Abstract: Mammals are known to use Interaural Intensity Difference (IID) to determine azimuthal position of high frequency sounds. In the Lateral Superior Olive (LSO) neurons have firing behaviours which vary systematicaly with IID. Those neurons receive excitatory inputs from the ipsilateral ear and inhibitory inputs from the contralateral one. The IID sensitivity of a LSO neuron is thought to be due to delay differences between both ears, delays due to different synaptic delays and to intensity-dependent delays. In this paper we model the auditory pathway until the LSO. Inputs to LSO neurons are at first numerous and differ in their relative delays. Spike Timing-Dependent Plasticity is then used to prune those connections. We compare the pruned neuron responses with physiological data and analyse the relationship between IID-s of teacher stimuli and IID sensitivities of trained LSO neurons.
Abstract: Stocking density is considered one of the important
factors affecting fish growth. But, information related to impact of
stocking density on growth performance of monosex tilapia population
under the ecological conditions of Gangetic plains in West Bengal,
India is limited. The aim of our study was to compare the growth
potential of monosex tilapia at various stocking densities and to
determine an ideal stocking density for culture of all-male monosex
fish. The males were isolated by examination of genital papilla region
and were stocked separately in 0.01 ha earthen ponds at different
stocking densities (5000, 10000, 15000, 20000, 25000 and 30000
fingerlings/ha). It was found that the highest weight, length, daily
weight gain, growth rate and protein content were observed for the
20000 fish/ha density class. Thus, culture of monosex tilapia at a
density of 20000 fish/ha can be considered ideal for augmented
production of the fish under Indian context.
Abstract: This paper proposes the stochastic tabu search (STS)
for improving the measurement scheme for power system state
estimation. If the original measured scheme is not observable, the
additional measurements with minimum number of measurements are
added into the system by STS so that there is no critical measurement
pair. The random bit flipping and bit exchanging perturbations are
used for generating the neighborhood solutions in STS. The Pδ
observable concept is used to determine the network observability.
Test results of 10 bus, IEEE 14 and 30 bus systems are shown that
STS can improve the original measured scheme to be observable
without critical measurement pair. Moreover, the results of STS are
superior to deterministic tabu search (DTS) in terms of the best
solution hit.
Abstract: Ad hoc networks are characterized by multi-hop
wireless connectivity and frequently changing network topology.
Forming security association among a group of nodes in ad-hoc
networks is more challenging than in conventional networks due to the
lack of central authority, i.e. fixed infrastructure. With that view in
mind, group key management plays an important building block of
any secure group communication. The main contribution of this paper
is a low complexity key management scheme that is suitable for fully
self-organized ad-hoc networks. The protocol is also password
authenticated, making it resilient against active attacks. Unlike other
existing key agreement protocols, ours make no assumption about the
structure of the underlying wireless network, making it suitable for
“truly ad-hoc" networks. Finally, we will analyze our protocol to show
the computation and communication burden on individual nodes for
key establishment.
Abstract: The process of laser absorption in the skin during
laser irradiation was a critical point in medical application
treatments. Delivery the correct amount of laser light is a critical
element in photodynamic therapy (PDT). More amounts of laser
light able to affect tissues in the skin and small amount not able to
enhance PDT procedure in skin. The knowledge of the skin tone
laser dependent distribution of 635 nm radiation and its penetration
depth in skin is a very important precondition for the investigation of
advantage laser induced effect in (PDT) in epidermis diseases
(psoriasis). The aim of this work was to estimate an optimum effect
of diode laser (635 nm) on the treatment of epidermis diseases in
different color skin. Furthermore, it is to improve safety of laser in
PDT in epidermis diseases treatment. Advanced system analytical
program (ASAP) which is a new approach in investigating the PDT,
dependent on optical properties of different skin color was used in
present work. A two layered Realistic Skin Model (RSM); stratum
corneum and epidermal with red laser (635 nm, 10 mW) were used
for irradiative transfer to study fluence and absorbance in different
penetration for various human skin colors. Several skin tones very
fair, fair, light, medium and dark are used to irradiative transfer. This
investigation involved the principles of laser tissue interaction when
the skin optically injected by a red laser diode. The results
demonstrated that the power characteristic of a laser diode (635 nm)
can affect the treatment of epidermal disease in various color skins.
Power absorption of the various human skins were recorded and
analyzed in order to find the influence of the melanin in PDT
treatment in epidermal disease. A two layered RSM show that the
change in penetration depth in epidermal layer of the color skin has a
larger effect on the distribution of absorbed laser in the skin; this is
due to the variation of the melanin concentration for each color.
Abstract: Array signal processing involves signal enumeration and source localization. Array signal processing is centered on the ability to fuse temporal and spatial information captured via sampling signals emitted from a number of sources at the sensors of an array in order to carry out a specific estimation task: source characteristics (mainly localization of the sources) and/or array characteristics (mainly array geometry) estimation. Array signal processing is a part of signal processing that uses sensors organized in patterns or arrays, to detect signals and to determine information about them. Beamforming is a general signal processing technique used to control the directionality of the reception or transmission of a signal. Using Beamforming we can direct the majority of signal energy we receive from a group of array. Multiple signal classification (MUSIC) is a highly popular eigenstructure-based estimation method of direction of arrival (DOA) with high resolution. This Paper enumerates the effect of missing sensors in DOA estimation. The accuracy of the MUSIC-based DOA estimation is degraded significantly both by the effects of the missing sensors among the receiving array elements and the unequal channel gain and phase errors of the receiver.
Abstract: Fatigue is the major threat in service of steel structure
subjected to fluctuating loads. With the additional effect of corrosion
and presence of weld joints the fatigue failure may become more
critical in structural steel. One of the apt examples of such structural
is the sailing ship. This is experiencing a constant stress due to
floating and a pulsating bending load due to the waves. This paper
describes an attempt to verify theory of fatigue in fracture mechanics
approach with experimentation to determine the constants of crack
growth curve. For this, specimen is prepared from the ship building
steel and it is subjected to a pulsating bending load with a known
defect. Fatigue crack and its nature is observed in this experiment.
Application of fracture mechanics approach in fatigue with a simple
practical experiment is conducted and constants of crack growth
equation are investigated.
Abstract: EPA (Ethernet for Plant Automation) resolves the nondeterministic problem of standard Ethernet and accomplishes real-time communication by means of micro-segment topology and deterministic scheduling mechanism. This paper studies the real-time performance of EPA periodic data transmission from theoretical and experimental perspective. By analyzing information transmission characteristics and EPA deterministic scheduling mechanism, 5 indicators including delivery time, time synchronization accuracy, data-sending time offset accuracy, utilization percentage of configured timeslice and non-RTE bandwidth that can be used to specify the real-time performance of EPA periodic data transmission are presented and investigated. On this basis, the test principles and test methods of the indicators are respectively studied and some formulas for real-time performance of EPA system are derived. Furthermore, an experiment platform is developed to test the indicators of EPA periodic data transmission in a micro-segment. According to the analysis and the experiment, the methods to improve the real-time performance of EPA periodic data transmission including optimizing network structure, studying self-adaptive adjustment method of timeslice and providing data-sending time offset accuracy for configuration are proposed.
Abstract: Lectins have a good scope in current clinical
microbiology research. In the present study evaluated the
antimicrobial activities of a D-galactose binding lectin (PnL) was
purified from the annelid, Perinereis nuntia (polychaeta) by affinity
chromatography. The molecular mass of the lectin was determined to
be 32 kDa as a single polypeptide by SDS-PAGE under both reducing
and non-reducing conditions. The hemagglutinating activity of the
PnL showed against trypsinized and glutaraldehyde-fixed human
erythrocytes was specifically inhibited by D-Gal, GalNAc,
Galβ1-4Glc and Galα1-6Glc. PnL was evaluated for in vitro
antibacterial screening studies against 11 gram-positive and
gram-negative microorganisms. From the screening results, it was
revealed that PnL exhibited significant antibacterial activity against
gram-positive bacteria. Bacillus megaterium showed the highest
growth inhibition by the lectin (250 μg/disc). However, PnL did not
inhibit the growth of gram-negative bacteria such as Vibrio cholerae
and Pseudomonas sp. PnL was also examined for in vitro antifungal
activity against six fungal phytopathogens. PnL (100 μg/mL) inhibited
the mycelial growth of Alternaria alternata (24.4%). These results
indicate that future findings of lectin applications obtained from
annelids may be of importance to life sciences.
Abstract: Chatter vibration has been a troublesome problem for a
machine tool toward the high precision and high speed machining.
Essentially, the machining performance is determined by the dynamic
characteristics of the machine tool structure and dynamics of cutting
process. Therefore the dynamic vibration behavior of spindle tool
system greatly determines the performance of machine tool. The
purpose of this study is to investigate the influences of the machine
frame structure on the dynamic frequency of spindle tool unit through
finite element modeling approach. To this end, a realistic finite
element model of the vertical milling system was created by
incorporated the spindle-bearing model into the spindle head stock of
the machine frame. Using this model, the dynamic characteristics of
the milling machines with different structural designs of spindle head
stock and identical spindle tool unit were demonstrated. The results of
the finite element modeling reveal that the spindle tool unit behaves
more compliant when the excited frequency approaches the natural
mode of the spindle tool; while the spindle tool show a higher dynamic
stiffness at lower frequency that may be initiated by the structural
mode of milling head. Under this condition, it is concluded that the
structural configuration of spindle head stock associated with the
vertical column of milling machine plays an important role in
determining the machining dynamics of the spindle unit.
Abstract: In this paper a new approach for transmission pricing
is presented. The main idea is voltage angle allocation, i.e.
determining the contribution of each contract on the voltage angle of
each bus. DC power flow is used to compute a primary solution for
angle decomposition. To consider the impacts of system non-linearity
on angle decomposition, the primary solution is corrected in different
iterations of decoupled Newton-Raphson power flow. Then, the
contribution of each contract on power flow of each transmission line
is computed based on angle decomposition. Contract-related flows
are used as a measure for “extent of use" of transmission network
capacity and consequently transmission pricing. The presented
approach is applied to a 4-bus test system and IEEE 30-bus test
system.
Abstract: In the first part of this paper [6], a method to
determine Frenet apparatus of the space-like curves in Minkowski
space-time is presented. In this work, the mentioned method is
developed for the time-like curves in Minkowski space-time.
Additionally, an example of presented method is illustrated.
Abstract: The bromination of five selected pharmaceuticals
(metoprolol, naproxen, amoxicillin, hydrochlorotiazide and
phenacetin) in ultrapure water and in three water matrices (a
groundwater, a surface water from a public reservoir and a secondary
effluent from a WWTP) was investigated. The apparent rate
constants for the bromination reaction were determined as a function
of the pH, and the sequence obtained for the reaction rate was
amoxicillin > naproxen >> hydrochlorotiazide ≈ phenacetin ≈
metoprolol. The proposal of a kinetic mechanism, which specifies the
dissociation of bromine and each pharmaceutical according to their
pKa values and the pH allowed the determination of the intrinsic rate
constants for every elementary reaction. The influence of the main
operating conditions (pH, initial bromine dose, and the water matrix)
on the degradation of pharmaceuticals was established. In addition,
the presence of bromide in chlorination experiments was
investigated. The presence of bromide in wastewaters and drinking
waters in the range of 10 to several hundred μg L-1 accelerated
slightly the oxidation of the selected pharmaceuticals during chorine
disinfection.
Abstract: Air bending is one of the important metal forming
processes, because of its simplicity and large field application.
Accuracy of analytical and empirical models reported for the analysis
of bending processes is governed by simplifying assumption and do
not consider the effect of dynamic parameters. Number of researches
is reported on the finite element analysis (FEA) of V-bending, Ubending,
and air V-bending processes. FEA of bending is found to be
very sensitive to many physical and numerical parameters. FE
models must be computationally efficient for practical use. Reported
work shows the 3D FEA of air bending process using Hyperform LSDYNA
and its comparison with, published 3D FEA results of air
bending in Ansys LS-DYNA and experimental results. Observing the
planer symmetry and based on the assumption of plane strain
condition, air bending problem was modeled in 2D with symmetric
boundary condition in width. Stress-strain results of 2D FEA were
compared with 3D FEA results and experiments. Simplification of
air bending problem from 3D to 2D resulted into tremendous
reduction in the solution time with only marginal effect on stressstrain
results. FE model simplification by studying the problem
symmetry is more efficient and practical approach for solution of
more complex large dimensions slow forming processes.
Abstract: The Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) plays a
vital role in automation and process control. Grafcet is used for
representing the control logic, and traditional programming
languages are used for describing the pure algorithms. Grafcet is used
for dividing the process to be automated in elementary sequences that
can be easily implemented. Each sequence represent a step that has
associated actions programmed using textual or graphical languages
after case. The programming task is simplified by using a set of
subroutines that are used in several steps. The paper presents an
example of implementation for a punching machine for sheets and
plates. The use the graphical languages the programming of a
complex sequential process is a necessary solution. The state of
Grafcet can be used for debugging and malfunction determination.
The use of the method combined with a set of knowledge acquisition
for process application reduces the downtime of the machine and
improve the productivity.
Abstract: This study has applied the L16 orthogonal array of the
Taguchi method to determine the optimized polymeric
Nanocomposite asphalt binder. Three control factors are defined as
polypropylene plastomer (PP), styrene-butadiene-styrene elastomer
(SBS) and Nanoclay. Four level of concentration contents are
introduced for prepared asphalt binder samples. all samples were
prepared with 4.5% of bitumen 60/70 content. Compressive strength
tests were carried out for defining the optimized sample via
QUALITEK-4 software. SBS with 3%, PP with 5 % and Nanoclay
with 1.5% of concentrations are defined as the optimized
Nanocomposite asphalt binders. The confirmation compressive
strength and also softening point tests showed that modification of
asphalt binders with this method, improved the compressive strength
and softening points of asphalt binders up to 55%.
Abstract: An experiment was conducted on the comparative
study of drip and furrow irrigation methods at the farmer-s field in
Umar Kot. The total area under experiment about 4000m2 was
divided into two equal portions. One portion about 40m X 50m was
occupied by drip and the other portion about 40m X 50m by furrow
irrigation method. Soil at the experimental site was clay loam in
texture for 0-60cm depth; average dry bulk density and field capacity
was 1.16g/cm3 and 28.5% respectively. The results reveal that the
drip irrigation method saved 56.4% water and gave 22% more yield
as compared to that of furrow irrigation method. Higher water use
efficiency about 4.87 was obtained in drip irrigation method; whereas
lower water used efficiency about 1.66 was obtained in furrow
irrigation method. The present study suggests farming community to
adopt drip irrigation method instead of old traditional flooding
methods.
Abstract: In this paper, we have developed an explicit analytical
drain current model comprising surface channel potential and
threshold voltage in order to explain the advantages of the proposed
Gate Stack Double Diffusion (GSDD) MOSFET design over the
conventional MOSFET with the same geometric specifications that
allow us to use the benefits of the incorporation of the high-k layer
between the oxide layer and gate metal aspect on the immunity of the
proposed design against the self-heating effects. In order to show the
efficiency of our proposed structure, we propose the simulation of the
power chopper circuit. The use of the proposed structure to design a
power chopper circuit has showed that the (GSDD) MOSFET can
improve the working of the circuit in terms of power dissipation and
self-heating effect immunity. The results so obtained are in close
proximity with the 2D simulated results thus confirming the validity
of the proposed model.
Abstract: The objective of this work is to present a expertise on
flooding hazard analysis and how to reduce the risk. The analysis
concerns the disaster induced by the flood on November 10/11, 2001
in the Bab El Oued district of the city of Algiers.The study begins by
an expertise of damages in related with the urban environment and
the history of the urban growth of the site. After this phase, the work
is focalized on the identification of the existing correlations between
the development of the town and its vulnerability. The final step
consists to elaborate the interpretations on the interactions between
the urban growth, the sewerage network and the vulnerability of the
urban system.In conclusion, several recommendations are formulated
permitting the mitigation of the risk in the future. The principal
recommendations concern the new urban operations and the existing
urbanized sites.
Abstract: It is difficult to judge ripeness by outward
characteristics such as size or external color. In this paper a nondestructive
method was studied to determine watermelon (Crimson
Sweet) quality. Responses of samples to excitation vibrations were
detected using laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) technology. Phase
shift between input and output vibrations were extracted overall
frequency range. First and second were derived using frequency
response spectrums. After nondestructive tests, watermelons were
sensory evaluated. So the samples were graded in a range of ripeness
based on overall acceptability (total desired traits consumers).
Regression models were developed to predict quality using obtained
results and sample mass. The determination coefficients of the
calibration and cross validation models were 0.89 and 0.71
respectively. This study demonstrated feasibility of information
which is derived vibration response curves for predicting fruit
quality. The vibration response of watermelon using the LDV method
is measured without direct contact; it is accurate and timely, which
could result in significant advantage for classifying watermelons
based on consumer opinions.