Abstract: AAM has been successfully applied to face alignment,
but its performance is very sensitive to initial values. In case the initial
values are a little far distant from the global optimum values, there
exists a pretty good possibility that AAM-based face alignment may
converge to a local minimum. In this paper, we propose a progressive
AAM-based face alignment algorithm which first finds the feature
parameter vector fitting the inner facial feature points of the face and
later localize the feature points of the whole face using the first
information. The proposed progressive AAM-based face alignment
algorithm utilizes the fact that the feature points of the inner part of the
face are less variant and less affected by the background surrounding
the face than those of the outer part (like the chin contour). The
proposed algorithm consists of two stages: modeling and relation
derivation stage and fitting stage. Modeling and relation derivation
stage first needs to construct two AAM models: the inner face AAM
model and the whole face AAM model and then derive relation matrix
between the inner face AAM parameter vector and the whole face
AAM model parameter vector. In the fitting stage, the proposed
algorithm aligns face progressively through two phases. In the first
phase, the proposed algorithm will find the feature parameter vector
fitting the inner facial AAM model into a new input face image, and
then in the second phase it localizes the whole facial feature points of
the new input face image based on the whole face AAM model using
the initial parameter vector estimated from using the inner feature
parameter vector obtained in the first phase and the relation matrix
obtained in the first stage. Through experiments, it is verified that the
proposed progressive AAM-based face alignment algorithm is more
robust with respect to pose, illumination, and face background than the
conventional basic AAM-based face alignment algorithm.
Abstract: Impurity metals such as manganese and cadmium
from high-tenor cobalt electrolyte solution were selectively removed
by solvent extraction method using Co-D2EHPA after converting the functional group of D2EHPA with Co2+ ions. The process parameters
such as pH, organic concentration, O/A ratio, kinetics etc. were
investigated and the experiments were conducted by batch tests in the laboratory bench scale. Results showed that a significant amount
of manganese and cadmium can be extracted using Co-D2EHPA for the optimum processing of cobalt electrolyte solution at equilibrium pH about 3.5. The McCabe-Thiele diagram, constructed from the
extraction studies showed that 100% impurities can be extracted through four stages for manganese and three stages for cadmium
using O/A ratio of 0.65 and 1.0, respectively. From the stripping study, it was found that 100% manganese and cadmium can be stripped from the loaded organic using 0.4 M H2SO4 in a single
contact. The loading capacity of Co-D2EHPA by manganese and cadmium were also investigated with different O/A ratio as well as
with number of stages of contact of aqueous and organic phases. Valuable information was obtained for the designing of an impurities
removal process for the production of pure cobalt with less trouble in the electrowinning circuit.
Abstract: Springback is a significant problem in the sheet metal
forming process. When the tools are released after the stage of
forming, the product springs out, because of the action of the internal
stresses. In many cases the deviation of form is too large and the
compensation of the springback is necessary. The precise prediction
of the springback of product is increasingly significant for the design
of the tools and for compensation because of the higher ratio of the
yield stress to the elastic modulus.
The main object in this paper was to study the effect of the
anisotropy on the springback for three directions of rolling: 0°, 45°
and 90°. At the same time, we highlighted the influence of three
different metallic materials: Aluminum, Steel and Galvanized steel.
The original of our purpose consist on tests which are ensured by
adapting a U-type stretching-bending device on a tensile testing
machine, where we studied and quantified the variation of the
springback according to the direction of rolling. We also showed the
role of lubrication in the reduction of the springback.
Moreover, in this work, we have studied important characteristics
in deep drawing process which is a springback. We have presented
defaults that are showed in this process and many parameters
influenced a springback.
Finally, our results works lead us to understand the influence of
grains orientation with different metallic materials on the springback
and drawing some conclusions how to concept deep drawing tools. In
addition, the conducted work represents a fundamental contribution
in the discussion the industry application.
Abstract: Researches show that probability-statistical methods application, especially at the early stage of the aviation Gas Turbine Engine (GTE) technical condition diagnosing, when the flight information has property of the fuzzy, limitation and uncertainty is unfounded. Hence the efficiency of application of new technology Soft Computing at these diagnosing stages with the using of the Fuzzy Logic and Neural Networks methods is considered. According to the purpose of this problem training with high accuracy of fuzzy multiple linear and non-linear models (fuzzy regression equations) which received on the statistical fuzzy data basis is made. For GTE technical condition more adequate model making dynamics of skewness and kurtosis coefficients- changes are analysed. Researches of skewness and kurtosis coefficients values- changes show that, distributions of GTE work parameters have fuzzy character. Hence consideration of fuzzy skewness and kurtosis coefficients is expedient. Investigation of the basic characteristics changes- dynamics of GTE work parameters allows drawing conclusion on necessity of the Fuzzy Statistical Analysis at preliminary identification of the engines' technical condition. Researches of correlation coefficients values- changes shows also on their fuzzy character. Therefore for models choice the application of the Fuzzy Correlation Analysis results is offered. At the information sufficiency is offered to use recurrent algorithm of aviation GTE technical condition identification (Hard Computing technology is used) on measurements of input and output parameters of the multiple linear and non-linear generalised models at presence of noise measured (the new recursive Least Squares Method (LSM)). The developed GTE condition monitoring system provides stageby- stage estimation of engine technical conditions. As application of the given technique the estimation of the new operating aviation engine technical condition was made.
Abstract: The design of Class A and Class AB 2-stage X band
Power Amplifier is described in this report. This power amplifier is
part of a transceiver used in radar for monitoring iron characteristics
in a blast furnace. The circuit was designed using foundry WIN
Semiconductors. The specification requires 15dB gain in the linear
region, VSWR nearly 1 at input as well as at the output, an output
power of 10 dBm and good stable performance in the band 10.9-12.2
GHz. The design was implemented by using inter-stage
configuration, the Class A amplifier was chosen for driver stage i.e.
the first amplifier focusing on the gain and the output amplifier
conducted at Class AB with more emphasis on output power.
Abstract: We introduce an extended resource leveling model that abstracts real life projects that consider specific work ranges for each resource. Contrary to traditional resource leveling problems this model considers scarce resources and multiple objectives: the minimization of the project makespan and the leveling of each resource usage over time. We formulate this model as a multiobjective optimization problem and we propose a multiobjective genetic algorithm-based solver to optimize it. This solver consists in a two-stage process: a main stage where we obtain non-dominated solutions for all the objectives, and a postprocessing stage where we seek to specifically improve the resource leveling of these solutions. We propose an intelligent encoding for the solver that allows including domain specific knowledge in the solving mechanism. The chosen encoding proves to be effective to solve leveling problems with scarce resources and multiple objectives. The outcome of the proposed solvers represent optimized trade-offs (alternatives) that can be later evaluated by a decision maker, this multi-solution approach represents an advantage over the traditional single solution approach. We compare the proposed solver with state-of-art resource leveling methods and we report competitive and performing results.
Abstract: The OTOP Entrepreneurship that used to create
substantial source of income for local Thai communities are now in a
stage of exigent matters that required assistances from public sectors
due to over Entrepreneurship of duplicative ideas, unable to adjust
costs and prices, lack of innovation, and inadequate of quality
control. Moreover, there is a repetitive problem of middlemen who
constantly corner the OTOP market. Local OTOP producers become
easy preys since they do not know how to add more values, how to
create and maintain their own brand name, and how to create proper
packaging and labeling. The suggested solutions to local OTOP
producers are to adopt modern management techniques, to find
knowhow to add more values to products and to unravel other
marketing problems. The objectives of this research are to study the
prevalent OTOP products management and to discover direction to
manage OTOP products to enhance the effectiveness of OTOP
Entrepreneurship in Nonthaburi Province, Thailand. There were 113
participants in this study. The research tools can be divided into two
parts: First part is done by questionnaire to find responses of the
prevalent OTOP Entrepreneurship management. Second part is the
use of focus group which is conducted to encapsulate ideas and local
wisdom. Data analysis is performed by using frequency, percentage,
mean, and standard deviation as well as the synthesis of several small
group discussions. The findings reveal that 1) Business Resources:
the quality of product is most important and the marketing of product
is least important. 2) Business Management: Leadership is most
important and raw material planning is least important. 3) Business
Readiness: Communication is most important and packaging is least
important. 4) Support from public sector: Certified from the
government is most important and source of raw material is the least
important.
Abstract: The industrial process of the sugar cane crystallization produces a residual that still contains a lot of soluble sucrose and the objective of the factory is to improve its extraction. Therefore, there are substantial losses justifying the search for the optimization of the process. Crystallization process studied on the industrial site is based on the “three massecuites process". The third step of this process constitutes the final stage of exhaustion of the sucrose dissolved in the mother liquor. During the process of the third step of crystallization (Ccrystallization), the phase that is studied and whose control is to be improved, is the growing phase (crystal growth phase). The study of this process on the industrial site is a problem in its own. A control scheme is proposed to improve the standard PID control law used in the factory. An auto-tuning PID controller based on instantaneous linearization of a neural network is then proposed.
Abstract: The past decade has seen enormous growth in the amount of software produced. However, given the ever increasing complexity of the software being developed and the concomitant rise in the typical project size, managers are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of issues that influence the productivity levels of the project teams involved. By analyzing the latest release of ISBSG data repository, we report on the factors found to significantly influence the productivity among which average team size and language type are the two most essential ones. Building on this we present an original model for evaluating the potential productivity during the project planning stage.
Abstract: Cabbage seedlings grown in vitro were exposed to
excess levels of heavy metals, including Cd, Mo, and Zn. High metal
levels affected plant growth at cotyledonary stage. Seedlings under
Cd, Mo, and Zn treatments could not produce root hairs and true
leaves. Under stress conditions, seedlings accumulated a higher
amount of anthocyanins in their cotyledons than those in the control.
The pigments isolated from Cd and Zn stressed seedling cotyledons
appeared as pink, while under Mo stress, was dark pink or purple.
Moreover, excess Mo stress increased antioxidant enzyme activities
of APX, CAT, SOD. These results suggest that, under excess Mo
stress, the induced antioxidant enzyme activity of cabbage seedlings
may function as a protective mechanism to shield the plants from
toxicity and exacerbated growth.
Abstract: Overloading is a technique to accommodate more
number of users than the spreading factor N. This is a bandwidth
efficient scheme to increase the number users in a fixed bandwidth.
One of the efficient schemes to overload a CDMA system is to use
two sets of orthogonal signal waveforms (O/O). The first set is
assigned to the N users and the second set is assigned to the
additional M users. An iterative interference cancellation technique is
used to cancel interference between the two sets of users. In this
paper, the performance of an overloading scheme in which the first N
users are assigned Walsh-Hadamard orthogonal codes and extra users
are assigned the same WH codes but overlaid by a fixed (quasi) bent
sequence [11] is evaluated. This particular scheme is called Quasi-
Orthogonal Sequence (QOS) O/O scheme, which is a part of
cdma2000 standard [12] to provide overloading in the downlink
using single user detector. QOS scheme are balance O/O scheme,
where the correlation between any set-1 and set-2 users are
equalized. The allowable overload of this scheme is investigated in
the uplink on an AWGN and Rayleigh fading channels, so that the
uncoded performance with iterative multistage interference
cancellation detector remains close to the single user bound. It is
shown that this scheme provides 19% and 11% overloading with
SDIC technique for N= 16 and 64 respectively, with an SNR
degradation of less than 0.35 dB as compared to single user bound at
a BER of 0.00001. But on a Rayleigh fading channel, the channel
overloading is 45% (29 extra users) at a BER of 0.0005, with an SNR
degradation of about 1 dB as compared to single user performance
for N=64. This is a significant amount of channel overloading on a
Rayleigh fading channel.
Abstract: Phytophthora cinnamomi (P. c) is a plant pathogenic
oomycete that is capable of damaging plants in commercial production
systems and natural ecosystems worldwide. The most common
methods for the detection and diagnosis of P. c infection are
expensive, elaborate and time consuming. This study was carried out
to examine whether species specific and life cycle specific volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) can be absorbed by solid-phase
microextraction fibers and detected by gas chromatography that are
produced by P. c and another oomycete Pythium dissotocum. A
headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) together with gas
chromatography (GC) method was developed and optimized for the
identification of the VOCs released by P. c. The optimized parameters
included type of fiber, exposure time, desorption temperature and
desorption time. Optimization was achieved with the analytes of P.
c+V8A and V8A alone. To perform the HS-SPME, six types of fiber
were assayed and compared: 7μm Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS),
100μm Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), 50/30μm
Divinylbenzene/CarboxenTM/Polydimethylsiloxane
DVB/CAR/PDMS), 65μm Polydimethylsiloxane/Divinylbenzene
(PDMS/DVB), 85μm Polyacrylate (PA) fibre and 85μm CarboxenTM/
Polydimethylsiloxane (Carboxen™/PDMS). In a comparison of the
efficacy of the fibers, the bipolar fiber DVB/CAR/PDMS had a higher
extraction efficiency than the other fibers. An exposure time of 16h
with DVB/CAR/PDMS fiber in the sample headspace was enough to
reach the maximum extraction efficiency. A desorption time of 3min
in the GC injector with the desorption temperature of 250°C was
enough for the fiber to desorb the compounds of interest. The chromatograms and morphology study confirmed that the VOCs from
P. c+V8A had distinct differences from V8A alone, as did different
life cycle stages of P. c and different taxa such as Pythium dissotocum.
The study proved that P. c has species and life cycle specific VOCs,
which in turn demonstrated the feasibility of this method as means of
Abstract: A compact tunable 10 W picosecond source based on
Yb-doped fiber amplification of gain switch laser diode has been
demonstrated. A gain switch semiconductor laser diode was used as
the seed source, and a multi-stage single mode Yb-doped fiber
preamplifier was combined with two large mode area double-clad
Yb-doped fiber main amplifiers to construct the amplification system.
The tunable pulses with high stability and excellent beam quality
(M2
Abstract: In the framework of the image compression by
Wavelet Transforms, we propose a perceptual method by
incorporating Human Visual System (HVS) characteristics in the
quantization stage. Indeed, human eyes haven-t an equal sensitivity
across the frequency bandwidth. Therefore, the clarity of the
reconstructed images can be improved by weighting the quantization
according to the Contrast Sensitivity Function (CSF). The visual
artifact at low bit rate is minimized. To evaluate our method, we use
the Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and a new evaluating criteria
witch takes into account visual criteria. The experimental results
illustrate that our technique shows improvement on image quality at
the same compression ratio.
Abstract: In contrast to existing methods which do not take into account multiconnectivity in a broad sense of this term, we develop mathematical models and highly effective combination (BIEM and FDM) numerical methods of calculation of stationary and quasistationary temperature field of a profile part of a blade with convective cooling (from the point of view of realization on PC). The theoretical substantiation of these methods is proved by appropriate theorems. For it, converging quadrature processes have been developed and the estimations of errors in the terms of A.Ziqmound continuity modules have been received. For visualization of profiles are used: the method of the least squares with automatic conjecture, device spline, smooth replenishment and neural nets. Boundary conditions of heat exchange are determined from the solution of the corresponding integral equations and empirical relationships. The reliability of designed methods is proved by calculation and experimental investigations heat and hydraulic characteristics of the gas turbine first stage nozzle blade.
Abstract: Bio-electrical responses obtained from freshwater
sediments by employing microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology were
investigated in this experimental study. During the electricity
generation, organic matter in the sediment was microbially oxidized
under anaerobic conditions with an electrode serving as a terminal
electron acceptor. It was found that the sediment organic matter
(SOM) associated with electrochemically-active electrodes became
more humified, aromatic, and polydispersed, and had a higher average
molecular weight, together with the decrease in the quantity of SOM.
The alteration of characteristics of the SOM was analogous to that
commonly observed in the early stage of SOM diagenetic process (i.e.,
humification). These findings including an elevation of the sediment
redox potential present a possibility of the MFC technology as a new
soil/sediment remediation technique based on its potential benefits:
non-destructive electricity generation and bioremediation.
Abstract: The sequential morphologic changes of rabbit duodenal mucosa-submucosa were studied from primodial stage to birth in 15 fetuses and during the early days of life in 21 rabbit newborns till maturity using light, scanning and transmission electron microscopy. Fetal rabbit duodenum develops from a simple tube of stratified epithelium to a tube containing villus and intervillus regions of simple columnar epithelium. By day 21 of gestation, the first rudimentary villi were appeared and by day 24 the first true villi were appeared. The Crypts of Lieberkuhn did not appear until birth. By the first day of postnatal life the duodenal glands appeared. The histological maturity of the rabbit small intestine occurred one month after birth. In conclusion, at all stages, the sequential morphologic changes of the rabbit small intestine developed to meet the structural and physiological demands during the fetal stage to be prepared to extra uterine life.
Abstract: In the present paper, Fatigue life assessment of an
anti-roll bar component of a passenger vehicle, is investigated by
ANSYS 11 software. A stress analysis is also carried out by the
finite element technique for the determination of highly stressed
regions on the bar. Anti-roll bar is a suspension element used at the
front, rear, or at both ends of a car that reduces body roll by resisting
any unequal vertical motion between the pair of wheels to which it is
connected. As a first stage, fatigue damage models proposed by some
well-known references and the corresponding assumptions are
discussed and some enhancements are proposed. Then, fracture
analysis of an anti-roll bar of an automobile is carried out. The
analysed type of the anti-roll bar is especially important as many
cases are reported about the fracture after a 100,000 km of travel
fatigue and fracture conditions. This paper demonstrates fatigue life
of an anti-roll bar and then evaluated by experimental analytically
results from other researcher.
Abstract: An incentive for performance, as one subsystem of a
new performance management system, has been implemented in the
Thai public sector since 2004. This research investigates the
development of organizational justice in the incentive allocation by
comparing the roles of distributive and procedural justice on national
personnel-s attitudinal outcomes (incentive satisfaction and job
performance) between 2 periods, i.e. 2006 and 2008. The data were
collected via self-administered questionnaires completed by national
government officers and employees. They were stratified using multistage
sampling with 2,600 usable samples or 72.0% response rate in
2006, and 1,969 usable samples or 59.3% in 2008. The findings are:
(1) There is no difference in means between the two periods relating
to distributive justice, procedural justice, incentive satisfaction and
job performance. (2) Distributive justice and procedural justice
played more important roles in predicting incentive satisfaction and
job performance in 2008 than in 2006.
Abstract: Numerical parametric study is conducted to study the effects of ampoule rotation on the flows and the dopant segregation in vertical bridgman (vb) crystal growth. Calculations were performed in unsteady state. The extended darcy model, which includes the time derivative and coriolis terms, has been employed in the momentum equation. It’s found that the convection, and dopant segregation can be affected significantly by ampoule rotation, and the effect is similar to that by an axial magnetic field. Ampoule rotation decreases the intensity of convection and stretches the flow cell axially. When the convection is weak, the flow can be suppressed almost completely by moderate ampoule rotation and the dopant segregation becomes diffusion-controlled. For stronger convection, the elongated flow cell by ampoule rotation may bring dopant mixing into the bulk melt reducing axial segregation at the early stage of the growth. However, if the cellular flow cannot be suppressed completely, ampoule rotation may induce larger radial segregation due to poor mixing.