Abstract: Within the last years, several technologies have been developed to help building e-learning portals. Most of them follow approaches that deliver a vast amount of functionalities, suitable for class-like learning. The SuGI project, as part of the D-Grid (funded by the BMBF), targets on delivering a highly scalable and sustainable learning solution to provide materials (e.g. learning modules, training systems, webcasts, tutorials, etc.) containing knowledge about Grid computing to the D-Grid community. In this article, the process of the development of an e-learning portal focused on the requirements of this special user group is described. Furthermore, it deals with the conceptual and technical design of an e-learning portal, addressing the special needs of heterogeneous target groups. The main focus lies on the quality management of the software development process, Web templates for uploading new contents, the rich search and filter functionalities which will be described from a conceptual as well as a technical point of view. Specifically, it points out best practices as well as concepts to provide a sustainable solution to a relatively unknown and highly heterogeneous community.
Abstract: This paper presents a simple approach for load
flow analysis of a radial distribution network. The proposed
approach utilizes forward and backward sweep algorithm
based on Kirchoff-s current law (KCL) and Kirchoff-s voltage
law (KVL) for evaluating the node voltages iteratively. In this
approach, computation of branch current depends only on the
current injected at the neighbouring node and the current in
the adjacent branch. This approach starts from the end nodes
of sub lateral line, lateral line and main line and moves
towards the root node during branch current computation. The
node voltage evaluation begins from the root node and moves
towards the nodes located at the far end of the main, lateral
and sub lateral lines. The proposed approach has been tested
using four radial distribution systems of different size and
configuration and found to be computationally efficient.
Abstract: It has been shown that in most accidents the driver is responsible due to being distracted or misjudging the situation. In order to solve such problems research has been dedicated to developing driver assistance systems that are able to monitor the traffic situation around the vehicle. This paper presents methods for recognizing several circumstances on a road. The methods use both the in-vehicle warning systems and the roadside infrastructure. Preliminary evaluation results for fog and ice-on-road detection are presented. The ice detection results are based on data recorded in a test track dedicated to tyre friction testing. The achieved results anticipate that ice detection could work at a performance of 70% detection with the right setup, which is a good foundation for implementation. However, the full benefit of the presented cooperative system is achieved by fusing the outputs of multiple data sources, which is the key point of discussion behind this publication.
Abstract: An effective approach for unbalanced three-phase
distribution power flow solutions is proposed in this paper. The
special topological characteristics of distribution networks have been
fully utilized to make the direct solution possible. Two matrices–the
bus-injection to branch-current matrix and the branch-current to busvoltage
matrix– and a simple matrix multiplication are used to
obtain power flow solutions. Due to the distinctive solution
techniques of the proposed method, the time-consuming LU
decomposition and forward/backward substitution of the Jacobian
matrix or admittance matrix required in the traditional power flow
methods are no longer necessary. Therefore, the proposed method is
robust and time-efficient. Test results demonstrate the validity of the
proposed method. The proposed method shows great potential to be
used in distribution automation applications.
Abstract: This paper presents the investigation results of UV
measurement at different level of altitudes and the development of a
new portable instrument for measuring UV. The rapid growth of
industrial sectors in developing countries including Malaysia, brings
not only income to the nation, but also causes pollution in various
forms. Air pollution is one of the significant contributors to global
warming by depleting the Ozone layer, which would reduce the
filtration of UV rays. Long duration of exposure to high to UV rays
has many devastating health effects to mankind directly or indirectly
through destruction of the natural resources. This study aimed to
show correlation between UV and altitudes which indirectly can help
predict Ozone depletion. An instrument had been designed to
measure and monitors the level of UV. The instrument comprises of
two main blocks namely data logger and Graphic User Interface
(GUI). Three sensors were used in the data logger to detect changes
in the temperature, humidity and ultraviolet. The system has
undergone experimental measurement to capture data at two different
conditions; industrial area and high attitude area. The performance of
the instrument showed consistency in the data captured and the
results of the experiment drew a significantly high reading of UV at
high altitudes.
Abstract: In the present work, the performance of the particle
swarm optimization and the genetic algorithm compared as a typical
geometry design problem. The design maximizes the heat transfer
rate from a given fin volume. The analysis presumes that a linear
temperature distribution along the fin. The fin profile generated using
the B-spline curves and controlled by the change of control point
coordinates. An inverse method applied to find the appropriate fin
geometry yield the linear temperature distribution along the fin
corresponds to optimum design. The numbers of the populations, the
count of iterations and time to convergence measure efficiency.
Results show that the particle swarm optimization is most efficient
for geometry optimization.
Abstract: In this project cadmium ions were adsorbed from
aqueous solutions onto either date pits; a cheap agricultural and nontoxic
material, or chemically activated carbon prepared from date pits
using phosphoric acid. A series of experiments were conducted in a
batch adsorption technique to assess the feasibility of using the
prepared adsorbents. The effects of the process variables such as
initial cadmium ions concentration, contact time, solution pH and
adsorbent dose on the adsorption capacity of both adsorbents were
studied. The experimental data were tested using different isotherm
models such as Langmuir, Freundlich, Tempkin and Dubinin-
Radushkevich. The results showed that although the equilibrium data
could be described by all models used, Langmuir model gave slightly
better results when using activated carbon while Freundlich model,
gave better results with date pits.
Abstract: EPC Class-1 Generation-2 UHF tags, one of Radio
frequency identification or RFID tag types, is expected that most
companies are planning to use it in the supply chain in the short term
and in consumer packaging in the long term due to its inexpensive
cost. Because of the very cost, however, its resources are extremely
scarce and it is hard to have any valuable security algorithms in it. It
causes security vulnerabilities, in particular cloning the tags for
counterfeits. In this paper, we propose a product authentication
solution for anti-counterfeiting at application level in the supply chain
and mobile RFID environment. It aims to become aware of
distribution of spurious products with fake RFID tags and to provide a
product authentication service to general consumers with mobile
RFID devices like mobile phone or PDA which has a mobile RFID
reader. We will discuss anti-counterfeiting mechanisms which are
required to our proposed solution and address requirements that the
mechanisms should have.
Abstract: Tip vortex cavitation is one of well known patterns of
cavitation phenomenon which occurs in axial pumps. This pattern of
cavitation occurs due to pressure difference between the pressure and
suction sides of blades of an axial pump. Since the pressure in the
pressure side of the blade is higher than the pressure in its suction
side, thus a very small portion of liquid flow flows back from
pressure side to the suction side. This fact is cause of tip vortex
cavitation and gap cavitation that may occur in axial pumps. In this
paper the results of our experimental investigation about movement
of tip vortex cavitation along blade edge due to reduction of pump
flow rate in an axial pump is reported. Results show that reduction of
pump flow rate in conjunction with increasing of outlet pressure
causes movement of tip vortex cavitation along blade edge towards
the blade tip. Results also show that by approaching tip vortex
cavitation to the blade tip, vortex tip pattern of cavitation replaces
with a cavitation phenomenon on the blade tip. Furthermore by
further reduction of pump flow rate and increasing of outlet pressure,
an unstable cavitation phenomenon occurs between each blade
leading edge and the next blade trailing edge.
Abstract: This paper presents software tools that convert the C/Cµ floating point source code for a DSP algorithm into a fixedpoint simulation model that can be used to evaluate the numericalperformance of the algorithm on several different fixed pointplatforms including microprocessors, DSPs and FPGAs. The tools use a novel system for maintaining binary point informationso that the conversion from floating point to fixed point isautomated and the resulting fixed point algorithm achieves maximum possible precision. A configurable architecture is used during the simulation phase so that the algorithm can produce a bit-exact output for several different target devices.
Abstract: In H.264/AVC video encoding, rate-distortion
optimization for mode selection plays a significant role to achieve
outstanding performance in compression efficiency and video quality.
However, this mode selection process also makes the encoding
process extremely complex, especially in the computation of the ratedistortion
cost function, which includes the computations of the sum
of squared difference (SSD) between the original and reconstructed
image blocks and context-based entropy coding of the block. In this
paper, a transform-domain rate-distortion optimization accelerator
based on fast SSD (FSSD) and VLC-based rate estimation algorithm
is proposed. This algorithm could significantly simplify the hardware
architecture for the rate-distortion cost computation with only
ignorable performance degradation. An efficient hardware structure
for implementing the proposed transform-domain rate-distortion
optimization accelerator is also proposed. Simulation results
demonstrated that the proposed algorithm reduces about 47% of total
encoding time with negligible degradation of coding performance.
The proposed method can be easily applied to many mobile video
application areas such as a digital camera and a DMB (Digital
Multimedia Broadcasting) phone.
Abstract: Segmentation, filtering out of measurement errors and
identification of breakpoints are integral parts of any analysis of
microarray data for the detection of copy number variation (CNV).
Existing algorithms designed for these tasks have had some successes
in the past, but they tend to be O(N2) in either computation time or
memory requirement, or both, and the rapid advance of microarray
resolution has practically rendered such algorithms useless. Here we
propose an algorithm, SAD, that is much faster and much less thirsty
for memory – O(N) in both computation time and memory requirement
-- and offers higher accuracy. The two key ingredients of SAD are the
fundamental assumption in statistics that measurement errors are
normally distributed and the mathematical relation that the product of
two Gaussians is another Gaussian (function). We have produced a
computer program for analyzing CNV based on SAD. In addition to
being fast and small it offers two important features: quantitative
statistics for predictions and, with only two user-decided parameters,
ease of use. Its speed shows little dependence on genomic profile.
Running on an average modern computer, it completes CNV analyses
for a 262 thousand-probe array in ~1 second and a 1.8 million-probe
array in 9 seconds
Abstract: This paper introduces a low cost INS/GPS algorithm for
land vehicle navigation application. The data fusion process is done
with an extended Kalman filter in cascade configuration mode. In
order to perform numerical simulations, MATLAB software has been
developed. Loosely coupled configuration is considered. The results
obtained in this work demonstrate that a low-cost INS/GPS navigation
system is partially capable of meeting the performance requirements
for land vehicle navigation. The relative effectiveness of the kalman
filter implementation in integrated GPS/INS navigation algorithm is
highlighted. The paper also provides experimental results; field test
using a car is carried out.
Abstract: Consider the Gregory integration (G) formula
with end corrections where h Δ is the forward difference operator with step size h. In this study we prove that can be optimized by
minimizing some of the coefficient k a in the remainder term by
particle swarm optimization. Experimental tests prove that can be rendered a powerful formula for library use.
Abstract: Graph transformation has recently become more and
more popular as a general visual modeling language to formally state
the dynamic semantics of the designed models. Especially, it is a
very natural formalism for languages which basically are graph (e.g.
UML). Using this technique, we present a highly understandable yet
precise approach to formally model and analyze the behavioral
semantics of UML 2.0 Activity diagrams. In our proposal, AGG is
used to design Activities, then using our previous approach to model
checking graph transformation systems, designers can verify and
analyze designed Activity diagrams by checking the interesting
properties as combination of graph rules and LTL (Linear Temporal
Logic) formulas on the Activities.
Abstract: In online context, the design and implementation of
effective remote laboratories environment is highly challenging on
account of hardware and software needs. This paper presents the
remote laboratory software framework modified from ilab shared
architecture (ISA). The ISA is a framework which enables students to
remotely acccess and control experimental hardware using internet
infrastructure. The need for remote laboratories came after
experiencing problems imposed by traditional laboratories. Among
them are: the high cost of laboratory equipment, scarcity of space,
scarcity of technical personnel along with the restricted university
budget creates a significant bottleneck on building required
laboratory experiments. The solution to these problems is to build
web-accessible laboratories. Remote laboratories allow students and
educators to interact with real laboratory equipment located
anywhere in the world at anytime. Recently, many universities and
other educational institutions especially in third world countries rely
on simulations because they do not afford the experimental
equipment they require to their students. Remote laboratories enable
users to get real data from real-time hand-on experiments. To
implement many remote laboratories, the system architecture should
be flexible, understandable and easy to implement, so that different
laboratories with different hardware can be deployed easily. The
modifications were made to enable developers to add more
equipment in ISA framework and to attract the new developers to
develop many online laboratories.
Abstract: The article contains results of the flour and bread
quality assessment from the grains of spring spelt, also called as an
ancient wheat. Spelt was cultivated on heavy and medium soils
observing principles of organic farming. Based on flour and bread
laboratory studies, as well as laboratory baking, the technological
usefulness of studied flour has been determined. These results were
referred to the standard derived from common wheat cultivated in the
same conditions. Grain of spring spelt is a good raw material for
manufacturing bread flour, from which to get high-quality bakery
products, but this is strictly dependent on the variety of ancient
wheat.
Abstract: In field of Computer Science and Mathematics,
sorting algorithm is an algorithm that puts elements of a list in a
certain order i.e. ascending or descending. Sorting is perhaps the
most widely studied problem in computer science and is frequently
used as a benchmark of a system-s performance. This paper
presented the comparative performance study of four sorting
algorithms on different platform. For each machine, it is found that
the algorithm depends upon the number of elements to be sorted. In
addition, as expected, results show that the relative performance of
the algorithms differed on the various machines. So, algorithm
performance is dependent on data size and there exists impact of
hardware also.
Abstract: Software maintenance is extremely important activity in software development life cycle. It involves a lot of human efforts, cost and time. Software maintenance may be further subdivided into different activities such as fault prediction, fault detection, fault prevention, fault correction etc. This topic has gained substantial attention due to sophisticated and complex applications, commercial hardware, clustered architecture and artificial intelligence. In this paper we surveyed the work done in the field of software maintenance. Software fault prediction has been studied in context of fault prone modules, self healing systems, developer information, maintenance models etc. Still a lot of things like modeling and weightage of impact of different kind of faults in the various types of software systems need to be explored in the field of fault severity.
Abstract: To reduce accidents in the industry, WSNs(Wireless Sensor
networks)- sensor data is used. WSNs- sensor data has the persistence and
continuity. therefore, we design and exploit the buffer management system that
has the persistence and continuity to avoid and delivery data conflicts. To
develop modules, we use the multi buffers and design the buffer management
modules that transfer sensor data through the context-aware methods.