Identification of Individual Objects at the Intelligent Assembly Cell

In this contribution is presented a complex design of individual objects identification in the workplace of intelligent assembly cell. Intelligent assembly cell is situated at Institute of Manufacturing Systems and Applied Mechanics and is used for pneumatic actuator assembly. Pneumatic actuator components are pneumatic roller, cover, piston and spring. Two identification objects alternatives for assembly are designed in the workplace of industrial robot. In the contribution is evaluated and selected suitable alternative for identification – 2D codes reader. The complex design of individual object identification is going out of intelligent manufacturing systems knowledge. Intelligent assembly and manufacturing systems as systems of new generation are gradually loaded in to the mechanical production, when they are removeing human operation out of production process and they also short production times.

Aliveness Detection of Fingerprints using Multiple Static Features

Fake finger submission attack is a major problem in fingerprint recognition systems. In this paper, we introduce an aliveness detection method based on multiple static features, which derived from a single fingerprint image. The static features are comprised of individual pore spacing, residual noise and several first order statistics. Specifically, correlation filter is adopted to address individual pore spacing. The multiple static features are useful to reflect the physiological and statistical characteristics of live and fake fingerprint. The classification can be made by calculating the liveness scores from each feature and fusing the scores through a classifier. In our dataset, we compare nine classifiers and the best classification rate at 85% is attained by using a Reduced Multivariate Polynomial classifier. Our approach is faster and more convenient for aliveness check for field applications.

Study of Chest Pain and its Risk Factors in Over 30 Year-Old Individuals

Chest pain is one of the most prevalent complaints among adults that cause the people to attend to medical centers. The aim was to determine the prevalence and risk factors of chest pain among over 30 years old people in Tehran. In this cross-sectional study, 787 adults took part from Apr 2005 until Apr 2006. The sampling method was random cluster sampling and there were 25 clusters. In each cluster, interviews were performed with 32 over 30 years old, people lived in those houses. In cases with chest pain, extra questions asked. The prevalence of CP was 9% (71 cases). Of them 21 cases (6.5%) were in 41-60 year age ranges and the remainders were over 61 year old. 19 cases (26.8%) mentioned CP in resting state and all of the cases had exertion onset CP. The CP duration was 10 minutes or less in all of the cases and in most of them (84.5%), the location of pain mentioned left anterior part of chest, left anterior part of sternum and or left arm. There was positive history of myocardial infarction in 12 cases (17%). There was significant relation between CP and age, sex and between history of myocardial infarction and marital state of study people. Our results are similar to other studies- results in most parts, however it is necessary to perform supplementary tests and follow up studies to differentiate between cardiac and non-cardiac CP exactly.

Quality of Groundwater in the Shallow Aquifers of a Paddy Dominated Agricultural River Basin, Kerala, India

Groundwater is an essential and vital component of our life support system. The groundwater resources are being utilized for drinking, irrigation and industrial purposes. There is growing concern on deterioration of groundwater quality due to geogenic and anthropogenic activities. Groundwater, being a fragile must be carefully managed to maintain its purity within standard limits. So, quality assessment and management are to be carried out hand-in-hand to have a pollution free environment and for a sustainable use. In order to assess the quality for consumption by human beings and for use in agriculture, the groundwater from the shallow aquifers (dug well) in the Palakkad and Chittur taluks of Bharathapuzha river basin - a paddy dominated agricultural basin (order=8th; L= 209 Km; Area = 6186 Km2), Kerala, India, has been selected. The water samples (n= 120) collected for various seasons, viz., monsoon-MON (August, 2005), postmonsoon-POM (December, 2005) and premonsoon-PRM (April, 2006), were analyzed for important physico-chemical attributes. Spatial and temporal variation of attributes do exist in the study area, and based on major cations and anions, different hydrochemical facies have been identified. Using Gibbs'diagram, rock dominance has been identified as the mechanism controlling groundwater chemistry. Further, the suitability of water for irrigation was determined by analyzing salinity hazard indicated by sodium adsorption ratio (SAR), residual sodium carbonate (RSC) and sodium percent (%Na). Finally, stress zones in the study area were delineated using Arc GIS spatial analysis and various management options were recommended to restore the ecosystem.

Risk Assessment of Selected Source for Emergency Water Supply Case Study II

The case study deals with the semi-quantitative risk assessment of water resource earmarked for the emergency supply of population with drinking water. The risk analysis has been based on previously identified hazards/sensitivities of the elements of hydrogeological structure and technological equipment of ground water resource as well as on the assessment of the levels of hazard, sensitivity and criticality of individual resource elements in the form of point indexes. The following potential sources of hazard have been considered: natural disasters caused by atmospheric and geological changes, technological hazards, and environmental burdens. The risk analysis has proved that the assessed risks are acceptable and the water resource may be integrated into a crisis plan of a given region.

An Hybrid Approach for Loss Reduction in Distribution Systems using Harmony Search Algorithm

Individually Network reconfiguration or Capacitor control perform well in minimizing power loss and improving voltage profile of the distribution system. But for heavy reactive power loads network reconfiguration and for heavy active power loads capacitor placement can not effectively reduce power loss and enhance voltage profiles in the system. In this paper, an hybrid approach that combine network reconfiguration and capacitor placement using Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA) is proposed to minimize power loss reduction and improve voltage profile. The proposed approach is tested on standard IEEE 33 and 16 bus systems. Computational results show that the proposed hybrid approach can minimize losses more efficiently than Network reconfiguration or Capacitor control. The results of proposed method are also compared with results obtained by Simulated Annealing (SA). The proposed method has outperformed in terms of the quality of solution compared to SA.

Complex-Valued Neural Networks for Blind Equalization of Time-Varying Channels

Most of the commonly used blind equalization algorithms are based on the minimization of a nonconvex and nonlinear cost function and a neural network gives smaller residual error as compared to a linear structure. The efficacy of complex valued feedforward neural networks for blind equalization of linear and nonlinear communication channels has been confirmed by many studies. In this paper we present two neural network models for blind equalization of time-varying channels, for M-ary QAM and PSK signals. The complex valued activation functions, suitable for these signal constellations in time-varying environment, are introduced and the learning algorithms based on the CMA cost function are derived. The improved performance of the proposed models is confirmed through computer simulations.

Estimation of Individual Power of Noise Sources Operating Simultaneously

Noise has adverse effect on human health and comfort. Noise not only cause hearing impairment, but it also acts as a causal factor for stress and raising systolic pressure. Additionally it can be a causal factor in work accidents, both by marking hazards and warning signals and by impeding concentration. Industry workers also suffer psychological and physical stress as well as hearing loss due to industrial noise. This paper proposes an approach to enable engineers to point out quantitatively the noisiest source for modification, while multiple machines are operating simultaneously. The model with the point source and spherical radiation in a free field was adopted to formulate the problem. The procedure works very well in ideal cases (point source and free field). However, most of the industrial noise problems are complicated by the fact that the noise is confined in a room. Reflections from the walls, floor, ceiling, and equipment in a room create a reverberant sound field that alters the sound wave characteristics from those for the free field. So the model was validated for relatively low absorption room at NIT Kurukshetra Central Workshop. The results of validation pointed out that the estimated sound power of noise sources under simultaneous conditions were on lower side, within the error limits 3.56 - 6.35 %. Thus suggesting the use of this methodology for practical implementation in industry. To demonstrate the application of the above analytical procedure for estimating the sound power of noise sources under simultaneous operating conditions, a manufacturing facility (Railway Workshop at Yamunanagar, India) having five sound sources (machines) on its workshop floor is considered in this study. The findings of the case study had identified the two most effective candidates (noise sources) for noise control in the Railway Workshop Yamunanagar, India. The study suggests that the modification in the design and/or replacement of these two identified noisiest sources (machine) would be necessary so as to achieve an effective reduction in noise levels. Further, the estimated data allows engineers to better understand the noise situations of the workplace and to revise the map when changes occur in noise level due to a workplace re-layout.

Removal of Pharmaceutical Compounds by a Sequential Treatment of Ozonation Followed by Fenton Process: Influence of the Water Matrix

A sequential treatment of ozonation followed by a Fenton or photo-Fenton process, using black light lamps (365 nm) in this latter case, has been applied to remove a mixture of pharmaceutical compounds and the generated by-products both in ultrapure and secondary treated wastewater. The scientifictechnological innovation of this study stems from the in situ generation of hydrogen peroxide from the direct ozonation of pharmaceuticals, and can later be used in the application of Fenton and photo-Fenton processes. The compounds selected as models were sulfamethoxazol and acetaminophen. It should be remarked that the use of a second process is necessary as a result of the low mineralization yield reached by the exclusive application of ozone. Therefore, the influence of the water matrix has been studied in terms of hydrogen peroxide concentration, individual compound concentration and total organic carbon removed. Moreover, the concentration of different iron species in solution has been measured.

Time Domain and Frequency Domain Analyses of Measured Metocean Data for Malaysian Waters

Data of wave height and wind speed were collected from three existing oil fields in South China Sea – offshore Peninsular Malaysia, Sarawak and Sabah regions. Extreme values and other significant data were employed for analysis. The data were recorded from 1999 until 2008. The results show that offshore structures are susceptible to unacceptable motions initiated by wind and waves with worst structural impacts caused by extreme wave heights. To protect offshore structures from damage, there is a need to quantify descriptive statistics and determine spectra envelope of wind speed and wave height, and to ascertain the frequency content of each spectrum for offshore structures in the South China Sea shallow waters using measured time series. The results indicate that the process is nonstationary; it is converted to stationary process by first differencing the time series. For descriptive statistical analysis, both wind speed and wave height have significant influence on the offshore structure during the northeast monsoon with high mean wind speed of 13.5195 knots ( = 6.3566 knots) and the high mean wave height of 2.3597 m ( = 0.8690 m). Through observation of the spectra, there is no clear dominant peak and the peaks fluctuate randomly. Each wind speed spectrum and wave height spectrum has its individual identifiable pattern. The wind speed spectrum tends to grow gradually at the lower frequency range and increasing till it doubles at the higher frequency range with the mean peak frequency range of 0.4104 Hz to 0.4721 Hz, while the wave height tends to grow drastically at the low frequency range, which then fluctuates and decreases slightly at the high frequency range with the mean peak frequency range of 0.2911 Hz to 0.3425 Hz.

Speaker Identification Using Admissible Wavelet Packet Based Decomposition

Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) features are widely used as acoustic features for speech recognition as well as speaker recognition. In MFCC feature representation, the Mel frequency scale is used to get a high resolution in low frequency region, and a low resolution in high frequency region. This kind of processing is good for obtaining stable phonetic information, but not suitable for speaker features that are located in high frequency regions. The speaker individual information, which is non-uniformly distributed in the high frequencies, is equally important for speaker recognition. Based on this fact we proposed an admissible wavelet packet based filter structure for speaker identification. Multiresolution capabilities of wavelet packet transform are used to derive the new features. The proposed scheme differs from previous wavelet based works, mainly in designing the filter structure. Unlike others, the proposed filter structure does not follow Mel scale. The closed-set speaker identification experiments performed on the TIMIT database shows improved identification performance compared to other commonly used Mel scale based filter structures using wavelets.

The Impacts of Food Safety Standards on China Export of Vegetables and Fruits

Participation in global trade means that Chinas vegetables and fruits industry faces international food safety standards and increased scrutiny worldwide. The objectives of this paper were to investigate how existing food safety standards and regulations in the importing countries impact the export of vegetables and fruits from China. This paper discussed the current and historical situations of Chinas vegetables and fruits export from 1996 to 2010, analyzed the Maximum Residual Limit (MRL) standards of pesticides imposed by importing countries, quantitatively estimated the impacts of food safety standards on Chinas vegetables and fruits export based on a gravity model. The results showed that although transportation distance between trade partners and tariff rates on vegetables and fruits were still the importantly resistant factors for China export, vegetables and fruits export was sensitive to the number of regulated pesticides, the strictness, and the level of food safety standards imposed by importing countries, which showed a significant trade flow effect, stricter food safety standards, increased number of regulated pesticides significantly inhibit China export of vegetables and fruits. Moreover, Chinas food safety standards also showed a significantly effect on vegetables and fruits export, which inhibited export to some extent. KeywordsFood safety standards, MRL, Vegetables, Fruits, Export.

An SVM based Classification Method for Cancer Data using Minimum Microarray Gene Expressions

This paper gives a novel method for improving classification performance for cancer classification with very few microarray Gene expression data. The method employs classification with individual gene ranking and gene subset ranking. For selection and classification, the proposed method uses the same classifier. The method is applied to three publicly available cancer gene expression datasets from Lymphoma, Liver and Leukaemia datasets. Three different classifiers namely Support vector machines-one against all (SVM-OAA), K nearest neighbour (KNN) and Linear Discriminant analysis (LDA) were tested and the results indicate the improvement in performance of SVM-OAA classifier with satisfactory results on all the three datasets when compared with the other two classifiers.

Similar Cultural Factors Compensate for Communication Problems in Japan's Software Globalization Business

A research effort to find the reality of the business of Japan-s software globalization of enterprise-level business software systems has found that while the number of Japan-made enterpriselevel software systems is comparable with those of the other G7 countries, the business is limited to the East and Southeast Asian markets. This indicates that this business has a problem in the European and USA markets. Based on the knowledge that the research has established, the research concludes that the communication problems arise from the lack of individualists' communication styles and foreign language skills in Japan's software globalization is compensated by similarities in certain Japanese cultural factors and Japan's cultural power in the East and Southeast Asian markets and that this business does not have this compensation factor in the European and American markets due to dissimilarities and no cultural power.

Binary Mixture of Copper-Cobalt Ions Uptake by Zeolite using Neural Network

In this study a neural network (NN) was proposed to predict the sorption of binary mixture of copper-cobalt ions into clinoptilolite as ion-exchanger. The configuration of the backpropagation neural network giving the smallest mean square error was three-layer NN with tangent sigmoid transfer function at hidden layer with 10 neurons, linear transfer function at output layer and Levenberg-Marquardt backpropagation training algorithm. Experiments have been carried out in the batch reactor to obtain equilibrium data of the individual sorption and the mixture of coppercobalt ions. The obtained modeling results have shown that the used of neural network has better adjusted the equilibrium data of the binary system when compared with the conventional sorption isotherm models.

Occupants- Behavior and Spatial Implications of Riverfront Residential in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

The urbanization phenomenon in Yogyakarta Special Province, Indonesia, encouraged people move to the city for getting jobs in the informal sectors. They live in some temporary houses in the three main riverbanks: Gadjahwong, Code, and Winongo. Triggered by its independent status they use it as the space for accommodating domestic, social and economy activities because of the non standardized room size of their houses, where are recognized as the environmental hazards. This recognition makes the ambivalent perception when was related to the twelfth point of the philosophy of community development concept: the empowering individuals and communities. Its spatial implication have actually described the territory and the place making phenomena. By analyzing some data collected the author-s fundamental research funded by The General Directorate of Higher Education of Indonesia, this paper will discuss how do the spatial implications of the occupants- behavior and the numerous perceptions of those phenomena.

Precise Measurement of Displacement using Pixels

Manufacturing processes demand tight dimensional tolerances. The paper concerns a transducer for precise measurement of displacement, based on a camera containing a linescan chip. When tests were conducted using a track of black and white stripes with a 2mm pitch, errors in measuring on individual cycle amounted to 1.75%, suggesting that a precision of 35 microns is achievable.

Abstraction Hierarchies for Engineering Design

Complex engineering design problems consist of numerous factors of varying criticalities. Considering fundamental features of design and inferior details alike will result in an extensive waste of time and effort. Design parameters should be introduced gradually as appropriate based on their significance relevant to the problem context. This motivates the representation of design parameters at multiple levels of an abstraction hierarchy. However, developing abstraction hierarchies is an area that is not well understood. Our research proposes a novel hierarchical abstraction methodology to plan effective engineering designs and processes. It provides a theoretically sound foundation to represent, abstract and stratify engineering design parameters and tasks according to causality and criticality. The methodology creates abstraction hierarchies in a recursive and bottom-up approach that guarantees no backtracking across any of the abstraction levels. The methodology consists of three main phases, representation, abstraction, and layering to multiple hierarchical levels. The effectiveness of the developed methodology is demonstrated by a design problem.

An Experimental Study on the Effect of Premixed and Equivalence Ratios on CO and HC Emissions of Dual Fuel HCCI Engine

In this study, effects of premixed and equivalence ratios on CO and HC emissions of a dual fuel HCCI engine are investigated. Tests were conducted on a single-cylinder engine with compression ratio of 17.5. Premixed gasoline is provided by a carburetor connected to intake manifold and equipped with a screw to adjust premixed air-fuel ratio, and diesel fuel is injected directly into the cylinder through an injector at pressure of 250 bars. A heater placed at inlet manifold is used to control the intake charge temperature. Optimal intake charge temperature results in better HCCI combustion due to formation of a homogeneous mixture, therefore, all tests were carried out over the optimum intake temperature of 110-115 ºC. Timing of diesel fuel injection has a great effect on stratification of in-cylinder charge and plays an important role in HCCI combustion phasing. Experiments indicated 35 BTDC as the optimum injection timing. Varying the coolant temperature in a range of 40 to 70 ºC, better HCCI combustion was achieved at 50 ºC. Therefore, coolant temperature was maintained 50 ºC during all tests. Simultaneous investigation of effective parameters on HCCI combustion was conducted to determine optimum parameters resulting in fast transition to HCCI combustion. One of the advantages of the method studied in this study is feasibility of easy and fast transition of typical diesel engine to a dual fuel HCCI engine. Results show that increasing premixed ratio, while keeping EGR rate constant, increases unburned hydrocarbon (UHC) emissions due to quenching phenomena and trapping of premixed fuel in crevices, but CO emission decreases due to increase in CO to CO2 reactions.

The Appropriate Time Required for Newborn Calf Camel to Get Optimal Amount of Colostrums Immunoglobulin (IgG) with Relation to Levels of Cortisol and Thyroxin

A major challenge in camel productivity is the high mortality rate of camel calves in the early stage due to the lack of colostrums. This study investigates the time required for the calves to obtain the optimum amount of the immunoglobulin (IgG). Eleven pregnant female camels (Camelus Dromedarus) were selected randomly and variant in age and gestation. After delivery, 7 calves were obtained and used for this investigation. Colostrum samples were collected from mothers immediately after parturition. Blood samples were obtained from the calves as follow: 0 day (before suckling), 24, 48, 72, 96, 120 and 144 hours, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th weeks post suckling. Blood serum and colostrums whey were separated and used to determine IgG concentration, total protein and concentration of Cortisol and Thyroxin. The results showed high levels of IgG in camel colostrums (328.8 ± 4.5 mg / ml). The IgG concentration in serum of calves was the highest within 1st 24 h after suckling (140.75 mg /ml), and then declined gradually reached lower level at 144 h (41.97 mg / ml). The average turnover rate (t 1/2) of serum IgG in the all cases was 3.22 days. The turnover of ranged from 2.56 days for calves have values of IgG more than average and 7.7 days for those with values below average. In spite of very high levels of thyroxin in sera of new born the results showed no correlation between cortisol and thyroxin with IgG levels.