pre compensation dispersion.
Abstract: Textile structures are engineered and fabricated to
meet worldwide structural applications. Nevertheless, research
varying textile structure on natural fibre as composite reinforcement
was found to be very limited. Most of the research is focusing on
short fibre and random discontinuous orientation of the reinforcement
structure. Realizing that natural fibre (NF) composite had been
widely developed to be used as synthetic fibre composite
replacement, this research attempted to examine the influence of
woven and cross-ply laminated structure towards its mechanical
performances. Laminated natural fibre composites were developed
using hand lay-up and vacuum bagging technique. Impact and
flexural strength were investigated as a function of fibre type (coir
and kenaf) and reinforcement structure (imbalanced plain woven,
0°/90° cross-ply and +45°/-45° cross-ply). Multi-level full factorial
design of experiment (DOE) and analysis of variance (ANOVA) was
employed to impart data as to how fibre type and reinforcement
structure parameters affect the mechanical properties of the
composites. This systematic experimentation has led to determination
of significant factors that predominant influences the impact and
flexural properties of the textile composites. It was proven that both
fibre type and reinforcement structure demonstrated significant
difference results. Overall results indicated that coir composite and
woven structure exhibited better impact and flexural strength. Yet,
cross-ply composite structure demonstrated better fracture resistance.
Abstract: Speech enhancement is the process of eliminating
noise and increasing the quality of a speech signal, which is
contaminated with other kinds of distortions. This paper is on
developing an optimum cascaded system for speech enhancement.
This aim is attained without diminishing any relevant speech
information and without much computational and time complexity.
LMS algorithm, Spectral Subtraction and Kalman filter have been
deployed as the main de-noising algorithms in this work. Since these
algorithms suffer from respective shortcomings, this work has been
undertaken to design cascaded systems in different combinations and
the evaluation of such cascades by qualitative (listening) and
quantitative (SNR) tests.
Abstract: The expectation of network performance from the
early days of ARPANET until now has been changed significantly.
Every day, new advancement in technological infrastructure opens
the doors for better quality of service and accordingly level of
perceived quality of network services have been increased over the
time. Nowadays for many applications, late information has no value
or even may result in financial or catastrophic loss, on the other hand,
demands for some level of guarantee in providing and maintaining
quality of service are ever increasing. Based on this history, having a
QoS aware routing system which is able to provide today's required
level of quality of service in the networks and effectively adapt to the
future needs, seems as a key requirement for future Internet. In this
work we have extended the traditional AntNet routing system to
support QoS with multiple metrics such as bandwidth and delay
which is named Q-Net. This novel scalable QoS routing system aims
to provide different types of services in the network simultaneously.
Each type of service can be provided for a period of time in the
network and network nodes do not need to have any previous
knowledge about it. When a type of quality of service is requested,
Q-Net will allocate required resources for the service and will
guarantee QoS requirement of the service, based on target objectives.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a segmentation system for unconstrained Arabic online handwriting. An essential problem addressed by analytical-based word recognition system. The system is composed of two-stages the first is a newly special designed hidden Markov model (HMM) and the second is a rules based stage. In our system, handwritten words are broken up into characters by simultaneous segmentation-recognition using HMMs of unique design trained using online features most of which are novel. The HMM output characters boundaries represent the proposed segmentation points (PSP) which are then validated by rules-based post stage without any contextual information help to solve different segmentation errors. The HMM has been designed and tested using a self collected dataset (OHASD) [1]. Most errors cases are cured and remarkable segmentation enhancement is achieved. Very promising word and character segmentation rates are obtained regarding the unconstrained Arabic handwriting difficulty and not using context help.
Abstract: Virtual environments are a hot topic in academia and more importantly in courses offered via distance education. Today-s gaming generation view virtual worlds as strong social and interactive mediums for communicating and socializing. And while institutions of higher education are challenged with increasing enrollment while balancing budget cuts, offering effective courses via distance education become a valid option. Educators can utilize virtual worlds to offer students an enhanced learning environment which has the power to alleviate feelings of isolation through the promotion of communication, interaction, collaboration, teamwork, feedback, engagement and constructivists learning activities. This paper focuses on the use of virtual environments to facilitate interaction in distance education courses so as to produce positive learning outcomes for students. Furthermore, the instructional strategies were reviewed and discussed for use in virtual worlds to enhance learning within a social context.
Abstract: Microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) is a
relatively green and sustainable soil improvement technique. It
utilizes biochemical process that exists naturally in soil to improve
engineering properties of soils. The calcite precipitation process is
uplifted by the mean of injecting higher concentration of urease
positive bacteria and reagents into the soil. The main objective of this
paper is to provide an overview of the factors affecting the MICP in
soil. Several factors were identified including nutrients, bacteria type,
geometric compatibility of bacteria, bacteria cell concentration,
fixation and distribution of bacteria in soil, temperature, reagents
concentration, pH, and injection method. These factors were found to
be essential for promoting successful MICP soil treatment.
Furthermore, a preliminary laboratory test was carried out to
investigate the potential application of the technique in improving the
shear strength and impermeability of a residual soil specimen. The
results showed that both shear strength and impermeability of
residual soil improved significantly upon MICP treatment. The
improvement increased with increasing soil density.
Abstract: Supplement use is common in athletes. Besides their cost, they may have side effects on health and performance. 250 questionnaires were distributed among female athletes (mean age 27.08 years). The questionnaire aimed to explore the frequency, type, believes, attitudes and knowledge regarding dietary supplements. Knowledge was good in 30.3%, fair in 60.2%, and poor in 9.1% of respondents. 65.3% of athletes did not use supplements regularly. The most widely used supplements were vitamins (48.4%), minerals (42.9%), energy supplements (21.3%), and herbals (20.9%). 68.9% of athletes believed in their efficacy. 34.4% experienced performance enhancement and 6.8% of reported side effects. 68.2% reported little knowledge and 60.9% were eager to learn more. In conclusion, many of the female athletes believe in the efficacy of supplements and think they are an unavoidable part of competitive sports. However, their information is not sufficient. We have to stress on education, consulting sessions, and rational prescription.
Abstract: For a spatiotemporal database management system,
I/O cost of queries and other operations is an important performance
criterion. In order to optimize this cost, an intense research on
designing robust index structures has been done in the past decade.
With these major considerations, there are still other design issues
that deserve addressing due to their direct impact on the I/O cost.
Having said this, an efficient buffer management strategy plays a key
role on reducing redundant disk access. In this paper, we proposed an
efficient buffer strategy for a spatiotemporal database index
structure, specifically indexing objects moving over a network of
roads. The proposed strategy, namely MONPAR, is based on the data
type (i.e. spatiotemporal data) and the structure of the index
structure. For the purpose of an experimental evaluation, we set up a
simulation environment that counts the number of disk accesses
while executing a number of spatiotemporal range-queries over the
index. We reiterated simulations with query sets with different
distributions, such as uniform query distribution and skewed query
distribution. Based on the comparison of our strategy with wellknown
page-replacement techniques, like LRU-based and Prioritybased
buffers, we conclude that MONPAR behaves better than its
competitors for small and medium size buffers under all used query-distributions.
Abstract: One of the factors to maintain system survivability is
the adequate reactive power support to the system. Lack of reactive
power support may cause undesirable voltage decay leading to total
system instability. Thus, appropriate reactive power support scheme
should be arranged in order to maintain system stability. The strength
of a system capacity is normally denoted as system loadability. This
paper presents the enhancement of system loadability through
optimal reactive power planning technique using a newly developed
optimization technique, termed as Multiagent Immune Evolutionary
Programming (MAIEP). The concept of MAIEP is developed based
on the combination of Multiagent System (MAS), Artificial Immune
System (AIS) and Evolutionary Programming (EP). In realizing the
effectiveness of the proposed technique, validation is conducted on
the IEEE-26-Bus Reliability Test System. The results obtained from
pre-optimization and post-optimization process were compared
which eventually revealed the merit of MAIEP.
Abstract: Quality control in ceramic tile manufacturing is hard, labor intensive and it is performed in a harsh industrial environment with noise, extreme temperature and humidity. It can be divided into color analysis, dimension verification, and surface defect detection, which is the main purpose of our work. Defects detection is still based on the judgment of human operators while most of the other manufacturing activities are automated so, our work is a quality control enhancement by integrating a visual control stage using image processing and morphological operation techniques before the packing operation to improve the homogeneity of batches received by final users.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a fast and efficient method for drawing very large-scale graph data. The conventional force-directed method proposed by Fruchterman and Rheingold (FR method) is well-known. It defines repulsive forces between every pair of nodes and attractive forces between connected nodes on a edge and calculates corresponding potential energy. An optimal layout is obtained by iteratively updating node positions to minimize the potential energy. Here, the positions of the nodes are updated every global timestep at the same time. In the proposed method, each node has its own individual time and time step, and nodes are updated at different frequencies depending on the local situation. The proposed method is inspired by the hierarchical individual time step method used for the high accuracy calculations for dense particle fields such as star clusters in astrophysical dynamics. Experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the original FR method in both speed and accuracy. We implement the proposed method on the MDGRAPE-3 PCI-X special purpose parallel computer and realize a speed enhancement of several hundred times.
Abstract: This paper addresses a novel technique for placement of distributed generation (DG) in electric power systems. A GA based approach for sizing and placement of DG keeping in view of system power loss minimization in different loading conditions is explained. Minimal system power loss is obtained under voltage and line loading constraints. Proposed strategy is applied to power distribution systems and its effectiveness is verified through simulation results on 16, 37-bus and 75-bus test systems.
Abstract: The motion planning procedure described in this paper has been developed in order to eliminate or reduce the residual vibrations of electromechanical positioning systems, without augmenting the motion time (usually imposed by production requirements), nor introducing overtime for vibration damping. The proposed technique is based on a suitable choice of the motion law assigned to the servomotor that drives the mechanism. The reference profile is defined by a Bezier curve, whose shape can be easily changed by modifying some numerical parameters. By means of an optimization technique these parameters can be modified without altering the continuity conditions imposed on the displacement and on its time derivatives at the initial and final time instants.
Abstract: In this paper we would like to introduce some of the
best practices of using semantic markup and its significance in the
success of web applications. Search engines are one of the best ways
to reach potential customers and are some of the main indicators of
web sites' fruitfulness. We will introduce the most important
semantic vocabularies which are used by Google and Yahoo.
Afterwards, we will explain the process of semantic markup
implementation and its significance for search engines and other
semantic markup consumers. We will describe techniques for slow
conceiving RDFa markup to our web application for collecting Call
for papers (CFP) announcements.
Abstract: During the past several years, face recognition in video
has received significant attention. Not only the wide range of
commercial and law enforcement applications, but also the availability
of feasible technologies after several decades of research contributes
to the trend. Although current face recognition systems have reached a
certain level of maturity, their development is still limited by the
conditions brought about by many real applications. For example,
recognition images of video sequence acquired in an open
environment with changes in illumination and/or pose and/or facial
occlusion and/or low resolution of acquired image remains a largely
unsolved problem. In other words, current algorithms are yet to be
developed. This paper provides an up-to-date survey of video-based
face recognition research. To present a comprehensive survey, we
categorize existing video based recognition approaches and present
detailed descriptions of representative methods within each category.
In addition, relevant topics such as real time detection, real time
tracking for video, issues such as illumination, pose, 3D and low
resolution are covered.
Abstract: In order to enhance the contrast in the regions where the pixels have similar intensities, this paper presents a new histogram equalization scheme. Conventional global equalization schemes over-equalizes these regions so that too bright or dark pixels are resulted and local equalization schemes produce unexpected discontinuities at the boundaries of the blocks. The proposed algorithm segments the original histogram into sub-histograms with reference to brightness level and equalizes each sub-histogram with the limited extents of equalization considering its mean and variance. The final image is determined as the weighted sum of the equalized images obtained by using the sub-histogram equalizations. By limiting the maximum and minimum ranges of equalization operations on individual sub-histograms, the over-equalization effect is eliminated. Also the result image does not miss feature information in low density histogram region since the remaining these area is applied separating equalization. This paper includes how to determine the segmentation points in the histogram. The proposed algorithm has been tested with more than 100 images having various contrasts in the images and the results are compared to the conventional approaches to show its superiority.
Abstract: Wireless mesh networks based on IEEE 802.11
technology are a scalable and efficient solution for next generation
wireless networking to provide wide-area wideband internet access to
a significant number of users. The deployment of these wireless mesh
networks may be within different authorities and without any
planning, they are potentially overlapped partially or completely in
the same service area. The aim of the proposed model is design a new
model to Enhancement Throughput of Unplanned Wireless Mesh
Networks Deployment Using Partitioning Hierarchical Cluster
(PHC), the unplanned deployment of WMNs are determinates there
performance. We use throughput optimization approach to model the
unplanned WMNs deployment problem based on partitioning
hierarchical cluster (PHC) based architecture, in this paper the
researcher used bridge node by allowing interworking traffic between
these WMNs as solution for performance degradation.
Abstract: The purpose of the article is to illustrate the main
characteristics of the corporate governance challenge facing the
countries of South-Eastern Europe (SEE) and to subsequently
determine and assess the extensiveness and effectiveness of corporate
governance regulations in these countries. Therefore, we start with an
overview on the subject of the key problems of corporate governance
in transition. We then address the issue of corporate governance
measurement for SEE countries. To this end, we include a review of
the methodological framework for determining both the
extensiveness and the effectiveness of corporate governance
legislation. We then focus on the actual analysis of the quality of
corporate governance codes, as well as of legal institutions
effectiveness and provide a measure of corporate governance in
Romania and other SEE emerging markets. The paper concludes by
emphasizing the corporate governance enforcement gap and by
identifying research issues that require further study.
Abstract: The present paper deals with the most adopted technical
solutions for the enhancement of the lift force of a wing. In fact,
during several flight conditions (such as take off and landing), the
lift force needs to be dramatically enhanced. Both trailing edge
devices (such as flaps) and leading edge ones (such as slats) are
described. Finally, the most advanced aerodynamic solutions to avoid
the separation of the boundary layer from aircraft wings at high angles
of attack are reviewed.