Abstract: This work presents the highly accurate numerical calculation
of the natural frequencies for functionally graded beams with
simply supported boundary conditions. The Timoshenko first order
shear deformation beam theory and the higher order shear deformation
beam theory of Reddy have been applied to the functionally
graded beams analysis. The material property gradient is assumed
to be in the thickness direction. The Hamilton-s principle is utilized
to obtain the dynamic equations of functionally graded beams. The
influences of the volume fraction index and thickness-to-length ratio
on the fundamental frequencies are discussed. Comparison of the
numerical results for the homogeneous beam with Euler-Bernoulli
beam theory results show that the derived model is satisfactory.
Abstract: In this paper, investigation of subsynchronous
resonance (SSR) characteristics of a hybrid series compensated
system and the design of voltage controller for three level 24-pulse
Voltage Source Converter based Static Synchronous Series
Compensator (SSSC) is presented. Hybrid compensation consists of
series fixed capacitor and SSSC which is a active series FACTS
controller. The design of voltage controller for SSSC is based on
damping torque analysis, and Genetic Algorithm (GA) is adopted for
tuning the controller parameters. The SSR Characteristics of SSSC
with constant reactive voltage control modes has been investigated.
The results show that the constant reactive voltage control of SSSC
has the effect of reducing the electrical resonance frequency, which
detunes the SSR.The analysis of SSR with SSSC is carried out based
on frequency domain method, eigenvalue analysis and transient
simulation. While the eigenvalue and damping torque analysis are
based on D-Q model of SSSC, the transient simulation considers both
D-Q and detailed three phase nonlinear system model using
switching functions.
Abstract: In view of current IT integration development of SOA, this paper examines AIS design based on SOA, including information sources collection, accounting business process integration and real-time financial reports. The main objective of this exploratory paper is to facilitate AIS research combing the Web Service, which is often ignored in accounting and computer research. It provides a conceptual framework that clarifies the interdependency between SOA and AIS, and also presents the major SOA functions in different areas of AIS
Abstract: Knowing consumers' preferences and perceptions of
the sensory evaluation of drink products are very significant to
manufacturers and retailers alike. With no appropriate sensory
analysis, there is a high risk of market disappointment. This paper
aims to rank the selected coffee products and also to determine the
best of quality attribute through sensory evaluation using fuzzy
decision making model. Three products of coffee drinks were used
for sensory evaluation. Data were collected from thirty judges at a
hypermarket in Kuala Terengganu, Malaysia. The judges were asked
to specify their sensory evaluation in linguistic terms of the quality
attributes of colour, smell, taste and mouth feel for each product and
also the weight of each quality attribute. Five fuzzy linguistic terms
represent the quality attributes were introduced prior analysing. The
judgment membership function and the weights were compared to
rank the products and also to determine the best quality attribute. The
product of Indoc was judged as the first in ranking and 'taste' as the
best quality attribute. These implicate the importance of sensory
evaluation in identifying consumers- preferences and also the
competency of fuzzy approach in decision making.
Abstract: The purpose of planned islanding is to construct a
power island during system disturbances which are commonly
formed for maintenance purpose. However, in most of the cases
island mode operation is not allowed. Therefore distributed
generators (DGs) must sense the unplanned disconnection from the
main grid. Passive technique is the most commonly used method for
this purpose. However, it needs improvement in order to identify the
islanding condition. In this paper an effective method for
identification of islanding condition based on phase space and neural
network techniques has been developed. The captured voltage
waveforms at the coupling points of DGs are processed to extract the
required features. For this purposed a method known as the phase
space techniques is used. Based on extracted features, two neural
network configuration namely radial basis function and probabilistic
neural networks are trained to recognize the waveform class.
According to the test result, the investigated technique can provide
satisfactory identification of the islanding condition in the
distribution system.
Abstract: Experimental investigation of the effect of
hydrophobic injection on siloxane basis on the properties of oldfashioned
type of ceramic brick is presented in the paper. At the
experimental testing, the matrix density, total open porosity, pore size
distribution, sorptivity, water absorption coefficient, sorption and
desorption isotherms are measured for the original, as well as the
hydrophobic-injection treated brick. On the basis of measured data,
the functionality of the hydrophobic injection for the moisture ingress
prevention into the studied ceramic brick is assessed.
Abstract: Cellular networks provide voice and data services to the users with mobility. To deliver services to the mobile users, the cellular network is capable of tracking the locations of the users, and allowing user movement during the conversations. These capabilities are achieved by the location management. Location management in mobile communication systems is concerned with those network functions necessary to allow the users to be reached wherever they are in the network coverage area. In a cellular network, a service coverage area is divided into smaller areas of hexagonal shape, referred to as cells. The cellular concept was introduced to reuse the radio frequency. Continued expansion of cellular networks, coupled with an increasingly restricted mobile spectrum, has established the reduction of communication overhead as a highly important issue. Much of this traffic is used in determining the precise location of individual users when relaying calls, with the field of location management aiming to reduce this overhead through prediction of user location. This paper describes and compares various location management schemes in the cellular networks.
Abstract: In this paper, backup and recovery technique for Peer
to Peer applications, such as a distributed asynchronous Web-Based
Training system that we have previously proposed. In order to
improve the scalability and robustness of this system, all contents and
function are realized on mobile agents. These agents are distributed
to computers, and they can obtain using a Peer to Peer network
that modified Content-Addressable Network. In the proposed system,
although entire services do not become impossible even if some
computers break down, the problem that contents disappear occurs
with an agent-s disappearance. As a solution for this issue, backups
of agents are distributed to computers. If a failure of a computer is
detected, other computers will continue service using backups of the
agents belonged to the computer.
Abstract: This study examines the structural and systematic processes of the Human Resources Division at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago for evidence of incorporation of the University's 2012- 2017 Strategic Plan. In conducting the study the structure of the Human Resources Management Division and its functions were carefully reviewed and measured against the strategic direction of the organisation. Findings indicate disconnect between these areas as there is apparent failure of the Human Resources Division to totally align its mandate with that of the organisation-s strategic direction. This action serves to threaten the viability of the organisation and its efficiency and effectiveness as an institution. The recommendations being put forward are for the realignment of the Human Resources Management Division and for its focus to mirror that of the organisation and the organisation-s goals and objectives. This may entail a restructuring of the Division.
Abstract: In this work the numerical simulation of transient heat
transfer in a cylindrical probe is done. An experiment was conducted
introducing a steel cylinder in a heating chamber and registering its
surface temperature along the time during one hour. In parallel, a
mathematical model was solved for one dimension transient heat
transfer in cylindrical coordinates, considering the boundary
conditions of the test. The model was solved using finite difference
method, because the thermal conductivity in the cylindrical steel bar
and the convection heat transfer coefficient used in the model are
considered temperature dependant functions, and both conditions
prevent the use of the analytical solution. The comparison between
theoretical and experimental results showed the average deviation is
below 2%. It was concluded that numerical methods are useful in
order to solve engineering complex problems. For constant k and h,
the experimental methodology used here can be used as a tool for
teaching heat transfer in mechanical engineering, using mathematical
simplified models with analytical solutions.
Abstract: School physical education, through its objectives and
contents, efficiently valorizes the pupils- abilities, developing them,
especially the coordinative skill component, which is the basis of
movement learning, of the development of the daily motility and also
of the special, refined motility required by the practice of certain
sports. Medium school age offers the nervous and motor substratum
needed for the acquisition of complex motor habits, a substratum that
is essential for the coordinative skill. Individuals differ as to the level
at which this function is performed, the extent to which this function
turns an individual into a person that is adapted and adaptable to
complex and various situations. Spatio-temporal orientation, together
with movement combination and coupling, and with kinesthetic,
balance, motor reaction, movement transformation and rhythm
differentiation form the coordinative skills. From our viewpoint,
these are characteristic features with high levels of manifestation in a
complex psychomotor act - valorizing the quality of one-s talent - as
well as indices pertaining to one-s psychomotor intelligence and
creativity.
Abstract: The design of a complete expansion that allows for
compact representation of certain relevant classes of signals is a
central problem in signal processing applications. Achieving such a
representation means knowing the signal features for the purpose of
denoising, classification, interpolation and forecasting. Multilayer
Neural Networks are relatively a new class of techniques that are
mathematically proven to approximate any continuous function
arbitrarily well. Radial Basis Function Networks, which make use of
Gaussian activation function, are also shown to be a universal
approximator. In this age of ever-increasing digitization in the
storage, processing, analysis and communication of information,
there are numerous examples of applications where one needs to
construct a continuously defined function or numerical algorithm to
approximate, represent and reconstruct the given discrete data of a
signal. Many a times one wishes to manipulate the data in a way that
requires information not included explicitly in the data, which is
done through interpolation and/or extrapolation.
Tidal data are a very perfect example of time series and many
statistical techniques have been applied for tidal data analysis and
representation. ANN is recent addition to such techniques. In the
present paper we describe the time series representation capabilities
of a special type of ANN- Radial Basis Function networks and
present the results of tidal data representation using RBF. Tidal data
analysis & representation is one of the important requirements in
marine science for forecasting.
Abstract: Thermochemcial characteristics of powder fabricated
using oxidation treatment of spent PWR fuel and SIMFUEL were
evaluated for recycling of spent fuel such as DUPIC process.
Especially, the influence of spent fuel burn-ups on the powder
fabrication characteristics was experimentally evaluated, ranging from
27,300 to 65,000 MWd/tU. Densities of powder manufactured from an
oxidation, OREOX and the milling processes at the same process
conditions were compared as a function of the fuel burn-ups
respectively. Also, based on chemical analysis results, homogeneity of
fissile elements in oxidized powder was confirmed.
Abstract: In this paper, by employing a new Lyapunov functional
and an elementary inequality analysis technique, some sufficient
conditions are derived to ensure the existence and uniqueness of
periodic oscillatory solution for fuzzy bi-directional memory (BAM)
neural networks with time-varying delays, and all other solutions of
the fuzzy BAM neural networks converge the uniqueness periodic
solution. These criteria are presented in terms of system parameters
and have important leading significance in the design and applications
of neural networks. Moreover an example is given to illustrate the
effectiveness and feasible of results obtained.
Abstract: Prickly pear fruit (Opuntia ficus indica L. Miller) belongs to the Cactaceae family. This species is very sensitive to low storage temperatures (< 5°C) which cause damages. The fruits can be peeled, suitably packaged and successfully commercialized as a ready-to-eat product. The main limit to the extension of the shelf life is the production of off-flavors due to different factors, the growth of microorganisms and the action of endogenous enzymes. Lipoxygenase (LOX) and Pectinesterase (PE) are involved in fruit degradation. In particular, LOX pathway is directly responsible for lipid oxidation, and the subsequent production of off-flavours, while PE causes the softening of fruit during maturation. They act on the texture and shelf-life of post-harvest, packaged fruits, as a function of the the grown of microorganisms and packaging technologies used. The aim of this work is to compare the effect of different packaging technologies on the shelf life extension of ready-to-eat prickly pear fruits with regards for the enzymes activities.
Abstract: The amount of the information being churned out by the field of biology has jumped manifold and now requires the extensive use of computer techniques for the management of this information. The predominance of biological information such as protein sequence similarity in the biological information sea is key information for detecting protein evolutionary relationship. Protein sequence similarity typically implies homology, which in turn may imply structural and functional similarities. In this work, we propose, a learning method for detecting remote protein homology. The proposed method uses a transformation that converts protein sequence into fixed-dimensional representative feature vectors. Each feature vector records the sensitivity of a protein sequence to a set of amino acids substrings generated from the protein sequences of interest. These features are then used in conjunction with support vector machines for the detection of the protein remote homology. The proposed method is tested and evaluated on two different benchmark protein datasets and it-s able to deliver improvements over most of the existing homology detection methods.
Abstract: Empirical force fields and density functional theory
(DFT) was used to study the binding energies and structures of
methylamine on the surface of activated carbons (ACs). This is a first
step in studying the adsorption of alkyl amines on the surface of
functionalized ACs. The force fields used were Dreiding (DFF),
Universal (UFF) and Compass (CFF) models. The generalized
gradient approximation with Perdew Wang 91 (PW91) functional
was used for DFT calculations. In addition to obtaining the aminecarboxylic
acid adsorption energies, the results were used to establish
reliability of the empirical models for these systems. CFF predicted a
binding energy of -9.227 (kcal/mol) which agreed with PW91 at -
13.17 (kcal/mol), compared to DFF 0 (kcal/mol) and UFF -0.72
(kcal/mol). However, the CFF binding energies for the amine to ester
and ketone disagreed with PW91 results. The structures obtained
from all models agreed with PW91 results.
Abstract: Main goal of preventive healthcare problems are at
decreasing the likelihood and severity of potentially life-threatening
illnesses by protection and early detection. The levels of
establishment and staffing costs along with summation of the travel
and waiting time that clients spent are considered as objectives
functions of the proposed nonlinear integer programming model. In
this paper, we have proposed a bi-objective mathematical model for
designing a network of preventive healthcare facilities so as to
minimize aforementioned objectives, simultaneously. Moreover, each
facility acts as M/M/1 queuing system. The number of facilities to be
established, the location of each facility, and the level of technology
for each facility to be chosen are provided as the main determinants
of a healthcare facility network. Finally, to demonstrate performance
of the proposed model, four multi-objective decision making
techniques are presented to solve the model.
Abstract: The security of computer networks plays a strategic
role in modern computer systems. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS)
act as the 'second line of defense' placed inside a protected
network, looking for known or potential threats in network traffic
and/or audit data recorded by hosts. We developed an Intrusion
Detection System using LAMSTAR neural network to learn patterns
of normal and intrusive activities, to classify observed system
activities and compared the performance of LAMSTAR IDS with
other classification techniques using 5 classes of KDDCup99 data.
LAMSAR IDS gives better performance at the cost of high
Computational complexity, Training time and Testing time, when
compared to other classification techniques (Binary Tree classifier,
RBF classifier, Gaussian Mixture classifier). we further reduced the
Computational Complexity of LAMSTAR IDS by reducing the
dimension of the data using principal component analysis which in
turn reduces the training and testing time with almost the same
performance.
Abstract: Many recent electrophysiological studies have
revealed the importance of investigating meditation state in order to
achieve an increased understanding of autonomous control of
cardiovascular functions. In this paper, we characterize heart rate
variability (HRV) time series acquired during meditation using
nonlinear dynamical parameters. We have computed minimum
embedding dimension (MED), correlation dimension (CD), largest
Lyapunov exponent (LLE), and nonlinearity scores (NLS) from HRV
time series of eight Chi and four Kundalini meditation practitioners.
The pre-meditation state has been used as a baseline (control) state to
compare the estimated parameters. The chaotic nature of HRV during
both pre-meditation and meditation is confirmed by MED. The
meditation state showed a significant decrease in the value of CD and
increase in the value of LLE of HRV, in comparison with premeditation
state, indicating a less complex and less predictable nature
of HRV. In addition, it was shown that the HRV of meditation state
is having highest NLS than pre-meditation state. The study indicated
highly nonlinear dynamic nature of cardiac states as revealed by
HRV during meditation state, rather considering it as a quiescent
state.