Abstract: Finding the minimal logical functions has important applications in the design of logical circuits. This task is solved by many different methods but, frequently, they are not suitable for a computer implementation. We briefly summarise the well-known Quine-McCluskey method, which gives a unique procedure of computing and thus can be simply implemented, but, even for simple examples, does not guarantee an optimal solution. Since the Petrick extension of the Quine-McCluskey method does not give a generally usable method for finding an optimum for logical functions with a high number of values, we focus on interpretation of the result of the Quine-McCluskey method and show that it represents a set covering problem that, unfortunately, is an NP-hard combinatorial problem. Therefore it must be solved by heuristic or approximation methods. We propose an approach based on genetic algorithms and show suitable parameter settings.
Abstract: Wind farms (WFs) with high level of penetration are
being established in power systems worldwide more rapidly than
other renewable resources. The Independent System Operator (ISO),
as a policy maker, should propose appropriate places for WF
installation in order to maximize the benefits for the investors. There
is also a possibility of congestion relief using the new installation of
WFs which should be taken into account by the ISO when proposing
the locations for WF installation. In this context, efficient wind farm
(WF) placement method is proposed in order to reduce burdens on
congested lines. Since the wind speed is a random variable and load
forecasts also contain uncertainties, probabilistic approaches are used
for this type of study. AC probabilistic optimal power flow (P-OPF)
is formulated and solved using Monte Carlo Simulations (MCS). In
order to reduce computation time, point estimate methods (PEM) are
introduced as efficient alternative for time-demanding MCS.
Subsequently, WF optimal placement is determined using generation
shift distribution factors (GSDF) considering a new parameter
entitled, wind availability factor (WAF). In order to obtain more
realistic results, N-1 contingency analysis is employed to find the
optimal size of WF, by means of line outage distribution factors
(LODF). The IEEE 30-bus test system is used to show and compare
the accuracy of proposed methodology.
Abstract: The need in cognitive radio system for a simple, fast, and independent technique to sense the spectrum occupancy has led to the energy detection approach. Energy detector is known by its dependency on noise variation in the system which is one of its major drawbacks. In this paper, we are aiming to improve its performance by utilizing a weighted collaborative spectrum sensing, it is similar to the collaborative spectrum sensing methods introduced previously in the literature. These weighting methods give more improvement for collaborative spectrum sensing as compared to no weighting case. There is two method proposed in this paper: the first one depends on the channel status between each sensor and the primary user while the second depends on the value of the energy measured in each sensor.
Abstract: Australian government agencies have a natural desire
to provide migrants a wide range of opportunities. Consequently,
government online services should be equally available to migrants
with a non-English speaking background (NESB). Despite the
commendable efforts of governments and local agencies in Australia
to provide such services, in reality, many NESB communities are not
taking advantage of these services. This article–based on an
extensive case study regarding the use of online government services
by the Arabic NESB community in Australia–reports on the
possible reasons for this issue, as well as suggestions for
improvement. The conclusion is that Australia should implement
ICT-based or e-government policies, programmes, and services that
more accurately reflect migrant cultures and languages so that
migrant integration can be more fully accomplished. Specifically, this
article presents an NESB Model that adopts the value of usercentricity
or a more individual-focused approach to government
online services in Australia.
Abstract: The aim of every software product is to achieve an
appropriate level of software quality. Developers and designers are
trying to produce readable, reliable, maintainable, reusable and
testable code. To help achieve these goals, several approaches have
been utilized. In this paper, refactoring technique was used to
evaluate software quality with a quality index. It is composed of
different metric sets which describes various quality aspects.
Abstract: The quest of providing more secure identification
system has led to a rise in developing biometric systems. Dorsal
hand vein pattern is an emerging biometric which has attracted the
attention of many researchers, of late. Different approaches have
been used to extract the vein pattern and match them. In this work,
Principle Component Analysis (PCA) which is a method that has
been successfully applied on human faces and hand geometry is
applied on the dorsal hand vein pattern. PCA has been used to obtain
eigenveins which is a low dimensional representation of vein pattern
features. Low cost CCD cameras were used to obtain the vein
images. The extraction of the vein pattern was obtained by applying
morphology. We have applied noise reduction filters to enhance the
vein patterns. The system has been successfully tested on a database
of 200 images using a threshold value of 0.9. The results obtained are
encouraging.
Abstract: This paper proposes a new optimization techniques
for the optimization a gas processing plant uncertain feed and
product flows. The problem is first formulated using a continuous
linear deterministic approach. Subsequently, the single and joint
chance constraint models for steady state process with timedependent
uncertainties have been developed. The solution approach
is based on converting the probabilistic problems into their
equivalent deterministic form and solved at different confidence
levels Case study for a real plant operation has been used to
effectively implement the proposed model. The optimization results
indicate that prior decision has to be made for in-operating plant
under uncertain feed and product flows by satisfying all the
constraints at 95% confidence level for single chance constrained and
85% confidence level for joint chance constrained optimizations
cases.
Abstract: The paper attempts a synthesis of problems relating to
municipal waste management in Nigeria and proposes a conceptual
knowledge management approach for tackling municipal waste
problems in cities across Nigeria. The application of knowledge
management approach and strategy is crucial for inculcating a change
of attitude towards improving the management of waste. The paper is
a review of existing literatures, information, policies and data on
municipal waste management in Nigeria. The inefficient management
of waste by individuals, households, consumers and waste
management companies can be attributed to inadequate information
on waste management benefits, lack of producers- involvement in
waste management as well as poor implementation of government
policies. The paper presents an alternative approach providing
solutions promoting efficient municipal waste management.
Abstract: Cooktop burners are widely used nowadays. In
cooktop burner design, nozzle efficiency and greenhouse
gas(GHG) emissions mainly depend on heat transfer from the
premixed flame to the impinging surface. This is a complicated
issue depending on the individual and combined effects of various
input combustion variables. Optimal operating conditions for
sustainable burner design were rarely addressed, especially in the
case of multiple slot-jet burners. Through evaluating the optimal
combination of combustion conditions for a premixed slot-jet
array, this paper develops a practical approach for the sustainable
design of gas cooktop burners. Efficiency, CO and NOx emissions
in respect of an array of slot jets using premixed flames were
analysed. Response surface experimental design were applied to
three controllable factors of the combustion process, viz.
Reynolds number, equivalence ratio and jet-to-vessel distance.
Desirability Function Approach(DFA) is the analytic technique
used for the simultaneous optimization of the efficiency and
emission responses.
Abstract: This paper considers the problem of Null-Steering beamforming using Neural Network (NN) approach for antenna array system. Two cases are presented. First, unlike the other authors, the estimated Direction Of Arrivals (DOAs) are used for antenna array weights NN-based determination and the imprecise DOAs estimations are taken into account. Second, the blind null-steering beamforming is presented. In this case the antenna array outputs are presented at the input of the NN without DOAs estimation. The results of computer simulations will show much better relative mean error performances of the first NN approach compared to the NNbased blind beamforming.
Abstract: Many IT projects come to failure because of having
technical approach, focusing on the final product and lack of proper
attention to strategic alignment. Project management models quite
often have technical management view [4], [8], [13], [14]. These
models focus greatly on the finalization of the project product and the
delivery of the product to the customer. However, many project
problems are due to lack of attention to the needs and capabilities of
the organizations or disregarding how to deploy and use the product
in the organization. In this regard, in the current research we are
trying to present a solution with the purpose of raising the value of
the project in an organization. This way, the project outputs will be
properly deployed in the organization. Therefore, a comprehensive
model is presented which takes into account the whole processes
from initial step of project definition to the deployment of the final
outputs in the organization and then the definition of all roles and
responsibilities to put the model into practice. Taking into account
the opinions of experts and project managers, to prove the
performance of the model, the project problems were recognized and
based on the model, categorized and analyzed. And at the end it is
made clear that ignoring the proper definition of the project and not
having a proper understanding of the expected value on the one hand
and not supervising the emerged value in the process of production
and installment are among the most important factors that bring a
project to failure.
Abstract: The multiple traveling salesman problem (mTSP) can be used to model many practical problems. The mTSP is more complicated than the traveling salesman problem (TSP) because it requires determining which cities to assign to each salesman, as well as the optimal ordering of the cities within each salesman's tour. Previous studies proposed that Genetic Algorithm (GA), Integer Programming (IP) and several neural network (NN) approaches could be used to solve mTSP. This paper compared the results for mTSP, solved with Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Nearest Neighbor Algorithm (NNA). The number of cities is clustered into a few groups using k-means clustering technique. The number of groups depends on the number of salesman. Then, each group is solved with NNA and GA as an independent TSP. It is found that k-means clustering and NNA are superior to GA in terms of performance (evaluated by fitness function) and computing time.
Abstract: Serious games have proven to be a useful instrument
to engage learners and increase motivation. Nevertheless, a broadly
accepted, practical instructional design approach to serious games
does not exist. In this paper, we introduce the use of an instructional
design model that has not been applied to serious games yet, and has
some advantages compared to other design approaches. We present
the case of mechanics mechatronics education to illustrate the close
match with timing and role of knowledge and information that the
instructional design model prescribes and how this has been
translated to a rigidly structured game design. The structured
approach answers the learning needs of applicable knowledge within
the target group. It combines advantages of simulations with
strengths of entertainment games to foster learner-s motivation in the
best possible way. A prototype of the game will be evaluated along a
well-respected evaluation method within an advanced test setting
including test and control group.
Abstract: In this study, an OCR system for segmentation,
feature extraction and recognition of Ottoman Scripts has been
developed using handwritten characters. Detection of handwritten
characters written by humans is a difficult process. Segmentation and
feature extraction stages are based on geometrical feature analysis,
followed by the chain code transformation of the main strokes of
each character. The output of segmentation is well-defined segments
that can be fed into any classification approach. The classes of main
strokes are identified through left-right Hidden Markov Model
(HMM).
Abstract: Positioning the organization in the strategic
environment of its industry is one of the first and most important
phases of the organizational strategic planning and in today
knowledge-based economy has its importance been duplicated for
higher education institutes as the centers of education, knowledge
creation and knowledge worker training. Up to now, various models
with diverse approaches have been applied to investigate
organizations- strategic position in different industries. Regarding the
essential importance and strategic role of quality in higher education
institutes, in this study, a quality-oriented approach has been
suggested to positioning them in their strategic environment. Then
the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) model has
been adopted to position the top Iranian business schools in their
strategic environment. The result of this study can be used in strategic
planning of these institutes as well as the other Iranian business
schools.
Abstract: In this paper, we study the stability of n-dimensional linear fractional neutral differential equation with time delays. By using the Laplace transform, we introduce a characteristic equation for the above system with multiple time delays. We discover that if all roots of the characteristic equation have negative parts, then the equilibrium of the above linear system with fractional order is Lyapunov globally asymptotical stable if the equilibrium exist that is almost the same as that of classical differential equations. An example is provided to show the effectiveness of the approach presented in this paper.
Abstract: In this paper, we introduce a new method for elliptical
object identification. The proposed method adopts a hybrid scheme
which consists of Eigen values of covariance matrices, Circular
Hough transform and Bresenham-s raster scan algorithms. In this
approach we use the fact that the large Eigen values and small Eigen
values of covariance matrices are associated with the major and minor
axial lengths of the ellipse. The centre location of the ellipse can be
identified using circular Hough transform (CHT). Sparse matrix
technique is used to perform CHT. Since sparse matrices squeeze zero
elements and contain a small number of nonzero elements they
provide an advantage of matrix storage space and computational time.
Neighborhood suppression scheme is used to find the valid Hough
peaks. The accurate position of circumference pixels is identified
using raster scan algorithm which uses the geometrical symmetry
property. This method does not require the evaluation of tangents or
curvature of edge contours, which are generally very sensitive to
noise working conditions. The proposed method has the advantages of
small storage, high speed and accuracy in identifying the feature. The
new method has been tested on both synthetic and real images.
Several experiments have been conducted on various images with
considerable background noise to reveal the efficacy and robustness.
Experimental results about the accuracy of the proposed method,
comparisons with Hough transform and its variants and other
tangential based methods are reported.
Abstract: This paper proposes a novel solution for optimizing
the size and communication overhead of a distributed multiagent
system without compromising the performance. The proposed approach
addresses the challenges of scalability especially when the
multiagent system is large. A modified spectral clustering technique
is used to partition a large network into logically related clusters.
Agents are assigned to monitor dedicated clusters rather than monitor
each device or node. The proposed scalable multiagent system is
implemented using JADE (Java Agent Development Environment)
for a large power system. The performance of the proposed topologyindependent
decentralized multiagent system and the scalable multiagent
system is compared by comprehensively simulating different
fault scenarios. The time taken for reconfiguration, the overall computational
complexity, and the communication overhead incurred are
computed. The results of these simulations show that the proposed
scalable multiagent system uses fewer agents efficiently, makes faster
decisions to reconfigure when a fault occurs, and incurs significantly
less communication overhead.
Abstract: A numerical study has been carried out to investigate
the heat transfer by natural convection of nanofluid taking Cu as
nanoparticles and the water as based fluid in a three dimensional
annulus enclosure filled with porous media (silica sand) between two
horizontal concentric cylinders with 12 annular fins of 2.4mm
thickness attached to the inner cylinder under steady state conditions.
The governing equations which used are continuity, momentum and
energy equations under an assumptions used Darcy law and
Boussinesq-s approximation which are transformed to dimensionless
equations. The finite difference approach is used to obtain all the
computational results using the MATLAB-7. The parameters affected
on the system are modified Rayleigh number (10 ≤Ra*≤ 1000), fin
length Hf (3, 7 and 11mm), radius ratio Rr (0.293, 0.365 and 0.435)
and the volume fraction(0 ≤ ¤ò ≤ 0 .35). It was found that the
average Nusselt number depends on (Ra*, Hf, Rr and φ). The results
show that, increasing of fin length decreases the heat transfer rate and
for low values of Ra*, decreasing Rr cause to decrease Nu while for
Ra*
greater than 100, decreasing Rr cause to increase Nu and adding
Cu nanoparticles with 0.35 volume fraction cause 27.9%
enhancement in heat transfer. A correlation for Nu in terms of Ra*,
Hf and φ, has been developed for inner hot cylinder.
Abstract: One of the main processes of supply chain
management is supplier selection process which its accurate
implementation can dramatically increase company competitiveness.
In presented article model developed based on the features of
second tiers suppliers and four scenarios are predicted in order to
help the decision maker (DM) in making up his/her mind. In addition
two tiers of suppliers have been considered as a chain of suppliers.
Then the proposed approach is solved by a method combined of
concepts of fuzzy set theory (FST) and linear programming (LP)
which has been nourished by real data extracted from an engineering
design and supplying parts company. At the end results reveal the
high importance of considering second tier suppliers features as
criteria for selecting the best supplier.