Electronic Voting System using Mobile Terminal

Electronic voting (E-voting) using an internet has been recently performed in some nations and regions. There is no spatial restriction which a voter directly has to visit the polling place, but an e-voting using an internet has to go together the computer in which the internet connection is possible. Also, this voting requires an access code for the e-voting through the beforehand report of a voter. To minimize these disadvantages, we propose a method in which a voter, who has the wireless certificate issued in advance, uses its own cellular phone for an e-voting without the special registration for a vote. Our proposal allows a voter to cast his vote in a simple and convenient way without the limit of time and location, thereby increasing the voting rate, and also ensuring confidentiality and anonymity.

Technique for Processing and Preservation of Human Amniotic Membrane for Ocular Surface Reconstruction

Human amniotic membrane (HAM) is a useful biological material for the reconstruction of damaged ocular surface. The processing and preservation of HAM is critical to prevent the patients undergoing amniotic membrane transplant (AMT) from cross infections. For HAM preparation human placenta is obtained after an elective cesarean delivery. Before collection, the donor is screened for seronegativity of HCV, Hbs Ag, HIV and Syphilis. After collection, placenta is washed in balanced salt solution (BSS) in sterile environment. Amniotic membrane is then separated from the placenta as well as chorion while keeping the preparation in BSS. Scrapping of HAM is then carried out manually until all the debris is removed and clear transparent membrane is acquired. Nitrocellulose membrane filters are then placed on the stromal side of HAM, cut around the edges with little membrane folded towards other side making it easy to separate during surgery. HAM is finally stored in solution of glycerine and Dulbecco-s Modified Eagle Medium (DMEM) in 1:1 ratio containing antibiotics. The capped borosil vials containing HAM are kept at -80°C until use. This vial is thawed to room temperature and opened under sterile operation theatre conditions at the time of surgery.

Integrating Big Island Layout with Pull System for Production Optimization

Lean manufacturing is a production philosophy made popular by Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC). It is globally known as the Toyota Production System (TPS) and has the ultimate aim of reducing cost by thoroughly eliminating wastes or muda. TPS embraces the Just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing; achieving cost reduction through lead time reduction. JIT manufacturing can be achieved by implementing Pull system in the production. Furthermore, TPS aims to improve productivity and creating continuous flow in the production by arranging the machines and processes in cellular configurations. This is called as Cellular Manufacturing Systems (CMS). This paper studies on integrating the CMS with the Pull system to establish a Big Island-Pull system production for High Mix Low Volume (HMLV) products in an automotive component industry. The paper will use the build-in JIT system steps adapted from TMC to create the Pull system production and also create a shojinka line which, according to takt time, has the flexibility to adapt to demand changes simply by adding and taking out manpower. This will lead to optimization in production.

Design of Low Power and High Speed Digital IIR Filter in 45nm with Optimized CSA for Digital Signal Processing Applications

In this paper, a design methodology to implement low-power and high-speed 2nd order recursive digital Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter has been proposed. Since IIR filters suffer from a large number of constant multiplications, the proposed method replaces the constant multiplications by using addition/subtraction and shift operations. The proposed new 6T adder cell is used as the Carry-Save Adder (CSA) to implement addition/subtraction operations in the design of recursive section IIR filter to reduce the propagation delay. Furthermore, high-level algorithms designed for the optimization of the number of CSA blocks are used to reduce the complexity of the IIR filter. The DSCH3 tool is used to generate the schematic of the proposed 6T CSA based shift-adds architecture design and it is analyzed by using Microwind CAD tool to synthesize low-complexity and high-speed IIR filters. The proposed design outperforms in terms of power, propagation delay, area and throughput when compared with MUX-12T, MCIT-7T based CSA adder filter design. It is observed from the experimental results that the proposed 6T based design method can find better IIR filter designs in terms of power and delay than those obtained by using efficient general multipliers.

Study of Natural Convection in a Triangular Cavity Filled with Water: Application of the Lattice Boltzmann Method

The Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) with double populations is applied to solve the steady-state laminar natural convective heat transfer in a triangular cavity filled with water. The bottom wall is heated, the vertical wall is cooled, and the inclined wall is kept adiabatic. The buoyancy effect was modeled by applying the Boussinesq approximation to the momentum equation. The fluid velocity is determined by D2Q9 LBM and the energy equation is discritized by D2Q4 LBM to compute the temperature field. Comparisons with previously published work are performed and found to be in excellent agreement. Numerical results are obtained for a wide range of parameters: the Rayleigh number from  to  and the inclination angle from 0° to 360°. Flow and thermal fields were exhibited by means of streamlines and isotherms. It is observed that inclination angle can be used as a relevant parameter to control heat transfer in right-angled triangular enclosures.  

Methods for Manufacture of Corrugated Wire Mesh Laminates

Corrugated wire mesh laminates (CWML) are a class of engineered open cell structures that have potential for applications in many areas including aerospace and biomedical engineering. Two different methods of fabricating corrugated wire mesh laminates from stainless steel, one using a high temperature Lithobraze alloy and the other using a low temperature Eutectic solder for joining the corrugated wire meshes are described herein. Their implementation is demonstrated by manufacturing CWML samples of 304 and 316 stainless steel (SST). It is seen that due to the facility of employing wire meshes of different densities and wire diameters, it is possible to create CWML laminates with a wide range of effective densities. The fabricated laminates are tested under uniaxial compression. The variation of the compressive yield strength with relative density of the CWML is compared to the theory developed by Gibson and Ashby for open cell structures [22]. It is shown that the compressive strength of the corrugated wire mesh laminates can be described using the same equations by using an appropriate value for the linear coefficient in the Gibson-Ashby model.

Performance Enhancement of Cellular OFDM Based Wireless LANs by Exploiting Spatial Diversity Techniques

This paper represents an investigation on how exploiting multiple transmit antennas by OFDM based wireless LAN subscribers can mitigate physical layer error rate. Then by comparing the Wireless LANs that utilize spatial diversity techniques with the conventional ones it will reveal how PHY and TCP throughputs behaviors are ameliorated. In the next step it will assess the same issues based on a cellular context operation which is mainly introduced as an innovated solution that beside a multi cell operation scenario benefits spatio-temporal signaling schemes as well. Presented simulations will shed light on the improved performance of the wide range and high quality wireless LAN services provided by the proposed approach.

High Performance Liquid Chromatographic Method for Determination of Colistin Sulfate and its Application in Medicated Premixand Animal Feed

The aim of the present study was to develop and validate an inexpensive and simple high performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method for the determination of colistin sulfate. Separation of colistin sulfate was achieved on a ZORBAX Eclipse XDB-C18 column using UV detection at λ=215 nm. The mobile phase was 30 mM sulfate buffer (pH 2.5):acetonitrile(76:24). An excellent linearity (r2=0.998) was found in the concentration range of 25 - 400 μg/mL. Intra- day and inter-day precisions of method (%RSD, n=3) were less than 7.9%.The developed and validated method was applied to determination of the content of colistin sulfate in medicated premix and animal feed sample.The recovery of colistin from animal feed was satisfactorily ranged from 90.92 to 93.77%. The results demonstrated that the HPLC method developed in this work is appropriate for direct determination of colistin sulfate in commercial medicated premixes and animal feed.

Advanced Stochastic Models for Partially Developed Speckle

Speckled images arise when coherent microwave, optical, and acoustic imaging techniques are used to image an object, surface or scene. Examples of coherent imaging systems include synthetic aperture radar, laser imaging systems, imaging sonar systems, and medical ultrasound systems. Speckle noise is a form of object or target induced noise that results when the surface of the object is Rayleigh rough compared to the wavelength of the illuminating radiation. Detection and estimation in images corrupted by speckle noise is complicated by the nature of the noise and is not as straightforward as detection and estimation in additive noise. In this work, we derive stochastic models for speckle noise, with an emphasis on speckle as it arises in medical ultrasound images. The motivation for this work is the problem of segmentation and tissue classification using ultrasound imaging. Modeling of speckle in this context involves partially developed speckle model where an underlying Poisson point process modulates a Gram-Charlier series of Laguerre weighted exponential functions, resulting in a doubly stochastic filtered Poisson point process. The statistical distribution of partially developed speckle is derived in a closed canonical form. It is observed that as the mean number of scatterers in a resolution cell is increased, the probability density function approaches an exponential distribution. This is consistent with fully developed speckle noise as demonstrated by the Central Limit theorem.

A New Protocol for Concealed Data Aggregation in Wireless Sensor Networks

Wireless sensor networks (WSN) consists of many sensor nodes that are placed on unattended environments such as military sites in order to collect important information. Implementing a secure protocol that can prevent forwarding forged data and modifying content of aggregated data and has low delay and overhead of communication, computing and storage is very important. This paper presents a new protocol for concealed data aggregation (CDA). In this protocol, the network is divided to virtual cells, nodes within each cell produce a shared key to send and receive of concealed data with each other. Considering to data aggregation in each cell is locally and implementing a secure authentication mechanism, data aggregation delay is very low and producing false data in the network by malicious nodes is not possible. To evaluate the performance of our proposed protocol, we have presented computational models that show the performance and low overhead in our protocol.

Balanced and Unbalanced Voltage Sag Mitigation Using DSTATCOM with Linear and Nonlinear Loads

DSTATCOM is one of the equipments for voltage sag mitigation in power systems. In this paper a new control method for balanced and unbalanced voltage sag mitigation using DSTATCOM is proposed. The control system has two loops in order to regulate compensator current and load voltage. Delayed signal cancellation has been used for sequence separation. The compensator should protect sensitive loads against different types of voltage sag. Performance of the proposed method is investigated under different types of voltage sags for linear and nonlinear loads. Simulation results show appropriate operation of the proposed control system.

A Comparison Study of a Symmetry Solution of Magneto-Elastico-Viscous Fluid along a Semi- Infinite Plate with Homotopy Perturbation Method and4th Order Runge–Kutta Method

The equations governing the flow of an electrically conducting, incompressible viscous fluid over an infinite flat plate in the presence of a magnetic field are investigated using the homotopy perturbation method (HPM) with Padé approximants (PA) and 4th order Runge–Kutta method (4RKM). Approximate analytical and numerical solutions for the velocity field and heat transfer are obtained and compared with each other, showing excellent agreement. The effects of the magnetic parameter and Prandtl number on velocity field, shear stress, temperature and heat transfer are discussed as well.

Application of Central Composite Design Based Response Surface Methodology in Parameter Optimization and on Cellulase Production Using Agricultural Waste

Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is a powerful and efficient mathematical approach widely applied in the optimization of cultivation process. Cellulase enzyme production by Trichoderma reesei RutC30 using agricultural waste rice straw and banana fiber as carbon source were investigated. In this work, sequential optimization strategy based statistical design was employed to enhance the production of cellulase enzyme through submerged cultivation. A fractional factorial design (26-2) was applied to elucidate the process parameters that significantly affect cellulase production. Temperature, Substrate concentration, Inducer concentration, pH, inoculum age and agitation speed were identified as important process parameters effecting cellulase enzyme synthesis. The concentration of lignocelluloses and lactose (inducer) in the cultivation medium were found to be most significant factors. The steepest ascent method was used to locate the optimal domain and a Central Composite Design (CCD) was used to estimate the quadratic response surface from which the factor levels for maximum production of cellulase were determined.

Evaluation on the Viability of Combined Heat and Power with Different Distributed Generation Technologies for Various Bindings in Japan

This paper has examined the energy consumption characteristics in six different buildings including apartments, offices, commercial buildings, hospitals, hotels and educational facilities. Then 5-hectare (50000m2) development site for respective building-s type has been assumed as case study to evaluate the introduction effect of Combined Heat and Power (CHP). All kinds of CHP systems with different distributed generation technologies including Gas Turbine (GT), Gas Engine (GE), Diesel Engine (DE), Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) and Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell (PEFC), have been simulated by using HEATMAP, CHP system analysis software. And their primary energy utilization efficiency, energy saving ratio and CO2 reduction ratio have evaluated and compared respectively. The results can be summarized as follows: Various buildings have their special heat to power ratio characteristics. Matching the heat to power ratio demanded from an individual building with that supplied from a CHP system is very important. It is necessary to select a reasonable distributed generation technologies according to the load characteristics of various buildings. Distributed generation technologies with high energy generating efficiency and low heat to power ratio, like SOFC and PEFC is more reasonable selection for Building Combined Heat and Power (BCHP). CHP system is an attractive option for hotels, hospitals and apartments in Japan. The users can achieve high energy saving and environmental benefit by introducing a CHP systems. In others buildings, especially like commercial buildings and offices, the introduction of CHP system is unreasonable.

Interfacial Layer Effect on Novel p-Ni1-xO:Li/n-Si Heterojunction Solar Cells

This study fabricates p-type Ni1−xO:Li/n-Si heterojunction solar cells (P+/n HJSCs) by using radio frequency (RF) magnetron sputtering and investigates the effect of substrate temperature on photovoltaic cell properties. Grazing incidence x-ray diffraction, four point probe, and ultraviolet-visible-near infrared discover the optoelectrical properties of p-Ni1-xO thin films. The results show that p-Ni1-xO thin films deposited at 300 oC has the highest grain size (22.4 nm), average visible transmittance (~42%), and electrical resistivity (2.7 Ωcm). However, the conversion efficiency of cell is shown only 2.33% which is lower than the cell (3.39%) fabricated at room temperature. This result can be mainly attributed to interfacial layer thickness (SiOx) reduces from 2.35 nm to 1.70 nm, as verified by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy.

Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis in Planning of Asbestos-Containing Waste Management

Environmental decision making, particularly about hazardous waste management, is inherently exposed to a high potential conflict, principally because of the trade-off between sociopolitical, environmental, health and economic factors. The need to plan complex contexts has led to an increasing request for decision analytic techniques as support for the decision process. In this work, alternative systems of asbestos-containing waste management (ACW) in Puglia (Southern Italy) were explored by a multi-criteria decision analysis. In particular, through Analytic Hierarchy Process five alternatives management have been compared and ranked according to their performance and efficiency, taking into account environmental, health and socio-economic aspects. A separated valuation has been performed for different temporal scale. For short period results showed a narrow deviation between the disposal alternatives “mono-material landfill in public quarry" and “dedicate cells in existing landfill", with the best performance of the first one. While for long period “treatment plant to eliminate hazard from asbestos-containing waste" was prevalent, although high energy demand required to achieve the change of crystalline structure. A comparison with results from a participative approach in valuation process might be considered as future development of method application to ACW management.

Computation of the Filtering Properties of Photonic Crystal Waveguide Discontinuities Using the Mode Matching Method

In this paper, the application of the Mode Matching (MM) method in the case of photonic crystal waveguide discontinuities is presented. The structure under consideration is divided into a number of cells, which supports a number of guided and evanescent modes. These modes can be calculated numerically by an alternative formulation of the plane wave expansion method for each frequency. A matrix equation is then formed relating the modal amplitudes at the beginning and at the end of the structure. The theory is highly efficient and accurate and can be applied to study the transmission sensitivity of photonic crystal devices due to fabrication tolerances. The accuracy of the MM method is compared to the Finite Difference Frequency Domain (FDFD) and the Adjoint Variable Method (AVM) and good agreement is observed.

A Study on Cancer-Cell Invasion Based On the Diffuse Interface Model

In this study, a three-dimensional haptotaxis model to simulate the migration of a population of cancer cells has been proposed. The invasion of cancer cells is related with the hapto-attractant and the effect of the interface energies between the cells and the ECM. The diffuse interface model, which incorporates the haptotaxis mechanism and interface energies, is employed. The semi-implicit Fourier spectral scheme is adopted for efficient evaluation of the simulation. The simulation results thoroughly reveal the dynamics of cancer-cell migration.

Study of Sugarcane Bagasse Pretreatment with Sulfuric Acid as a Step of Cellulose Obtaining

To produce sugar and ethanol, sugarcane processing generates several agricultural residues, being straw and bagasse is considered as the main among them. And what to do with this residues has been subject of many studies and experiences in an industry that, in recent years, highlighted by the ability to transform waste into valuable products such as electric power. Cellulose is the main component of these materials. It is the most common organic polymer and represents about 1.5 x 1012 tons of total production of biomass per year and is considered an almost inexhaustible source of raw material. Pretreatment with mineral acids is one of the most widely used as stage of cellulose extraction from lignocellulosic materials for solubilizing most of the hemicellulose content. This study had as goal to find the best reaction time of sugarcane bagasse pretreatment with sulfuric acid in order to minimize the losses of cellulose concomitantly with the highest possible removal of hemicellulose and lignin. It was found that the best time for this reaction was 40 minutes, in which it was reached a loss of hemicelluloses around 70% and lignin and cellulose, around 15%. Over this time, it was verified that the cellulose loss increased and there was no loss of lignin and hemicellulose.

Dimension Reduction of Microarray Data Based on Local Principal Component

Analysis and visualization of microarraydata is veryassistantfor biologists and clinicians in the field of diagnosis and treatment of patients. It allows Clinicians to better understand the structure of microarray and facilitates understanding gene expression in cells. However, microarray dataset is a complex data set and has thousands of features and a very small number of observations. This very high dimensional data set often contains some noise, non-useful information and a small number of relevant features for disease or genotype. This paper proposes a non-linear dimensionality reduction algorithm Local Principal Component (LPC) which aims to maps high dimensional data to a lower dimensional space. The reduced data represents the most important variables underlying the original data. Experimental results and comparisons are presented to show the quality of the proposed algorithm. Moreover, experiments also show how this algorithm reduces high dimensional data whilst preserving the neighbourhoods of the points in the low dimensional space as in the high dimensional space.