Abstract: Corrugated wire mesh laminates (CWML) are a class
of engineered open cell structures that have potential for applications
in many areas including aerospace and biomedical engineering. Two
different methods of fabricating corrugated wire mesh laminates from
stainless steel, one using a high temperature Lithobraze alloy and the
other using a low temperature Eutectic solder for joining the
corrugated wire meshes are described herein. Their implementation is
demonstrated by manufacturing CWML samples of 304 and 316
stainless steel (SST). It is seen that due to the facility of employing
wire meshes of different densities and wire diameters, it is possible to
create CWML laminates with a wide range of effective densities. The
fabricated laminates are tested under uniaxial compression. The
variation of the compressive yield strength with relative density of the
CWML is compared to the theory developed by Gibson and Ashby for
open cell structures [22]. It is shown that the compressive strength of
the corrugated wire mesh laminates can be described using the same
equations by using an appropriate value for the linear coefficient in the
Gibson-Ashby model.
Abstract: Motivated by Microsoft Co. Academic Program
initiative, the department of Information Technology in King Saud
University has adopted Microsoft products in three courses. The
initiative aimed at enhancing the abilities of the university graduates
and equipping them with skills that would help them in the job
market. A number of methods of collecting assessment data were
used to evaluate the course adoption initiative. Assessment data
indicated that the goal of the course adoption is being achieved and
that the students were much better prepared to design applications
and administrate networks.
Abstract: This paper proposes a Web service and serviceoriented
architecture (SOA) for a computer-adaptive testing (CAT)
process on e-learning systems. The proposed architecture is
developed to solve an interoperability problem of the CAT process by
using Web service. The proposed SOA and Web service define all
services needed for the interactions between systems in order to
deliver items and essential data from Web service to the CAT Webbased
application. These services are implemented in a XML-based
architecture, platform independence and interoperability between the
Web service and CAT Web-based applications.
Abstract: In managing healthcare logistics, cost is not the only
factor to be considered. The level of items- criticality used in patient
care services plays an important role as well. A stock-out incident of
a high critical item could threaten a patient's life. In this paper, the
DMAIC (Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control) methodology is
used to drive improvement projects based on customer driven critical
to quality characteristics at a Jordanian hospital. This paper shows
how the application of Six Sigma improves the performance of the
case hospital logistics system by reducing the number of stock-out
incidents.
Abstract: Writer identification is one of the areas in pattern
recognition that attract many researchers to work in, particularly in
forensic and biometric application, where the writing style can be
used as biometric features for authenticating an identity. The
challenging task in writer identification is the extraction of unique
features, in which the individualistic of such handwriting styles
can be adopted into bio-inspired generalized global shape for
writer identification. In this paper, the feasibility of generalized
global shape concept of complimentary binding in Artificial
Immune System (AIS) for writer identification is explored. An
experiment based on the proposed framework has been conducted
to proof the validity and feasibility of the proposed approach for
off-line writer identification.
Abstract: The simulation of extrusion process is studied widely
in order to both increase products and improve quality, with broad
application in wire coating. The annular tube-tooling extrusion was
set up by a model that is termed as Navier-Stokes equation in
addition to a rheological model of differential form based on singlemode
exponential Phan-Thien/Tanner constitutive equation in a twodimensional
cylindrical coordinate system for predicting the
contraction point of the polymer melt beyond the die. Numerical
solutions are sought through semi-implicit Taylor-Galerkin pressurecorrection
finite element scheme. The investigation was focused on
incompressible creeping flow with long relaxation time in terms of
Weissenberg numbers up to 200. The isothermal case was considered
with surface tension effect on free surface in extrudate flow and no
slip at die wall. The Stream Line Upwind Petrov-Galerkin has been
proposed to stabilize solution. The structure of mesh after die exit
was adjusted following prediction of both top and bottom free
surfaces so as to keep the location of contraction point around one
unit length which is close to experimental results. The simulation of
extrusion process is studied widely in order to both increase products
and improve quality, with broad application in wire coating. The
annular tube-tooling extrusion was set up by a model that is termed
as Navier-Stokes equation in addition to a rheological model of
differential form based on single-mode exponential Phan-
Thien/Tanner constitutive equation in a two-dimensional cylindrical
coordinate system for predicting the contraction point of the polymer
melt beyond the die. Numerical solutions are sought through semiimplicit
Taylor-Galerkin pressure-correction finite element scheme.
The investigation was focused on incompressible creeping flow with
long relaxation time in terms of Weissenberg numbers up to 200. The
isothermal case was considered with surface tension effect on free
surface in extrudate flow and no slip at die wall. The Stream Line
Upwind Petrov-Galerkin has been proposed to stabilize solution. The
structure of mesh after die exit was adjusted following prediction of
both top and bottom free surfaces so as to keep the location of
contraction point around one unit length which is close to
experimental results.
Abstract: The seemingly ambiguous title of this paper – use of the terms maturity and innovation in concord – signifies the imperative of every organisation within the competitive domain. Where organisational maturity and innovativeness were traditionally considered antonymous, the assimilation of these two seemingly contradictory notions is fundamental to the assurance of long-term organisational prosperity. Organisations are required, now more than ever, to grow and mature their innovation capability – rending consistent innovative outputs. This paper describes research conducted to consolidate the principles of innovation and identify the fundamental components that constitute organisational innovation capability. The process of developing an Innovation Capability Maturity Model is presented. A brief description is provided of the basic components of the model, followed by a description of the case studies that were conducted to evaluate the model. The paper concludes with a summary of the findings and potential future research.
Abstract: This research contribution propels the idea of collaborating environment for the execution of student satellite projects in the backdrop of project management principles. The recent past has witnessed a technological shift in the aerospace industry from the big satellite projects to the small spacecrafts especially for the earth observation and communication purposes. This vibrant shift has vitalized the academia and industry to share their resources and to create a win-win paradigm of mutual success and technological development along with the human resource development in the field of aerospace. Small student satellites are the latest jargon of academia and more than 100 CUBESAT projects have been executed successfully all over the globe and many new student satellite projects are in the development phase. The small satellite project management requires the application of specific knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to achieve the defined mission requirements. The Authors have presented the detailed outline for the project management of student satellites and presented the role of industry to collaborate with the academia to get the optimized results in academic environment.
Abstract: The aim of the present study was to develop and
validate an inexpensive and simple high performance liquid
chromatographic (HPLC) method for the determination of colistin
sulfate. Separation of colistin sulfate was achieved on a ZORBAX
Eclipse XDB-C18 column using UV detection at λ=215 nm. The
mobile phase was 30 mM sulfate buffer (pH 2.5):acetonitrile(76:24).
An excellent linearity (r2=0.998) was found in the concentration
range of 25 - 400 μg/mL. Intra- day and inter-day precisions of
method (%RSD, n=3) were less than 7.9%.The developed and
validated method was applied to determination of the content of
colistin sulfate in medicated premix and animal feed sample.The
recovery of colistin from animal feed was satisfactorily ranged from
90.92 to 93.77%. The results demonstrated that the HPLC method
developed in this work is appropriate for direct determination of
colistin sulfate in commercial medicated premixes and animal feed.
Abstract: In this paper, He-s amplitude frequency formulation is used to obtain a periodic solution for a nonlinear oscillator with fractional potential. By calculation and computer simulations, compared with the exact solution shows that the result obtained is of high accuracy.
Abstract: Knowledge-based e-mail systems focus on
incorporating knowledge management approach in order to enhance
the traditional e-mail systems. In this paper, we present a knowledgebased
e-mail system called KS-Mail where people do not only send
and receive e-mail conventionally but are also able to create a sense
of knowledge flow. We introduce semantic processing on the e-mail
contents by automatically assigning categories and providing links to
semantically related e-mails. This is done to enrich the knowledge
value of each e-mail as well as to ease the organization of the e-mails
and their contents. At the application level, we have also built
components like the service manager, evaluation engine and search
engine to handle the e-mail processes efficiently by providing the
means to share and reuse knowledge. For this purpose, we present the
KS-Mail architecture, and elaborate on the details of the e-mail
server and the application server. We present the ontology mapping
technique used to achieve the e-mail content-s categorization as well
as the protocols that we have developed to handle the transactions in
the e-mail system. Finally, we discuss further on the implementation
of the modules presented in the KS-Mail architecture.
Abstract: Mobile adhoc network (MANET) is a collection of
mobile devices which form a communication network with no preexisting
wiring or infrastructure. Multiple routing protocols have
been developed for MANETs. As MANETs gain popularity, their
need to support real time applications is growing as well. Such
applications have stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements
such as throughput, end-to-end delay, and energy. Due to dynamic
topology and bandwidth constraint supporting QoS is a challenging
task. QoS aware routing is an important building block for QoS
support. The primary goal of the QoS aware protocol is to determine
the path from source to destination that satisfies the QoS
requirements. This paper proposes a new energy and delay aware
protocol called energy and delay aware TORA (EDTORA) based on
extension of Temporally Ordered Routing Protocol (TORA).Energy
and delay verifications of query packet have been done in each node.
Simulation results show that the proposed protocol has a higher
performance than TORA in terms of network lifetime, packet
delivery ratio and end-to-end delay.
Abstract: Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is a powerful
and efficient mathematical approach widely applied in the
optimization of cultivation process. Cellulase enzyme production by
Trichoderma reesei RutC30 using agricultural waste rice straw and
banana fiber as carbon source were investigated. In this work,
sequential optimization strategy based statistical design was
employed to enhance the production of cellulase enzyme through
submerged cultivation. A fractional factorial design (26-2) was applied
to elucidate the process parameters that significantly affect cellulase
production. Temperature, Substrate concentration, Inducer
concentration, pH, inoculum age and agitation speed were identified
as important process parameters effecting cellulase enzyme synthesis.
The concentration of lignocelluloses and lactose (inducer) in the
cultivation medium were found to be most significant factors. The
steepest ascent method was used to locate the optimal domain and a
Central Composite Design (CCD) was used to estimate the quadratic
response surface from which the factor levels for maximum
production of cellulase were determined.
Abstract: For the past one decade, biclustering has become popular data mining technique not only in the field of biological data analysis but also in other applications like text mining, market data analysis with high-dimensional two-way datasets. Biclustering clusters both rows and columns of a dataset simultaneously, as opposed to traditional clustering which clusters either rows or columns of a dataset. It retrieves subgroups of objects that are similar in one subgroup of variables and different in the remaining variables. Firefly Algorithm (FA) is a recently-proposed metaheuristic inspired by the collective behavior of fireflies. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of discrete version of FA (DFA) while coping with the task of mining coherent and large volume bicluster from web usage dataset. The experiments were conducted on two web usage datasets from public dataset repository whereby the performance of FA was compared with that exhibited by other population-based metaheuristic called binary Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). The results achieved demonstrate the usefulness of DFA while tackling the biclustering problem.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the data-driven generation
of fuzzy IF...THEN rules. The resulted fuzzy rule base can be
applied to build a classifier, a model used for prediction, or
it can be applied to form a decision support system. Among
the wide range of possible approaches, the decision tree and
the association rule based algorithms are overviewed, and two
new approaches are presented based on the a priori fuzzy
clustering based partitioning of the continuous input variables.
An application study is also presented, where the developed
methods are tested on the well known Wisconsin Breast Cancer
classification problem.
Abstract: Facial expression analysis plays a significant role for
human computer interaction. Automatic analysis of human facial
expression is still a challenging problem with many applications. In
this paper, we propose neuro-fuzzy based automatic facial expression
recognition system to recognize the human facial expressions like
happy, fear, sad, angry, disgust and surprise. Initially facial image is
segmented into three regions from which the uniform Local Binary
Pattern (LBP) texture features distributions are extracted and
represented as a histogram descriptor. The facial expressions are
recognized using Multiple Adaptive Neuro Fuzzy Inference System
(MANFIS). The proposed system designed and tested with JAFFE
face database. The proposed model reports 94.29% of classification
accuracy.
Abstract: In this paper, the generalized (2+1)-dimensional Calogero-Bogoyavlenskii-Schiff (shortly CBS) equations are investigated. We employ the Hirota-s bilinear method to obtain the bilinear form of CBS equations. Then by the idea of extended homoclinic test approach (shortly EHTA), some exact soliton solutions including breather type solutions are presented.
Abstract: One of the important applications of gas turbines is
their utilization for heat recovery steam generator in combine-cycle technology. Exhaust flow and energy are two key parameters for
determining heat recovery steam generator performance which are mainly determined by the main gas turbine components performance
data. For this reason a method was developed for determining the
exhaust energy in the new edition of ASME PTC22. The result of this investigation shows that the method of standard has considerable
error. Therefore in this paper a new method is presented for modifying of the performance calculation. The modified method is
based on exhaust gas constituent analysis and combustion calculations. The case study presented here by two kind of General
Electric gas turbine design data for validation of methodologies. The
result shows that the modified method is more precise than the ASME PTC22 method. The exhaust flow calculation deviation from
design data is 1.5-2 % by ASME PTC22 method so that the deviation regarding with modified method is 0.3-0.5%. Based on precision of
analyzer instruments, the method can be suitable alternative for gas
turbine standard performance test. In advance two methods are
proposed based on known and unknown fuel in modified method procedure. The result of this paper shows that the difference between
the two methods is below than %0.02. In according to reasonable esult of the second procedure (unknown fuel composition), the
method can be applied to performance evaluation of gas turbine, so that the measuring cost and data gathering should be reduced.
Abstract: With the prevalence of computer and development of information technology, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) have long used for a variety of applications in electrical engineering. GIS are designed to support the analysis, management, manipulation and mapping of spatial data. This paper presents several usages of GIS in power utilities such as automated route selection for the construction of new power lines which uses a dynamic programming model for route optimization, load forecasting and optimizing planning of substation-s location and capacity with comprehensive algorithm which involves an accurate small-area electric load forecasting procedure and simulates the different cost functions of substations.
Abstract: Environmental decision making, particularly about
hazardous waste management, is inherently exposed to a high
potential conflict, principally because of the trade-off between sociopolitical,
environmental, health and economic factors. The need to
plan complex contexts has led to an increasing request for decision
analytic techniques as support for the decision process. In this work,
alternative systems of asbestos-containing waste management
(ACW) in Puglia (Southern Italy) were explored by a multi-criteria
decision analysis. In particular, through Analytic Hierarchy Process
five alternatives management have been compared and ranked
according to their performance and efficiency, taking into account
environmental, health and socio-economic aspects. A separated
valuation has been performed for different temporal scale. For short
period results showed a narrow deviation between the disposal
alternatives “mono-material landfill in public quarry" and “dedicate
cells in existing landfill", with the best performance of the first one.
While for long period “treatment plant to eliminate hazard from
asbestos-containing waste" was prevalent, although high energy
demand required to achieve the change of crystalline structure. A
comparison with results from a participative approach in valuation
process might be considered as future development of method
application to ACW management.