Abstract: In this paper, we introduce a flexible box erecting
machine (BEM) that swiftly and automatically transforms cardboard
into a three dimensional box. Recently, the parcel service and
home-shopping industries have grown rapidly, and there is an
increasing need for various box types to ship various products.
However, workers cannot fold thousands of boxes manually in a day.
As such, automatic BEMs are garnering greater attention. This study
takes equipment operation into consideration as well as mechanical
improvements in order to design a BEM that is able to outperform its
conventional counterparts. We analyzed six dispatching rules – First In
First Out (FIFO), Shortest Processing Time (SPT), Earliest Due Date
(EDD), Setup Avoidance, EDD + SPT, and EDD + Setup Avoidance –
to determine which one was most suitable for BEM operation.
Consequently, SPT and Setup Avoidance were found to be the most
critical rules, followed by EDD + Setup Avoidance, EDD + SPT,
EDD, and FIFO. This hierarchy was valid for both our conventional
BEM and our new flexible BEM from the viewpoint of processing
time. We believe that this research can contribute to flexible BEM
management, which has the potential to increase productivity and
convenience.
Abstract: Fresh concrete has one of dynamic properties known
as slump. Slump of concrete is design to compatible with placing
method. Due to hydration reaction of cement, the slump of concrete
is loss through time. Therefore, delayed concrete probably get reject
because slump is unacceptable. In order to recover the slump of
delayed concrete the second dose of superplasticizer (naphthalene
based type F) is added into the system, the slump recovery can be
done as long as the concrete is not setting. By adding superplasticizer
as solution for recover unusable slump loss concrete may affects
other concrete properties. Therefore, this paper was observed setting
times and compressive strength of concrete after being re-dose with
chemical admixture type F (superplasticizer, naphthalene based) for
slump recovery. The concrete used in this study was fly ash concrete
with fly ash replacement of 0%, 30% and 50% respectively. Concrete
mix designed for test specimen was prepared with paste content (ratio
of volume of cement to volume of void in the aggregate) of 1.2 and
1.3, water-to-binder ratio (w/b) range of 0.3 to 0.58, initial dose of
superplasticizer (SP) range from 0.5 to 1.6%. The setting times of
concrete were tested both before and after re-dosed with different
amount of second dose and time of dosing. The research was
concluded that addition of second dose of superplasticizer would
increase both initial and final setting times accordingly to dosage of
addition. As for fly ash concrete, the prolongation effect was higher
as the replacement of fly ash increase. The prolongation effect can
reach up to maximum about 4 hours. In case of compressive strength,
the re-dosed concrete has strength fluctuation within acceptable range
of ±10%.
Abstract: A sign pattern is a matrix whose entries belong to the set
{+,−, 0}. An n-by-n sign pattern A is said to allow an eventually
positive matrix if there exist some real matrices A with the same
sign pattern as A and a positive integer k0 such that Ak > 0 for all
k ≥ k0. It is well known that identifying and classifying the n-by-n
sign patterns that allow an eventually positive matrix are posed as two
open problems. In this article, the tree sign patterns of small order
that allow an eventually positive matrix are classified completely.
Abstract: Value addition to agricultural produce is of possible
potential in reducing poverty, improving food security and
malnutrition, therefore the need to develop small and microenterprises
of sweet potato production. A study was carried out in Nigeria to determine the acceptability
of blends sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) and commodities yellow
maize (Zea mays), millet (Pennisetum glaucum), soybean (Glycine
max), bambara groundnut (Vigna subterranean), guinea corn
(Sorghum vulgare), wheat (Triticum aestivum), and roselle (Hibiscus
sabdariffa) through sensory evaluation. Sweet potato (Ipomea batatas) roots were processed using two
methods: oven and sun drying. The blends were also assessed in
terms of functional, chemical and color properties. Most acceptable blends include BAW (80:20 of sweet
potato/wheat), BBC (80:20 of sweet potato/guinea corn), AAB (60:40
of sweet potato/guinea corn), YTE (100% soybean), TYG (100%
sweet potato), KTN (100% wheat flour), XGP (80:20 of sweet
potato/soybean), XAX (60:40 of sweet potato/wheat), LSS (100%
Roselle), CHK (100% Guinea corn), and ABC (60:40% of sweet
potato/ yellow maize). In addition, carried out chemical analysis
revealed that sweet potato has high percentage of vitamins A and C,
potassium (K), manganese (Mn), calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg) and
iron (Fe) and fibre content. There is also an increase of vitamin A and
Iron in the blended products.
Abstract: Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook
attracts over 500 million users across the world, for those users, their
social life, even their practical life, has become interrelated. Their
interaction with social networking has affected their life forever.
Accordingly, social networking sites have become among the main
channels that are responsible for vast dissemination of different kinds
of information during real time events. This popularity in Social
networking has led to different problems including the possibility of
exposing incorrect information to their users through fake accounts
which results to the spread of malicious content during life events.
This situation can result to a huge damage in the real world to the
society in general including citizens, business entities, and others. In this paper, we present a classification method for detecting the
fake accounts on Twitter. The study determines the minimized set of
the main factors that influence the detection of the fake accounts on
Twitter, and then the determined factors are applied using different
classification techniques. A comparison of the results of these
techniques has been performed and the most accurate algorithm is
selected according to the accuracy of the results. The study has been
compared with different recent researches in the same area; this
comparison has proved the accuracy of the proposed study. We claim
that this study can be continuously applied on Twitter social network
to automatically detect the fake accounts; moreover, the study can be
applied on different social network sites such as Facebook with minor
changes according to the nature of the social network which are
discussed in this paper.
Abstract: In this paper, according to the classical algorithm
LSQR for solving the least-squares problem, an iterative method is
proposed for least-squares solution of constrained matrix equation. By
using the Kronecker product, the matrix-form LSQR is presented to
obtain the like-minimum norm and minimum norm solutions in a
constrained matrix set for the symmetric arrowhead matrices. Finally,
numerical examples are also given to investigate the performance.
Abstract: This report examines the current state of human gait
simulator development based on the human hip joint model. This unit
will create a database of human gait types, useful for setting up and
calibrating Mechano devices, as well as the creation of new systems
of rehabilitation, exoskeletons and walking robots. The system has
many opportunities to configure the dimensions and stiffness, while
maintaining relative simplicity.
Abstract: Strong anthropogenic impact has uncontrolled
consequences on the nature of the soil. Hence, up-to-date sustainable
methods of soil state improvement are essential. Investigators provide
the evidence that biochar can positively effects physical, chemical,
and biological soil properties and the abundance of mycorrhizal fungi
which are in the focus of this study. The main aim of the present
investigation is to demonstrate the effect of two types of plant growth
promoting bacteria (PGPB) inoculums along with the beech wood
biochar and mineral N additives on mycorrhizal colonization.
Experiment has been set up in laboratory conditions with containers
filled with arable soil from the protection zone of the main water
source “Brezova nad Svitavou”. Lactuca sativa (lettuce) has been
selected as a model plant. Based on the obtained data, it can be
concluded that mycorrhizal colonization increased as the result of
combined influence of biochar and PGPB inoculums amendment. In
addition, correlation analyses showed that the numbers of main
groups of cultivated bacteria were dependent on the degree of
mycorrhizal colonization.
Abstract: The change of conditions for production companies in
high-wage countries is characterized by the globalization of
competition and the transition of a supplier´s to a buyer´s market. The
companies need to face the challenges of reacting flexibly to these
changes. Due to the significant and increasing degree of automation,
assembly has become the most expensive production process.
Regarding the reduction of production cost, assembly consequently
offers a considerable rationalizing potential. Therefore, an
aerodynamic feeding system has been developed at the Institute of
Production Systems and Logistics (IFA), Leibniz Universitaet
Hannover. This system has been enabled to adjust itself by using a
genetic algorithm. The longer this genetic algorithm is executed the
better is the feeding quality. In this paper, the relation between the
system´s setting time and the feeding quality is observed and a
function which enables the user to achieve the minimum of the total
feeding time is presented.
Abstract: Large quantities of solid wastes being generated
worldwide from sources such as household, domestic, industrial,
commercial and construction demolition activities, leads to
environmental concerns. Utilization of these wastes in making
building construction materials can reduce the magnitude of the
associated problems. When these waste products are used in place of
other conventional materials, natural resources and energy are
preserved and expensive and/or potentially harmful waste disposal is
avoided. Recycling which is regarded as the third most preferred waste
disposal option, with its numerous environmental benefits, stand as a
viable option to offset the environmental impact associated with the
construction industry. This paper reviews the results of laboratory tests and important
research findings, and the potential of using these wastes in building
construction materials with focus on sustainable development.
Research gaps, which includes; the need to develop standard mix
design for solid waste based building materials; the need to develop
energy efficient method of processing solid waste use in concrete; the
need to study the actual behavior or performance of such building
materials in practical application and the limited real life application
of such building materials have also been identified. A research is being proposed to develop an environmentally
friendly, lightweight building block from recycled waste paper,
without the use of cement, and with properties suitable for use as
walling unit. This proposed research intends to incorporate,
laboratory experimentation and modeling to address the identified
research gaps.
Abstract: Microcantilevers are the basic MEMS devices, which
can be used as sensors, actuators and electronics can be easily built
into them. The detection principle of microcantilever sensors is based
on the measurement of change in cantilever deflection or change in its
resonance frequency. The objective of this work is to explore the
analogies between mechanical and electrical equivalent of
microcantilever beams. Normally scientists and engineers working in
MEMS use expensive software like CoventorWare, IntelliSuite,
ANSYS/Multiphysics etc. This paper indicates the need of developing
electrical equivalent of the MEMS structure and with that, one can
have a better insight on important parameters, and their interrelation of
the MEMS structure. In this work, considering the mechanical model
of microcantilever, equivalent electrical circuit is drawn and using
force-voltage analogy, it is analyzed with circuit simulation software.
By doing so, one can gain access to powerful set of intellectual tools
that have been developed for understanding electrical circuits Later
the analysis is performed using ANSYS/Multiphysics - software based
on finite element method (FEM). It is observed that both mechanical
and electrical domain results for a rectangular microcantlevers are in
agreement with each other.
Abstract: Common Platform for Automated Programming
(CPAP) is defined in details. Two versions of CPAP are described:
Cloud based (including set of components for classic programming,
and set of components for combined programming); and Knowledge
Based Automated Software Engineering (KBASE) based (including
set of components for automated programming, and set of
components for ontology programming). Four KBASE products
(Module for Automated Programming of Robots, Intelligent Product
Manual, Intelligent Document Display, and Intelligent Form
Generator) are analyzed and CPAP contributions to automated
programming are presented.
Abstract: One of the global combinatorial optimization
problems in machine learning is feature selection. It concerned with
removing the irrelevant, noisy, and redundant data, along with
keeping the original meaning of the original data. Attribute reduction
in rough set theory is an important feature selection method. Since
attribute reduction is an NP-hard problem, it is necessary to
investigate fast and effective approximate algorithms. In this paper,
we proposed two feature selection mechanisms based on memetic
algorithms (MAs) which combine the genetic algorithm with a fuzzy
record to record travel algorithm and a fuzzy controlled great deluge
algorithm, to identify a good balance between local search and
genetic search. In order to verify the proposed approaches, numerical
experiments are carried out on thirteen datasets. The results show that
the MAs approaches are efficient in solving attribute reduction
problems when compared with other meta-heuristic approaches.
Abstract: Response Surface Methods (RSM) provide
statistically validated predictive models that can then be manipulated
for finding optimal process configurations. Variation transmitted to
responses from poorly controlled process factors can be accounted
for by the mathematical technique of propagation of error (POE),
which facilitates ‘finding the flats’ on the surfaces generated by
RSM. The dual response approach to RSM captures the standard
deviation of the output as well as the average. It accounts for
unknown sources of variation. Dual response plus propagation of
error (POE) provides a more useful model of overall response
variation. In our case, we implemented this technique in predicting
compressive strength of concrete of 28 days in age. Since 28 days is
quite time consuming, while it is important to ensure the quality
control process. This paper investigates the potential of using design
of experiments (DOE-RSM) to predict the compressive strength of
concrete at 28th day. Data used for this study was carried out from
experiment schemes at university of Benghazi, civil engineering
department. A total of 114 sets of data were implemented. ACI mix
design method was utilized for the mix design. No admixtures were
used, only the main concrete mix constituents such as cement, coarseaggregate,
fine aggregate and water were utilized in all mixes.
Different mix proportions of the ingredients and different water
cement ratio were used. The proposed mathematical models are
capable of predicting the required concrete compressive strength of
concrete from early ages.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to propose a general
framework for storing, analyzing, and extracting knowledge from
two-dimensional echocardiographic images, color Doppler images,
non-medical images, and general data sets. A number of high
performance data mining algorithms have been used to carry out this
task. Our framework encompasses four layers namely physical
storage, object identification, knowledge discovery, user level.
Techniques such as active contour model to identify the cardiac
chambers, pixel classification to segment the color Doppler echo
image, universal model for image retrieval, Bayesian method for
classification, parallel algorithms for image segmentation, etc., were
employed. Using the feature vector database that have been
efficiently constructed, one can perform various data mining tasks
like clustering, classification, etc. with efficient algorithms along
with image mining given a query image. All these facilities are
included in the framework that is supported by state-of-the-art user
interface (UI). The algorithms were tested with actual patient data
and Coral image database and the results show that their performance
is better than the results reported already.
Abstract: In this paper, for an arbitrary multiplicative functional
f from the set of all upper triangular fuzzy matrices to the fuzzy
algebra, we prove that there exist a multiplicative functional F and a
functional G from the fuzzy algebra to the fuzzy algebra such that the
image of an upper triangular fuzzy matrix under f can be represented
as the product of all the images of its main diagonal elements under
F and other elements under G.
Abstract: The myocardium is composed of specialized muscle
which relies mainly on fatty acid and sugar metabolism and it is
widely contribute to the heart functioning. The changes of the cardiac
energy-producing system during heart failure have been proved using
autoradiography techniques. This study focused on evaluating sugar
and fatty acid metabolism in myocardium as cardiac energy getting
system using heart-accumulated radiopharmaceuticals. Two sets of
autoradiographs of heart cross sections of Lewis male rats were
analyzed and the time- accumulation curve obtained with use of the
MATLAB image processing software to evaluate fatty acid and sugar
metabolic functions.
Abstract: Over the past few decades, manufacturing has evolved
from a more labor-intensive set of mechanical processes to a
sophisticated set of information based technology processes. With the
existence of various advanced manufacturing technologies (AMTs),
more and more functions or jobs are performed by these machines
instead of human labour. This study was undertaken in order to
research the extent of AMTs adoption in manufacturing companies in
Kenya. In order to investigate a survey was conducted via
questionnaires that were sent to 183 selected AMT manufacturing
companies in Kenya. 92 companies responded positively. All the
surveyed companies were found to have a measure of investment in
at least two of the 14 types of AMTs investigated. In general the
company surveyed showed that the level of AMT adoption in Kenya
is very low with investments levels at a mean of 2.057 and
integration levels at a mean of 1.639 in a scale of 1-5.
Abstract: The goal of this paper is to specify factors influencing
the profitability of selected banks. Next, a model will be created to
help establish variables that have a demonstrable influence on the
development of the selected banks' profitability ratios. Czech banks
and their international parent companies were selected for analyzing
profitability. Banks categorized as large banks (according to the
Czech National Bank's system, which ranks banks according to
balance sheet total) were selected to represent the Czech banks. Two
ratios, the return on assets ratio (ROA) and the return on equity ratio
(ROE) are used to assess bank profitability. Six endogenous and four
external indicators were selected from among other factors that
influence bank profitability. The data analyzed were for 2001–2013.
First, correlation analysis, which was supposed to eliminate
correlated values, was conducted. A large number of correlated
values were established on the basis of this analysis. The strongly
correlated values were omitted. Despite this, the subsequent
regression analysis of profitability for the individual banks that were
selected did not confirm that the selected variables influenced their
profitability. The studied factors' influence on bank profitability was
demonstrated only for Ceskoslovenska Obchodni Banka and Société
Générale using regression analysis. For Československa Obchodni
Banka, it was demonstrated that inflation level and the amount of the
central bank's interest rate influenced the return on assets ratio and
that capital adequacy and market concentration influenced the return
on equity ratio for Société Générale.
Abstract: We present probabilistic multinomial Dirichlet
classification model for multidimensional data and Gaussian process
priors. Here, we have considered efficient computational method that
can be used to obtain the approximate posteriors for latent variables
and parameters needed to define the multiclass Gaussian process
classification model. We first investigated the process of inducing a
posterior distribution for various parameters and latent function by
using the variational Bayesian approximations and important sampling
method, and next we derived a predictive distribution of latent
function needed to classify new samples. The proposed model is
applied to classify the synthetic multivariate dataset in order to verify
the performance of our model. Experiment result shows that our model
is more accurate than the other approximation methods.