Generalized Predictive Control of Batch Polymerization Reactor

This paper describes the application of a model predictive controller to the problem of batch reactor temperature control. Although a great deal of work has been done to improve reactor throughput using batch sequence control, the control of the actual reactor temperature remains a difficult problem for many operators of these processes. Temperature control is important as many chemical reactions are sensitive to temperature for formation of desired products. This controller consist of two part (1) a nonlinear control method GLC (Global Linearizing Control) to create a linear model of system and (2) a Model predictive controller used to obtain optimal input control sequence. The temperature of reactor is tuned to track a predetermined temperature trajectory that applied to the batch reactor. To do so two input signals, electrical powers and the flow of coolant in the coil are used. Simulation results show that the proposed controller has a remarkable performance for tracking reference trajectory while at the same time it is robust against noise imposed to system output.

The Impact of Upgrades on ERP System Reliability

Constant upgrading of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems is necessary, but can cause new defects. This paper attempts to model the likelihood of defects after completed upgrades with Weibull defect probability density function (PDF). A case study is presented analyzing data of recorded defects obtained for one ERP subsystem. The trends are observed for the value of the parameters relevant to the proposed statistical Weibull distribution for a given one year period. As a result, the ability to predict the appearance of defects after the next upgrade is described.

Understanding Cultural Influences: Principles for Personalized E-learning Systems

In the globalized e-learning environment, students coming from different cultures and countries have different characteristics and require different support designed for their approaches to study and learning styles. This paper explores the ways in which cultural background influences students- approaches to study and learning styles. Participants in the study consisted of 131 eastern students and 54 western students from an Australian university. The students were tested using the Study Process Questionnaire (SPQ) for assessing their approaches to study and the Index of Learning Styles Questionnaire (ILS) for assessing their learning styles. The results of the study led to a set of principles being proposed to guide personalization of e-learning system design on the basis of cultural differences.

Social Anthropology of Convergence and Nomadic Computing

The paper attempts to contribute to the largely neglected social and anthropological discussion of technology development on the one hand, and to redirecting the emphasis in anthropology from primitive and exotic societies to problems of high relevance in contemporary era and how technology is used in everyday life. It draws upon multidimensional models of intelligence and ideal type formation. It is argued that the predominance of computational and cognitive cosmovisions have led to technology alienation. Injection of communicative competence in artificially intelligent systems and identity technologies in the coming information society are analyzed

Development of Automatic Guided Mobile Robot Using Magnetic Position Meter

In this paper, an automatic guided mobile robot using a new magnetic position meter is described. In order to measure the lateral position of a mobile robot, a new magnetic position meter is developed. The magnetic position meter can detect the position of a magnetic wire on the center of road. A mobile robot in designed with a sensing system, a steering system and a driving system. The designed mobile robot is tested to verify the performance of automatic guidance.

Frequency Offset Estimation Schemes Based On ML for OFDM Systems in Non-Gaussian Noise Environments

In this paper, frequency offset (FO) estimation schemes robust to the non-Gaussian noise environments are proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. First, a maximum-likelihood (ML) estimation scheme in non-Gaussian noise environments is proposed, and then, the complexity of the ML estimation scheme is reduced by employing a reduced set of candidate values. In numerical results, it is demonstrated that the proposed schemes provide a significant performance improvement over the conventional estimation scheme in non-Gaussian noise environments while maintaining the performance similar to the estimation performance in Gaussian noise environments.

Predictability Analysis on HIV/AIDS System using Hurst Exponents

Methods of contemporary mathematical physics such as chaos theory are useful for analyzing and understanding the behavior of complex biological and physiological systems. The three dimensional model of HIV/AIDS is the basis of active research since it provides a complete characterization of disease dynamics and the interaction of HIV-1 with the immune system. In this work, the behavior of the HIV system is analyzed using the three dimensional HIV model and a chaotic measure known as the Hurst exponent. Results demonstrate that Hurst exponents of CD4, CD8 cells and viral load vary nonlinearly with respect to variations in system parameters. Further, it was observed that the three dimensional HIV model can accommodate both persistent (H>0.5) and anti-persistent (H

Three Attacks on Jia et al.'s Remote User Authentication Scheme using Bilinear Pairings and ECC

Recently, Jia et al. proposed a remote user authentication scheme using bilinear pairings and an Elliptic Curve Cryptosystem (ECC). However, the scheme is vulnerable to privileged insider attack at their proposed registration phase and to forgery attack at their proposed authentication phase. In addition, the scheme can be vulnerable to server spoofing attack because it does not provide mutual authentication between the user and the remote server. Therefore, this paper points out that the Jia et al. scheme is vulnerable to the above three attacks.

P-ACO Approach to Assignment Problem in FMSs

One of the most important problems in production planning of flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is machine tool selection and operation allocation problem that directly influences the production costs and times .In this paper minimizing machining cost, set-up cost and material handling cost as a multi-objective problem in flexible manufacturing systems environment are considered. We present a 0-1 integer linear programming model for the multiobjective machine tool selection and operation allocation problem and due to the large scale nature of the problem, solving the problem to obtain optimal solution in a reasonable time is infeasible, Paretoant colony optimization (P-ACO) approach for solving the multiobjective problem in reasonable time is developed. Experimental results indicate effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for solving the problem.

Investigating Ultra Violet (UV) Strength against Different Level of Altitude using New Environmental Data Management System

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.

An Analysis of Acoustic Function and Navier-Stokes Equations in Aerodynamic

Acoustic function plays an important role in aerodynamic mechanical engineering. It can classify the kind of air-vehicle such as subsonic or supersonic. Acoustic velocity relates with velocity and Mach number. Mach number relates again acoustic stability or instability condition. Mach number plays an important role in growth or decay in energy system. Acoustic is a function of temperature and temperature is directly proportional to pressure. If we control the pressure, we can control acoustic function. To get pressure stability condition, we apply Navier-Stokes equations.

Improved Tropical Wood Species Recognition System based on Multi-feature Extractor and Classifier

An automated wood recognition system is designed to classify tropical wood species.The wood features are extracted based on two feature extractors: Basic Grey Level Aura Matrix (BGLAM) technique and statistical properties of pores distribution (SPPD) technique. Due to the nonlinearity of the tropical wood species separation boundaries, a pre classification stage is proposed which consists ofKmeans clusteringand kernel discriminant analysis (KDA). Finally, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) classifier and KNearest Neighbour (KNN) are implemented for comparison purposes. The study involves comparison of the system with and without pre classification using KNN classifier and LDA classifier.The results show that the inclusion of the pre classification stage has improved the accuracy of both the LDA and KNN classifiers by more than 12%.

Equatorial Symmetry of Chaotic Solutions in Boussinesq Convection in a Rotating Spherical Shell

We investigate properties of convective solutions of the Boussinesq thermal convection in a moderately rotating spherical shell allowing the inner and outer sphere rotation due to the viscous torque of the fluid. The ratio of the inner and outer radii of the spheres, the Prandtl number and the Taylor number are fixed to 0.4, 1 and 5002, respectively. The inertial moments of the inner and outer spheres are fixed to about 0.22 and 100, respectively. The Rayleigh number is varied from 2.6 × 104 to 3.4 × 104. In this parameter range, convective solutions transit from equatorially symmetric quasiperiodic ones to equatorially asymmetric chaotic ones as the Rayleigh number is increased. The transition route in the system allowing rotation of both the spheres is different from that in the co-rotating system, which means the inner and outer spheres rotate with the same constant angular velocity: the convective solutions transit as equatorially symmetric quasi-periodic solution → equatorially symmetric chaotic solution → equatorially asymmetric chaotic solution in the system allowing both the spheres rotation, while equatorially symmetric quasi-periodic solution → equatorially asymmetric quasiperiodic solution → equatorially asymmetric chaotic solution in the co-rotating system.

Study on the Optimization of Completely Batch Water-using Network with Multiple Contaminants Considering Flow Change

This work addresses the problem of optimizing completely batch water-using network with multiple contaminants where the flow change caused by mass transfer is taken into consideration for the first time. A mathematical technique for optimizing water-using network is proposed based on source-tank-sink superstructure. The task is to obtain the freshwater usage, recycle assignments among water-using units, wastewater discharge and a steady water-using network configuration by following steps. Firstly, operating sequences of water-using units are determined by time constraints. Next, superstructure is simplified by eliminating the reuse and recycle from water-using units with maximum concentration of key contaminants. Then, the non-linear programming model is solved by GAMS (General Algebra Model System) for minimum freshwater usage, maximum water recycle and minimum wastewater discharge. Finally, numbers of operating periods are calculated to acquire the steady network configuration. A case study is solved to illustrate the applicability of the proposed approach.

DWM-CDD: Dynamic Weighted Majority Concept Drift Detection for Spam Mail Filtering

Although e-mail is the most efficient and popular communication method, unwanted and mass unsolicited e-mails, also called spam mail, endanger the existence of the mail system. This paper proposes a new algorithm called Dynamic Weighted Majority Concept Drift Detection (DWM-CDD) for content-based filtering. The design purposes of DWM-CDD are first to accurate the performance of the previously proposed algorithms, and second to speed up the time to construct the model. The results show that DWM-CDD can detect both sudden and gradual changes quickly and accurately. Moreover, the time needed for model construction is less than previously proposed algorithms.

Development of the Gas Safety Management System using an Intelligent Gasmeter with Wireless ZigBee Network

The gas safety management system using an intelligent gas meter we proposed is to monitor flow and pressure of gas, earthquake, temperature, smoke and leak of methane. Then our system takes safety measures to protect a serious risk by the result of an event, to communicate with a wall-pad including a gateway by zigbee network in buildings and to report the event to user by the safety management program in a server. Also, the inner cutoff valve of an intelligent gas meter is operated if any event occurred or abnormal at each sensor.

Detection of Salmonella in Egg Shell and Egg Content from Different Housing Systems for Laying Hens

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay and conventional microbiological methods were used to detect bacterial contamination of egg shells and egg content in different commercial housing systems, open house system and evaporative cooling system. A PCR assay was developed for direct detection using a set of primers specific for the invasion by A gene (invA) of Salmonella spp. PCR detected the presence of Salmonella in 2 samples of shell egg from the evaporative cooling system, while conventional cultural methods detected no Salmonella from the same samples.

Surfactant-Free O/W-Emulsion as Drug Delivery System

Most of the drugs used for pharmaceutical purposes are poorly water-soluble drugs. About 40% of all newly discovered drugs are lipophilic and the numbers of lipophilic drugs seem to increase more and more. Drug delivery systems such as nanoparticles, micelles or liposomes are applied to improve their solubility and thus their bioavailability. Besides various techniques of solubilization, oil-in-water emulsions are often used to incorporate lipophilic drugs into the oil phase. To stabilize emulsions surface active substances (surfactants) are generally used. An alternative method to avoid the application of surfactants was of great interest. One possibility is to develop O/W-emulsion without any addition of surface active agents or the so called “surfactant-free emulsion or SFE”. The aim of this study was to develop and characterize SFE as a drug carrier by varying the production conditions. Lidocaine base was used as a model drug. The injection method was developed. Effects of ultrasound as well as of temperature on the properties of the emulsion were studied. Particle sizes and release were determined. The long-term stability up to 30 days was performed. The results showed that the surfactant-free O/W emulsions with pharmaceutical oil as drug carrier can be produced.

Simulation Tools for Fixed Point DSP Algorithms and Architectures

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.

AHP and Extent Fuzzy AHP Approach for Prioritization of Performance Measurement Attributes

The decision to recruit manpower in an organization requires clear identification of the criteria (attributes) that distinguish successful from unsuccessful performance. The choice of appropriate attributes or criteria in different levels of hierarchy in an organization is a multi-criteria decision problem and therefore multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques can be used for prioritization of such attributes. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one such technique that is widely used for deciding among the complex criteria structure in different levels. In real applications, conventional AHP still cannot reflect the human thinking style as precise data concerning human attributes are quite hard to be extracted. Fuzzy logic offers a systematic base in dealing with situations, which are ambiguous or not well defined. This study aims at defining a methodology to improve the quality of prioritization of an employee-s performance measurement attributes under fuzziness. To do so, a methodology based on the Extent Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process is proposed. Within the model, four main attributes such as Subject knowledge and achievements, Research aptitude, Personal qualities and strengths and Management skills with their subattributes are defined. The two approaches conventional AHP approach and the Extent Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process approach have been compared on the same hierarchy structure and criteria set.