Abstract: In face recognition, feature extraction techniques
attempts to search for appropriate representation of the data. However,
when the feature dimension is larger than the samples size, it brings
performance degradation. Hence, we propose a method called
Normalization Discriminant Independent Component Analysis
(NDICA). The input data will be regularized to obtain the most
reliable features from the data and processed using Independent
Component Analysis (ICA). The proposed method is evaluated on
three face databases, Olivetti Research Ltd (ORL), Face Recognition
Technology (FERET) and Face Recognition Grand Challenge
(FRGC). NDICA showed it effectiveness compared with other
unsupervised and supervised techniques.
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: We fabricated the inverted-staggered etch stopper
structure oxide-based TFT and investigated the characteristics of oxide
TFT under the 400 nm wavelength light illumination. When 400 nm
light was illuminated, the threshold voltage (Vth) decreased and
subthreshold slope (SS) increased at forward sweep, while Vth and SS
were not altered when larger wavelength lights, such as 650 nm, 550
nm and 450 nm, were illuminated. At reverse sweep, the transfer curve
barely changed even under 400 nm light. Our experimental results
support that photo-induced hole carriers are captured by donor-like
interface trap and it caused the decrease of Vth and increase of SS. We
investigated the interface trap density increases proportionally to the
photo-induced hole concentration at active layer.
Abstract: Volume rendering is widely used in medical CT image
visualization. Applying 3D image visualization to diagnosis
application can require accurate volume rendering with high
resolution. Interpolation is important in medical image processing
applications such as image compression or volume resampling.
However, it can distort the original image data because of edge
blurring or blocking effects when image enhancement procedures
were applied. In this paper, we proposed adaptive tension control
method exploiting gradient information to achieve high resolution
medical image enhancement in volume visualization, where restored
images are similar to original images as much as possible. The
experimental results show that the proposed method can improve
image quality associated with the adaptive tension control efficacy.
Abstract: The source voltage of high-power fuel cell shows strong load dependence at comparatively low voltage levels. In order to provide the voltage of 750V on the DC-link for feeding electrical energy into the mains via a three phase inverter a step-up converter with a large step-up ratio is required. The output voltage of this DC/DC-converter must be stabile during variations of the load current and the voltage of the fuel cell. This paper presents the methods and results of the calculation of the efficiency and the expense for the realization for the circuits of the DC/DC-converter that meet these requirements.
Abstract: One of the basic concepts in marketing is the concept
of meeting customers- needs. Since customer satisfaction is essential
for lasting survival and development of a business, screening and
observing customer satisfaction and recognizing its underlying
factors must be one of the key activities of every business.
The purpose of this study is to recognize the drivers that effect
customer satisfaction in a business-to-business situation in order to
improve marketing activities. We conducted a survey in which 93
business customers of a manufacturer of Diesel Generator in Iran
participated and they talked about their ideas and satisfaction of
supplier-s services related to its products. We developed the measures
for drivers of satisfaction first by as investigative research (by means
of feedback from executives and customers of sponsoring firm). Then
based on these measures, we created a mail survey, and asked the
respondents to explain their opinion about the sponsoring firm which
was a supplier of diesel generator and similar products. Furthermore,
the survey required the participants to mention their functional areas
and their company features.
In Conclusion we found that there are three drivers for customer
satisfaction, which are reliability, information about product, and
commercial features. Buyers/users from different functional areas
attribute different degree of importance to the last two drivers. For
instance, people from buying and management areas believe that
commercial features are more important than information about
products. But people in engineering, maintenance and production
areas believe that having information about products is more
important than commercial aspects. Marketing experts should
consider the attribute of customers regarding information about the
product and commercial features to improve market share.
Abstract: Recommender Systems act as personalized decision
guides, aiding users in decisions on matters related to personal taste.
Most previous research on Recommender Systems has focused on the
statistical accuracy of the algorithms driving the systems, with no
emphasis on the trustworthiness of the user. RS depends on
information provided by different users to gather its knowledge. We
believe, if a large group of users provide wrong information it will
not be possible for the RS to arrive in an accurate conclusion. The
system described in this paper introduce the concept of Testing the
knowledge of user to filter out these “bad users".
This paper emphasizes on the mechanism used to provide robust
and effective recommendation.
Abstract: This research tries to analyze the role that knowledge
about foreign markets has in increasing firms- exports in clustered
spaces. We consider two interrelated sources of knowledge: firms-
direct experience and indirect experience from other clustered firms –
export externalities. In particular, it is proposed that firms would
improve their export performance by accessing to export externalities
if they have some previous direct experience that allows them to
identify, understand and exploit them. Also, we propose that this
positive influence of previous direct experience on export
externalities keeps only up to a point, where it becomes negative,
creating an inverted “U" shape. Empirical evidence gathered among
wine producers located in La Rioja tends to confirm that firms enjoy
of export externalities if they have export experience along several
years and countries increase their export performance. While this
relationship becomes less relevant as they develop a higher
experience, we could not confirm the existence of a curvilinear
relationship in their influence on export externalities and export
performance.
Abstract: Computer modeling has played a unique role in
understanding electrocardiography. Modeling and simulating cardiac
action potential propagation is suitable for studying normal and
pathological cardiac activation. This paper presents a 2-D Cellular
Automata model for simulating action potential propagation in
cardiac tissue. We demonstrate a novel algorithm in order to use
minimum neighbors. This algorithm uses the summation of the
excitability attributes of excited neighboring cells. We try to
eliminate flat edges in the result patterns by inserting probability to
the model. We also preserve the real shape of action potential by
using linear curve fitting of one well known electrophysiological
model.
Abstract: An intuitive user interface for the teleoperation of mobile rescue robots is one key feature for a successful exploration of inaccessible and no-go areas. Therefore, we have developed a novel framework to embed a flexible and modular user interface into a complete 3-D virtual reality simulation system. Our approach is based on a client-server architecture to allow for a collaborative control of the rescue robot together with multiple clients on demand. Further, it is important that the user interface is not restricted to any specific type of mobile robot. Therefore, our flexible approach allows for the operation of different robot types with a consistent concept and user interface. In laboratory tests, we have evaluated the validity and effectiveness of our approach with the help of two different robot platforms and several input devices. As a result, an untrained person can intuitively teleoperate both robots without needing a familiarization time when changing the operating robot.
Abstract: In this study the mixed convection heat transfer in a
coil-in-shell heat exchanger for various Reynolds numbers and
various dimensionless coil pitch was experimentally investigated.
The experiments were conducted for both laminar and turbulent flow
inside coil and the effects of coil pitch on shell-side heat transfer
coefficient of the heat exchanger were studied. The particular
difference in this study in comparison with the other similar studies
was the boundary conditions for the helical coils. The results indicate
that with the increase of coil pitch, shell-side heat transfer coefficient
is increased.
Abstract: The asymmetric trafc between uplink and downlink
over recent mobile communication systems has been conspicuous because
of providing new communication services. This paper proposes
an asymmetric trafc accommodation scheme adopting a multihop
cooperative transmission technique for CDMA/FDD cellular networks.
The proposed scheme employs the cooperative transmission
technique in the already proposed downlink multihop transmissions
for the accommodation of the asymmetric trafc, which utilizes
the vacant uplink band for the downlink relay transmissions. The
proposed scheme reduces the transmission power at the downlink
relay transmissions and then suppresses the interference to the uplink
communications, and thus, improves the uplink performance. The
proposed scheme is evaluated by computer simulation and the results
show that it can achieve better throughput performance.
Abstract: Proteomics is one of the largest areas of research for
bioinformatics and medical science. An ambitious goal of proteomics
is to elucidate the structure, interactions and functions of all proteins
within cells and organisms. Predicting Protein-Protein Interaction
(PPI) is one of the crucial and decisive problems in current research.
Genomic data offer a great opportunity and at the same time a lot of
challenges for the identification of these interactions. Many methods
have already been proposed in this regard. In case of in-silico
identification, most of the methods require both positive and negative
examples of protein interaction and the perfection of these examples
are very much crucial for the final prediction accuracy. Positive
examples are relatively easy to obtain from well known databases. But
the generation of negative examples is not a trivial task. Current PPI
identification methods generate negative examples based on some
assumptions, which are likely to affect their prediction accuracy.
Hence, if more reliable negative examples are used, the PPI prediction
methods may achieve even more accuracy. Focusing on this issue, a
graph based negative example generation method is proposed, which
is simple and more accurate than the existing approaches. An
interaction graph of the protein sequences is created. The basic
assumption is that the longer the shortest path between two
protein-sequences in the interaction graph, the less is the possibility of
their interaction. A well established PPI detection algorithm is
employed with our negative examples and in most cases it increases
the accuracy more than 10% in comparison with the negative pair
selection method in that paper.
Abstract: In this paper, Optimum adaptive loading algorithms
are applied to multicarrier system with Space-Time Block Coding
(STBC) scheme associated with space-time processing based on
singular-value decomposition (SVD) of the channel matrix over
Rayleigh fading channels. SVD method has been employed in
MIMO-OFDM system in order to overcome subchannel interference.
Chaw-s and Compello-s algorithms have been implemented to obtain
a bit and power allocation for each subcarrier assuming instantaneous
channel knowledge. The adaptive loaded SVD-STBC scheme is
capable of providing both full-rate and full-diversity for any number
of transmit antennas. The effectiveness of these techniques has
demonstrated through the simulation of an Adaptive loaded SVDSTBC
system, and the comparison shown that the proposed
algorithms ensure better performance in the case of MIMO.
Abstract: Energy generated by the force of water in hydropower
can provide a more sustainable, non-polluting alternative to fossil
fuels, along with other renewable sources of energy, such as wind,
solar and tidal power, bio energy and geothermal energy. Small scale
hydroelectricity in Iran is well suited for “off-grid" rural electricity
applications, while other renewable energy sources, such as wind,
solar and biomass, can be beneficially used as fuel for pumping
groundwater for drinking and small scale irrigation in remote rural
areas or small villages. Small Hydro Power plants in Iran have very
low operating and maintenance costs because they consume no fossil
or nuclear fuel and do not involve high temperature processes. The
equipment is relatively simple to operate and maintain. Hydropower
equipment can adjust rapidly to load changes. The extended
equipment life provides significant economic advantages. Some
hydroelectric plants installed 100 years ago still operate reliably. The
Polkolo river is located on Karun basin at southwest of Iran. Situation
and conditions of Polkolo river are evaluated for construction of
small hydropower in this article. The topographical conditions and
the existence of permanent water from springs provide the suitability
to install hydroelectric power plants on the river Polkolo. The
cascade plant consists of 9 power plants connected with each other
and is having the total head as 1100m and discharge about 2.5cubic
meter per second. The annual production of energy is 105.5 million
kwh.
Abstract: The paper considers a novel modular and intrinsically safe redundant robotic system with biologically inspired actuators (pneumatic artificial muscles and rubber bellows actuators). Similarly to the biological systems, the stiffness of the internal parallel modules, representing 2 DOF joints in the serial robotic chains, is controlled by co-activation of opposing redundant actuator groups in the null-space of the module Jacobian, without influencing the actual robot position. The decoupled position/stiffness control allows the realization of variable joint stiffness according to different force-displacement relationships. The variable joint stiffness, as well as limited pneumatic muscle/bellows force ability, ensures internal system safety that is crucial for development of human-friendly robots intended for human-robot collaboration. The initial experiments with the system prototype demonstrate the capabilities of independently, simultaneously controlling both joint (Cartesian) motion and joint stiffness. The paper also presents the possible industrial applications of snake-like robots built using the new modules.
Abstract: Following the laser ablation studies leading to a
theory of nuclei confinement by a Debye layer mechanism, we
present here numerical evaluations for the known stable nuclei where
the Coulomb repulsion is included as a rather minor component
especially for lager nuclei. In this research paper the required
physical conditions for the formation and stability of nuclei
particularly endothermic nuclei with mass number greater than to
which is an open astrophysical question have been investigated.
Using the Debye layer mechanism, nuclear surface energy, Fermi
energy and coulomb repulsion energy it is possible to find conditions
under which the process of nucleation is permitted in early universe.
Our numerical calculations indicate that about 200 second after the
big bang at temperature of about 100 KeV and subrelativistic region
with nucleon density nearly equal to normal nuclear density namely,
10cm all endothermic and exothermic nuclei have been
formed.
Abstract: Photoplethysmography is a simple measurement of the
variation in blood volume in tissue. It detects the pulse signal of heart
beat as well as the low frequency signal of vasoconstriction and
vasodilation. The transmission type measurement is limited to only a
few specific positions for example the index finger that have a short
path length for light. The reflectance type measurement can be
conveniently applied on most parts of the body surface. This study
analyzed the factors that determine the quality of reflectance
photoplethysmograph signal including the emitter-detector distance,
wavelength, light intensity, and optical properties of skin tissue.
Light emitting diodes (LEDs) with four different visible
wavelengths were used as the light emitters. A phototransistor was
used as the light detector. A micro translation stage adjusts the
emitter-detector distance from 2 mm to 15 mm.
The reflective photoplethysmograph signals were measured on
different sites. The optimal emitter-detector distance was chosen to
have a large dynamic range for low frequency drifting without signal
saturation and a high perfusion index. Among these four wavelengths,
a yellowish green (571nm) light with a proper emitter-detection
distance of 2mm is the most suitable for obtaining a steady and reliable
reflectance photoplethysmograph signal
Abstract: A method based on the power series solution is proposed to solve the natural frequency of flapping vibration for the rotating inclined Euler beam with constant angular velocity. The vibration of the rotating beam is measured from the position of the corresponding steady state axial deformation. In this paper the governing equations for linear vibration of a rotating Euler beam are derived by the d'Alembert principle, the virtual work principle and the consistent linearization of the fully geometrically nonlinear beam theory in a rotating coordinate system. The governing equation for flapping vibration of the rotating inclined Euler beam is linear ordinary differential equation with variable coefficients and is solved by a power series with four independent coefficients. Substituting the power series solution into the corresponding boundary conditions at two end nodes of the rotating beam, a set of homogeneous equations can be obtained. The natural frequencies may be determined by solving the homogeneous equations using the bisection method. Numerical examples are studied to investigate the effect of inclination angle on the natural frequency of flapping vibration for rotating inclined Euler beams with different angular velocity and slenderness ratio.
Abstract: Among various HLM techniques, the Multivariate Hierarchical Linear Model (MHLM) is desirable to use, particularly when multivariate criterion variables are collected and the covariance structure has information valuable for data analysis. In order to reflect prior information or to obtain stable results when the sample size and the number of groups are not sufficiently large, the Bayes method has often been employed in hierarchical data analysis. In these cases, although the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method is a rather powerful tool for parameter estimation, Procedures regarding MCMC have not been formulated for MHLM. For this reason, this research presents concrete procedures for parameter estimation through the use of the Gibbs samplers. Lastly, several future topics for the use of MCMC approach for HLM is discussed.