Abstract: This paper will first describe predictor controllers
when the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controllers are
inactive for procedures that have large delay time (LDT) in transfer
stage. Therefore in those states, the predictor controllers are better
than the PID controllers, then compares three types of predictor
controllers. The value of these controller-s parameters are obtained
by trial and error method, so here an effort has been made to obtain
these parameters by Ziegler-Nichols method. Eventually in this paper
Ziegler-Nichols method has been described and finally, a PIP
controller has been designed for a thermal system, which circulates
hot air to keep the temperature of a chamber constant.
Abstract: Vector quantization is a powerful tool for speech
coding applications. This paper deals with LPC Coding of speech
signals which uses a new technique called Multi Switched Split
Vector Quantization, This is a hybrid of two product code vector
quantization techniques namely the Multi stage vector quantization
technique, and Switched split vector quantization technique,. Multi
Switched Split Vector Quantization technique quantizes the linear
predictive coefficients in terms of line spectral frequencies. From
results it is proved that Multi Switched Split Vector Quantization
provides better trade off between bitrate and spectral distortion
performance, computational complexity and memory requirements
when compared to Switched Split Vector Quantization, Multi stage
vector quantization, and Split Vector Quantization techniques. By
employing the switching technique at each stage of the vector
quantizer the spectral distortion, computational complexity and
memory requirements were greatly reduced. Spectral distortion was
measured in dB, Computational complexity was measured in
floating point operations (flops), and memory requirements was
measured in (floats).
Abstract: The aim of this study is to examine the reading
comprehension scores of Turkish 5th grade students according to the
variables given in the student questionnaire. In this descriptive
survey study research participated 279 5th grade students, who
studied at 10 different primary schools in four provinces of Ankara in
2008-2009 academic year. Two different data collection tools were
made use of in the study: “Reading Comprehension Test" and
“Student Information Questionnaire". Independent sample t-test, oneway
Anova and two-way Anova tests were used in the analyses of
the gathered data. The results of the study indicate that the reading
comprehension scores of the students differ significantly according to
sex of the students, the number of books in their houses, the
frequency of summarizing activities on the reading text of free and
the frequency reading hours provided by their teachers; but, differ
not significantly according to educational level of their mothers and
fathers.
Abstract: Dynamics of a vapour bubble generated due to a high local energy input near a circular thin bronze plate in the absence of the buoyancy forces is numerically investigated in this paper. The bubble is generated near a thin bronze plate and during the growth and collapse of the bubble, it deforms the nearby plate. The Boundary Integral Equation Method is employed for numerical simulation of the problem. The fluid is assumed to be incompressible, irrotational and inviscid and the surface tension on the bubble boundary is neglected. Therefore the fluid flow around the vapour bubble can be assumed as a potential flow. Furthermore, the thin bronze plate is assumed to have perfectly plastic behaviour. Results show that the displacement of the circular thin bronze plate has considerable effect on the dynamics of its nearby vapour bubble. It is found that by decreasing the thickness of the thin bronze plate, the growth and collapse rate of the bubble becomes higher and consequently the lifetime of the bubble becomes shorter.
Abstract: This paper is a part of research, in which the way the
biomedical engineers follow in their work is analyzed. The goal of
this paper is to present a method for specification of user
requirements in the medical devices maintenance process. Data
Gathering Methods, Research Model Phases and Descriptive
Analysis is presented. These technology and verification rules can be
implemented in Medical devices maintenance management process to
the maintenance process.
Abstract: This paper presents the effect of driving a motor
vehicle on the stress levels of older drivers, indicated by monitoring
their hear rate increase whilst completing various everyday driving
tasks. Results suggest that whilst older female drivers heart rate varied
more significantly than males, the actual age of a participant did not
result in a significant change in heart rate due to stress, within the age
group tested. The analysis of the results indicates the most stressful
manoeuvres undertaken by the older drivers and highlights the tasks
which were found difficult with a view to implementing technologies
to aid the more senior driver in automotive travel.
Abstract: SeqWord Gene Island Sniffer, a new program for
the identification of mobile genetic elements in sequences of bacterial chromosomes is presented. This program is based on the
analysis of oligonucleotide usage variations in DNA sequences. 3,518 mobile genetic elements were identified in 637 bacterial
genomes and further analyzed by sequence similarity and the
functionality of encoded proteins. The results of this study are stored in an open database http://anjie.bi.up.ac.za/geidb/geidbhome.
php). The developed computer program and the database provide the information valuable for further investigation of the
distribution of mobile genetic elements and virulence factors among bacteria. The program is available for download at www.bi.up.ac.za/SeqWord/sniffer/index.html.
Abstract: A passive system "Qanat" is collection of some
underground wells. A mother-well was dug in a place far from the
city where they could reach to the water table maybe 100 meters
underground, they dug other wells to direct water toward the city,
with minimum possible gradient. Using the slope of the earth they
could bring water close to the surface in the city. The source of water
or the appearance of Qanat, land slope and the ownership lines are
the important and effective factors in the formation of routes and the
segment division of lands to the extent that making use of Qanat as
the techniques of extracting underground waters creates a channel of
routes with an organic order and hierarchy coinciding the slope of
land and it also guides the Qanat waters in the tradition texture of salt
desert and border provinces of it. Qanats are excavated in a specified
distinction from each other. The quantity of water provided by
Qanats depends on the kind of land, distance from mountain,
geographical situation of them and the rate of water supply from the
underground land. The rate of underground waters, possibility of
Qanat excavation, number of Qanats and rate of their water supply
from one hand and the quantity of cultivable fertile lands from the
other hand are the important natural factors making the size of cities.
In the same manner the cities with several Qanats have multi central
textures. The location of cities is in direct relation with land quality,
soil fertility and possibility of using underground water by excavating
Qanats. Observing the allowable distance for Qanat watering is a
determining factor for distance between villages and cities.
Topography, land slope, soil quality, watering system, ownership,
kind of cultivation, etc. are the effective factors in directing Qanats
for excavation and guiding water toward the cultivable lands and it
also causes the formation of different textures in land division of
farming provinces. Several divisions such as orderly and wide, inorderly,
thin and long, comb like, etc. are the introduction to organic
order. And at the same time they are complete coincidence with
environmental conditions in the typical development of ecological
architecture and planning in the traditional cities and settlements
order.
Abstract: This study aims to segment objects using the K-means
algorithm for texture features. Firstly, the algorithm transforms color
images into gray images. This paper describes a novel technique for
the extraction of texture features in an image. Then, in a group of
similar features, objects and backgrounds are differentiated by using
the K-means algorithm. Finally, this paper proposes a new object
segmentation algorithm using the morphological technique. The
experiments described include the segmentation of single and multiple
objects featured in this paper. The region of an object can be
accurately segmented out. The results can help to perform image
retrieval and analyze features of an object, as are shown in this paper.
Abstract: In this paper, a novel scheme is proposed for ownership identification and authentication using color images by deploying Cryptography and Digital Watermarking as underlaying technologies. The former is used to compute the contents based hash and the latter to embed the watermark. The host image that will claim to be the rightful owner is first transformed from RGB to YST color space exclusively designed for watermarking based applications. Geometrically YS ÔèÑ T and T channel corresponds to the chrominance component of color image, therefore suitable for embedding the watermark. The T channel is divided into 4×4 nonoverlapping blocks. The size of block is important for enhanced localization, security and low computation. Each block along with ownership information is then deployed by SHA160, a one way hash function to compute the content based hash, which is always unique and resistant against birthday attack instead of using MD5 that may raise the condition i.e. H(m)=H(m'). The watermark payload varies from block to block and computed by the variance factorα . The quality of watermarked images is quite high both subjectively and objectively. Our scheme is blind, computationally fast and exactly locates the tampered region.
Abstract: In this research, we study a control method of a multivehicle
system while considering the limitation of communication
range for each vehicles. When we control networked vehicles with
limitation of communication range, it is important to control the
communication network structure of a multi-vehicle system in order
to keep the network-s connectivity. From this, we especially aim to
control the network structure to the target structure. We formulate
the networked multi-vehicle system with some disturbance and the
communication constraints as a hybrid dynamical system, and then
we study the optimal control problems of the system. It is shown
that the system converge to the objective network structure in finite
time when the system is controlled by the receding horizon method.
Additionally, the optimal control probrems are convertible into the
mixed integer problems and these problems are solvable by some
branch and bound algorithm.
Abstract: Recent developments in Soft computing techniques,
power electronic switches and low-cost computational hardware have
made it possible to design and implement sophisticated control
strategies for sensorless speed control of AC motor drives. Such an
attempt has been made in this work, for Sensorless Speed Control of
Induction Motor (IM) by means of Direct Torque Fuzzy Control
(DTFC), PI-type fuzzy speed regulator and MRAS speed estimator
strategy, which is absolutely nonlinear in its nature. Direct torque
control is known to produce quick and robust response in AC drive
system. However, during steady state, torque, flux and current ripple
occurs. So, the performance of conventional DTC with PI speed
regulator can be improved by implementing fuzzy logic techniques.
Certain important issues in design including the space vector
modulated (SVM) 3-Ф voltage source inverter, DTFC design,
generation of reference torque using PI-type fuzzy speed regulator
and sensor less speed estimator have been resolved. The proposed
scheme is validated through extensive numerical simulations on
MATLAB. The simulated results indicate the sensor less speed
control of IM with DTFC and PI-type fuzzy speed regulator provides
satisfactory high dynamic and static performance compare to
conventional DTC with PI speed regulator.
Abstract: Agricultural residue such as oil palm fronds (OPF) is
cheap, widespread and available throughout the year. Hemicelluloses
extracted from OPF can be hydrolyzed to their monomers and used in
production of xylooligosaccharides (XOs). The objective of the
present study was to optimize the enzymatic hydrolysis process of
OPF hemicellulose by varying pH, temperature, enzyme and substrate
concentration for production of XOs. Hemicelluloses was extracted
from OPF by using 3 M potassium hydroxide (KOH) at temperature of
40°C for 4 hrs and stirred at 400 rpm. The hemicellulose was then
hydrolyzed using Trichoderma longibrachiatum xylanase at different
pH, temperature, enzyme and substrate concentration. XOs were
characterized based on reducing sugar determination. The optimum
conditions to produced XOs from OPF hemicellulose was obtained at
pH 4.6, temperature of 40°C , enzyme concentration of 2 U/mL and
2% substrate concentration. The results established the suitability of
oil palm fronds as raw material for production of XOs.
Abstract: The coastal sediments of West Port of Malaysia was monitored from Nov. 2009 to Oct. 2010 to assess spatial distribution of heavy metals As, Cu, Cd, Cr, Hg, Ni, Zn and Pb. Sediment samples were collected from 10 stations in dry and rainy season in West Port. The range concentrations measured (Mg/g dry weight ) were from 23.4 to 98.3 for Zn, 22.3 to 80 for Pb, 7.4 to 27.6 Cu, 0.244 to 3.53 for Cd, 7.2 to 22.2 for Ni, 20.2 to 162 for As, 0.11 to 0.409 for Hg and 11.5 to 61.5 for Cr. The geochemical indexes used in this study were Geoaccumulation (Igeo), Contamination Factor (CF) and Pollution Load Index (PLI); these indexes were used to evaluate the levels of sediment contaminations. The results of these indexes show that, the status of West Port sediment quality are moderately polluted by heavy metals except in arsenic which shows the high level of pollution.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to discuss the effect of the
intervention of exercise behavior change plan for high school students
on study subjects- social and psychological factors and exercise
stages. This research uses the transtheoretical model as the research
framework. One experiment group and one control group were used in
a quasi-experimental design research. The experimental group
accepted health-related physical fitness course and the traditional
course; the control group accepted traditional physical education
course. There is a significant difference before and after the
intervention in the experimental group. Karl-s test shows the
experimental group gained a better improvement than that in the
control group. The Analysis of Covariance had shown the exercise
stages (F=7.62, p
Abstract: Power consumption of nodes in ad hoc networks is a
critical issue as they predominantly operate on batteries. In order to
improve the lifetime of an ad hoc network, all the nodes must be
utilized evenly and the power required for connections must be
minimized. In this project a link layer algorithm known as Power
Aware medium Access Control (PAMAC) protocol is proposed
which enables the network layer to select a route with minimum total
power requirement among the possible routes between a source and a
destination provided all nodes in the routes have battery capacity
above a threshold. When the battery capacity goes below a
predefined threshold, routes going through these nodes will be
avoided and these nodes will act only as source and destination.
Further, the first few nodes whose battery power drained to the set
threshold value are pushed to the exterior part of the network and the
nodes in the exterior are brought to the interior. Since less total
power is required to forward packets for each connection. The
network layer protocol AOMDV is basically an extension to the
AODV routing protocol. AOMDV is designed to form multiple
routes to the destination and it also avoid the loop formation so that it
reduces the unnecessary congestion to the channel. In this project, the
performance of AOMDV is evaluated using PAMAC as a MAC layer
protocol and the average power consumption, throughput and
average end to end delay of the network are calculated and the results
are compared with that of the other network layer protocol AODV.
Abstract: Simultaneous effects of temperature, immersion time, salt concentration, sucrose concentration, pressure and convective dryer temperature on the combined osmotic dehydration - convective drying of edible button mushrooms were investigated. Experiments were designed according to Central Composite Design with six factors each at five different levels. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to determine the optimum processing conditions that yield maximum water loss and rehydration ratio and minimum solid gain and shrinkage in osmotic-convective drying of edible button mushrooms. Applying surfaces profiler and contour plots optimum operation conditions were found to be temperature of 39 °C, immersion time of 164 min, salt concentration of 14%, sucrose concentration of 53%, pressure of 600 mbar and drying temperature of 40 °C. At these optimum conditions, water loss, solid gain, rehydration ratio and shrinkage were found to be 63.38 (g/100 g initial sample), 3.17 (g/100 g initial sample), 2.26 and 7.15%, respectively.
Abstract: Sensor networks are often deployed in unattended
environments, thus leaving these networks vulnerable to false data
injection attacks in which an adversary injects forged reports into the
network through compromised nodes, with the goal of deceiving the
base station or depleting the resources of forwarding nodes. Several
research solutions have been recently proposed to detect and drop such
forged reports during the forwarding process. Each design can provide
the equivalent resilience in terms of node compromising. However,
their energy consumption characteristics differ from each other. Thus,
employing only a single filtering scheme for a network is not a
recommendable strategy in terms of energy saving. It's very important
the threshold determination for message authentication to identify. We
propose the recursive contract net protocols which less energy level of
terminal node in wireless sensor network.
Abstract: All over the world, including the Middle and East
European countries, sustainable tillage and sowing technologies are
applied increasingly broadly with a view to optimising soil resources,
mitigating soil degradation processes, saving energy resources,
preserving biological diversity, etc. As a result, altered conditions of
tillage and sowing technological processes are faced inevitably. The
purpose of this study is to determine the seedbed topsoil hardness
when using a combined sowing coulter in different sustainable tillage
technologies. The research involved a combined coulter consisting
of two dissected blade discs and a shoe coulter. In order to determine
soil hardness at the seedbed area, a multipenetrometer was used. It
was found by experimental studies that in loosened soil, a combined
sowing coulter equally suppresses the furrow bottom, walls and soil
near the furrow; therefore, here, soil hardness was similar at all
researched depths and no significant differences were established. In
loosened and compacted (double-rolled) soil, the impact of a
combined coulter on the hardness of seedbed soil surface was more
considerable at a depth of 2 mm. Soil hardness at the furrow bottom
and walls to a distance of up to 26 mm was 1.1 MPa. At a depth of 10
mm, the greatest hardness was established at the furrow bottom. In
loosened and heavily compacted (rolled for 6 times) soil, at a depth
of 2 and 10 mm a combined coulter most of all compacted the furrow
bottom, which has a hardness of 1.8 MPa. At a depth of 20 mm, soil
hardness within the whole investigated area varied insignificantly and
fluctuated by around 2.0 MPa. The hardness of furrow walls and soil
near the furrow was by approximately 1.0 MPa lower than that at the
furrow bottom
Abstract: The quality and shelf life of foods of containing lipids (fats and oils) significantly reduces due to rancidity.Applications of natural antioxidants are one of the most effective manners to prevent the oxidation of oils and lipids. The antioxidant properties of juice extracted from barberry fruit (Berberris vulgaris.L) using maceration and SWE (10 bars and 120 - 180°C) methods were investigated and compared with conventional method. The amount of phenolic compound and reduction power of all samples were determined and the data were statistically analyzed using multifactor design. The results showed that the total amount of phenolic compound increased with increasing of pressure and temprature from 1861.9 to 2439.1 (mg Gallic acid /100gr Dry matter). The ability of reduction power of SWE obtained antioxidant extract compared with BHA (synthetic antioxidant) and ascorbic acid (natural antioxidant). There were significant differences among reduction power of extracts and there were remarkable difference with BHA and Ascorbic acid (P