Abstract: By taking advantage of both k-NN which is highly
accurate and K-means cluster which is able to reduce the time of classification, we can introduce Cluster-k-Nearest Neighbor as "variable k"-NN dealing with the centroid or mean point of all subclasses generated by clustering algorithm. In general the algorithm of K-means cluster is not stable, in term of accuracy, for that reason we develop another algorithm for clustering our space which gives a higher accuracy than K-means cluster, less
subclass number, stability and bounded time of classification with respect to the variable data size. We find between 96% and 99.7 % of accuracy in the lassification of 6 different types of Time series by using K-means cluster algorithm and we find 99.7% by using the new clustering algorithm.
Abstract: Ultrasound is useful in demonstrating bone mineral
density of regenerating osseous tissue as well as structural alterations.
A proposed ultrasound method, which included ultrasonography and
acoustic parameters measurement, was employed to evaluate its
efficacy in monitoring the bone callus changes in a rabbit tibial
distraction osteogenesis (DO) model.
The findings demonstrated that ultrasonographic images depicted
characteristic changes of the bone callus, typical of histology findings,
during the distraction phase. Follow-up acoustic parameters
measurement of the bone callus, including speed of sound, reflection
and attenuation, showed significant linear changes over time during
the distraction phase. The acoustic parameters obtained during the
distraction phase also showed moderate to strong correlation with
consolidated bone callus density and micro-architecture measured by
micro-computed tomography at the end of the consolidation phase.
The results support the preferred use of ultrasound imaging in the
early monitoring of bone callus changes during DO treatment.
Abstract: This paper presents functionality of negotiation agent
on value-based design decision. The functionality is based on the
characteristics of the system and goal specification. A Prometheus
Design Tool model was used for developing the system. Group
functionality will be the attribute for negotiation agents, which
comprises a coordinator agent and decision- maker agent. The results
of the testing of the system to a building system selection on valuebased
decision environment are also presented.
Abstract: To simulate expected climate change, we implemented a two-factor (temperature and soil moisture) field design in a forest in Ontario, Canada. To manipulate moisture input, we erected rain-exclusion structures. Under each structure, plots were watered with one of three treatments and thermally controlled with three heat treatments to simulate changes in air temperature and rainfall based on the climate model (GCM) predictions for the study area. Environmental conditions (including untreated controls) were monitored tracking air temperature, soil temperature, soil moisture, and photosynthetically active radiation. We measured rainfall and relative humidity at the site outside the rain-exclusion structures. Analyses of environmental conditions demonstrates that the temperature manipulation was most effective at maintaining target temperature during the early part of the growing season, but it was more difficult to keep the warmest treatment at 5º C above ambient by late summer. Target moisture regimes were generally achieved however incoming solar radiation was slightly attenuated by the structures.
Abstract: In the context of channel coding, the Generalized Belief Propagation (GBP) is an iterative algorithm used to recover the transmission bits sent through a noisy channel. To ensure a reliable transmission, we apply a map on the bits, that is called a code. This code induces artificial correlations between the bits to send, and it can be modeled by a graph whose nodes are the bits and the edges are the correlations. This graph, called Tanner graph, is used for most of the decoding algorithms like Belief Propagation or Gallager-B. The GBP is based on a non unic transformation of the Tanner graph into a so called region-graph. A clear advantage of the GBP over the other algorithms is the freedom in the construction of this graph. In this article, we explain a particular construction for specific graph topologies that involves relevant performance of the GBP. Moreover, we investigate the behavior of the GBP considered as a dynamic system in order to understand the way it evolves in terms of the time and in terms of the noise power of the channel. To this end we make use of classical measures and we introduce a new measure called the hyperspheres method that enables to know the size of the attractors.
Abstract: Lossless compression schemes with secure
transmission play a key role in telemedicine applications that helps in
accurate diagnosis and research. Traditional cryptographic algorithms
for data security are not fast enough to process vast amount of data.
Hence a novel Secured lossless compression approach proposed in
this paper is based on reversible integer wavelet transform, EZW
algorithm, new modified runlength coding for character
representation and selective bit scrambling. The use of the lifting
scheme allows generating truly lossless integer-to-integer wavelet
transforms. Images are compressed/decompressed by well-known
EZW algorithm. The proposed modified runlength coding greatly
improves the compression performance and also increases the
security level. This work employs scrambling method which is fast,
simple to implement and it provides security. Lossless compression
ratios and distortion performance of this proposed method are found
to be better than other lossless techniques.
Abstract: Response surface methodology was used for
quantitative investigation of water and solids transfer during osmotic
dehydration of beetroot in aqueous solution of salt. Effects of
temperature (25 – 45oC), processing time (30–150 min), salt
concentration (5–25%, w/w) and solution to sample ratio (5:1 – 25:1)
on osmotic dehydration of beetroot were estimated. Quadratic
regression equations describing the effects of these factors on the
water loss and solids gain were developed. It was found that effects
of temperature and salt concentrations were more significant on the
water loss than the effects of processing time and solution to sample
ratio. As for solids gain processing time and salt concentration were
the most significant factors. The osmotic dehydration process was
optimized for water loss, solute gain, and weight reduction. The
optimum conditions were found to be: temperature – 35oC,
processing time – 90 min, salt concentration – 14.31% and solution
to sample ratio 8.5:1. At these optimum values, water loss, solid gain
and weight reduction were found to be 30.86 (g/100 g initial sample),
9.43 (g/100 g initial sample) and 21.43 (g/100 g initial sample)
respectively.
Abstract: A biophysically based multilayer continuum model of the facial soft tissue composite has been developed for simulating wrinkle formation. The deformed state of the soft tissue block was determined by solving large deformation mechanics equations using the Galerkin finite element method. The proposed soft tissue model is composed of four layers with distinct mechanical properties. These include stratum corneum, epidermal-dermal layer (living epidermis and dermis), subcutaneous tissue and the underlying muscle. All the layers were treated as non-linear, isotropic Mooney Rivlin materials. Contraction of muscle fibres was approximated using a steady-state relationship between the fibre extension ratio, intracellular calcium concentration and active stress in the fibre direction. Several variations of the model parameters (stiffness and thickness of epidermal-dermal layer, thickness of subcutaneous tissue layer) have been considered.
Abstract: The exhaustive quality control is becoming more and
more important when commercializing competitive products in the
world's globalized market. Taken this affirmation as an undeniable
truth, it becomes critical in certain sector markets that need to offer
the highest restrictions in quality terms. One of these examples is the
percussion cap mass production, a critical element assembled in
firearm ammunition. These elements, built in great quantities at a
very high speed, must achieve a minimum tolerance deviation in
their fabrication, due to their vital importance in firing the piece of
ammunition where they are built in. This paper outlines a machine
vision development for the 100% inspection of percussion caps
obtaining data from 2D and 3D simultaneous images. The acquisition
speed and precision of these images from a metallic reflective piece
as a percussion cap, the accuracy of the measures taken from these
images and the multiple fabrication errors detected make the main
findings of this work.
Abstract: Much has been written about the difficulties students
have with producing traditional dissertations. This includes both
native English speakers (L1) and students with English as a second
language (L2). The main emphasis of these papers has been on the
structure of the dissertation, but in all cases, even when electronic
versions are discussed, the dissertation is still in what most would
regard as a traditional written form.
Master of Science Degrees in computing disciplines require
students to gain technical proficiency and apply their knowledge to a
range of scenarios. The basis of this paper is that if a dissertation is a
means of showing that such a student has met the criteria for a pass,
which should be based on the learning outcomes of the dissertation
module, does meeting those outcomes require a student to
demonstrate their skills in a solely text based form, particularly in a
highly technical research project? Could it be possible for a student
to produce a series of related artifacts which form a cohesive package
that meets the learning out comes of the dissertation?
Abstract: Structural and UV/Visible optical properties can be
useful to describe a material for the CIGS solar cell active layer,
therefore, this work demonstrates the properties like surface
morphology, X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS) bonding
energy (EB) core level spectra, UV/Visible absorption spectra,
refractive index (n), optical energy band (Eg), reflection spectra for
the Cu25 (In16Ga9) Se40Te10 (CIGST-1) and Cu20 (In14Ga9) Se45Te12
(CIGST-2) chalcogenide compositions. Materials have been
exhibited homogenous surface morphologies, broading /-or diffusion
of bonding energy peaks relative elemental values and a high
UV/Visible absorption tendency in the wave length range 400 nm-
850 nm range with the optical energy band gaps 1.37 and 1.42
respectively. Subsequently, UV/Visible reflectivity property in the
wave length range 250 nm to 320 nm for these materials has also
been discussed.
Abstract: The urban centers within northeastern Brazil are
mainly influenced by the intense rainfalls, which can occur after long
periods of drought, when flood events can be observed during such
events. Thus, this paper aims to study the rainfall frequencies in such
region through the wavelet transform. An application of wavelet
analysis is done with long time series of the total monthly rainfall
amount at the capital cities of northeastern Brazil. The main
frequency components in the time series are studied by the global
wavelet spectrum and the modulation in separated periodicity bands
were done in order to extract additional information, e.g., the 8 and
16 months band was examined by an average of all scales, giving a
measure of the average annual variance versus time, where the
periods with low or high variance could be identified. The important
increases were identified in the average variance for some periods,
e.g. 1947 to 1952 at Teresina city, which can be considered as high
wet periods. Although, the precipitation in those sites showed similar
global wavelet spectra, the wavelet spectra revealed particular
features. This study can be considered an important tool for time
series analysis, which can help the studies concerning flood control,
mainly when they are applied together with rainfall-runoff
simulations.
Abstract: There are three main ways of categorizing capital in banking operations: accounting, regulatory and economic capital. However, the 2008-2009 global crisis has shown that none of these categories adequately reflects the real risks of bank operations, especially in light of the failures Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers or Northern Rock. This paper deals with the economic capital allocation of global banks. In theory, economic capital should reflect the real risks of a bank and should be publicly available. Yet, as discovered during the global financial crisis, even when economic capital information was publicly disclosed, the underlying assumptions rendered the information useless. Specifically, some global banks that reported relatively high levels of economic capital before the crisis went bankrupt or had to be bailed-out by their government. And, only 15 out of 50 global banks reported their economic capital during the 2007-2010 period. In this paper, we analyze the changes in reported bank economic capital disclosure during this period. We conclude that relative shares of credit and business risks increased in 2010 compared to 2007, while both operational and market risks decreased their shares on the total economic capital of top-rated global banks. Generally speaking, higher levels of disclosure and transparency of bank operations are required to obtain more confidence from stakeholders. Moreover, additional risks such as liquidity risks should be included in these disclosures.
Abstract: Minimization methods for training feed-forward networks with Backpropagation are compared. Feedforward network training is a special case of functional minimization, where no explicit model of the data is assumed. Therefore due to the high dimensionality of the data, linearization of the training problem through use of orthogonal basis functions is not desirable. The focus is functional minimization on any basis. A number of methods based on local gradient and Hessian matrices are discussed. Modifications of many methods of first and second order training methods are considered. Using share rates data, experimentally it is proved that Conjugate gradient and Quasi Newton?s methods outperformed the Gradient Descent methods. In case of the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is of special interest in financial forecasting.
Abstract: An important problem in speech research is the automatic extraction of information about the shape and dimensions of the vocal tract during real-time speech production. We have previously developed Southampton dynamic magnetic resonance imaging (SDMRI) as an approach to the solution of this problem.However, the SDMRI images are very noisy so that shape extraction is a major challenge. In this paper, we address the problem of tongue shape extraction, which poses difficulties because this is a highly deforming non-parametric shape. We show that combining active shape models with the dynamic Hough transform allows the tongue shape to be reliably tracked in the image sequence.
Abstract: Transliteration is frequently used especially in writing geographic denominations, personal names (onyms) etc. Proper names (onyms) of all languages must sound similarly in translated works as well as in scientific projects and works written in mother tongue, because we can get introduced with the nation, its history, culture, traditions and other spiritual values through the onyms of that nation. Therefore it is necessary to systematize the different transliterations of onyms of foreign languages. This paper is dedicated to the problem of making the project of transliterating Kazakh onyms into Arabic. In order to achieve this goal we use scientific or practical types of transliteration. Because in this type of transliteration provides easy reading writing source language's texts in the target language without any diacritical symbols, it is limited by the target language's alphabetic system.
Abstract: Cutting fluids, usually in the form of a liquid, are
applied to the chip formation zone in order to improve the cutting
conditions. Cutting fluid can be expensive and represents a biological
and environmental hazard that requires proper recycling and
disposal, thus adding to the cost of the machining operation. For
these reasons dry cutting or dry machining has become an
increasingly important approach; in dry machining no coolant or
lubricant is used. This paper discussed the effect of the dry cutting on
cutting force and tool life when machining aerospace materials
(Haynes 242) with using two different coated carbide cutting tools
(TiAlN and TiN/MT-TiCN/TiN). Response surface method (RSM)
was used to minimize the number of experiments. ParTiAlN Swarm
Optimisation (PSO) models were developed to optimize the
machining parameters (cutting speed, federate and axial depth) and
obtain the optimum cutting force and tool life. It observed that
carbide cutting tool coated with TiAlN performed better in dry
cutting compared with TiN/MT-TiCN/TiN. On other hand, TiAlN
performed more superior with using of 100 % water soluble coolant.
Due to the high temperature produced by aerospace materials, the
cutting tool still required lubricant to sustain the heat transfer from
the workpiece.
Abstract: RoboCup Rescue simulation as a large-scale Multi
agent system (MAS) is one of the challenging environments for
keeping coordination between agents to achieve the objectives
despite sensing and communication limitations. The dynamicity of
the environment and intensive dependency between actions of
different kinds of agents make the problem more complex. This point
encouraged us to use learning-based methods to adapt our decision
making to different situations. Our approach is utilizing
reinforcement leaning. Using learning in rescue simulation is one of
the current ways which has been the subject of several researches in
recent years. In this paper we present an innovative learning method
implemented for Police Force (PF) Agent. This method can cope
with the main difficulties that exist in other learning approaches.
Different methods used in the literature have been examined. Their
drawbacks and possible improvements have led us to the method
proposed in this paper which is fast and accurate. The Brain
Emotional Learning Based Intelligent Controller (BELBIC) is our
solution for learning in this environment. BELBIC is a
physiologically motivated approach based on a computational model
of amygdale and limbic system. The paper presents the results
obtained by the proposed approach, showing the power of BELBIC
as a decision making tool in complex and dynamic situation.
Abstract: One of the most basic functions of control engineers is
tuning of controllers. There are always several process loops in the
plant necessitate of tuning. The auto tuned Proportional Integral
Derivative (PID) Controllers are designed for applications where
large load changes are expected or the need for extreme accuracy and
fast response time exists. The algorithm presented in this paper is
used for the tuning PID controller to obtain its parameters with a
minimum computing complexity. It requires continuous analysis of
variation in few parameters, and let the program to do the plant test
and calculate the controller parameters to adjust and optimize the
variables for the best performance. The algorithm developed needs
less time as compared to a normal step response test for continuous
tuning of the PID through gain scheduling.
Abstract: LabVIEW and SIMULINK are two most widely used
graphical programming environments for designing digital signal
processing and control systems. Unlike conventional text-based
programming languages such as C, Cµ and MATLAB, graphical
programming involves block-based code developments, allowing a
more efficient mechanism to build and analyze control systems. In
this paper a LabVIEW environment has been employed as a
graphical user interface for monitoring the operation of a controlled
distillation column, by visualizing both the closed loop performance
and the user selected control conditions, while the column dynamics
has been modeled under the SIMULINK environment. This tool has
been applied to the PID based decoupled control of a binary
distillation column. By means of such integrated environments the
control designer is able to monitor and control the plant behavior and
optimize the response when both, the quality improvement of
distillation products and the operation efficiency tasks, are
considered.