Abstract: The main goal of this seminal paper is to introduce the
application of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) in long distance
infrastructure monitoring (in particular in pipeline infrastructure
monitoring) – one of the on-going research projects by the Wireless
Communication Research Group at the department of Electronic and
Computer Engineering, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. The
current sensor network architectures for monitoring long distance
pipeline infrastructures are previewed. These are wired sensor
networks, RF wireless sensor networks, integrated wired and wireless
sensor networks. The reliability of these architectures is discussed.
Three reliability factors are used to compare the architectures in
terms of network connectivity, continuity of power supply for the
network, and the maintainability of the network. The constraints and
challenges of wireless sensor networks for monitoring and protecting
long distance pipeline infrastructure are discussed.
Abstract: This paper presents a silicon controller rectifier (SCR)
based ESD protection circuit for IC. The proposed ESD protection
circuit has low trigger voltage and high holding voltage compared with
conventional SCR ESD protection circuit. Electrical characteristics of
the proposed ESD protection circuit are simulated and analyzed using
TCAD simulator. The proposed ESD protection circuit verified
effective low voltage ESD characteristics with low trigger voltage and
high holding voltage.
Abstract: This paper presents a synthetic jet air blower actuated
by PZT for air blowing for air-breathing micro PEM fuel cell. The
several factors to affect the performance of air-breathing PEM fuel cell
such as air flow rate, opening ratio and cathode open type in the
cathode side were studied. Especially, an air flow rate is critical
condition to improve its performance. In this paper, we developed a
synthetic jet air blower to supply a high stoichiometric air flow. The
synthetic jet mechanism is a zero mass flux device that converts
electrical energy into the momentum. The synthetic jet actuation is
usually generated by a traditional PZT actuator, which consists of a
small cylindrical cavity, in/outlet channel and PZT diaphragms. The
flow rate of the fabricated synthetic jet air blower was 400cc/min at
550Hz and its power consumption was very low under 0.3W. The
proposed air-breathing PEM fuel cell which installed synthetic jet air
blower was higher performance and stability during continuous
operation than the air-breathing fuel cell without auxiliary device to
supply the air. The results showed that the maximum power density
was 188mW/cm2 at 400mA/cm2. This maximum power density and
durability were improved more than 40% and 20%, respectively.
Abstract: A number of previous studies were rarely considered
the effects of transient non-uniform balloon expansion on evaluation
of the properties and behaviors of stents during stent expansion, nor
did they determine parameters to maximize the performances driven
by mechanical characteristics. Therefore, in order to fully understand
the mechanical characteristics and behaviors of stent, it is necessary to
consider a realistic modeling of transient non-uniform balloon-stent
expansion. The aim of the study is to propose design parameters
capable of improving the ability of vascular stent through a
comparative study of seven commercial stents using finite element
analyses of a realistic transient non-uniform balloon-stent expansion
process. In this study, seven representative commercialized stents were
evaluated by finite element (FE) analysis in terms of the criteria based
on the itemized list of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and
European Standards (prEN). The results indicate that using stents
composed of opened unit cells connected by bend-shaped link
structures and controlling the geometrical and morphological features
of the unit cell strut or the link structure at the distal ends of stent may
improve mechanical characteristics of stent. This study provides a
better method at the realistic transient non-uniform balloon-stent
expansion by investigating the characteristics, behaviors, and
parameters capable of improving the ability of vascular stent.
Abstract: In these days, multimedia data is transmitted and
processed in compressed format. Due to the decoding procedure and
filtering for edge detection, the feature extraction process of MPEG-7
Edge Histogram Descriptor is time-consuming as well as
computationally expensive. To improve efficiency of compressed
image retrieval, we propose a new edge histogram generation
algorithm in DCT domain in this paper. Using the edge information
provided by only two AC coefficients of DCT coefficients, we can get
edge directions and strengths directly in DCT domain. The
experimental results demonstrate that our system has good
performance in terms of retrieval efficiency and effectiveness.
Abstract: In this paper, a simple microfluidic device for monitoring algal cell behavior is proposed. An array of algal microwells is fabricated by PDMS soft-lithography using X-ray LIGA mold, placed on a glass substrate. Two layers of replicated PDMS and substrate are attached by oxygen plasma bonding, creating a microchannel for the microfluidic system. Algal cell are loaded into the microfluidic device, which provides positive charge on the bottom surface of wells. Algal cells, which are negative charged, can be attracted to the bottom of the wells via electrostatic interaction. By varying the concentration of algal cells in the loading suspension, it is possible to obtain wells with a single cell. Liquid medium for cells monitoring are flown continuously over the wells, providing nutrient and waste exchange between the well and the main flow. This device could lead to the uncovering of the quantitative biology of the algae, which is a key to effective and extensive algal utilizations in the field of biotechnology, food industry and bioenergy research and developments.
Abstract: Low power consumption is a major constraint for battery-powered system like computer notebook or PDA. In the past, specialists usually designed both specific optimized equipments and codes to relief this concern. Doing like this could work for quite a long time, however, in this era, there is another significant restraint, the time to market. To be able to serve along the power constraint while can launch products in shorter production period, objectoriented programming (OOP) has stepped in to this field. Though everyone knows that OOP has quite much more overhead than assembly and procedural languages, development trend still heads to this new world, which contradicts with the target of low power consumption. Most of the prior power related software researches reported that OOP consumed much resource, however, as industry had to accept it due to business reasons, up to now, no papers yet had mentioned about how to choose the best OOP practice in this power limited boundary. This article is the pioneer that tries to specify and propose the optimized strategy in writing OOP software under energy concerned environment, based on quantitative real results. The language chosen for studying is C# based on .NET Framework 2.0 which is one of the trendy OOP development environments. The recommendation gotten from this research would be a good roadmap that can help developers in coding that well balances between time to market and time of battery.
Abstract: In this paper, several different types of natural gas liquefaction cycle. First, two processes are a cascade process with two staged compression were designed and simulated. These include Inter-cooler which is consisted to Propane, Ethylene and Methane cycle, and also, liquid-gas heat exchanger is applied to between of methane and ethylene cycles (process2) and between of ethylene and propane (process2). Also, these cycles are compared with two staged cascade process using only a Inter-cooler (process1). The COP of process2 and process3 showed about 13.99% and 6.95% higher than process1, respectively. Also, the yield efficiency of LNG improved comparing with process1 by 13.99% lower specific power. Additionally, C3MR process are simulated and compared with Process 2.
Abstract: Surveillance system is widely used in the traffic
monitoring. The deployment of cameras is moving toward a
ubiquitous camera (UbiCam) environment. In our previous study, a
novel service, called GPS-VT, was firstly proposed by incorporating
global positioning system (GPS) and visual tracking techniques for
the UbiCam environment. The first prototype is called GODTA
(GPS-based Moving Object Detection and Tracking Approach). For a
moving person carried GPS-enabled mobile device, he can be
tracking when he enters the field-of-view (FOV) of a camera
according to his real-time GPS coordinate. In this paper, GPS-VT
service is applied to the tracking of vehicles. The moving speed of a
vehicle is much faster than a person. It means that the time passing
through the FOV is much shorter than that of a person. Besides, the
update interval of GPS coordinate is once per second, it is
asynchronous with the frame rate of the real-time image. The above
asynchronous is worsen by the network transmission delay. These
factors are the main challenging to fulfill GPS-VT service on a
vehicle.In order to overcome the influence of the above factors, a
back-propagation neural network (BPNN) is used to predict the
possible lane before the vehicle enters the FOV of a camera. Then, a
template matching technique is used for the visual tracking of a target
vehicle. The experimental result shows that the target vehicle can be
located and tracking successfully. The success location rate of the
implemented prototype is higher than that of the previous GODTA.
Abstract: In this paper, the vessel inscribed trigonometry (VITM) for the vessel progression orientation (VPO) is proposed in the two-dimensional fundus image. The VPO is a major factor in the optic disc (OD) detection which is a basic process in the retina analysis. To measure the VPO, skeletons of vessel are used. First, the vessels are classified into three classes as vessel end, vessel branch and vessel stem. And the chain code maps of VS are generated. Next, two farthest neighborhoods of each point on VS are searched by the proposed angle restriction. Lastly, a gradient of the straight line between two farthest neighborhoods is estimated to measure the VPO. VITM is validated by comparing with manual results and 2D Gaussian templates. It is confirmed that VPO of the proposed mensuration is correct enough to detect OD from the results of experiment which applied VITM to detect OD in fundus images.
Abstract: This study aims to initiate sustainable water management for tourist accommodations in Amphawa, Samut Songkram Province, Thailand. Wastewater generated by tourist accommodation was conducted in 10 homestays and resorts in Amphawa during August – October, 2011. The prominent parameters which are of pH, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Fat Oil and Grease (FOG), Nitrate (No3-), and Phosphate (PO43-) were conducted monthly. The results revealed that some parameters were over national water quality standard (Class II). Especially, 90% of tourist accommodations have been recorded that FOG was over the standard of wastewater quality from accommodation (group I: total room of accommodation less than 200 rooms). Therefore, grease trap and natural treatment should be utilized in tourist accommodations in order to reduce the discharged of fat, oil, and grease from tourism activities. In addition, number of tourists also relate statistically with BOD and Nitrate at 0.05 level of significance.
Abstract: This research was conducted in the Lower Ping River
Basin downstream of the Bhumibol Dam and the Lower Wang River
Basin in Tak Province, Thailand. Most of the tributary streams of the
Ping can be considered as ungauged catchments. There are 10-
pumping station installation at both river banks of the Ping in Tak
Province. Recently, most of them could not fully operate due to the
water amount in the river below the level that would be pumping,
even though included water from the natural river and released flow
from the Bhumibol Dam. The aim of this research was to increase the
performance of those pumping stations using weir projects in the
Ping. Therefore, the river analysis system model (HEC-RAS) was
applied to study the hydraulic behavior of water surface profiles in
the Ping River with both cases of existing conditions and proposed
weirs during the violent flood in 2011 and severe drought in 2013.
Moreover, the hydrologic modeling system (HMS) was applied to
simulate lateral streamflow hydrograph from ungauged catchments of
the Ping. The results of HEC-RAS model calibration with existing
conditions in 2011 showed best trial roughness coefficient for the
main channel of 0.026. The simulated water surface levels fitted to
observation data with R2 of 0.8175. The model was applied to 3
proposed cascade weirs with 2.35 m in height and found surcharge
water level only 0.27 m higher than the existing condition in 2011.
Moreover, those weirs could maintain river water levels and increase
of those pumping performances during less river flow in 2013.
Abstract: In this paper, the link quality in SHF and EHF ranges
are studied. In order to achieve high data rate higher frequencies must
be used – centimeter waves (SHF), millimeter waves (EHF) or optical
range. However, there are significant problem when a radio link work
in that diapason – rain attenuation and attenuation in earth-s
atmosphere. Based on statistical rain rates data for Bulgaria, the link
availability can be determined, depending on the working frequency,
the path length and the Power Budget of the link. For the calculations
of rain attenuation and atmosphere-s attenuation the ITU
recommendations are used.
Abstract: The purpose of this research aims to discover the
knowledge for analysis student motivation behavior on e-Learning
based on Data Mining Techniques, in case of the Information
Technology for Communication and Learning Course at Suan
Sunandha Rajabhat University. The data mining techniques was
applied in this research including association rules, classification
techniques. The results showed that using data mining technique can
indicate the important variables that influence the student motivation
behavior on e-Learning.
Abstract: This paper aims to propose a novel, robust, and simple method for obtaining a human 3D face model and camera pose (position and orientation) from a video sequence. Given a video sequence of a face recorded from an off-the-shelf digital camera, feature points used to define facial parts are tracked using the Active- Appearance Model (AAM). Then, the face-s 3D structure and camera pose of each video frame can be simultaneously calculated from the obtained point correspondences. This proposed method is primarily based on the combined approaches of Gradient Descent and Powell-s Multidimensional Minimization. Using this proposed method, temporarily occluded point including the case of self-occlusion does not pose a problem. As long as the point correspondences displayed in the video sequence have enough parallax, these missing points can still be reconstructed.
Abstract: Recently, much research has been conducted for
security for wireless sensor networks and ubiquitous computing.
Security issues such as authentication and data integrity are major
requirements to construct sensor network systems. Advanced
Encryption Standard (AES) is considered as one of candidate
algorithms for data encryption in wireless sensor networks. In this
paper, we will present the hardware architecture to implement low
power AES crypto module. Our low power AES crypto module has
optimized architecture of data encryption unit and key schedule unit
which could be applicable to wireless sensor networks. We also details
low power design methods used to design our low power AES crypto
module.
Abstract: Active vibration isolation systems are less commonly
used than passive systems due to their associated cost and power
requirements. In principle, semi-active isolation systems can deliver
the versatility, adaptability and higher performance of fully active
systems for a fraction of the power consumption. Various semi-active
control algorithms have been suggested in the past. This paper
studies the 4DOF model of semi-active suspension performance
controlled by on–off and continuous skyhook damping control
strategy. The frequency and transient responses of model are
evaluated in terms of body acceleration, roll angle and tire deflection
and are compared with that of a passive damper. The results show
that the semi-active system controlled by skyhook strategy always
provides better isolation than a conventional passively damped
system except at tire natural frequencies.
Abstract: The line sleeves on power transmission line connects
two conductors while the transmission line is constructing. However,
the line sleeves sometimes cause transmission line break down,
because the line sleeves are deteriorated and decayed by acid rain.
When the transmission line is broken, the economical loss is huge.
Therefore the line sleeves on power transmission lines should be
inspected periodically to prevent power failure. In this paper, Korea
Electric Power Research Institute reviewed several robots to inspect
line status and proposes a robot to inspect line sleeve by measuring
magnetic field on line sleeve. The developed inspection tool can
reliable to move along transmission line and overcome several
obstacles on transmission line. The developed system is also applied
on power transmission line and verified the efficiency of the robot.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper primarily intends to develop GIS interface for estimating sequences of stream-flows at ungauged stations based on known flows at gauged stations. The integrated GIS interface is composed of three major steps. The first, precipitation characteristics using statistical analysis is the procedure for making multiple linear regression equation to get the long term mean daily flow at ungauged stations. The independent variables in regression equation are mean daily flow and drainage area. Traditionally, mean flow data are generated by using Thissen polygon method. However, method for obtaining mean flow data can be selected by user such as Kriging, IDW (Inverse Distance Weighted), Spline methods as well as other traditional methods. At the second, flow duration curve (FDC) is computing at unguaged station by FDCs in gauged stations. Finally, the mean annual daily flow is computed by spatial interpolation algorithm. The third step is to obtain watershed/topographic characteristics. They are the most important factors which govern stream-flows. In summary, the simulated daily flow time series are compared with observed times series. The results using integrated GIS interface are closely similar and are well fitted each other. Also, the relationship between the topographic/watershed characteristics and stream flow time series is highly correlated.
Abstract: The value of emission factor was calculated in the
older type of Diesel engine operating on an engine testing bench and
then compared with the parameters monitored under similar
conditions when the EnviroxTM additive was applied. It has been
found out that the additive based on CeO2 nanoparticles reduces
emission of NOx. The dependencies of NOx emissions on reduced
torque, engine power and revolutions have been observed as well.