Abstract: Two approaches for model development of a smart acoustic box are suggested in this paper: the finite element (FE) approach and the subspace identification. Both approaches result in a state-space model, which can be used for obtaining the frequency responses and for the controller design. In order to validate the developed FE model and to perform the subspace identification, an experimental set-up with the acoustic box and dSPACE system was used. Experimentally obtained frequency responses show good agreement with the frequency responses obtained from the FE model and from the identified model.
Abstract: Let S be an ordered semigroup. In this paper we first introduce the concepts of (∈,∈ ∨q)-fuzzy ideals, (∈,∈ ∨q)-fuzzy bi-ideals and (∈,∈ ∨q)-fuzzy generalized bi-ideals of an ordered semigroup S, and investigate their related properties. Furthermore, we also define the upper and lower parts of fuzzy subsets of an ordered semigroup S, and investigate the properties of (∈,∈ ∨q)-fuzzy ideals of S. Finally, characterizations of regular ordered semigroups and intra-regular ordered semigroups by means of the lower part of (∈ ,∈ ∨q)-fuzzy left ideals, (∈,∈ ∨q)-fuzzy right ideals and (∈,∈ ∨q)- fuzzy (generalized) bi-ideals are given.
Abstract: The way music is interpreted by the human brain is a very interesting topic, but also an intricate one. Although this domain has been studied for over a century, many gray areas remain in the understanding of music. Recent advances have enabled us to perform accurate measurements of the time taken by the human brain to interpret and assimilate a sound. Cognitive computing provides tools and development environments that facilitate human cognition simulation. ACT-R is a cognitive architecture which offers an environment for implementing human cognitive tasks. This project combines our understanding of the music interpretation by a human listener and the ACT-R cognitive architecture to build SINGER, a computerized simulation for listening and recalling songs. The results are similar to human experimental data. Simulation results also show how it is easier to remember short melodies than long melodies which require more trials to be recalled correctly.
Abstract: Nejad and Mashinchi (2011) proposed a revision for ranking fuzzy numbers based on the areas of the left and the right sides of a fuzzy number. However, this method still has some shortcomings such as lack of discriminative power to rank similar fuzzy numbers and no guarantee the consistency between the ranking of fuzzy numbers and the ranking of their images. To overcome these drawbacks, we propose an epsilon-deviation degree method based on the left area and the right area of a fuzzy number, and the concept of the centroid point. The main advantage of the new approach is the development of an innovative index value which can be used to consistently evaluate and rank fuzzy numbers. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate the efficiency and superiority of the proposed method.
Abstract: Severe symptoms, such as dissociation, depersonalization, self-mutilation, suicidal ideations and gestures, are the main reasons for a person to be diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and admitted to an inpatient Psychiatric Hospital. However, these symptoms are also indicators of a severe traumatic history as indicated by the extensive research on the topic. Unfortunately patients with such clinical presentation often are treated repeatedly only for their symptomatic behavior, while the main cause for their suffering, the trauma itself, is usually left unaddressed therapeutically. All of the highly structured, replicable, and manualized treatments lack the recognition of the uniqueness of the person and fail to respect his/her rights to experience and react in an idiosyncratic manner. Thus the communicative and adaptive meaning of such symptomatic behavior is missed. Only its pathological side is recognized and subjected to correction and stigmatization, and the message that the person is damaged goods that needs fixing is conveyed once again. However, this time the message would be even more convincing for the victim, because it is sent by mental health providers, who have the credibility to make such a judgment. The result is a revolving door of very expensive hospitalizations for only a temporary and patchy fix. In this way the patients, once victims of abuse and hardship are left invalidated and thus their re-victimization is perpetuated in their search for understanding and help. Keywordsborderline personality disorder (BPD), complex PTSD, integrative treatment of trauma, re-victimization of trauma victims.
Abstract: The noteworthy point in the advancement of Brain Machine Interface (BMI) research is the ability to accurately extract features of the brain signals and to classify them into targeted control action with the easiest procedures since the expected beneficiaries are of disabled. In this paper, a new feature extraction method using the combination of adaptive band pass filters and adaptive autoregressive (AAR) modelling is proposed and applied to the classification of right and left motor imagery signals extracted from the brain. The introduction of the adaptive bandpass filter improves the characterization process of the autocorrelation functions of the AAR models, as it enhances and strengthens the EEG signal, which is noisy and stochastic in nature. The experimental results on the Graz BCI data set have shown that by implementing the proposed feature extraction method, a LDA and SVM classifier outperforms other AAR approaches of the BCI 2003 competition in terms of the mutual information, the competition criterion, or misclassification rate.
Abstract: In this work, propagation of uncertainty during calibration
process of TRANUS, an integrated land use and transport model
(ILUTM), has been investigated. It has also been examined, through a
sensitivity analysis, which input parameters affect the variation of the
outputs the most. Moreover, a probabilistic verification methodology
of calibration process, which equates the observed and calculated
production, has been proposed. The model chosen as an application is
the model of the city of Grenoble, France. For sensitivity analysis and
uncertainty propagation, Monte Carlo method was employed, and a
statistical hypothesis test was used for verification. The parameters of
the induced demand function in TRANUS, were assumed as uncertain
in the present case. It was found that, if during calibration, TRANUS
converges, then with a high probability the calibration process is
verified. Moreover, a weak correlation was found between the inputs
and the outputs of the calibration process. The total effect of the
inputs on outputs was investigated, and the output variation was found
to be dictated by only a few input parameters.
Abstract: There have been numerous implementations of
security system using biometric, especially for identification and
verification cases. An example of pattern used in biometric is the iris
pattern in human eye. The iris pattern is considered unique for each
person. The use of iris pattern poses problems in encoding the human
iris.
In this research, an efficient iris recognition method is proposed.
In the proposed method the iris segmentation is based on the
observation that the pupil has lower intensity than the iris, and the
iris has lower intensity than the sclera. By detecting the boundary
between the pupil and the iris and the boundary between the iris and
the sclera, the iris area can be separated from pupil and sclera. A step
is taken to reduce the effect of eyelashes and specular reflection of
pupil. Then the four levels Coiflet wavelet transform is applied to the
extracted iris image. The modified Hamming distance is employed to
measure the similarity between two irises.
This research yields the identification success rate of 84.25% for
the CASIA version 1.0 database. The method gives an accuracy of
77.78% for the left eyes of MMU 1 database and 86.67% for the
right eyes. The time required for the encoding process, from the
segmentation until the iris code is generated, is 0.7096 seconds.
These results show that the accuracy and speed of the method is
better than many other methods.
Abstract: The understanding of knee movement during swing
importance for golf swing improving and preventing injury. Thirty
male professional and amateur golfers were assigned to swing time
by time for 3 times. Data from a vedio-based motion capture were
used to compute knee joint movement variables. The results showed
that professional and amateur golfers were significantly in left knee
flexion angle at the impact point and mid follow through phase.
Nevertheless, left knee external rotation in both groups was also
significant. The right knee were no significant different in all
variable. However, pattern of knee joint movement are also likely
between professional and amateur golfers.
Abstract: The present work is concerned with the free
convective two dimensional flow and heat transfer, in isotropic fluid
filled porous rectangular enclosure with differentially heated walls for
steady state incompressible flow have been investigated for non-
Darcy flow model. Effects of Darcy number (0.0001 £Da£ 10),
Rayleigh number (10 £Ra£ 5000), and aspect ratio (0.25 £AR£ 4), for
a range of porosity (0.4 £e£ 0.9) with and without moving lower wall
have been studied. The cavity was insulated at the lower and upper
surfaces. The right and left heated surfaces allows convective
transport through the porous medium, generating a thermal
stratification and flow circulations. It was found that the Darcy
number, Rayleigh number, aspect ratio, and porosity considerably
influenced characteristics of flow and heat transfer mechanisms. The
results obtained are discussed in terms of the Nusselt number,
vectors, contours, and isotherms.
Abstract: An Advance Driver Assistance System (ADAS) is a computer system on board a vehicle which is used to reduce the risk of vehicular accidents by monitoring factors relating to the driver, vehicle and environment and taking some action when a risk is identified. Much work has been done on assessing vehicle and environmental state but there is still comparatively little published work that tackles the problem of driver state. Visual attention is one such driver state. In fact, some researchers claim that lack of attention is the main cause of accidents as factors such as fatigue, alcohol or drug use, distraction and speeding all impair the driver-s capacity to pay attention to the vehicle and road conditions [1]. This seems to imply that the main cause of accidents is inappropriate driver behaviour in cases where the driver is not giving full attention while driving. The work presented in this paper proposes an ADAS system which uses an image based template matching algorithm to detect if a driver is failing to observe particular windscreen cells. This is achieved by dividing the windscreen into 24 uniform cells (4 rows of 6 columns) and matching video images of the driver-s left eye with eye-gesture templates drawn from images of the driver looking at the centre of each windscreen cell. The main contribution of this paper is to assess the accuracy of this approach using Receiver Operating Characteristic analysis. The results of our evaluation give a sensitivity value of 84.3% and a specificity value of 85.0% for the eye-gesture template approach indicating that it may be useful for driver point of regard determinations.
Abstract: A pilot project was carried out in 2007 by the senior
students of Cyprus International University, aiming to minimize the
total cost of waste collection in Northern Cyprus. Many developed
and developing countries have cut their transportation costs – which
lies between 30-40% – down at a rate of 40% percent, by
implementing network models for their route assignments.
Accordingly, a network model was implemented at Göçmenköy
district, to optimize and standardize waste collection works. The
work environment of the employees were also redesigned to provide
maximum ergonomy and to increase productivity, efficiency and
safety. Following the collection of the required data including waste
densities, lengths of roads and population, a model was constructed
to allocate the optimal route assignment for the waste collection
trucks at Göçmenköy district.
Abstract: It is the living conditions in the cities that determine the future of our livelihood. “To change life, we must first change space"- Henri Lefebvre. Sustainable development is a utopian aspiration for South African cities (especially the case study of the Gauteng City Region), which are currently characterized by unplanned growth and increasing urban sprawl. While the reasons for poor environmental quality and living conditions are undoubtedly diverse and complex, having political, economical and social dimensions, it is argued that the prevailing approach to layout planning in South Africa is part of the problem. This article seeks a solution to the problem of sustainability, from a spatial planning perspective. The spatial planning tool, the urban development boundary, is introduced as the concept that will ensure empty talk being translated into a sustainable vision. The urban development boundary is a spatial planning tool that can be used and implemented to direct urban growth towards a more sustainable form. The urban development boundary aims to ensure planned urban areas, in contrast to the current unplanned areas characterized by urban sprawl and insufficient infrastructure. However, the success of the urban development boundary concept is subject to effective implementation measures, as well as adequate and efficient management. The concept of sustainable development can function as a driving force underlying societal change and transformation, but the interface between spatial planning and environmental management needs to be established (as this is the core aspects underlying sustainable development), and authorities needs to understand and implement this interface consecutively. This interface can, however, realize in terms of the objectives of the planning tool – the urban development boundary. The case study, the Gauteng City Region, is depicted as a site of economic growth and innovation, but there is a lack of good urban and regional governance, impacting on the design (layout) and function of urban areas and land use, as current authorities make uninformed decisions in terms of development applications, leading to unsustainable urban forms and unsustainable nodes. Place and space concepts are thus critical matters applicable to planning of the Gauteng City Region. The urban development boundary are thus explored as a planning tool to guide decision-making, and create a sustainable urban form, leading to better environmental and living conditions, and continuous sustainability.
Abstract: This paper deals with the status of solid waste pollution in touristic spots of North coastal Andhra Pradesh. Case studies of Eco tourism, cultural tourism and pilgrim tourism are elaborately discussed and the study is based on both primary and secondary data. Data collection includes field collection of solid waste, semi structured interviews and observation of tourists. Results indicate generation of 72% Non biodegradable material in Eco touristic places like RK beach Visakhapatnam, Araku Valley. Pydithalli Jathra is a famous cultural touristic attraction and more than one lakh people converge here. The solid waste at this spot includes 20% coconut shells, 50% plastic bottles and covers, 20% Banana peelings and remaining are food materials. Radhasapthami is the most important festival celebrated at famous sun temple Arasavalli of Srikakulam. Here solid waste includes 50% water bottles, plastic covers, 10% papers, 10% hair, 30% left out food material and Banana peelings.
Abstract: In this paper, an efficient technique is proposed to manage the cache memory. The proposed technique introduces some modifications on the well-known set associative mapping technique. This modification requires a little alteration in the structure of the cache memory and on the way by which it can be referenced. The proposed alteration leads to increase the set size virtually and consequently to improve the performance and the utilization of the cache memory. The current mapping techniques have accomplished good results. In fact, there are still different cases in which cache memory lines are left empty and not used, whereas two or more processes overwrite the lines of each other, instead of using those empty lines. The proposed algorithm aims at finding an efficient way to deal with such problem.
Abstract: Signalized intersections on high-volume arterials are
often congested during peak hours, causing a decrease in through
movement efficiency on the arterial. Much of the vehicle delay
incurred at conventional intersections is caused by high left-turn
demand. Unconventional intersection designs attempt to reduce
intersection delay and travel time by rerouting left-turns away from
the main intersection and replacing it with right-turn followed by Uturn.
The proposed new type of U-turn intersection is geometrically
designed with a raised island which provides a protected U-turn
movement. In this study several scenarios based on different
distances between U-turn and main intersection, traffic volume of
major/minor approaches and percentage of left-turn volumes were
simulated by use of AIMSUN, a type of traffic microsimulation
software. Subsequently some models are proposed in order to
compute travel time of each movement. Eventually by correlating
these equations to some in-field collected data of some implemented
U-turn facilities, the reliability of the proposed models are approved.
With these models it would be possible to calculate travel time of
each movement under any kind of geometric and traffic condition. By
comparing travel time of a conventional signalized intersection with
U-turn intersection travel time, it would be possible to decide on
converting signalized intersections into this new kind of U-turn
facility or not. However comparison of travel time is not part of the
scope of this research. In this paper only travel time of this innovative
U-turn facility would be predicted. According to some before and
after study about the traffic performance of some executed U-turn
facilities, it is found that commonly, this new type of U-turn facility
produces lower travel time. Thus, evaluation of using this type of
unconventional intersection should be seriously considered.
Abstract: Pyrolysis of waste tire is one of alternative technique
to produce petrochemicals, such as light olefins, mixed C4, and monoaromatics.
Noble metals supported on acid zeolite catalysts were
reported as potential catalysts to produce the high valuable products
from waste tire pyrolysis. Especially, Pd supported on HBeta gave a
high yield of olefins, mixed C4, and mono-aromatics. Due to the high
prices of noble metals, the objective of this work was to investigate
whether or not a non-noble Ni metal can be used as a substitute of a
noble metal, Pd, supported on HBeta as a catalyst for waste tire pyrolysis.
Ni metal was selected in this work because Ni has high activity
in cracking, isomerization, hydrogenation and the ring opening of
hydrocarbons Moreover, Ni is an element in the same group as Pd
noble metal, which is VIIIB group, aiming to produce high valuable
products similarly obtained from Pd. The amount of Ni was varied as
5, 10, and 20% by weight, for comparison with a fixed 1 wt% Pd,
using incipient wetness impregnation. The results showed that as a
petrochemical-producing catalyst, 10%Ni/HBeta performed better
than 1%Pd/HBeta because it did not only produce the highest yield of
olefins and cooking gases, but the yields were also higher than
1%Pd/HBeta. 5%Ni/HBeta can be used as a substitute of
1%Pd/HBeta for similar crude production because its crude contains
the similar amounts of naphtha and saturated HCs, although it gave
no concentration of light mono-aromatics (C6-C11) in the oil. Additionally,
10%Ni/HBeta that gave high olefins and cooking gases was
found to give a fairly high concentration of the light mono-aromatics
in the oil.
Abstract: The paper focuses on the area of context modeling with respect to the specification of context-aware systems supporting ubiquitous applications. The proposed approach, followed within the SIMPLICITY IST project, uses a high-level system ontology to derive context models for system components which consequently are mapped to the system's physical entities. For the definition of user and device-related context models in particular, the paper suggests a standard-based process consisting of an analysis phase using the Common Information Model (CIM) methodology followed by an implementation phase that defines 3GPP based components. The benefits of this approach are further depicted by preliminary examples of XML grammars defining profiles and components, component instances, coupled with descriptions of respective ubiquitous applications.
Abstract: This paper presents a threshold voltage model of pocket implanted sub-100 nm n-MOSFETs incorporating the drain and substrate bias effects using two linear pocket profiles. Two linear equations are used to simulate the pocket profiles along the channel at the surface from the source and drain edges towards the center of the n-MOSFET. Then the effective doping concentration is derived and is used in the threshold voltage equation that is obtained by solving the Poisson-s equation in the depletion region at the surface. Simulated threshold voltages for various gate lengths fit well with the experimental data already published in the literature. The simulated result is compared with the two other pocket profiles used to derive the threshold voltage models of n-MOSFETs. The comparison shows that the linear model has a simple compact form that can be utilized to study and characterize the pocket implanted advanced ULSI devices.
Abstract: In this study, we used shape memory alloys as
actuators to build a biomorphic robot which can imitate the motion of
an earthworm. The robot can be used to explore in a narrow space.
Therefore we chose shape memory alloys as actuators. Because of the
small deformation of a wire shape memory alloy, spiral shape memory
alloys are selected and installed both on the X axis and Y axis (each
axis having two shape memory alloys) to enable the biomorphic robot
to do reciprocating motion. By the mechanism we designed, the robot
can increase the distance as it moves in a duty cycle. In addition, two
shape memory alloys are added to the robot head for controlling right
and left turns. By sending pulses through the I/O card from the
controller, the signals are then amplified by a driver to heat the shape
memory alloys in order to make the SMA shrink to pull the mechanism
to move.