Abstract: Renewable and non-renewable resource constraints have been vast studied in theoretical fields of project scheduling problems. However, although cumulative resources are widespread in practical cases, the literature on project scheduling problems subject to these resources is scant. So in order to study this type of resources more, in this paper we use the framework of a resource constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) with finish-start precedence relations between activities and subject to the cumulative resources in addition to the renewable resources. We develop a branch and bound algorithm for this problem customizing precedence tree algorithm of RCPSP. We perform extensive experimental analysis on the algorithm to check its effectiveness and performance for solving different instances of the problem in question.
Abstract: With the development of technology, the growing
trend of fast and safe passenger transport, air pollution, traffic
congestion, increase in problems such as the increasing population
and the high cost of private vehicle usage made many cities around
the world with a population of more or less, start to build rail systems
as a means of urban transport in order to ensure the economic and
environmental sustainability and more efficient use of land in the
city. The implementation phase of rail systems costs much more than
other public transport systems. However, social and economic returns
in the long term made these systems the most popular investment tool
for planned and developing cities.
In our country, the purpose, goals and policies of transportation
plans are away from integrity, and the problems are not clearly
detected. Also, not defined and incomplete assessment of
transportation systems and insufficient financial analysis are the most
important cause of failure. Rail systems and other transportation
systems to be addressed as a whole is seen as the main factor in
increasing efficiency in applications that are not integrated yet in our
country to come to this point has led to the problem.
Abstract: In this paper, a neural network tuned fuzzy controller
is proposed for controlling Multi-Input Multi-Output (MIMO)
systems. For the convenience of analysis, the structure of MIMO
fuzzy controller is divided into single input single-output (SISO)
controllers for controlling each degree of freedom. Secondly,
according to the characteristics of the system-s dynamics coupling, an
appropriate coupling fuzzy controller is incorporated to improve the
performance. The simulation analysis on a two-level mass–spring
MIMO vibration system is carried out and results show the
effectiveness of the proposed fuzzy controller. The performance
though improved, the computational time and memory used is
comparatively higher, because it has four fuzzy reasoning blocks and
number may increase in case of other MIMO system. Then a fuzzy
neural network is designed from a set of input-output training data to
reduce the computing burden during implementation. This control
strategy can not only simplify the implementation problem of fuzzy
control, but also reduce computational time and consume less
memory.
Abstract: In the closed quantum system, if the control system is
strongly regular and all other eigenstates are directly coupled to the
target state, the control system can be asymptotically stabilized at the
target eigenstate by the Lyapunov control based on the state error.
However, if the control system is not strongly regular or as long as
there is one eigenstate not directly coupled to the target state, the
situations will become complicated. In this paper, we propose an
implicit Lyapunov control method based on the state error to solve the
convergence problems for these two degenerate cases. And at the same
time, we expand the target state from the eigenstate to the arbitrary
pure state. Especially, the proposed method is also applicable in the
control system with multi-control Hamiltonians. On this basis, the
convergence of the control systems is analyzed using the LaSalle
invariance principle. Furthermore, the relation between the implicit
Lyapunov functions of the state distance and the state error is
investigated. Finally, numerical simulations are carried out to verify
the effectiveness of the proposed implicit Lyapunov control method.
The comparisons of the control effect using the implicit Lyapunov
control method based on the state distance with that of the state error
are given.
Abstract: Scheduling algorithms are used in operating systems
to optimize the usage of processors. One of the most efficient
algorithms for scheduling is Multi-Layer Feedback Queue (MLFQ)
algorithm which uses several queues with different quanta. The most
important weakness of this method is the inability to define the
optimized the number of the queues and quantum of each queue. This
weakness has been improved in IMLFQ scheduling algorithm.
Number of the queues and quantum of each queue affect the response
time directly. In this paper, we review the IMLFQ algorithm for
solving these problems and minimizing the response time. In this
algorithm Recurrent Neural Network has been utilized to find both
the number of queues and the optimized quantum of each queue.
Also in order to prevent any probable faults in processes' response
time computation, a new fault tolerant approach has been presented.
In this approach we use combinational software redundancy to
prevent the any probable faults. The experimental results show that
using the IMLFQ algorithm results in better response time in
comparison with other scheduling algorithms also by using fault
tolerant mechanism we improve IMLFQ performance.
Abstract: This research was conducted in the Lower Namkam
Irrigation Project situated in the Namkam River Basin in Thailand.
Degradation of groundwater quality in some areas is caused by saline
soil spots beneath ground surface. However, the tail regulated gate
structure on the Namkam River, a lateral stream of the Mekong
River. It is aimed for maintaining water level in the river at +137.5 to
+138.5 m (MSL) and flow to the irrigation canals based on a gravity
system since July 2009. It might leach some saline soil spots from
underground to soil surface if lack of understanding of the
conjunctive surface water and groundwater behaviors. This research
has been conducted by continuously the observing of both shallow
and deep groundwater level and quality from existing observation
wells. The simulation of surface water was carried out using a
hydrologic modeling system (HEC-HMS) to compute the ungauged
side flow catchments as the lateral flows for the river system model
(HEC-RAS). The constant water levels in the upstream of the
operated gate caused a slight rising up of shallow groundwater level
when compared to the water table. However, the groundwater levels
in the confined aquifers remained less impacted than in the shallow
aquifers but groundwater levels in late of wet season in some wells
were higher than the phreatic surface. This causes salinization of the
groundwater at the soil surface and might affect some crops. This
research aims for the balance of water stage in the river and efficient
groundwater utilization in this area.
Abstract: A stiffened laminated composite panel (1 m length ×
0.5m width) was optimized for minimum weight and deflection under
several constraints using genetic algorithm. Here, a significant study
on the performance of a penalty function with two kinds of static and
dynamic penalty factors was conducted. The results have shown that
linear dynamic penalty factors are more effective than the static ones.
Also, a specially combined linear-exponential function has shown to
perform more effective than the previously mentioned penalty
functions. This was then resulted in the less sensitivity of the GA to
the amount of penalty factor.
Abstract: This paper describes the implementation and testing
of a multichannel active noise control system (ANCS) based on the
filtered-inverse LMS (FILMS) algorithm. The FILMS algorithm is
derived from the well-known filtered-x LMS (FXLMS) algorithm
with the aim to improve the rate of convergence of the multichannel
FXLMS algorithm and to reduce its computational load. Laboratory
setup and techniques used to implement this system efficiently are
described in this paper. Experiments performed in order to test the
performance of the FILMS algorithm are discussed and the obtained
results presented.
Abstract: There is a complex situation on the transport environment in the cities of the world. For the analysis and prevention of environmental problems an accurate calculation hazardous substances concentrations at each point of the investigated area is required. In the turbulent atmosphere of the city the wellknown methods of mathematical statistics for these tasks cannot be applied with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Therefore, to solve this class of problems apparatus of mathematical physics is more appropriate. In such models, because of the difficulty as a rule the influence of uneven land surface on streams of air masses in the turbulent atmosphere of the city are not taken into account. In this paper the influence of the surface roughness, which can be quite large, is mathematically shown. The analysis of this problem under certain conditions identified the possibility of areas appearing in the atmosphere with pressure tending to infinity, i.e. so-called "wall effect".
Abstract: This paper presents a novel template-based method to
detect objects of interest from real images by shape matching. To
locate a target object that has a similar shape to a given template
boundary, the proposed method integrates three components: contour
grouping, partial shape matching, and boundary verification. In the
first component, low-level image features, including edges and
corners, are grouped into a set of perceptually salient closed contours
using an extended ratio-contour algorithm. In the second component,
we develop a partial shape matching algorithm to identify the
fractions of detected contours that partly match given template
boundaries. Specifically, we represent template boundaries and
detected contours using landmarks, and apply a greedy algorithm to
search the matched landmark subsequences. For each matched
fraction between a template and a detected contour, we estimate an
affine transform that transforms the whole template into a hypothetic
boundary. In the third component, we provide an efficient algorithm
based on oriented edge lists to determine the target boundary from
the hypothetic boundaries by checking each of them against image
edges. We evaluate the proposed method on recognizing and
localizing 12 template leaves in a data set of real images with clutter
back-grounds, illumination variations, occlusions, and image noises.
The experiments demonstrate the high performance of our proposed
method1.
Abstract: This paper presents a method to estimate load profile
in a multiple power flow solutions for every minutes in 24 hours per
day. A method to calculate multiple solutions of non linear profile is
introduced. The Power System Simulation/Engineering (PSS®E) and
python has been used to solve the load power flow. The result of this
power flow solutions has been used to estimate the load profiles for
each load at buses using Independent Component Analysis (ICA)
without any knowledge of parameter and network topology of the
systems. The proposed algorithm is tested with IEEE 69 test bus
system represents for distribution part and the method of ICA has
been programmed in MATLAB R2012b version. Simulation results
and errors of estimations are discussed in this paper.
Abstract: Stochastic models of biological networks are well established in systems biology, where the computational treatment of such models is often focused on the solution of the so-called chemical master equation via stochastic simulation algorithms. In contrast to this, the development of storage-efficient model representations that are directly suitable for computer implementation has received significantly less attention. Instead, a model is usually described in terms of a stochastic process or a "higher-level paradigm" with graphical representation such as e.g. a stochastic Petri net. A serious problem then arises due to the exponential growth of the model-s state space which is in fact a main reason for the popularity of stochastic simulation since simulation suffers less from the state space explosion than non-simulative numerical solution techniques. In this paper we present transition class models for the representation of biological network models, a compact mathematical formalism that circumvents state space explosion. Transition class models can also serve as an interface between different higher level modeling paradigms, stochastic processes and the implementation coded in a programming language. Besides, the compact model representation provides the opportunity to apply non-simulative solution techniques thereby preserving the possible use of stochastic simulation. Illustrative examples of transition class representations are given for an enzyme-catalyzed substrate conversion and a part of the bacteriophage λ lysis/lysogeny pathway.
Abstract: The recent advances in computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) can be useful in observing the detailed hemodynamics in
cerebral aneurysms for understanding not only their formation and
rupture but also for clinical evaluation and treatment. However,
important hemodynamic quantities are difficult to measure in vivo. In
the present study, an approximate model of normal middle cerebral
artery (MCA) along with two cases consisting broad and narrow
saccular aneurysms are analyzed. The models are generated in
ANSYS WORKBENCH and transient analysis is performed in
ANSYS-CFX. The results obtained are compared for three cases and
agree well with the available literature.
Abstract: Controlled modification of appropriate sharpness for
nanotips is of paramount importance to develop novel materials and
functional devices at a nanometer resolution. Herein, we present a
reliable and unique strategy of laser irradiation enhanced
physicochemical etching to manufacture super sharp tungsten tips
with reproducible shape and dimension as well as high yields
(~80%). The corresponding morphology structure evolution of
tungsten tips and laser-tip interaction mechanisms were
systematically investigated and discussed using field emission
scanning electron microscope (SEM) and physical optics statistics
method with different fluences under 532 nm laser irradiation. This
work paves the way for exploring more accessible metallic tips
applications with tunable apex diameter and aspect ratio, and,
furthermore, facilitates the potential sharpening enhancement
technique for other materials used in a variety of nanoscale devices.
Abstract: This paper introduces an intelligent system, which can be applied in the monitoring of vehicle speed using a single camera. The ability of motion tracking is extremely useful in many automation problems and the solution to this problem will open up many future applications. One of the most common problems in our daily life is the speed detection of vehicles on a highway. In this paper, a novel technique is developed to track multiple moving objects with their speeds being estimated using a sequence of video frames. Field test has been conducted to capture real-life data and the processed results were presented. Multiple object problems and noisy in data are also considered. Implementing this system in real-time is straightforward. The proposal can accurately evaluate the position and the orientation of moving objects in real-time. The transformations and calibration between the 2D image and the actual road are also considered.
Abstract: The aim of study was to evaluate pressure distribution characteristics of the elastic textile bandages using two instrumental techniques: a prototype Instrument and a load Transference. The prototype instrument which simulates shape of real leg has pressure sensors which measure bandage pressure. Using this instrument, the results show that elastic textile bandages presents different pressure distribution characteristics and none produces a uniform distribution around lower limb.
The load transference test procedure is used to determine whether a relationship exists between elastic textile bandage structure and pressure distribution characteristics. The test procedure assesses degree of load, directly transferred through a textile when loads series are applied to bandaging surface. A range of weave fabrics was produced using needle weaving machine and a sewing technique. A textile bandage was developed with optimal characteristics far superior pressure distribution than other bandages. From results, we find that theoretical pressure is not consistent exactly with practical pressure. It is important in this study to make a practical application for specialized nurses in order to verify the results and draw useful conclusions for predicting the use of this type of elastic band.
Abstract: This presentation reviews recent advances in superalloys and thermal barrier coating (TBC) for application in hot sections of energy-efficient gas-turbine engines. It has been reviewed that in the modern combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGT) applying single-crystal energy materials (SC superalloys) and thermal barrier coatings (TBC), and – in one design – closed-loop steam cooling, thermal efficiency can reach more than 60%. These technological advancements contribute to profitable and clean power generation with reduced emission. Alternatively, the use of advanced superalloys (e.g. GTD-111 superalloy, Allvac 718Plus superalloy) and advanced thermal barrier coatings (TBC) in modern gas-turbines has been shown to yield higher energy-efficiency in power generation.
Abstract: This research paper presents a framework on how to
build up malware dataset.Many researchers took longer time to
clean the dataset from any noise or to transform the dataset into a
format that can be used straight away for testing. Therefore, this
research is proposing a framework to help researchers to speed up
the malware dataset cleaningprocesses which later can be used for
testing. It is believed, an efficient malware dataset cleaning
processes, can improved the quality of the data, thus help to improve
the accuracy and the efficiency of the subsequent analysis. Apart
from that, an in-depth understanding of the malware taxonomy is
also important prior and during the dataset cleaning processes. A
new Trojan classification has been proposed to complement this
framework.This experiment has been conducted in a controlled lab
environment and using the dataset from VxHeavens dataset. This
framework is built based on the integration of static and dynamic
analyses, incident response method and knowledge database
discovery (KDD) processes.This framework can be used as the basis
guideline for malware researchers in building malware dataset.
Abstract: The objective of this study is to examine the validity of Wagner-s law and relationship between economic growth, population and export for Pakistan. The ARDL Bounds cointegration and ECM are utilized for long and short run equilibrium for the period of 1972-2007. Population has considerable role in an economy and exports are the main source to raise the GDP. With the increase in GDP, the government expenditures may or may not increase. The empirical results indicate that the Wagner-s Law does hold, as economic growth is significantly and positively correlated with government expenditures. However, population and exports have also significant and positive impact on government expenditures both in short and long run. The significant and negative coefficient of error correction term in ECM indicates that after a shock, the long rum equilibrium will again converge towards equilibrium about 70.82 percent within a year.
Abstract: Emerging adulthood, between the ages of 18 and 25, as a new developmental stage extending from adolescence to young adulthood. According to Arnett [2004], there are experiments related to identity in three basic fields which are love, work and view of the world in emerging adulthood. When the literature related to identity is examined, it is seen that identity has been studied more with adolescent, and studies were concentrated on the relationship of identity with many demographic variables neglecting important variables such as marital status, parental status and SES. Thus, the main aim of this study is to determine whether identity statuses differenciate with marital status, parental status and SES. A total of 700 emerging adults participated in this study, and the mean age was 22,45 years [SD = 3.76]. The sample was made up of 347 female and 353 male. All participants in the study were students from colleges. Student responses to the Extended Version of the Objective Measure of Ego Identity Status [EOM-EIS-2] used to classify students into one of the four identity statuses. SPSS 15.00 program wasa used to analyse data. Percentage, frequency and X2 analysis were used in the analysis of data. When the findings of the study is viewed as a whole, the most frequently observed identity status in the group is found to be moratorium. Also, identity statuses differenciate with marital status, parental status and SES. Findings were discussed in the context of emerging adulthood.