Abstract: Within the realm of e-government, the development has moved towards testing new means for democratic decisionmaking, like e-panels, electronic discussion forums, and polls. Although such new developments seem promising, they are not problem-free, and the outcomes are seldom used in the subsequent formal political procedures. Nevertheless, process models offer promising potential when it comes to structuring and supporting transparency of decision processes in order to facilitate the integration of the public into decision-making procedures in a reasonable and manageable way. Based on real-life cases of urban planning processes in Sweden, we present an outline for an integrated framework for public decision making to: a) provide tools for citizens to organize discussion and create opinions; b) enable governments, authorities, and institutions to better analyse these opinions; and c) enable governments to account for this information in planning and societal decision making by employing a process model for structured public decision making.
Abstract: The experimental and theoretical results of a ZVS
(Zero Voltage Switching) isolated flyback DC-DC converter using
multilayered coreless PCB step down 2:1 transformer are presented.
The performance characteristics of the transformer are shown which
are useful for the parameters extraction. The measured energy
efficiency of the transformer is found to be more than 94% with the
sinusoidal input voltage excitation. The designed flyback converter
has been tested successfully upto the output power level of 10W,
with a switching frequency in the range of 2.7MHz-4.3MHz. The
input voltage of the converter is varied from 25V-40V DC.
Frequency modulation technique is employed by maintaining
constant off time to regulate the output voltage of the converter. The
energy efficiency of the isolated flyback converter circuit under ZVS
condition in the MHz frequency region is found to be approximately
in the range of 72-84%. This paper gives the comparative results in
terms of the energy efficiency of the hard switched and soft switched
flyback converter in the MHz frequency region.
Abstract: This paper presents a systematic approach for designing Unified Power Flow Controller (UPFC) based supplementary damping controllers for damping low frequency oscillations in a single-machine infinite-bus power system. Detailed investigations have been carried out considering the four alternatives UPFC based damping controller namely modulating index of series inverter (mB), modulating index of shunt inverter (mE), phase angle of series inverter (δB ) and phase angle of the shunt inverter (δE ). The design problem of the proposed controllers is formulated as an optimization problem and Real- Coded Genetic Algorithm (RCGA) is employed to optimize damping controller parameters. Simulation results are presented and compared with a conventional method of tuning the damping controller parameters to show the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed design approach.
Abstract: Magetan area is going to be the object of this research
which is located in East Java, Indonesia. The data were obtained
from 270 civil servants working at the Magetan District government.
The data were analyzed using the Structural Equation Modeling with
Partial Least Square program. The research showed the following
findings: (1) job motivation variable has a positive and significant
effect on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB); (2) work
environment has positive and significant effect on OCB; (3)
leadership variable has positive and significant effect on OCB; (4)
job motivation variable has no significant effect on job satisfaction;
(5) work environment variable has no significant effect on job
satisfaction; (6) leadership variable has no significant effect on job
satisfaction; (7) OCB is positively and significantly associated with
job satisfaction; (8) job satisfaction variable is positively and
significantly correlated with quality of public service at the Magetan
District government.
Abstract: A son in every Hindu society pays his own father the debt and he owes him for his own life whereas a girl child is treated as a burden mainly in case of first child. Even today in India we have many societies which does not welcome girl child. Although there is an increase in overall sex ratio, there is a continuous decline in child sex ratio. This paper focuses on issues of sex selective abortion in Rajasthan based on secondary data. It is found that 90.0 percentages of women in Rajasthan wants at least one son. Around 34.3 percentages of women wants more sons than daughters and only 1.5 percentages of women wants more daughters than sons. It is very common among the rich and educated people.
Abstract: The effect of nano Co3O4 addition on the
superconducting properties of (Bi, Pb)-2223 system was studied. The
samples were prepared by the acetate coprecipitation method. The
Co3O4 with different sizes (10-30 nm and 30-50 nm) from x=0.00 to
0.05 was added to Bi1.6Pb0.4Sr2Ca2Cu3Oy(Co3O4)x. Phase analysis by
XRD method, microstructural examination by SEM and dc electrical
resistivity by four point probe method were done to characterize the
samples. The X-ray diffraction patterns of all the samples indicated
the majority Bi-2223 phase along with minor Bi-2212 and Bi-2201
phases. The volume fraction was estimated from the intensities of Bi-
2223, Bi-2212 and Bi-2201 phase. The sample with x=0.01 wt% of
the added Co3O4 (10-30 nm size) showed the highest volume fraction
of Bi-2223 phase (72%) and the highest superconducting transition
temperature, Tc (~102 K). The non-added sample showed the highest
Tc(~103 K) compared to added samples with nano Co3O4 (30-50 nm
size) added samples. Both the onset critical temperature Tc(onset)
and zero electrical resistivity temperature Tc(R=0) were in the range
of 103-115 ±1K and 91-103 ±1K respectively for samples with added
Co3O4 (10-30 nm and 30-50 nm).
Abstract: This paper proposes a new technique based on nonlinear Minmax Detector Based (MDB) filter for image restoration. The aim of image enhancement is to reconstruct the true image from the corrupted image. The process of image acquisition frequently leads to degradation and the quality of the digitized image becomes inferior to the original image. Image degradation can be due to the addition of different types of noise in the original image. Image noise can be modeled of many types and impulse noise is one of them. Impulse noise generates pixels with gray value not consistent with their local neighborhood. It appears as a sprinkle of both light and dark or only light spots in the image. Filtering is a technique for enhancing the image. Linear filter is the filtering in which the value of an output pixel is a linear combination of neighborhood values, which can produce blur in the image. Thus a variety of smoothing techniques have been developed that are non linear. Median filter is the one of the most popular non-linear filter. When considering a small neighborhood it is highly efficient but for large window and in case of high noise it gives rise to more blurring to image. The Centre Weighted Mean (CWM) filter has got a better average performance over the median filter. However the original pixel corrupted and noise reduction is substantial under high noise condition. Hence this technique has also blurring affect on the image. To illustrate the superiority of the proposed approach, the proposed new scheme has been simulated along with the standard ones and various restored performance measures have been compared.
Abstract: In this paper, based on steady-state models of Flexible
AC Transmission System (FACTS) devices, the sizing of static
synchronous series compensator (SSSC) controllers in transmission
network is formed as an optimization problem. The objective of this
problem is to reduce the transmission losses in the network. The
optimization problem is solved using particle swarm optimization
(PSO) technique. The Newton-Raphson load flow algorithm is
modified to consider the insertion of the SSSC devices in the
network. A numerical example, illustrating the effectiveness of the
proposed algorithm, is introduced. In addition, a novel model of a 3-
phase voltage source converter (VSC) that is suitable for series
connected FACTS a controller is introduced. The model is verified
by simulation using Power System Blockset (PSB) and Simulink
software.
Abstract: A new estimator for evolutionary spectrum (ES) based
on short time Fourier transform (STFT) and modified group delay
function (MGDF) by signal decomposition (SD) is proposed. The
STFT due to its built-in averaging, suppresses the cross terms and the
MGDF preserves the frequency resolution of the rectangular window
with the reduction in the Gibbs ripple. The present work overcomes
the magnitude distortion observed in multi-component non-stationary
signals with STFT and MGDF estimation of ES using SD. The SD is
achieved either through discrete cosine transform based harmonic
wavelet transform (DCTHWT) or perfect reconstruction filter banks
(PRFB). The MGDF also improves the signal to noise ratio by
removing associated noise. The performance of the present method is
illustrated for cross chirp and frequency shift keying (FSK) signals,
which indicates that its performance is better than STFT-MGDF
(STFT-GD) alone. Further its noise immunity is better than STFT.
The SD based methods, however cannot bring out the frequency
transition path from band to band clearly, as there will be gap in the
contour plot at the transition. The PRFB based STFT-SD shows good
performance than DCTHWT decomposition method for STFT-GD.
Abstract: One year (November 2009-October 2010) sediment monitoring was used to evaluate pollution status, concentration and distribution of heavy metals (As, Cu, Cd, Cr, Hg, Ni, Pb and Zn) in West Port of Malaysia. Sediment sample were collected from nine stations every four months. Geo-accumulation factor and Pollution Load Index (PLI) were estimated to better understand the pollution level in study area. The heavy metal concentration (Mg/g dry weight) were ranged from 20.2 to 162 for As, 7.4 to 27.6 for Cu, 0.244 to 3.53 for Cd, 11.5 to 61.5 for Cr, 0.11 to 0.409 for Hg, 7.2 to 22.2 for Ni, 22.3 to 80 for Pb and 23 to 98.3 for Zn. In general, concentration some metals (As,Cd, Hg and Pb) was higher than background values that are considered as serious concern for aquatic life and the human health.
Abstract: CO2 is the primary anthropogenic greenhouse gas,
accounting for 77% of the human contribution to the greenhouse
effect in 2004. In the recent years, global concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere is increasing rapidly. CO2 emissions have an impact on
global climate change. Anthropogenic CO2 is emitted primarily from
fossil fuel combustion. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one
option for reducing CO2 emissions. There are three major approaches
for CCS: post-combustion capture, pre-combustion capture and
oxyfuel process. Post-combustion capture offers some advantages as
existing combustion technologies can still be used without radical
changes on them.
There are several post combustion gas separation and capture
technologies being investigated, namely; (a) absorption, (b)
cryogenic separation, (c) membrane separation (d) micro algal biofixation
and (e) adsorption. Apart from establishing new techniques,
the exploration of capture materials with high separation performance
and low capital cost are paramount importance. However, the
application of adsorption from either technology, require easily
regenerable and durable adsorbents with a high CO2 adsorption
capacity. It has recently been reported that the cost of the CO2
capture can be reduced by using this technology. In this paper, the
research progress (from experimental results) in adsorbents for CO2
adsorption, storage, and separations were reviewed and future
research directions were suggested as well.
Abstract: Vehicular communications play a substantial role in providing safety in transportation by means of safety message exchange. Researchers have proposed several solutions for securing safety messages. Protocols based on a fixed key infrastructure are more efficient in implementation and maintain stronger security in comparison with dynamic structures. These protocols utilize zone partitioning to establish distinct key infrastructure under Certificate Authority (CA) supervision in different regions. Secure anonymous broadcasting (SAB) is one of these protocols that preserves most of security aspects but it has some deficiencies in practice. A very important issue is region change of a vehicle for its mobility. Changing regions leads to change of CA and necessity of having new key set to resume communication. In this paper, we propose solutions for informing vehicles about region change to obtain new key set before entering next region. This hinders attackers- intrusion, packet loss and lessons time delay. We also make key request messages secure by confirming old CA-s public key to the message, hence stronger security for safety message broadcasting is attained.
Abstract: In realizing devices using ZnO, a key challenge is the
production of p-type material. Substitution of oxygen by a group-V
impurity is thought to result in deep acceptor levels, but a candidate
made up from a complex of a group-V impurity (P, As, Sb) on a Zn
site coupled with two vacant Zn sites is widely viewed as a candidate.
We show using density-functional simulations that in contrast to such
a view, complexes involving oxygen interstitials are energetically
more favorable, resulting in group-V impurities coordinated with four,
five or six oxygen atoms.
Abstract: Processing tabah bamboo shoot as fermented pickle is
one of the way to increase the shelf life of this bamboo shoot. The
advantage of this shoot is low concentration of hydro cyanic acid
(HCN) make it potential for functional food product. This study
aimed to determine the characteristic of tabah bamboo shoot pickle
such as total of lactic acid bacteria (LAB), pH, total acidity, and
hydro cyanic acid (HCN) content, and also find the LAB’s type
involved during fermentation, and organic acids’ profiles. The pickle
was made by natural fermentation with 6% salt concentration and
fermentation conducted for 13 days.
The result showed during the fermentation time, in the 4th day
LAB’s number was highest as much as 72 x 107 CFU/ml and the
lowest pH was 3.09. We also found decreasing in HCN from 37.8
ppm at the beginning to 20.52 ppm at the end of fermentation
process. The organic acids detected during the fermentation were
lactic acid with the highest concentration was 0.0546 g/100 g and
small amount of acetic acid. By using PCR method, the 18 of LABs
which had rod shape were detected as member of Lactobacillus spp.,
in which 17 strains detected as L. plantarum.
Abstract: In this work, biohydrogen production via dark
fermentation from alcohol wastewater using upflow anaerobic sludge
blanket reactors (UASB) with a working volume of 4 L was
investigated to find the optimum conditions for a maximum hydrogen
yield. The system was operated at different COD loading rates (23,
31, 46 and 62 kg/m3d) at mesophilic temperature (37 ºC) and pH 5.5.
The seed sludge was pretreated before being fed to the UASB system
by boiling at 95 ºC for 15 min. When the system was operated under
the optimum COD loading rate of 46 kg/m3d, it provided the
hydrogen content of 27%, hydrogen yield of 125.1 ml H2/g COD
removed and 95.1 ml H2/g COD applied, hydrogen production rate of
18 l/d, specific hydrogen production rate of 1080 ml H2/g MLVSS d
and 1430 ml H2/ L d, and COD removal of 24%.
Abstract: A new data fusion method called joint probability density matrix (JPDM) is proposed, which can associate and fuse measurements from spatially distributed heterogeneous sensors to identify the real target in a surveillance region. Using the probabilistic grids representation, we numerically combine the uncertainty regions of all the measurements in a general framework. The NP-hard multisensor data fusion problem has been converted to a peak picking problem in the grids map. Unlike most of the existing data fusion method, the JPDM method dose not need association processing, and will not lead to combinatorial explosion. Its convergence to the CRLB with a diminishing grid size has been proved. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique.
Abstract: We present here the results for a comparative study of
some techniques, available in the literature, related to the relevance
feedback mechanism in the case of a short-term learning. Only one
method among those considered here is belonging to the data mining
field which is the K-nearest neighbors algorithm (KNN) while the
rest of the methods is related purely to the information retrieval field
and they fall under the purview of the following three major axes:
Shifting query, Feature Weighting and the optimization of the
parameters of similarity metric. As a contribution, and in addition to
the comparative purpose, we propose a new version of the KNN
algorithm referred to as an incremental KNN which is distinct from
the original version in the sense that besides the influence of the
seeds, the rate of the actual target image is influenced also by the
images already rated. The results presented here have been obtained
after experiments conducted on the Wang database for one iteration
and utilizing color moments on the RGB space. This compact
descriptor, Color Moments, is adequate for the efficiency purposes
needed in the case of interactive systems. The results obtained allow
us to claim that the proposed algorithm proves good results; it even
outperforms a wide range of techniques available in the literature.
Abstract: A modified Saleh-Valenzuela channel model has been
adapted for Ultra Wideband (UWB) system. The suggested realistic
channel is assessed by its distribution of fading amplitude and time of
arrivals. Furthermore, the propagation characteristic has been distinct
into four channel models, namely CM 1 to 4. Each are differentiate in
terms of cluster arrival rates, rays arrival rate within each cluster and
its respective constant decay rates. This paper described the
multiband OFDM system performance simulates under these
multipath conditions. Simulation work described in this paper is
based on WiMedia ECMA-368 standard, which has been deployed
for practical implementation of low cost and low power UWB
devices.
Abstract: Image fusion aims to enhance the perception
of a scene by combining important information captured by
different sensors. Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet (DT-CWT) has been
thouroughly investigated for image fusion, since it takes advantages
of approximate shift invariance and direction selectivity. But it can
only handle limited direction information. To allow a more flexible
directional expansion for images, we propose a novel fusion scheme,
referred to as complex contourlet transform (CCT). It successfully
incorporates directional filter banks (DFB) into DT-CWT. As a result
it efficiently deal with images containing contours and textures,
whereas it retains the property of shift invariance. Experimental
results demonstrated that the method features high quality fusion
performance and can facilitate many image processing applications.
Abstract: The process of wafer fabrication is arguably the most
technologically complex and capital intensive stage in semiconductor
manufacturing. This large-scale discrete-event process is highly reentrant,
and involves hundreds of machines, restrictions, and
processing steps. Therefore, production control of wafer fabrication
facilities (fab), specifically scheduling, is one of the most challenging
problems that this industry faces. Dispatching rules have been
extensively applied to the scheduling problems in semiconductor
manufacturing. Moreover, lot release policies are commonly used in
this manufacturing setting to further improve the performance of such
systems and reduce its inherent variability. In this work, simulation is
used in the scheduling of re-entrant flow shop manufacturing systems
with an application in semiconductor wafer fabrication; where, a
simulation model has been developed for the Intel Five-Machine Six
Step Mini-Fab using the ExtendTM simulation environment. The
Mini-Fab has been selected as it captures the challenges involved in
scheduling the highly re-entrant semiconductor manufacturing lines.
A number of scenarios have been developed and have been used to
evaluate the effect of different dispatching rules and lot release
policies on the selected performance measures. Results of simulation
showed that the performance of the Mini-Fab can be drastically
improved using a combination of dispatching rules and lot release
policy.