Abstract: The sensitivity of orifice plate metering to disturbed
flow (either asymmetric or swirling) is a subject of great concern to
flow meter users and manufacturers. The distortions caused by pipe
fittings and pipe installations upstream of the orifice plate are major
sources of this type of non-standard flows. These distortions can alter
the accuracy of metering to an unacceptable degree. In this work, a
multi-scale object known as metal foam has been used to generate a
predetermined turbulent flow upstream of the orifice plate. The
experimental results showed that the combination of an orifice plate
and metal foam flow conditioner is broadly insensitive to upstream
disturbances. This metal foam demonstrated a good performance in
terms of removing swirl and producing a repeatable flow profile
within a short distance downstream of the device. The results of using
a combination of a metal foam flow conditioner and orifice plate for
non-standard flow conditions including swirling flow and asymmetric
flow show this package can preserve the accuracy of metering up to
the level required in the standards.
Abstract: Image enhancement is the most important challenging preprocessing for almost all applications of Image Processing. By now, various methods such as Median filter, α-trimmed mean filter, etc. have been suggested. It was proved that the α-trimmed mean filter is the modification of median and mean filters. On the other hand, ε-filters have shown excellent performance in suppressing noise. In spite of their simplicity, they achieve good results. However, conventional ε-filter is based on moving average. In this paper, we suggested a new ε-filter which utilizes α-trimmed mean. We argue that this new method gives better outcomes compared to previous ones and the experimental results confirmed this claim.
Abstract: An envelope echo signal measurement is proposed in
this paper using echo signal observation from the 200 kHz echo
sounder receiver. The envelope signal without any object is compared
with the envelope signal of the sphere. Two diameter size steel ball
(3.1 cm & 2.2 cm) and two diameter size air filled stainless steel ball
(4.8 cm & 7.4 cm) used in this experiment. The target was positioned
about 0.5 m and 1.0 meter from the transducer face using nylon rope.
From the echo observation in time domain, it is obviously shown that
echo signal structure is different between the size, distance and type
of metal sphere. The amplitude envelope voltage for the bigger
sphere is higher compare to the small sphere and it confirm that the
bigger sphere have higher target strength compare to the small
sphere. Although the structure signal without any object are different
compare to the signal from the sphere, the reflected signal from the
tank floor increase linearly with the sphere size. We considered this
event happened because of the object position approximately to the
tank floor.
Abstract: Amongst the consistently fluctuating conditions
prevailing today, changeability represents a strategic key factor for a
manufacturing company to achieve success on the international
markets. In order to cope with turbulences and the increasing level of
incalculability, not only the flexible design of production systems but
in particular the employee as enabler of change provide the focus
here. It is important to enable employees from manufacturing
companies to participate actively in change events and in change
decisions. To this end, the learning factory has been created, which is
intended to serve the development of change-promoting competences
and the sensitization of employees for the necessity of changes.
Abstract: Face recognition is a technique to automatically
identify or verify individuals. It receives great attention in
identification, authentication, security and many more applications.
Diverse methods had been proposed for this purpose and also a lot of
comparative studies were performed. However, researchers could not
reach unified conclusion. In this paper, we are reporting an extensive
quantitative accuracy analysis of four most widely used face
recognition algorithms: Principal Component Analysis (PCA),
Independent Component Analysis (ICA), Linear Discriminant
Analysis (LDA) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) using AT&T,
Sheffield and Bangladeshi people face databases under diverse
situations such as illumination, alignment and pose variations.
Abstract: Does open ended creative technology give positive impact in learning design? Although there are many researchers had examined on the impact of technology on design education but there are very few conclusive researches done on the impact of open ended used of software to learning design. This paper sought to investigate a group of student-s experience on relatively wider range of software application within the context of design project. A typography design project was used to create a learning environment with the aim of inculcate design skills into the learners and increase their creative problem-solving and critical thinking skills. The methods used in this study were questionnaire survey and personal observation which will be focus on the individual and group response during the completion of the task.
Abstract: Nowadays, under developed countries for progress in
science and technology and decreasing the technologic gap with
developed countries, increasing the capacities and technology
transfer from developed countries. To remain competitive, industry is
continually searching for new methods to evolve their products.
Business model is one of the latest buzzwords in the Internet and
electronic business world. To be successful, organizations must look
into the needs and wants of their customers. This research attempts to
identify a specific feature of the company with a strong competitive
advantage by analyzing the cause of Customer satisfaction. Due to
the rapid development of knowledge and information technology,
business environments have become much more complicated.
Information technology can help a firm aiming to gain a competitive
advantage. This study explores the role and effect of Information
Communication Technology in Business Models and Customer
satisfaction on firms and also relationships between ICTs and
Outsourcing strategic.
Abstract: In this work, bending fatigue life of notched
specimens with various notch geometries and dimensions is
investigated by experiment and Manson-Caffin theoretical method. In
this theoretical method, fatigue life of notched specimens is
calculated using the fatigue life obtained from the experiments for
plain specimens (without notch). Three notch geometries including
∪-shape, ∨-shape and C -shape notches are considered in this
investigation. The experiments are conducted on a rotary bending
Moore machine. The specimens are made of a low carbon steel alloy,
which has wide application in industry. The stress- life curves are
captured for all notched specimen by experiment. The results indicate
that Manson-Caffin analytical method cannot adequately predict
the fatigue life of notched specimen. However, it seems that the
difference between the experiments and Manson-Caffin predictions
can be compensated by a proportional factor.
Abstract: PARIS (Personal Archiving and Retrieving Image
System) is an experiment personal photograph library, which includes
more than 80,000 of consumer photographs accumulated within a
duration of approximately five years, metadata based on our proposed
MPEG-7 annotation architecture, Dozen Dimensional Digital Content
(DDDC), and a relational database structure. The DDDC architecture
is specially designed for facilitating the managing, browsing and
retrieving of personal digital photograph collections. In annotating
process, we also utilize a proposed Spatial and Temporal Ontology
(STO) designed based on the general characteristic of personal
photograph collections. This paper explains PRAIS system.
Abstract: The mechanical and tribological properties in WC-Co
coatings are strongly affected by hardness and elasticity
specifications. The results revealed the effect of spraying distance on
microhardness and elasticity modulus of coatings. The metallurgical
studies have been made on coated samples using optical microscopy,
scanning electron microscopy (SEM).
Abstract: In this paper, the effects of thermodynamic,
hydrodynamic and geometric of an air cooled condenser on COP of
vapor compression cycle are investigated for a fixed condenser facing
surface area. The system is utilized with a scroll compressor,
modeled based on thermodynamic and heat transfer equations
employing Matlab software. The working refrigerant is R134a whose
thermodynamic properties are called from Engineering Equation
Software. This simulation shows that vapor compression cycle can
be designed by different configurations and COPs, economical and
optimum working condition can be obtained via considering these
parameters.
Abstract: In this paper we investigated a number of the Internet
congestion control algorithms that has been developed in the last few
years. It was obviously found that many of these algorithms were
designed to deal with the Internet traffic merely as a train of
consequent packets. Other few algorithms were specifically tailored
to handle the Internet congestion caused by running media traffic that
represents audiovisual content. This later set of algorithms is
considered to be aware of the nature of this media content. In this
context we briefly explained a number of congestion control
algorithms and hence categorized them into the two following
categories: i) Media congestion control algorithms. ii) Common
congestion control algorithms. We hereby recommend the usage of
the media congestion control algorithms for the reason of being
media content-aware rather than the other common type of
algorithms that blindly manipulates such traffic. We showed that the
spread of such media content-aware algorithms over Internet will
lead to better congestion control status in the coming years. This is
due to the observed emergence of the era of digital convergence
where the media traffic type will form the majority of the Internet
traffic.
Abstract: Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is an effective technique for preventing potential problems and actions needed to error cause removal. On the other hand, the oil producing companies paly a critical role in the oil industry of Iran as a developing country out of which, Sepahan Oil Co. has a considerable contribution. The aim of this research is to show how FMEA could be applied and improve the quality of products at Sepahan Oil Co. For this purpose, the four liter production line of the company has been selected for investigation. The findings imply that the application of FMEA has reduced the scraps from 50000 ppm to 5000 ppm and has resulted in a 0.92 percent decrease of the oil waste.
Abstract: This paper gives an overview of how an OWL
ontology has been created to represent template knowledge models
defined in CML that are provided by CommonKADS.
CommonKADS is a mature knowledge engineering methodology
which proposes the use of template knowledge model for knowledge
modelling. The aim of developing this ontology is to present the
template knowledge model in a knowledge representation language
that can be easily understood and shared in the knowledge
engineering community. Hence OWL is used as it has become a
standard for ontology and also it already has user friendly tools for
viewing and editing.
Abstract: Vector quantization is a powerful tool for speech
coding applications. This paper deals with LPC Coding of speech
signals which uses a new technique called Multi Switched Split
Vector Quantization (MSSVQ), which is a hybrid of Multi, switched,
split vector quantization techniques. The spectral distortion
performance, computational complexity, and memory requirements
of MSSVQ are compared to split vector quantization (SVQ), multi
stage vector quantization(MSVQ) and switched split vector
quantization (SSVQ) techniques. It has been proved from results that
MSSVQ has better spectral distortion performance, lower
computational complexity and lower memory requirements when
compared to all the above mentioned product code vector
quantization techniques. Computational complexity is measured in
floating point operations (flops), and memory requirements is
measured in (floats).
Abstract: Free convection effects and heat transfer due to a pulsating point heat source embedded in an infinite, fluid saturated, porous dusty medium are studied analytically. Both velocity and temperature fields are discussed in the form of series expansions in the Rayleigh number, for both the fluid and particle phases based on the mean heat generation rate from source and on the permeability of the porous dusty medium. This study is carried out by assuming the Rayleigh number small and the validity of Darcy-s law. Analytical expressions for both phases are obtained for second order mean in both velocity and temperature fields and evolution of different wave patterns are observed in the fluctuating part. It has been observed that, at the vicinity of the origin, the second order mean flow is influenced only by relaxation time of dust particles and not by dust concentration.
Abstract: This paper aims to develop a NOx emission model of
an acid gas incinerator using Nelder-Mead least squares support
vector regression (LS-SVR). Malaysia DOE is actively imposing the
Clean Air Regulation to mandate the installation of analytical
instrumentation known as Continuous Emission Monitoring System
(CEMS) to report emission level online to DOE . As a hardware
based analyzer, CEMS is expensive, maintenance intensive and often
unreliable. Therefore, software predictive technique is often
preferred and considered as a feasible alternative to replace the
CEMS for regulatory compliance. The LS-SVR model is built based
on the emissions from an acid gas incinerator that operates in a LNG
Complex. Simulated Annealing (SA) is first used to determine the
initial hyperparameters which are then further optimized based on the
performance of the model using Nelder-Mead simplex algorithm.
The LS-SVR model is shown to outperform a benchmark model
based on backpropagation neural networks (BPNN) in both training
and testing data.
Abstract: A challenging problem in radar signal processing is to
achieve reliable target detection in the presence of interferences. In
this paper, we propose a novel algorithm for automatic censoring of
radar interfering targets in log-normal clutter. The proposed
algorithm, termed the forward automatic censored cell averaging
detector (F-ACCAD), consists of two steps: removing the corrupted
reference cells (censoring) and the actual detection. Both steps are
performed dynamically by using a suitable set of ranked cells to
estimate the unknown background level and set the adaptive
thresholds accordingly. The F-ACCAD algorithm does not require
any prior information about the clutter parameters nor does it require
the number of interfering targets. The effectiveness of the F-ACCAD
algorithm is assessed by computing, using Monte Carlo simulations,
the probability of censoring and the probability of detection in
different background environments.
Abstract: Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) is an important
commercial fish and shows to be more and more demanded for
human consumption. Therefore, it is very important to find good
methods for monitoring the freshness of the fish in order to keep it in
the best quality for human consumption. In this study, the fish was
stored in ice up to 2 weeks. Quality changes during storage were
assessed by the Quality Index Method (QIM), quantitative
descriptive analysis (QDA) and Torry scheme, by texture
measurements: puncture tests and Texture Profile Analysis (TPA)
tests on texture analyzer TA.XT2i, and by electronic nose (e-nose)
measurements using FreshSense instrument. Storage time of herring
in ice could be estimated by QIM with ± 2 days using 5 herring per
lot. No correlation between instrumental texture parameters and
storage time or between sensory and instrumental texture variables
was found. E-nose measurements could be use to detect the onset of
spoilage.
Abstract: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of
texturizers on the rheological properties of the apple mass and
desserts made from various raw materials. The apple varieties -
‘Antonovka’, ‘Baltais Dzidrais’, and ‘Zarja Alatau’ harvested in
Latvia, were used for the experiment. The apples were processed in a
blender unpeeled for obtaining a homogenous mass. The apple mass
was analyzed fresh and after storage at –18ºC. Both fresh and thawed
apple mass samples with added gelatin, xantan gum, and sodium
carboxymethylcellulose were whisked obtaining dessert. Pectin, pH
and soluble dry matter of the product were determined. Apparent
viscosity was measured using a rotational viscometer DV–III Ultra.
Pectin content in frozen apple mass decreased significantly (p