Restricted Pedestrian Flow Performance Measures during Egress from a Complex Facility

In this paper, we use an M/G/C/C state dependent queuing model within a complex network topology to determine the different performance measures for pedestrian traffic flow. The occupants in this network topology need to go through some source corridors, from which they can choose their suitable exiting corridors. The performance measures were calculated using arrival rates that maximize the throughputs of source corridors. In order to increase the throughput of the network, the result indicates that the flow direction of pedestrian through the corridors has to be restricted and the arrival rates to the source corridor need to be controlled.

Shannon-Weaver Biodiversity of Neutrophils in Fractal Networks of Immunofluorescence for Medical Diagnostics

We develop new nonlinear methods of immunofluorescence analysis for a sensitive technology of respiratory burst reaction of DNA fluorescence due to oxidative activity in the peripheral blood neutrophils. Histograms in flow cytometry experiments represent a fluorescence flashes frequency as functions of fluorescence intensity. We used the Shannon-Weaver index for definition of neutrophils- biodiversity and Hurst index for definition of fractal-s correlations in immunofluorescence for different donors, as the basic quantitative criteria for medical diagnostics of health status. We analyze frequencies of flashes, information, Shannon entropies and their fractals in immunofluorescence networks due to reduction of histogram range. We found the number of simplest universal correlations for biodiversity, information and Hurst index in diagnostics and classification of pathologies for wide spectra of diseases. In addition is determined the clear criterion of a common immunity and human health status in a form of yes/no answers type. These answers based on peculiarities of information in immunofluorescence networks and biodiversity of neutrophils. Experimental data analysis has shown the existence of homeostasis for information entropy in oxidative activity of DNA in neutrophil nuclei for all donors.

Context-aware Recommender Systems using Data Mining Techniques

This study proposes a novel recommender system to provide the advertisements of context-aware services. Our proposed model is designed to apply a modified collaborative filtering (CF) algorithm with regard to the several dimensions for the personalization of mobile devices – location, time and the user-s needs type. In particular, we employ a classification rule to understand user-s needs type using a decision tree algorithm. In addition, we collect primary data from the mobile phone users and apply them to the proposed model to validate its effectiveness. Experimental results show that the proposed system makes more accurate and satisfactory advertisements than comparative systems.

Assessing Land Cover Change Trajectories in Olomouc, Czech Republic

Olomouc is a unique and complex landmark with widespread forestation and land use. This research work was conducted to assess important and complex land use change trajectories in Olomouc region. Multi-temporal satellite data from 1991, 2001 and 2013 were used to extract land use/cover types by object oriented classification method. To achieve the objectives, three different aspects were used: (1) Calculate the quantity of each transition; (2) Allocate location based landscape pattern (3) Compare land use/cover evaluation procedure. Land cover change trajectories shows that 16.69% agriculture, 54.33% forest and 21.98% other areas (settlement, pasture and water-body) were stable in all three decade. Approximately 30% of the study area maintained as a same land cove type from 1991 to 2013. Here broad scale of political and socioeconomic factors was also affect the rate and direction of landscape changes. Distance from the settlements was the most important predictor of land cover change trajectories. This showed that most of landscape trajectories were caused by socio-economic activities and mainly led to virtuous change on the ecological environment.

High Accuracy Eigensolutions in Elasticity for Boundary Integral Equations by Nyström Method

Elastic boundary eigensolution problems are converted into boundary integral equations by potential theory. The kernels of the boundary integral equations have both the logarithmic and Hilbert singularity simultaneously. We present the mechanical quadrature methods for solving eigensolutions of the boundary integral equations by dealing with two kinds of singularities at the same time. The methods possess high accuracy O(h3) and low computing complexity. The convergence and stability are proved based on Anselone-s collective compact theory. Bases on the asymptotic error expansion with odd powers, we can greatly improve the accuracy of the approximation, and also derive a posteriori error estimate which can be used for constructing self-adaptive algorithms. The efficiency of the algorithms are illustrated by numerical examples.

Tropical Cyclogenesis Response to Solar Activity in the Eastern Pacific Region

The relationship between tropical cyclogenesis and solar activity is addressed in this paper, analyzing the relationship between important parameters in the evolution of tropical cyclones as the CAPE, wind shear and relative vorticity, and the Dst geomagnetic index as a parameter of solar activity. The apparent relationship between all this phenomena has a different response depending on the phase of the solar cycles.

Numerical Analysis of the Performance of the DU91-W2-250 Airfoil for Straight-Bladed Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine Application

This paper presents a numerical analysis of the performance of a three-bladed Darrieus vertical-axis wind turbine based on the DU91-W2-250 airfoil. A complete campaign of 2-D simulations, performed for several values of tip speed ratio and based on RANS unsteady calculations, has been performed to obtain the rotor torque and power curves. Rotor performances have been compared with the results of a previous work based on the use of the NACA 0021 airfoil. Both the power coefficient and the torque coefficient have been determined as a function of the tip speed ratio. The flow field around rotor blades has also been analyzed. As a final result, the performance of the DU airfoil based rotor appears to be lower than the one based on the NACA 0021 blade section. This behavior could be due to the higher stall characteristics of the NACA profile, being the separation zone at the trailing edge more extended for the DU airfoil.

Solving the Quadratic Assignment Problems by a Genetic Algorithm with a New Replacement Strategy

This paper proposes a genetic algorithm based on a new replacement strategy to solve the quadratic assignment problems, which are NP-hard. The new replacement strategy aims to improve the performance of the genetic algorithm through well balancing the convergence of the searching process and the diversity of the population. In order to test the performance of the algorithm, the instances in QAPLIB, a quadratic assignment problem library, are tried and the results are compared with those reported in the literature. The performance of the genetic algorithm is promising. The significance is that this genetic algorithm is generic. It does not rely on problem-specific genetic operators, and may be easily applied to various types of combinatorial problems.

Study of Ageing Deterioration of Silicone Rubber Housing Material for Outdoor Polymer Insulators

This paper presents the experimental results of salt fog ageing test of silicone rubber housing material for outdoor polymer insulator based on IEC 61109. Four types of HTV silicone rubber sheet with different amount of ATH were tested continuously 1000

Encrypted Audio Transmission Using Synchronized Nd: YAG Lasers

Encoded information based on synchronization of coupled chaotic Nd:YAG lasers in master-slave configuration is numerically studied. Encoding, transmission, and decoding of information in optical chaotic communication with a single channel is presented. We analyze the robustness of the encrypted audio transmission in a channel noise. In order to illustrate this synchronization robustness, we present two cases of study: synchronization and transmission with a single channel without and with noise in the channel.

Creating Customer Value through SOA and Outsourcing: A NEBIC Approach

This article is an extension and a practical application approach of Wheeler-s NEBIC theory (Net Enabled Business Innovation Cycle). NEBIC theory is a new approach in IS research and can be used for dynamic environment related to new technology. Firms can follow the market changes rapidly with support of the IT resources. Flexible firms adapt their market strategies, and respond more quickly to customers changing behaviors. When every leading firm in an industry has access to the same IT resources, the way that these IT resources are managed will determine the competitive advantages or disadvantages of firm. From Dynamic Capabilities Perspective and from newly introduced NEBIC theory by Wheeler, we know that only IT resources cannot deliver customer value but good configuration of those resources can guarantee customer value by choosing the right emerging technology, grasping the right economic opportunities through business innovation and growth. We found evidences in literature that SOA (Service Oriented Architecture) is a promising emerging technology which can deliver the desired economic opportunity through modularity, flexibility and loose-coupling. SOA can also help firms to connect in network which can open a new window of opportunity to collaborate in innovation and right kind of outsourcing. There are many articles and research reports indicates that failure rate in outsourcing is very high but at the same time research indicates that successful outsourcing projects adds tangible and intangible benefits to the service consumer. Business executives and policy makers in the west should not afraid of outsourcing but they should choose the right strategy through the use of emerging technology to significantly reduce the failure rate in outsourcing.

Toward Community-Based Personal Cloud Computing

This paper proposes a new of cloud computing for individual computer users to share applications in distributed communities, called community-based personal cloud computing (CPCC). The paper also presents a prototype design and implementation of CPCC. The users of CPCC are able to share their computing applications with other users of the community. Any member of the community is able to execute remote applications shared by other members. The remote applications behave in the same way as their local counterparts, allowing the user to enter input, receive output as well as providing the access to the local data of the user. CPCC provides a peer-to-peer (P2P) environment where each peer provides applications which can be used by the other peers that are connected CPCC.

A Novel Method for the Characterization of Synchronization and Coupling in Multichannel EEG and ECoG

In this paper we introduce a novel method for the characterization of synchronziation and coupling effects in multivariate time series that can be used for the analysis of EEG or ECoG signals recorded during epileptic seizures. The method allows to visualize the spatio-temporal evolution of synchronization and coupling effects that are characteristic for epileptic seizures. Similar to other methods proposed for this purpose our method is based on a regression analysis. However, a more general definition of the regression together with an effective channel selection procedure allows to use the method even for time series that are highly correlated, which is commonly the case in EEG/ECoG recordings with large numbers of electrodes. The method was experimentally tested on ECoG recordings of epileptic seizures from patients with temporal lobe epilepsies. A comparision with the results from a independent visual inspection by clinical experts showed an excellent agreement with the patterns obtained with the proposed method.

Evaluation of Algorithms for Sequential Decision in Biosonar Target Classification

A sequential decision problem, based on the task ofidentifying the species of trees given acoustic echo data collectedfrom them, is considered with well-known stochastic classifiers,including single and mixture Gaussian models. Echoes are processedwith a preprocessing stage based on a model of mammalian cochlearfiltering, using a new discrete low-pass filter characteristic. Stoppingtime performance of the sequential decision process is evaluated andcompared. It is observed that the new low pass filter processingresults in faster sequential decisions.

PTFE Capillary-Based DNA Amplification within an Oscillatory Thermal Cycling Device

This study describes a capillary-based device integrated with the heating and cooling modules for polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The device consists of the reaction polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) capillary, the aluminum blocks, and is equipped with two cartridge heaters, a thermoelectric (TE) cooler, a fan, and some thermocouples for temperature control. The cartridge heaters are placed into the heating blocks and maintained at two different temperatures to achieve the denaturation and the extension step. Some thermocouples inserted into the capillary are used to obtain the transient temperature profiles of the reaction sample during thermal cycles. A 483-bp DNA template is amplified successfully in the designed system and the traditional thermal cycler. This work should be interesting to persons involved in the high-temperature based reactions and genomics or cell analysis.

Lagrangian Method for Solving Unsteady Gas Equation

In this paper we propose, a Lagrangian method to solve unsteady gas equation which is a nonlinear ordinary differential equation on semi-infnite interval. This approach is based on Modified generalized Laguerre functions. This method reduces the solution of this problem to the solution of a system of algebraic equations. We also compare this work with some other numerical results. The findings show that the present solution is highly accurate.

A Parallel Algorithm for 2-D Cylindrical Geometry Transport Equation with Interface Corrections

In order to make conventional implicit algorithm to be applicable in large scale parallel computers , an interface prediction and correction of discontinuous finite element method is presented to solve time-dependent neutron transport equations under 2-D cylindrical geometry. Domain decomposition is adopted in the computational domain.The numerical experiments show that our parallel algorithm with explicit prediction and implicit correction has good precision, parallelism and simplicity. Especially, it can reach perfect speedup even on hundreds of processors for large-scale problems.

Design a Three-dimensional Pursuit Guidance Law with Feedback Linearization Method

In this paper, we will implement three-dimensional pursuit guidance law with feedback linearization control method and study the effects of parameters. First, we introduce guidance laws and equations of motion of a missile. Pursuit guidance law is our highlight. We apply feedback linearization control method to obtain the accelerations to implement pursuit guidance law. The solution makes warhead direction follow with line-of-sight. Final, the simulation results show that the exact solution derived in this paper is correct and some factors e.g. control gain, time delay, are important to implement pursuit guidance law.

Entropy Generation for Natural Convection in a Darcy – Brinkman Porous Cavity

The paper provides a numerical investigation of the entropy generation analysis due to natural convection in an inclined square porous cavity. The coupled equations of mass, momentum, energy and species conservation are solved using the Control Volume Finite-Element Method. Effect of medium permeability and inclination angle on entropy generation is analysed. It was found that according to the Darcy number and the porous thermal Raleigh number values, the entropy generation could be mainly due to heat transfer or to fluid friction irreversibility and that entropy generation reaches extremum values for specific inclination angles.

Modeling Spatial Distributions of Point and Nonpoint Source Pollution Loadings in the Great Lakes Watersheds

A physically based, spatially-distributed water quality model is being developed to simulate spatial and temporal distributions of material transport in the Great Lakes Watersheds of the U.S. Multiple databases of meteorology, land use, topography, hydrography, soils, agricultural statistics, and water quality were used to estimate nonpoint source loading potential in the study watersheds. Animal manure production was computed from tabulations of animals by zip code area for the census years of 1987, 1992, 1997, and 2002. Relative chemical loadings for agricultural land use were calculated from fertilizer and pesticide estimates by crop for the same periods. Comparison of these estimates to the monitored total phosphorous load indicates that both point and nonpoint sources are major contributors to the total nutrient loads in the study watersheds, with nonpoint sources being the largest contributor, particularly in the rural watersheds. These estimates are used as the input to the distributed water quality model for simulating pollutant transport through surface and subsurface processes to Great Lakes waters. Visualization and GIS interfaces are developed to visualize the spatial and temporal distribution of the pollutant transport in support of water management programs.