Abstract: Small tanks, the ancient man-made rain water storage
systems, support the pheasant life and agriculture of the dry zone of
Sri Lanka. Many small tanks were abandoned with time due to
various reasons. Such tanks, rehabilitated in the recent past, were
found to be less sustainable and most of these rehabilitation
approaches have failed. The objective of this research is to assess the
impact of the rehabilitation approaches in the management of small
tanks in the Kurunegala District of Sri Lanka with respect to eight
small tanks. A Sustainability index was developed using seven
indicators representing the ability and commitment of the villagers to
maintain these tanks. The sustainability index of the eight tanks
varied between 79.2 and 47.2 out of a total score of 100. The
conclusion is that, the approaches used for tank rehabilitation have a
significant effect on the sustainability of the management of these
small tanks.
Abstract: Since 1984 many schemes have been proposed for
digital signature protocol, among them those that based on discrete
log and factorizations. However a new identification scheme based
on iterated function (IFS) systems are proposed and proved to be
more efficient. In this study the proposed identification scheme is
transformed into a digital signature scheme by using a one way hash
function. It is a generalization of the GQ signature schemes. The
attractor of the IFS is used to obtain public key from a private one,
and in the encryption and decryption of a hash function. Our aim is
to provide techniques and tools which may be useful towards
developing cryptographic protocols. Comparisons between the
proposed scheme and fractal digital signature scheme based on RSA
setting, as well as, with the conventional Guillou-Quisquater
signature, and RSA signature schemes is performed to prove that, the
proposed scheme is efficient and with high performance.
Abstract: Mobile IP has been developed to provide the
continuous information network access to mobile users. In IP-based
mobile networks, location management is an important component of
mobility management. This management enables the system to track
the location of mobile node between consecutive communications. It
includes two important tasks- location update and call delivery.
Location update is associated with signaling load. Frequent updates
lead to degradation in the overall performance of the network and the
underutilization of the resources. It is, therefore, required to devise
the mechanism to minimize the update rate. Mobile IPv6 (MIPv6)
and Hierarchical MIPv6 (HMIPv6) have been the potential
candidates for deployments in mobile IP networks for mobility
management. HMIPv6 through studies has been shown with better
performance as compared to MIPv6. It reduces the signaling
overhead traffic by making registration process local. In this paper,
we present performance analysis of MIPv6 and HMIPv6 using an
analytical model. Location update cost function is formulated based
on fluid flow mobility model. The impact of cell residence time, cell
residence probability and user-s mobility is investigated. Numerical
results are obtained and presented in graphical form. It is shown that
HMIPv6 outperforms MIPv6 for high mobility users only and for low
mobility users; performance of both the schemes is almost equivalent
to each other.
Abstract: This Classifying Bird Sounds (chip notes) project-s
purpose is to reduce the unwanted noise from recorded bird sound
chip notes, design a scheme to detect differences and similarities
between recorded chip notes, and classify bird sound chip notes. The
technologies of determining the similarities of sound waves have
been used in communication, sound engineering and wireless sound
applications for many years. Our research is focused on the similarity
of chip notes, which are the sounds from different birds. The program
we use is generated by Microsoft Cµ.
Abstract: Results of Chilean wine classification based on the
information provided by an electronic nose are reported in this paper.
The classification scheme consists of two parts; in the first stage,
Principal Component Analysis is used as feature extraction method to
reduce the dimensionality of the original information. Then, Radial
Basis Functions Neural Networks is used as pattern recognition
technique to perform the classification. The objective of this study is
to classify different Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Carménère wine
samples from different years, valleys and vineyards of Chile.
Abstract: Solid fuel transient burning behavior under oxidizer
gas flow is numerically investigated. It is done using analysis of the
regression rate responses to the imposed sudden and oscillatory
variation at inflow properties. The conjugate problem is considered
by simultaneous solution of flow and solid phase governing
equations to compute the fuel regression rate. The advection
upstream splitting method is used as flow computational scheme in
finite volume method. The ignition phase is completely simulated to
obtain the exact initial condition for response analysis. The results
show that the transient burning effects which lead to the combustion
instabilities and intermittent extinctions could be observed in solid
fuels as the solid propellants.
Abstract: In this paper, by utilizing the coincidence degree theorem a predator-prey model with modified Leslie-Gower Hollingtype II schemes and a deviating argument is studied. Some sufficient conditions are obtained for the existence of positive periodic solutions of the model.
Abstract: This paper proposes a smart design strategy for a sequential detector to reliably detect the primary user-s signal, especially in fast fading environments. We study the computation of the log-likelihood ratio for coping with a fast changing received signal and noise sample variances, which are considered random variables. First, we analyze the detectability of the conventional generalized log-likelihood ratio (GLLR) scheme when considering fast changing statistics of unknown parameters caused by fast fading effects. Secondly, we propose an efficient sensing algorithm for performing the sequential probability ratio test in a robust and efficient manner when the channel statistics are unknown. Finally, the proposed scheme is compared to the conventional method with simulation results with respect to the average number of samples required to reach a detection decision.
Abstract: The chemical degradation of dieldrin in ferric
sulfide and iron powder aqueous suspension was investigated
in laboratory batch type experiments. To identify the reaction
mechanism, reduced copper was used as reductant. More than
90% of dieldrin was degraded using both reaction systems after
29 days. Initial degradation rate of the pesticide using ferric
sulfide was superior to that using iron powder. The reaction
schemes were completely dissimilar even though the ferric ion
plays an important role in both reaction systems. In the case of
metallic iron powder, dieldrin undergoes partial dechlorination.
This reaction proceeded by reductive hydrodechlorination with
the generation of H+, which arise by oxidation of ferric iron.
This reductive reaction was accelerated by reductant but
mono-dechlorination intermediates were accumulated. On the
other hand, oxidative degradation was observed in the reaction
with ferric sulfide, and the stable chemical structure of dieldrin
was decomposed into water-soluble intermediates. These
reaction intermediates have no chemical structure of drin class.
This dehalogenation reaction assumes to occur via the adsorbed
hydroxyl radial generated on the surface of ferric sulfide.
Abstract: The major problem that wireless communication
systems undergo is multipath fading caused by scattering of the
transmitted signal. However, we can treat multipath propagation as
multiple channels between the transmitter and receiver to improve
the signal-to-scattering-noise ratio. While using Single Input
Multiple Output (SIMO) systems, the diversity receivers extract
multiple signal branches or copies of the same signal received from
different channels and apply gain combining schemes such as Root
Mean Square Gain Combining (RMSGC). RMSGC asymptotically
yields an identical performance to that of the theoretically optimal
Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) for values of mean Signal-to-
Noise-Ratio (SNR) above a certain threshold value without the need
for SNR estimation. This paper introduces an improvement of
RMSGC using two different issues. We found that post-detection and
de-noising the received signals improve the performance of RMSGC
and lower the threshold SNR.
Abstract: Elliptic curve-based certificateless signature is slowly
gaining attention due to its ability to retain the efficiency of
identity-based signature to eliminate the need of certificate
management while it does not suffer from inherent private
key escrow problem. Generally, cryptosystem based on elliptic
curve offers equivalent security strength at smaller key sizes
compared to conventional cryptosystem such as RSA which
results in faster computations and efficient use of computing
power, bandwidth, and storage. This paper proposes to implement
certificateless signature based on bilinear pairing to
structure the framework of IKE authentication. In this paper,
we perform a comparative analysis of certificateless signature
scheme with a well-known RSA scheme and also present the
experimental results in the context of signing and verification
execution times. By generalizing our observations, we discuss the
different trade-offs involved in implementing IKE authentication
by using certificateless signature.
Abstract: The electrical and structural properties of Hf/Al/Ni/Au
(20/100/25/50 nm) ohmic contact to n-GaN are reported in this study.
Specific contact resistivities of Hf/Al/Ni/Au based contacts have been
investigated as a function of annealing temperature and achieve the
lowest value of 1.09´10-6 Ω·cm2 after annealing at 650 oC in vacuum.
A detailed mechanism of ohmic contact formation is discussed. By
using different chemical analyses, it is anticipated that the formation of
Hf-Al-N alloy might be responsible to form low temperature ohmic
contacts for the Hf-based scheme to n-GaN.
Abstract: The production of devices in nanoscale with specific
molecular rectifying function is one of the most significant goals in
state-of-art technology. In this work we show by ab initio quantum
mechanics calculations coupled with non-equilibrium Green
function, the design of an organic two-terminal device. These
molecular structures have molecular source and drain with several
bridge length (from five up to 11 double bonds). Our results are
consistent with significant features as a molecular rectifier and can be
raised up as: (a) it can be used as bi-directional symmetrical rectifier;
(b) two devices integrated in one (FET with one operational region,
and Thyristor thiristor); (c) Inherent stability due small intrinsic
capacitance under forward/reverse bias. We utilize a scheme for the
transport mechanism based on previous properties of ¤Ç bonds type
that can be successfully utilized to construct organic nanodevices.
Abstract: In this paper, an image adaptive, invisible digital
watermarking algorithm with Orthogonal Polynomials based
Transformation (OPT) is proposed, for copyright protection of digital
images. The proposed algorithm utilizes a visual model to determine
the watermarking strength necessary to invisibly embed the
watermark in the mid frequency AC coefficients of the cover image,
chosen with a secret key. The visual model is designed to generate a
Just Noticeable Distortion mask (JND) by analyzing the low level
image characteristics such as textures, edges and luminance of the
cover image in the orthogonal polynomials based transformation
domain. Since the secret key is required for both embedding and
extraction of watermark, it is not possible for an unauthorized user to
extract the embedded watermark. The proposed scheme is robust to
common image processing distortions like filtering, JPEG
compression and additive noise. Experimental results show that the
quality of OPT domain watermarked images is better than its DCT
counterpart.
Abstract: the cursive nature of the Arabic writing makes it
difficult to accurately segment characters or even deal with the whole
word efficiently. Therefore, in this paper, a printed Arabic sub-word
recognition system is proposed. The suggested algorithm utilizes
geometrical moments as descriptors for the separated sub-words.
Three types of moments are investigated and applied to the printed
sub-word images after dividing each image into multiple parts using
windowing. Since moments are global descriptors, the windowing
mechanism allows the moments to be applied to local regions of the
sub-word. The local-global mixture of the proposed scheme increases
the discrimination power of the moments while keeping the
simplicity and ease of use of moments.
Abstract: In this paper, a numerical study has been made to
analyze the transient 2-D flows of a viscous incompressible fluid
through channels with forward or backward constriction. Problems
addressed include flow through sudden contraction and sudden
expansion channel geometries with rounded and increasingly sharp
reentrant corner. In both the cases, numerical results are presented for
the separation and reattachment points, streamlines, vorticity and
flow patterns. A fourth order accurate compact scheme has been
employed to efficiently capture steady state solutions of the
governing equations. It appears from our study that sharpness of the
throat in the channel is one of the important parameters to control the
strength and size of the separation zone without modifying the
general flow patterns. The comparison between the two cases shows
that the upstream geometry plays a significant role on vortex growth
dynamics.
Abstract: The use of wind energy for electricity generation is
growing rapidly across the world and in Portugal. However, the
geographical characteristics of the country along with the average
wind regime and with the environmental restrictions imposed to these
projects create limitations to the exploit of the onshore wind
resource. The best onshore wind spots are already committed and the
possibility of offshore wind farms in the Portuguese cost is now
being considered. This paper aims to make a contribution to the
evaluation of offshore wind power projects in Portugal. The technical
restrictions are addressed and the strategic, environmental and
financial interest of the project is analysed from the private company
and public points of view. The results suggest that additional support
schemes are required to ensure private investors interest for these
projects. Assuming an approach of direct substitution of energy
sources for electricity generation, the avoided CO2 equivalent
emissions for an offshore wind power project were quantified. Based
on the conclusions, future research is proposed to address the
environmental and social impacts of these projects.
Abstract: This paper presents the adaptive control scheme
with sliding mode compensator for vibration control problem
in the presence of disturbance. The dynamic model of the
flexible cantilever beam using finite element modeling is
derived. The adaptive control with sliding mode compensator
using output feedback for output tracking is developed to
reject the external disturbance, and to improve the tracking
performance. Satisfactory simulation results verify that the
effectiveness of adaptive control scheme with sliding mode
compensator.
Abstract: The three-dimensional incompressible flow past a
rectangular open cavity is investigated, where the aspect ratio of the
cavity is considered as 4. The principle objective is to use large-eddy
simulation to resolve and control the large-scale structures, which are
largely responsible for flow oscillations in a cavity. The flow past an
open cavity is very common in aerospace applications and can be a
cause of acoustic source due to hydrodynamic instability of the shear
layer and its interactions with the downstream edge. The unsteady
Navier-stokes equations have been solved on a staggered mesh using
a symmetry-preserving central difference scheme. Synthetic jet has
been used as an active control to suppress the cavity oscillations in
wake mode for a Reynolds number of ReD = 3360. The effect of
synthetic jet has been studied by varying the jet amplitude and
frequency, which is placed at the upstream wall of the cavity. The
study indicates that there exits a frequency band, which is larger than
a critical value, is effective in attenuating cavity oscillations when
blowing ratio is more than 1.0.
Abstract: This paper proposes an implementation for the
directed diffusion paradigm aids in studying this paradigm-s
operations and evaluates its behavior according to this
implementation. The directed diffusion is evaluated with respect to
the loss percentage, lifetime, end-to-end delay, and throughput.
From these evaluations some suggestions and modifications are
proposed to improve the directed diffusion behavior according to
this implementation with respect to these metrics. The proposed
modifications reflect the effect of local path repair by introducing a
technique called Loop-free Local Path Repair (LLPR) which
improves the directed diffusion behavior especially with respect to
packet loss percentage by about 92.69%. Also LLPR improves the
throughput and end-to-end delay by about 55.31% and 14.06%
respectively, while the lifetime decreases by about 29.79%.