Abstract: The last decade has shown that object-oriented
concept by itself is not that powerful to cope with the rapidly
changing requirements of ongoing applications. Component-based
systems achieve flexibility by clearly separating the stable parts of
systems (i.e. the components) from the specification of their
composition. In order to realize the reuse of components effectively
in CBSD, it is required to measure the reusability of components.
However, due to the black-box nature of components where the
source code of these components are not available, it is difficult to
use conventional metrics in Component-based Development as these
metrics require analysis of source codes. In this paper, we survey
few existing component-based reusability metrics. These metrics
give a border view of component-s understandability, adaptability,
and portability. It also describes the analysis, in terms of quality
factors related to reusability, contained in an approach that aids
significantly in assessing existing components for reusability.
Abstract: In this paper, to optimize the “Characteristic Straight Line Method" which is used in the soil displacement analysis, a “best estimate" of the geodetic leveling observations has been achieved by taking in account the concept of 'Height systems'. This concept has been discussed in detail and consequently the concept of “height". In landslides dynamic analysis, the soil is considered as a mosaic of rigid blocks. The soil displacement has been monitored and analyzed by using the “Characteristic Straight Line Method". Its characteristic components have been defined constructed from a “best estimate" of the topometric observations. In the measurement of elevation differences, we have used the most modern leveling equipment available. Observational procedures have also been designed to provide the most effective method to acquire data. In addition systematic errors which cannot be sufficiently controlled by instrumentation or observational techniques are minimized by applying appropriate corrections to the observed data: the level collimation correction minimizes the error caused by nonhorizontality of the leveling instrument's line of sight for unequal sight lengths, the refraction correction is modeled to minimize the refraction error caused by temperature (density) variation of air strata, the rod temperature correction accounts for variation in the length of the leveling rod' s Invar/LO-VAR® strip which results from temperature changes, the rod scale correction ensures a uniform scale which conforms to the international length standard and the introduction of the concept of the 'Height systems' where all types of height (orthometric, dynamic, normal, gravity correction, and equipotential surface) have been investigated. The “Characteristic Straight Line Method" is slightly more convenient than the “Characteristic Circle Method". It permits to evaluate a displacement of very small magnitude even when the displacement is of an infinitesimal quantity. The inclination of the landslide is given by the inverse of the distance reference point O to the “Characteristic Straight Line". Its direction is given by the bearing of the normal directed from point O to the Characteristic Straight Line (Fig..6). A “best estimate" of the topometric observations was used to measure the elevation of points carefully selected, before and after the deformation. Gross errors have been eliminated by statistical analyses and by comparing the heights within local neighborhoods. The results of a test using an area where very interesting land surface deformation occurs are reported. Monitoring with different options and qualitative comparison of results based on a sufficient number of check points are presented.
Abstract: A filter is used to remove undesirable frequency information from a dynamic signal. This paper shows that the Znotch filter filtering technique can be applied to remove the noise nuisance from a machining signal. In machining, the noise components were identified from the sound produced by the operation of machine components itself such as hydraulic system, motor, machine environment and etc. By correlating the noise components with the measured machining signal, the interested components of the measured machining signal which was less interfered by the noise, can be extracted. Thus, the filtered signal is more reliable to be analysed in terms of noise content compared to the unfiltered signal. Significantly, the I-kaz method i.e. comprises of three dimensional graphical representation and I-kaz coefficient, Z∞ could differentiate between the filtered and the unfiltered signal. The bigger space of scattering and the higher value of Z∞ demonstrated that the signal was highly interrupted by noise. This method can be utilised as a proactive tool in evaluating the noise content in a signal. The evaluation of noise content is very important as well as the elimination especially for machining operation fault diagnosis purpose. The Z-notch filtering technique was reliable in extracting noise component from the measured machining signal with high efficiency. Even though the measured signal was exposed to high noise disruption, the signal generated from the interaction between cutting tool and work piece still can be acquired. Therefore, the interruption of noise that could change the original signal feature and consequently can deteriorate the useful sensory information can be eliminated.
Abstract: The paper discusses a computationally efficient
method for the design of prototype filters required for the
implementation of an M-band cosine modulated filter bank. The
prototype filter is formulated as an optimum interpolated FIR filter.
The optimum interpolation factor requiring minimum number of
multipliers is used. The model filter as well as the image suppressor
will be designed using the Kaiser window. The method will seek to
optimize a single parameter namely cutoff frequency to minimize the
distortion in the overlapping passband.
Abstract: This paper presents a useful sub-pixel image
registration method using line segments and a sub-pixel edge detector.
In this approach, straight line segments are first extracted from gray
images at the pixel level before applying the sub-pixel edge detector.
Next, all sub-pixel line edges are mapped onto the orientation-distance
parameter space to solve for line correspondence between images.
Finally, the registration parameters with sub-pixel accuracy are
analytically solved via two linear least-square problems. The present
approach can be applied to various fields where fast registration with
sub-pixel accuracy is required. To illustrate, the present approach is
applied to the inspection of printed circuits on a flat panel. Numerical
example shows that the present approach is effective and accurate
when target images contain a sufficient number of line segments,
which is true in many industrial problems.
Abstract: In this paper, we argue that Design research is basic to countries- national productivity and competition agendas at the same time that vagaries of research training presents as one of the barriers faced by Design Higher Degree by Research students in engaging those agendas. We argue that, given industry requirements for research-trained recruits, students have the right to expect that research training will provide the foundations of a successful career on an academic or research pathway or a professional pathway, but that universities have yet to address problems in their provision of research training for Design doctoral students. We suggest that to facilitate this, rigorous research conducted on the provision of Doctoral programs in Design would serve to inform future activities in Design research in productive ways.
Abstract: Post growth annealing of solution grown ZnO
nanowire array is performed under controlled oxygen ambience. The
role of annealing over surface defects and their consequence on
dark/photo-conductivity and photosensitivity of nanowire array is
investigated. Surface defect properties are explored using various
measurement tools such as contact angle, photoluminescence, Raman
spectroscopy and XPS measurements. The contact angle of the NW
films reduces due to oxygen annealing and nanowire film surface
changes from hydrophobic (96°) to hydrophilic (16°). Raman and
XPS spectroscopy reveal that oxygen annealing improves the crystal
quality of the nanowire films. The defect band emission intensity
(relative to band edge emission, ID/IUV) reduces from 1.3 to 0.2 after
annealing at 600 °C at 10 SCCM flow of oxygen. An order
enhancement in dark conductivity is observed in O2 annealed
samples, while photoconductivity is found to be slightly reduced due
to lower concentration of surface related oxygen defects.
Abstract: The first generation of Mobile Agents based Intrusion
Detection System just had two components namely data collection
and single centralized analyzer. The disadvantage of this type of
intrusion detection is if connection to the analyzer fails, the entire
system will become useless. In this work, we propose novel hybrid
model for Mobile Agent based Distributed Intrusion Detection
System to overcome the current problem. The proposed model has
new features such as robustness, capability of detecting intrusion
against the IDS itself and capability of updating itself to detect new
pattern of intrusions. In addition, our proposed model is also capable
of tackling some of the weaknesses of centralized Intrusion Detection
System models.
Abstract: A reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) model has been built for acid gas removal plant for system analysis that will play an important role in any process modifications, if required, for achieving its optimum performance. Due to the complexity of the plant, the model was based on a Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) with a Monte Carlo simulation engine. The model has been validated against actual plant data as well as local expert opinions, resulting in an acceptable simulation model. The results from the model showed that the operation and maintenance can be further improved, resulting in reduction of the annual production loss.
Abstract: In this paper, the requirement for Coke quality
prediction, its role in Blast furnaces, and the model output is
explained. By applying method of Artificial Neural Networking
(ANN) using back propagation (BP) algorithm, prediction model has
been developed to predict CSR. Important blast furnace functions
such as permeability, heat exchanging, melting, and reducing
capacity are mostly connected to coke quality. Coke quality is further
dependent upon coal characterization and coke making process
parameters. The ANN model developed is a useful tool for process
experts to adjust the control parameters in case of coke quality
deviations. The model also makes it possible to predict CSR for new
coal blends which are yet to be used in Coke Plant. Input data to the
model was structured into 3 modules, for tenure of past 2 years and
the incremental models thus developed assists in identifying the
group causing the deviation of CSR.
Abstract: Shear-layer instabilities of a pulsed stack-issued
transverse jet were studied experimentally in a wind tunnel. Jet
pulsations were induced by means of acoustic excitation. Streak
pictures of the smoke-flow patterns illuminated by the laser-light sheet
in the median plane were recorded with a high-speed digital camera.
Instantaneous velocities of the shear-layer instabilities in the flow were
digitized by a hot-wire anemometer. By analyzing the streak pictures
of the smoke-flow visualization, three characteristic flow modes,
synchronized flapping jet, transition, and synchronized shear-layer
vortices, are identified in the shear layer of the pulsed stack-issued
transverse jet at various excitation Strouhal numbers. The shear-layer
instabilities of the pulsed stack-issued transverse jet are synchronized
by acoustic excitation except for transition mode. In transition flow
mode, the shear-layer vortices would exhibit a frequency that would be
twice as great as the acoustic excitation frequency.
Abstract: Compacted clay liners (CCLs) are the main materials
used in waste disposal landfills due to their low permeability. In this
study, the effect on the shear resistant of clays with inorganic salt
solutions as permeate fluid was experimentally investigated. For this
purpose, NaCl inorganic salt solution at concentrations of 2, 5, 10%
and deionized water were used. Laboratory direct shear and Vane
shear tests were conducted on three compacted clays with low,
medium and high plasticity. Results indicated that the solutions type
and its concentration affect the shear properties of the mixture. In the
light of this study, the influence magnitude of these inorganic salts in
varies concentrations in different clays were determined and more
suitable compacted clay with the compare of plasticity were found.
Abstract: Bluetooth is a personal wireless communication
technology and is being applied in many scenarios. It is an emerging
standard for short range, low cost, low power wireless access
technology. Current existing MAC (Medium Access Control)
scheduling schemes only provide best-effort service for all masterslave
connections. It is very challenging to provide QoS (Quality of
Service) support for different connections due to the feature of
Master Driven TDD (Time Division Duplex). However, there is no
solution available to support both delay and bandwidth guarantees
required by real time applications. This paper addresses the issue of
how to enhance QoS support in a Bluetooth piconet. The Bluetooth
specification proposes a Round Robin scheduler as possible solution
for scheduling the transmissions in a Bluetooth Piconet. We propose
an algorithm which will reduce the bandwidth waste and enhance the
efficiency of network. We define token counters to estimate traffic of
real-time slaves. To increase bandwidth utilization, a back-off
mechanism is then presented for best-effort slaves to decrease the
frequency of polling idle slaves. Simulation results demonstrate that
our scheme achieves better performance over the Round Robin
scheduling.
Abstract: Validation of an automation system is an important issue. The goal is to check if the system under investigation, modeled by a Petri net, never enters the undesired states. Usually, tools dedicated to Petri nets such as DESIGN/CPN are used to make reachability analysis. The biggest problem with this approach is that it is impossible to generate the full occurence graph of the system because it is too large. In this paper, we show how computational methods such as temporal logic model checking and Groebner bases can be used to verify the correctness of the design of an automation system. We report our experimental results with two automation systems: the Automated Guided Vehicle (AGV) system and the traffic light system. Validation of these two systems ranged from 10 to 30 seconds on a PC depending on the optimizing parameters.
Abstract: In research on natural ventilation, and passive cooling
with forced convection, is essential to know how heat flows in a solid
object and the pattern of temperature distribution on their surfaces,
and eventually how air flows through and convects heat from the
surfaces of steel under roof. This paper presents some results from
running the computational fluid dynamic program (CFD) by
comparison between natural ventilation and forced convection within
roof attic that is received directly from solar radiation. The CFD
program for modeling air flow inside roof attic has been modified to
allow as two cases. First case, the analysis under natural ventilation,
is closed area in roof attic and second case, the analysis under forced
convection, is opened area in roof attic. These extend of all cases to
available predictions of variations such as temperature, pressure, and
mass flow rate distributions in each case within roof attic. The
comparison shows that this CFD program is an effective model for
predicting air flow of temperature and heat transfer coefficient
distribution within roof attic. The result shows that forced convection
can help to reduce heat transfer through roof attic and an around area
of steel core has temperature inner zone lower than natural
ventilation type. The different temperature on the steel core of roof
attic of two cases was 10-15 oK.
Abstract: The development of the signal compression
algorithms is having compressive progress. These algorithms are
continuously improved by new tools and aim to reduce, an average,
the number of bits necessary to the signal representation by means of
minimizing the reconstruction error. The following article proposes
the compression of Arabic speech signal by a hybrid method
combining the wavelet transform and the linear prediction. The
adopted approach rests, on one hand, on the original signal
decomposition by ways of analysis filters, which is followed by the
compression stage, and on the other hand, on the application of the
order 5, as well as, the compression signal coefficients. The aim of
this approach is the estimation of the predicted error, which will be
coded and transmitted. The decoding operation is then used to
reconstitute the original signal. Thus, the adequate choice of the
bench of filters is useful to the transform in necessary to increase the
compression rate and induce an impercevable distortion from an
auditive point of view.
Abstract: Rural tourism has many economical, environmental, and socio-cultural benefits. However, the development of rural tourism compared to urban tourism is also faced with several challenges added to the disadvantages of rural tourism. The aim of this study is to design a model of the factors affecting the motivations of rural tourists, in an attempt to improve the understanding of rural tourism motivation for the development of that form of tourism. The proposed model is based on a sound theoretical framework. It was designed following a literature review of tourism motivation theoretical frameworks and of rural tourism motivation factors. The tourism motivation theoretical framework that fitted to the best all rural tourism motivation factors was then chosen as the basis for the proposed model. This study hence found that the push and pull tourism motivation framework and the inner and outer directed values theory are the most adequate theoretical frameworks for the modeling of rural tourism motivation.
Abstract: This paper presents image compression with wavelet based method. The wavelet transformation divides image to low- and high pass filtered parts. The traditional JPEG compression technique requires lower computation power with feasible losses, when only compression is needed. However, there is obvious need for wavelet based methods in certain circumstances. The methods are intended to the applications in which the image analyzing is done parallel with compression. Furthermore, high frequency bands can be used to detect changes or edges. Wavelets enable hierarchical analysis for low pass filtered sub-images. The first analysis can be done for a small image, and only if any interesting is found, the whole image is processed or reconstructed.
Abstract: The social force model which belongs to the
microscopic pedestrian studies has been considered as the supremacy
by many researchers and due to the main feature of reproducing the
self-organized phenomena resulted from pedestrian dynamic. The
Preferred Force which is a measurement of pedestrian-s motivation to
adapt his actual velocity to his desired velocity is an essential term on
which the model was set up. This Force has gone through stages of
development: first of all, Helbing and Molnar (1995) have modeled
the original force for the normal situation. Second, Helbing and his
co-workers (2000) have incorporated the panic situation into this
force by incorporating the panic parameter to account for the panic
situations. Third, Lakoba and Kaup (2005) have provided the
pedestrians some kind of intelligence by incorporating aspects of the
decision-making capability. In this paper, the authors analyze the
most important incorporations into the model regarding the preferred
force. They make comparisons between the different factors of these
incorporations. Furthermore, to enhance the decision-making ability
of the pedestrians, they introduce additional features such as the
familiarity factor to the preferred force to let it appear more
representative of what actually happens in reality.
Abstract: Natural resources management including water resources requires reliable estimations of time variant environmental parameters. Small improvements in the estimation of environmental parameters would result in grate effects on managing decisions. Noise reduction using wavelet techniques is an effective approach for preprocessing of practical data sets. Predictability enhancement of the river flow time series are assessed using fractal approaches before and after applying wavelet based preprocessing. Time series correlation and persistency, the minimum sufficient length for training the predicting model and the maximum valid length of predictions were also investigated through a fractal assessment.