Abstract: This paper presents the communication network for
machine vision system to implement to control systems and logistics
applications in industrial environment. The real-time distributed over
the network is very important for communication among vision node,
image processing and control as well as the distributed I/O node. A
robust implementation both with respect to camera packaging and
data transmission has been accounted. This network consists of a
gigabit Ethernet network and a switch with integrated fire-wall is
used to distribute the data and provide connection to the imaging
control station and IEC-61131 conform signal integration comprising
the Modbus TCP protocol. The real-time and delay time properties
each part on the network were considered and worked out in this
paper.
Abstract: The importance of hints in an intelligent tutoring system is well understood. The problems however related to their delivering are quite a few. In this paper we propose delivering of hints to be based on considering their usefulness. By this we mean that a hint is regarded as useful to a student if the student has succeeded to solve a problem after the hint was suggested to her/him. Methods from the theory of partial orderings are further applied facilitating an automated process of offering individualized advises on how to proceed in order to solve a particular problem.
Abstract: The rapid growth of e-Commerce services is
significantly observed in the past decade. However, the method to
verify the authenticated users still widely depends on numeric
approaches. A new search on other verification methods suitable for
online e-Commerce is an interesting issue. In this paper, a new online
signature-verification method using angular transformation is
presented. Delay shifts existing in online signatures are estimated by
the estimation method relying on angle representation. In the
proposed signature-verification algorithm, all components of input
signature are extracted by considering the discontinuous break points
on the stream of angular values. Then the estimated delay shift is
captured by comparing with the selected reference signature and the
error matching can be computed as a main feature used for verifying
process. The threshold offsets are calculated by two types of error
characteristics of the signature verification problem, False Rejection
Rate (FRR) and False Acceptance Rate (FAR). The level of these two
error rates depends on the decision threshold chosen whose value is
such as to realize the Equal Error Rate (EER; FAR = FRR). The
experimental results show that through the simple programming,
employed on Internet for demonstrating e-Commerce services, the
proposed method can provide 95.39% correct verifications and 7%
better than DP matching based signature-verification method. In
addition, the signature verification with extracting components
provides more reliable results than using a whole decision making.
Abstract: Organic Flash Cycle (OFC) has potential of improving
efficiency for recovery of low temperature heat sources mainly due to
reducing temperature mismatch in the heat exchanger. In this work
exergetical performance analysis of ORC is conducted for recovery of
low grade heat source. Effects of system parameters such as flash
evaporation temperature or heating temperature are theoretically
investigated on the exergy destructions (anergies) at various
components of the system as well as exergy efficiency. Results show
that exergy efficiency has a peak with respect to the flash temperature,
and the optimum flash temperature increases with the heating
temperature. The component where the largest exergy destruction
occurs varies with the flash temperature or heating temperature.
Abstract: It is difficult to judge ripeness by outward
characteristics such as size or external color. In this paper a nondestructive
method was studied to determine watermelon (Crimson
Sweet) quality. Responses of samples to excitation vibrations were
detected using laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) technology. Phase
shift between input and output vibrations were extracted overall
frequency range. First and second were derived using frequency
response spectrums. After nondestructive tests, watermelons were
sensory evaluated. So the samples were graded in a range of ripeness
based on overall acceptability (total desired traits consumers).
Regression models were developed to predict quality using obtained
results and sample mass. The determination coefficients of the
calibration and cross validation models were 0.89 and 0.71
respectively. This study demonstrated feasibility of information
which is derived vibration response curves for predicting fruit
quality. The vibration response of watermelon using the LDV method
is measured without direct contact; it is accurate and timely, which
could result in significant advantage for classifying watermelons
based on consumer opinions.
Abstract: The emergence of networked information and communication has transformed the accessibility and delivery of scholarly information and fundamentally impacted on the processes of research and scholarly communication. The purpose of this study is to investigate disciplinary differences in the use of networked information for research and scholarly communication at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. This study has produced quantitative data about how and why academics within different disciplines utilize networked information that is made available either internally through the university library, or externally through networked services accessed by the Internet. The results indicate some significant differences between the attitudes and practice of academics in the science disciplines when compared to those from the social sciences and humanities. While respondents from science disciplines show overall longer and more frequent use of networked information, respondents from humanities and social sciences indicated more positive attitudes and a greater degree of satisfaction toward library networked services.
Abstract: This paper describes the historical development of
interethnic concord in the Republic of Kazakhstan, and emphasizes
the role of tolerance mentality of the Kazakh people in ethno-political
policy of the country. Moreover, pointing out interethnic concord as a
powerful stabilizing factor, it analyses the specifics of interethnic
policy in multinational Kazakh society. It summarizes that the culture
of interethnic concord can be a model of ethno- political policy of
Kazakhstan.
Abstract: In this paper, an H1-Galerkin mixed finite element method is discussed for the coupled Burgers equations. The optimal error estimates of the semi-discrete and fully discrete schemes of the coupled Burgers equation are derived.
Abstract: The linear methods of heart rate variability analysis
such as non-parametric (e.g. fast Fourier transform analysis) and
parametric methods (e.g. autoregressive modeling) has become an
established non-invasive tool for marking the cardiac health, but their
sensitivity and specificity were found to be lower than expected with
positive predictive value
Abstract: This paper presents the effect of corrugation profile
geometry on the crushing behavior, energy absorption, failure
mechanism, and failure mode of woven roving glass fibre/epoxy
laminated composite tube. Experimental investigations were carried
out on composite tubes with three different profile shapes: sinusoidal,
triangular and trapezoidal. The tubes were subjected to lateral
compressive loading. On the addition to a radial corrugated
composite tube, cylindrical composite tube, were fabricated and
tested under the same condition in order to know the effect of
corrugation geometry. Typical histories of their deformation are
presented. Behavior of tubes as regards the peak crushing load,
energy absorbed and mode of crushing has been discussed. The
results show that the behavior of the tube under lateral compression
load is influenced by the geometry of the tube itself.
Abstract: The Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO) due to timevarying
fading channel is the main cause of the loss of orthogonality
among OFDM subcarriers which is linked to inter-carrier interference
(ICI). Hence, it is necessary to precisely estimate and compensate the
CFO. Especially for mobile broadband communications, CFO and
channel gain also have to be estimated and tracked to maintain the
system performance. Thus, synchronization pilots are embedded in
every OFDM symbol to track the variations. In this paper, we present
the pilot scheme for both channel and CFO estimation where channel
estimation process can be carried out with only one OFDM symbol.
Additional, the proposed pilot scheme also provides better
performance in CFO estimation comparing with the conventional
orthogonal pilot scheme due to the increasing of signal-tointerference
ratio.
Abstract: The effect of the number of quantum dot (QD) layers
on the saturated gain of doped QD semiconductor optical amplifiers
(SOAs) has been studied using multi-population coupled rate
equations. The developed model takes into account the effect of
carrier coupling between adjacent layers. It has been found that
increasing the number of QD layers (K) increases the unsaturated
optical gain for K
Abstract: This study examines the relevance of disclosure
practices in improving the accountability and transparency of
religious nonprofit organizations (RNPOs). The assessment of
disclosure is based on the annual returns of RNPOs for the financial
year 2010. In order to quantify the information disclosed in the
annual returns, partial disclosure indexes of basic information (BI)
disclosure index, financial information (FI) disclosure index and
governance information (GI) disclosure index have been built which
takes into account the content of information items in the annual
returns. The empirical evidence obtained revealed low disclosure
practices among RNPOs in the sample. The multiple regression
results showed that the organizational attribute of the board size
appeared to be the most significant predictor for both partial index on
the extent of BI disclosure index, and FI disclosure index. On the
other hand, the extent of financial information disclosure is related to
the amount of donation received by RNPOs. On GI disclosure index,
the existence of an external audit appeared to be significant variable.
This study has contributed to the academic literature in providing
empirical evidence of the disclosure practices among RNPOs.
Abstract: Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a key role in soil
fertility, hydrology, contaminants control and acts as a sink or source
of terrestrial carbon content that can affect the concentration of
atmospheric CO2. SOC supports the sustainability and quality of
ecosystems, especially in semi-arid region. This study was
conducted to determine relative importance of 13 different
exploratory climatic, soil and geometric factors on the SOC contents
in one of the semiarid watershed zones in Iran. Two methods
canonical discriminate analysis (CDA) and feed-forward back
propagation neural networks were used to predict SOC. Stepwise
regression and sensitivity analysis were performed to identify
relative importance of exploratory variables. Results from sensitivity
analysis showed that 7-2-1 neural networks and 5 inputs in CDA
models output have highest predictive ability that explains %70 and
%65 of SOC variability. Since neural network models outperformed
CDA model, it should be preferred for estimating SOC.
Abstract: Search for a tertiary substructure that geometrically
matches the 3D pattern of the binding site of a well-studied protein provides a solution to predict protein functions. In our previous work,
a web server has been built to predict protein-ligand binding sites
based on automatically extracted templates. However, a drawback of such templates is that the web server was prone to resulting in many
false positive matches. In this study, we present a sequence-order constraint to reduce the false positive matches of using automatically
extracted templates to predict protein-ligand binding sites. The binding site predictor comprises i) an automatically constructed template library and ii) a local structure alignment algorithm for
querying the library. The sequence-order constraint is employed to
identify the inconsistency between the local regions of the query protein and the templates. Experimental results reveal that the sequence-order constraint can largely reduce the false positive matches and is effective for template-based binding site prediction.
Abstract: The solvated electron is self-trapped (polaron) owing
to strong interaction with the quantum polarization field. If the
electron and quantum field are strongly coupled then the collective
localized state of the field and quasi-particle is formed. In such a
formation the electron motion is rather intricate. On the one hand the
electron oscillated within a rather deep polarization potential well
and undergoes the optical transitions, and on the other, it moves
together with the center of inertia of the system and participates in
the thermal random walk. The problem is to separate these motions
correctly, rigorously taking into account the conservation laws. This
can be conveniently done using Bogolyubov-Tyablikov method of
canonical transformation to the collective coordinates. This
transformation removes the translational degeneracy and allows one
to develop the successive approximation algorithm for the energy and
wave function while simultaneously fulfilling the law of conservation
of total momentum of the system. The resulting equations determine
the electron transitions and depend explicitly on the translational
velocity of the quasi-particle as whole. The frequency of optical
transition is calculated for the solvated electron in ammonia, and an
estimate is made for the thermal-induced spectral bandwidth.
Abstract: The error diffusion method generates worm artifacts,
and weakens the edge of the halftone image when the continuous gray
scale image is reproduced by a binary image. First, to enhance the
edges, we propose the edge-enhancing filter by considering the
quantization error information and gradient of the neighboring pixels.
Furthermore, to remove worm artifacts often appearing in a halftone
image, we add adaptively random noise into the weights of an error
filter.
Abstract: Hexapod Machine Tool (HMT) is a parallel robot
mostly based on Stewart platform. Identification of kinematic
parameters of HMT is an important step of calibration procedure. In
this paper an algorithm is presented for identifying the kinematic
parameters of HMT using inverse kinematics error model. Based on
this algorithm, the calibration procedure is simulated. Measurement
configurations with maximum observability are decided as the first
step of this algorithm for a robust calibration. The errors occurring in
various configurations are illustrated graphically. It has been shown
that the boundaries of the workspace should be searched for the
maximum observability of errors. The importance of using
configurations with sufficient observability in calibrating hexapod
machine tools is verified by trial calibration with two different
groups of randomly selected configurations. One group is selected to
have sufficient observability and the other is in disregard of the
observability criterion. Simulation results confirm the validity of the
proposed identification algorithm.
Abstract: In this paper, we evaluate the performance of some wavelet based coding algorithms such as 3D QT-L, 3D SPIHT and JPEG2K. In the first step we achieve an objective comparison between three coders, namely 3D SPIHT, 3D QT-L and JPEG2K. For this purpose, eight MRI head scan test sets of 256 x 256x124 voxels have been used. Results show superior performance of 3D SPIHT algorithm, whereas 3D QT-L outperforms JPEG2K. The second step consists of evaluating the robustness of 3D SPIHT and JPEG2K coding algorithm over wireless transmission. Compressed dataset images are then transmitted over AWGN wireless channel or over Rayleigh wireless channel. Results show the superiority of JPEG2K over these two models. In fact, it has been deduced that JPEG2K is more robust regarding coding errors. Thus we may conclude the necessity of using corrector codes in order to protect the transmitted medical information.
Abstract: Hybrid knowledge model is suggested as an underlying
framework for product development management. It can support such
hybrid features as ontologies and rules. Effective collaboration in
product development environment depends on sharing and reasoning
product information as well as engineering knowledge. Many studies
have considered product information and engineering knowledge.
However, most previous research has focused either on building the
ontology of product information or rule-based systems of engineering
knowledge. This paper shows that F-logic based knowledge model can
support such desirable features in a hybrid way.