Abstract: In this paper fatigue crack initiation and propagation in notched plate under constant amplitude loading through tensile residual stress field of 2024 T351 Al-alloy plate were investigated. Residual stress field was generated by plastic deformation using finite element method (FEM) where isotropic hardening in Von Mises model was applied. Simulation of fatigue behavior was made on AFGROW code. It was shown that the fatigue crack initiation and propagation were affected by level of residual stress filed. In this investigation, the presence of tensile residual stresses at notch (hole) reduces considerably the total fatigue life. It was shown that the decreasing in stress reduces the fatigue crack growth rates.
Abstract: Scarcity of resources for biodiversity conservation gives rise to the need of strategic investment with priorities given to the cost of conservation. While the literature provides abundant methodological options for biodiversity conservation; estimating true cost of conservation remains abstract and simplistic, without recognising dynamic nature of the cost. Some recent works demonstrate the prominence of economic theory to inform biodiversity decisions, particularly on the costs and benefits of biodiversity however, the integration of the concept of true cost into biodiversity actions and planning are very slow to come by, and specially on a farm level. Conservation planning studies often use area as a proxy for costs neglecting different land values as well as protected areas. These literature consider only heterogeneous benefits while land costs are considered homogenous. Analysis with the assumption of cost homogeneity results in biased estimation; since not only it doesn’t address the true total cost of biodiversity actions and plans, but also it fails to screen out lands that are more (or less) expensive and/or difficult (or more suitable) for biodiversity conservation purposes, hindering validity and comparability of the results. Economies of scope” is one of the other most neglected aspects in conservation literature. The concept of economies of scope introduces the existence of cost complementarities within a multiple output production system and it suggests a lower cost during the concurrent production of multiple outputs by a given farm. If there are, indeed, economies of scope then simplistic representation of costs will tend to overestimate the true cost of conservation leading to suboptimal outcomes. The aim of this paper, therefore, is to provide first road review of the various theoretical ways in which economies of scope are likely to occur of how they might occur in conservation. Consequently, the paper addresses gaps that have to be filled in future analysis.
Abstract: One of the main limitations for the resolution of
optical instruments is the size of the sensor-s pixels. In this paper we
introduce a new sub pixel resolution algorithm to enhance the
resolution of images. This method is based on the analysis of multiimages
which are fast recorded during the fine relative motion of
image and pixel arrays of CCDs. It is shown that by applying this
method for a sample noise free image one will enhance the resolution
with 10-14 order of error.
Abstract: Oil debris signal generated from the inductive oil
debris monitor (ODM) is useful information for machine condition
monitoring but is often spoiled by background noise. To improve the
reliability in machine condition monitoring, the high-fidelity signal
has to be recovered from the noisy raw data. Considering that the noise
components with large amplitude often have higher frequency than
that of the oil debris signal, the integral transform is proposed to
enhance the detectability of the oil debris signal. To cancel out the
baseline wander resulting from the integral transform, the empirical
mode decomposition (EMD) method is employed to identify the trend
components. An optimal reconstruction strategy including both
de-trending and de-noising is presented to detect the oil debris signal
with less distortion. The proposed approach is applied to detect the oil
debris signal in the raw data collected from an experimental setup. The
result demonstrates that this approach is able to detect the weak oil
debris signal with acceptable distortion from noisy raw data.
Abstract: The Principal component regression (PCR) is a
combination of principal component analysis (PCA) and multiple linear regression (MLR). The objective of this paper is to revise the
use of PCR in shortwave near infrared (SWNIR) (750-1000nm) spectral analysis. The idea of PCR was explained mathematically and
implemented in the non-destructive assessment of the soluble solid
content (SSC) of pineapple based on SWNIR spectral data. PCR achieved satisfactory results in this application with root mean
squared error of calibration (RMSEC) of 0.7611 Brix°, coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.5865 and root mean squared error of crossvalidation
(RMSECV) of 0.8323 Brix° with principal components
(PCs) of 14.
Abstract: DNA microarray technology is widely used by
geneticists to diagnose or treat diseases through gene expression.
This technology is based on the hybridization of a tissue-s DNA
sequence into a substrate and the further analysis of the image
formed by the thousands of genes in the DNA as green, red or yellow
spots. The process of DNA microarray image analysis involves
finding the location of the spots and the quantification of the
expression level of these. In this paper, a tool to perform DNA
microarray image analysis is presented, including a spot addressing
method based on the image projections, the spot segmentation
through contour based segmentation and the extraction of relevant
information due to gene expression.
Abstract: Many contemporary telemedical applications rely on
regular consultations over the phone or video conferencing which
consumes valuable resources such as the time of the doctors. Some
applications or treatments allow automated diagnostics on the patient
side which only notifies the doctors in case a significant worsening
of patient’s condition is measured.
Such programs can save valuable resources but an important
implementation issue is how to ensure effective and cheap diagnostics
on the patient side. First, specific diagnostic devices on patient side
are expensive and second, they need to be user-˜friendly to encourage
patient’s cooperation and reduce errors in usage which may cause
noise in diagnostic data.
This article proposes the use of modern smartphones and various
build-in or attachable sensors as universal diagnostic devices applicable
in a wider range of telemedical programs and demonstrates their
application on a case-study – a program for schizophrenic relapse
prevention.
Abstract: The emergence of the Internet has brewed the
revolution of information storage and retrieval. As most of the
data in the web is unstructured, and contains a mix of text,
video, audio etc, there is a need to mine information to cater to
the specific needs of the users without loss of important
hidden information. Thus developing user friendly and
automated tools for providing relevant information quickly
becomes a major challenge in web mining research. Most of
the existing web mining algorithms have concentrated on
finding frequent patterns while neglecting the less frequent
ones that are likely to contain outlying data such as noise,
irrelevant and redundant data. This paper mainly focuses on
Signed approach and full word matching on the organized
domain dictionary for mining web content outliers. This
Signed approach gives the relevant web documents as well as
outlying web documents. As the dictionary is organized based
on the number of characters in a word, searching and retrieval
of documents takes less time and less space.
Abstract: Ceramics comprise the largest proportion of Korea-s cultural heritage currently preserved (Cited from “The Beauty of Old Ceramics of Korea" written by Yoon Yong-iee). Thus, this researcher conducted this investigation in an attempt to gain insight into Korea-s past culture and the lost period of the colonial period and the Korean War by looking into the ceramics. Korea, China and Japan are part of the similar cultural bloc within the East Asian region. Their porcelains manifest distinctive characteristics by each nation along with similarities. Thus, this research seeks to find the distinctive characteristics of the Korean porcelain by conducting comparative analysis of the similarities and distinctive characteristics. These distinctive characteristics are manifested effectively in the colors of the porcelains following the materials that can be obtained in Korea, China and Japan and production method. Likewise, this research seeks to identify the characteristics of the Korean porcelains- colors based on the comparative analysis of the porcelain colors. The reasons that porcelains were selected were because they are the most well preserved cultural remains in Korea and since they have both similarities and distinctive characteristics due to the cultural interchanges among Korea, China and Japan, which facilitates comparative study. The research targets include Korea, China and Japan-s porcelains. By comparing the colors of the porcelains from Korea, China and Japan that have their distinctive characteristics, this research seeks to identify Korea-specific porcelain colors. These colors derive from the materials that can be obtained only in Korea, and they are affected by the ideologies that governed at the time. This research is meaningful in the sense that this identifies the colors that embraces the Korean culture and provides important data by leveraging the study of the characteristics of the Korea-specific porcelains.
Abstract: Overhead conveyor systems are in use in many installations around the world, meeting the widest range of applications possible. Overhead conveyor systems are particularly preferred in automotive industry but also at post offices. Overhead conveyor systems must always be integrated with a logistical process by finding the best way for a cheaper material flow in order to guarantee precise and fast workflows. With their help, any transport can take place without wasting ground and space, without excessive company capacity, lost or damaged products, erroneous delivery, endless travels and without wasting time. Ultra-light overhead conveyor systems are rope-based conveying systems with individually driven vehicles. The vehicles can move automatically on the rope and this can be realized by energy and signals. Crossings are realized by switches. Ultra-light overhead conveyor systems provide optimal material flow, which produces profit and saves time. This article introduces two new ultra-light overhead conveyor designs in logistics and explains their components. According to the explanation of the components, scenarios are created by means of their technical characteristics. The scenarios are visualized with the help of CAD software. After that, assumptions are made for application area. According to these assumptions scenarios are visualized. These scenarios help logistics companies achieve lower development costs as well as quicker market maturity.
Abstract: This paper presents the use of the predictive fuzzy logic controller (PFLC) applied to attitude control system for agile micro-satellite. In order to reduce the effect of unpredictable time delays and large uncertainties, the algorithm employs predictive control to predict the attitude of the satellite. Comparison of the PFLC and conventional fuzzy logic controller (FLC) is presented to evaluate the performance of the control system during attitude maneuver. The two proposed models have been analyzed with the same level of noise and external disturbances. Simulation results demonstrated the feasibility and advantages of the PFLC on the attitude determination and control system (ADCS) of agile satellite.
Abstract: The flexible follower response of a translating cam with
four different profiles for rise-dwell-fall-dwell (RDFD) motion is
investigated. The cycloidal displacement motion, the modified
sinusoidal acceleration motion, the modified trapezoidal acceleration
motion, and the 3-4-5 polynomial motion are employed to describe the
rise and the fall motions of the follower and the associated four kinds of
cam profiles are studied. Since the follower flexibility is considered,
the contact point of the roller and the cam is an unknown. Two
geometric constraints formulated to restrain the unknown position are
substituted into Hamilton-s principle with Lagrange multipliers.
Applying the assumed mode method, one can obtain the governing
equations of motion as non-linear differential-algebraic equations. The
equations are solved using Runge-Kutta method. Then, the responses of
the flexible follower undergoing the four different motions are
investigated in time domain and in frequency domain.
Abstract: Personnel protection devices are cardinal in safety hazard applications. They are widely used in home, office and in industry environments to reduce the risk of lethal shock to human being and equipment safety. This paper briefly reviews various personnel protection devices also describes the basic working principle of conventional ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI) or ground fault isolator (GFI), its disadvantages and ways to overcome the disadvantages with solid-state relay (SSR) based GFI with ultrafast response up on fault implemented in printed circuit board. This solid state GFI comprises discrete MOSFET based alternating current (AC) switches, linear optical amplifier, photovoltaic isolator and sense resistor. In conventional GFI, current transformer is employed as a sensing element to detect the difference in current flow between live and neutral conductor. If there is no fault in equipment powered through GFI, due to insulation failure of internal wires and windings of motors, both live and neutral currents will be equal in magnitude and opposite in phase.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new robust and secure
system that is based on the combination between two different
transforms Discrete wavelet Transform (DWT) and Contourlet
Transform (CT). The combined transforms will compensate the
drawback of using each transform separately. The proposed
algorithm has been designed, implemented and tested successfully.
The experimental results showed that selecting the best sub-band for
embedding from both transforms will improve the imperceptibility
and robustness of the new combined algorithm. The evaluated
imperceptibility of the combined DWT-CT algorithm which gave a
PSNR value 88.11 and the combination DWT-CT algorithm
improves robustness since it produced better robust against Gaussian
noise attack. In addition to that, the implemented system shored a
successful extraction method to extract watermark efficiently.
Abstract: Having done in this study, air-conditioning
automation for patisserie shopwindow was designed. In the cooling
sector it is quite important to cooling up the air temperature in the
shopwindow within short time interval. Otherwise the patisseries
inside of the shopwindow will be spoilt in a few days. Additionally
the humidity is other important parameter for the patisseries kept in
shopwindow. It must be raised up to desired level in a quite short
time. Traditional patisserie shopwindows only allow controlling
temperature manually. There is no humidity control and humidity is
supplied by fans that are directed to the water at the bottom of the
shopwindows. In this study, humidity and temperature sensors
(SHT11), PIC, AC motor controller, DC motor controller, ultrasonic
nebulizer and other electronic circuit members were used to simulate
air conditioning automation for patisserie shopwindow in proteus
software package. The simulation results showed that temperature
and humidity values are adjusted in desired time duration by openloop
control technique. Outer and inner temperature and humidity
values were used for control mechanism.
Abstract: Biclustering is a very useful data mining technique for
identifying patterns where different genes are co-related based on a
subset of conditions in gene expression analysis. Association rules
mining is an efficient approach to achieve biclustering as in
BIMODULE algorithm but it is sensitive to the value given to its
input parameters and the discretization procedure used in the
preprocessing step, also when noise is present, classical association
rules miners discover multiple small fragments of the true bicluster,
but miss the true bicluster itself. This paper formally presents a
generalized noise tolerant bicluster model, termed as μBicluster. An
iterative algorithm termed as BIDENS based on the proposed model
is introduced that can discover a set of k possibly overlapping
biclusters simultaneously. Our model uses a more flexible method to
partition the dimensions to preserve meaningful and significant
biclusters. The proposed algorithm allows discovering biclusters that
hard to be discovered by BIMODULE. Experimental study on yeast,
human gene expression data and several artificial datasets shows that
our algorithm offers substantial improvements over several
previously proposed biclustering algorithms.
Abstract: In this work, the results of mixing study by a jet mixer in a tank have been investigated in the laboratory scale. The tank dimensions are H/D=1 and the jet entrance have been considered in
the center of upper surface of tank. RNG-k-ε model is used as the
turbulent model for the prediction of the pattern of turbulent flow
inside the tank. For this purpose, a tank with volume of 110 liter is
simulated and it has been divided into 410,000 tetrahedral control
cells for performing the calculations. The grids at the vicinity of the
nozzle and suction pare are finer to get more accurate results. The
experimental results showed that in a vertical jet, the lowest mixing
time takes place at 35 degree. In addition, mixing time decreased by
increasing the Reynolds number. Furthermore, the CFD simulation
predicted the items as well a flow patterns precisely that validates the
experiments.
Abstract: In this content analysis research note the aim was to explore to how sustainability and especially environmental issues are conveyed into environmental items in annual reports and disclosures. As The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a globally wide multistakeholder process, the enterprises using voluntarily GRI framework are considered to be aware of sustainability and environmental concerns. The findings were that although these enterprises included in an environmentally sensitive industry sector and had special capabilities to consider environmental issues there were few GRIreporting enterprises presented substantially detailed environmental items in audited financial statements. There were only slight differences between publishing years 2008 and 2009 - the beginning years of economic turmoil. The environmental issues seemed not to be considered substantial enough for financial reporting as a basis for concerning investment or voting decisions.
Abstract: The human knee joint has a three dimensional
geometry with multiple body articulations that produce complex
mechanical responses under loads that occur in everyday life and
sports activities. To produce the necessary joint compliance and
stability for optimal daily function various menisci and ligaments are
present while muscle forces are used to this effect. Therefore,
knowledge of the complex mechanical interactions of these load
bearing structures is necessary when treatment of relevant diseases is
evaluated and assisting devices are designed.
Numerical tools such as finite element analysis are suitable for
modeling such joints in order to understand their physics. They have
been used in the current study to develop an accurate human knee
joint and model its mechanical behavior. To evaluate the efficacy of
this articulated model, static load cases were used for comparison
purposes with previous experimentally verified modeling works
drawn from literature.
Abstract: Deep Brain Stimulation or DBS is the second solution
for Parkinson's Disease. Its three parameters are: frequency, pulse
width and voltage. They must be optimized to achieve successful
treatment. Nowadays it is done clinically by neurologists and there is
not certain numerical method to detect them. The aim of this research
is to introduce simulation and modeling of Parkinson's Disease
treatment as a computational procedure to select optimum voltage.
We recorded finger tremor signals of some Parkinsonian patients
under DBS treatment at constant frequency and pulse width but
variable voltages; then, we adapted a new model to fit these data. The
optimum voltages obtained by data fitting results were the same as
neurologists- commented voltages, which means modeling can be
used as an engineering method to select optimum stimulation
voltages.