Abstract: The main objectives of this study are to inspect and
identify any damage of jaimusi highway prestressed concrete bridge
after repair and strengthening of damaged structural members and to
evaluate the performance of the bridge structural members by
adopting static load test. Inspection program after repair and
strengthening includes identifying and evaluating the structural
members of bridge such as T-shape cantilever structure, hanging
beams, corbels, external tendons, anchor beams, sticking steel plate,
and piers. The results of inspection show that the overall state of the
bridge structural member after repair and strengthening is good. The
results of rebound test of concrete strength show that the average
strength of concrete is 46.31Mpa. Whereas, the average value of
concrete strength of anchor beam is 49.82Mpa. According to the
results of static load test, the experimental values are less than
theoretical values of internal forces, deflection, and strain, indicating
that the stiffness of the experimental structure, overall deformation
and integrity satisfy the designed standard and the working
performance is good, and the undertaking capacity has a certain
surplus. There is not visible change in the length and width of cracks
and there are not new cracks under experimental load.
Abstract: Using finite element method (FEM), the elastic
new strain-concentration factor (SNCF) of cylindrical bars
with circumferential flat-bottom groove is studied. This new
SNCF has been defined under triaxial stress state. The
employed specimens have constant groove depth with net
section and gross diameters of 10.0 and 16.7 mm,
respectively. The length of flatness ao has been varied form
0.0 ~12.5 mm to study the elastic SNCF of this type of
geometrical irregularities. The results that the elastic new
SNCF rapidly drops from its elastic value of the groove with
ao = 0.0, i.e. circumferential U-notch, and reaches minimum
value at ao = 2 mm. After that the elastic new SNCF becomes
nearly constant with increasing flatness length (ao). The value
of tensile load at yielding at the groove root increases with
increasing ao. The current results show that severity of the
notch decreases with increasing flatness length ao.
Abstract: This paper presents nonlinear elastic dynamic analysis
of 3-D semi-rigid steel frames including geometric and connection
nonlinearities. The geometric nonlinearity is considered by using
stability functions and updating geometric stiffness matrix. The
nonlinear behavior of the steel beam-to-column connection is
considered by using a zero-length independent connection element
comprising of six translational and rotational springs. The nonlinear
dynamic equilibrium equations are solved by the Newmark numerical
integration method. The nonlinear time-history analysis results are
compared with those of previous studies and commercial SAP2000
software to verify the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed
procedure.
Abstract: Physical and mechanical properties of Russian olive
fruits were measured at moisture content of 14.43% w.b. The results
revealed that the mean length, width and thickness of Russian olive
fruits were 20.72, 15.73 and 14.69mm, respectively. Mean mass and
volume of Russian olive fruits were measured as 1.45 g and 2.55 cm3,
respectively. The sphericity, aspect ratio and surface area were
calculated as 0.81, 0.72 and 8.96 cm2, respectively, while arithmetic
mean diameter, geometric mean diameter and equivalent diameter of
Russian olive fruits were 17.05, 16.83 and 16.84 mm, respectively.
Whole fruit density, bulk density and porosity of jujube fruits were
measured and found to be 1.01 g/cm3, 0.29 g/cm3 and 69.5%,
respectively. The values of static coefficient of friction on three
surfaces of glass, galvanized iron and plywood were 0.35, 0.36 and
0.43, respectively. The skin color (L*, a*, b*) varied from 9.92 to
16.08; 2.04 to 3.91 and 1.12 to 3.83, respectively. The values of
rupture force, deformation, energy absorbed and hardness were found
to be between 12.14-16.85 N, 2.16-4.25 mm, 3.42-6.99 N mm and
17.1-23.85 N/mm.
Abstract: One part of the total employee’s reward is apart from basic wages or salary, employee’s benefits and intangible remuneration also so called contingent (variable) pay. Contingent pay is connected to performance, contribution, cap competency or skills of individual employees, and to team’s or company-wide performance or to combination of few of the mentioned possibilities. Sometimes among the contingent pay is also incorporated the remuneration based on length of employment, when the financial reward is not connected to performance or skills, but to length of continuous employment either on one working position or in one level of remuneration scale. Main aim of this article is to define, based on available information, contingent pay, describe individual forms, its advantages and disadvantages and possibilities to utilization in practice; but also bring information not only about its extent and level of utilization of contingent pay by companies in one of the Czech Republic’s regions, but also mention their practical experience with this type of remuneration.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to determine the stress levels
at the end of a long slender shaft such as a drilling assembly used in
the oil or gas industry using a mathematical model in real-time. The
torsional deflection experienced by this type of drilling shaft (about 4
KM length and 20 cm diameter hollow shaft with a thickness of 1
cm) can only be determined using a distributed modeling technique.
The main objective of this project is to calculate angular velocity and
torque at the end of the shaft by TLM method and also analyzing of
the behavior of the system by transient response. The obtained result
is compared with lumped modeling technique the importance of these
results will be evident only after the mentioned comparison. Two
systems have different transient responses and in this project because
of the length of the shaft transient response is very important.
Abstract: Cryptographic algorithms play a crucial role in the
information society by providing protection from unauthorized
access to sensitive data. It is clear that information technology will
become increasingly pervasive, Hence we can expect the emergence
of ubiquitous or pervasive computing, ambient intelligence. These
new environments and applications will present new security
challenges, and there is no doubt that cryptographic algorithms and
protocols will form a part of the solution. The efficiency of a public
key cryptosystem is mainly measured in computational overheads,
key size and bandwidth. In particular the RSA algorithm is used in
many applications for providing the security. Although the security
of RSA is beyond doubt, the evolution in computing power has
caused a growth in the necessary key length. The fact that most chips
on smart cards can-t process key extending 1024 bit shows that there
is need for alternative. NTRU is such an alternative and it is a
collection of mathematical algorithm based on manipulating lists of
very small integers and polynomials. This allows NTRU to high
speeds with the use of minimal computing power. NTRU (Nth degree
Truncated Polynomial Ring Unit) is the first secure public key
cryptosystem not based on factorization or discrete logarithm
problem. This means that given sufficient computational resources
and time, an adversary, should not be able to break the key. The
multi-party communication and requirement of optimal resource
utilization necessitated the need for the present day demand of
applications that need security enforcement technique .and can be
enhanced with high-end computing. This has promoted us to develop
high-performance NTRU schemes using approaches such as the use
of high-end computing hardware. Peer-to-peer (P2P) or enterprise
grids are proven as one of the approaches for developing high-end
computing systems. By utilizing them one can improve the
performance of NTRU through parallel execution. In this paper we
propose and develop an application for NTRU using enterprise grid
middleware called Alchemi. An analysis and comparison of its
performance for various text files is presented.
Abstract: Three-dimensional simulation of harmonic up
generation in free electron laser amplifier operating simultaneously
with a cold and relativistic electron beam is presented in steady-state
regime where the slippage of the electromagnetic wave with respect
to the electron beam is ignored. By using slowly varying envelope
approximation and applying the source-dependent expansion to wave
equations, electromagnetic fields are represented in terms of the
Hermit Gaussian modes which are well suited for the planar wiggler
configuration. The electron dynamics is described by the fully threedimensional
Lorentz force equation in presence of the realistic planar
magnetostatic wiggler and electromagnetic fields. A set of coupled
nonlinear first-order differential equations is derived and solved
numerically. The fundamental and third harmonic radiation of the
beam is considered. In addition to uniform beam, prebunched
electron beam has also been studied. For this effect of sinusoidal
distribution of entry times for the electron beam on the evolution of
radiation is compared with uniform distribution. It is shown that
prebunching reduces the saturation length substantially. For
efficiency enhancement the wiggler is set to decrease linearly when
the radiation of the third harmonic saturates. The optimum starting
point of tapering and the slope of radiation in the amplitude of
wiggler are found by successive run of the code.
Abstract: In this paper a novel structure of metamaterial is
proposed in order to miniaturize a rectangular microstrip patch
antenna. The metamaterial is composed of two nested split octagons
which are located on a 10 mm
Abstract: In high powered dense wavelength division
multiplexed (WDM) systems with low chromatic dispersion,
four-wave mixing (FWM) can prove to be a major source of noise.
The MultiCanonical Monte Carlo Method (MCMC) and the Split
Step Fourier Method (SSFM) are combined to accurately evaluate the
probability density function of the decision variable of a receiver,
limited by FWM. The combination of the two methods leads to more
accurate results, and offers the possibility of adding other optical
noises such as the Amplified Spontaneous Emission (ASE) noise.
Abstract: In order to implement flexibility as well as survivable
capacities over passive optical network (PON), a new automatic
random fault-recovery mechanism with array-waveguide-grating
based (AWG-based) optical switch (OSW) is presented. Firstly,
wavelength-division-multiplexing and optical code-division
multiple-access (WDM/OCDMA) scheme are configured to meet the
various geographical locations requirement between optical network
unit (ONU) and optical line terminal (OLT). The AWG-base optical
switch is designed and viewed as central star-mesh topology to
prohibit/decrease the duplicated redundant elements such as fiber and
transceiver as well. Hence, by simple monitoring and routing switch
algorithm, random fault-recovery capacity is achieved over
bi-directional (up/downstream) WDM/OCDMA scheme. When error
of distribution fiber (DF) takes place or bit-error-rate (BER) is higher
than 10-9 requirement, the primary/slave AWG-based OSW are
adjusted and controlled dynamically to restore the affected ONU
groups via the other working DFs immediately.
Abstract: Some physical properties of musk lime (Citrus
microcarpa) were determined in this study. The average moisture
content (wet basis) of the fruit was found to be 85.10 (±0.72) %. The
mean of length, width and thickness of the fruit was 26.36 (±0.97),
26.40 (±1.04) and 25.26 (±0.94) mm respectively. The average value
for geometric mean diameter, sphericity, aspect ratio, mass, surface
area, volume, true density, bulk density and porosity was 26.00
(±0.82) mm, 98.67 (±2.04) %, 100.23 (±3.28) %, 10.007 (±0.878) g,
2125.07 (±133.93) mm2, 8800.00 (±731.82) mm3, 1002.87 (±39.16)
kgm-3, 501.70 (±22.58) kgm-3 and 49.89 (±3.15) % respectively.
The coefficient of static friction on four types of structural surface
was found to be varying from 0.238 (±0.025) for glass to 0.247
(±0.024) for steel surface.
Abstract: Graphene-metal contact resistance limits the performance of graphene-based electrical devices. In this work, we have fabricated both graphene field-effect transistors (GFET) and transfer length measurement (TLM) test devices with titanium contacts. The purpose of this work is to compare the contact resistances that can be numerically extracted from the GFETs and measured from the TLM structures. We also provide a brief review of the work done in the field to solve the contact resistance problem.
Abstract: This work presents a novel means of extracting fixedlength parameters from voice signals, such that words can be recognized
in linear time. The power and the zero crossing rate are first
calculated segment by segment from a voice signal; by doing so, two
feature sequences are generated. We then construct an FIR system
across these two sequences. The parameters of this FIR system, used
as the input of a multilayer proceptron recognizer, can be derived by
recursive LSE (least-square estimation), implying that the complexity of overall process is linear to the signal size. In the second part of
this work, we introduce a weighting factor λ to emphasize recent
input; therefore, we can further recognize continuous speech signals.
Experiments employ the voice signals of numbers, from zero to nine, spoken in Mandarin Chinese. The proposed method is verified to
recognize voice signals efficiently and accurately.
Abstract: The optimal control problem for the viscoelastic melt
spinning process has not been reported yet in the literature. In this
study, an optimal control problem for a mathematical model of a
viscoelastic melt spinning process is considered. Maxwell-Oldroyd
model is used to describe the rheology of the polymeric material, the
fiber is made of. The extrusion velocity of the polymer at the spinneret
as well as the velocity and the temperature of the quench air and the
fiber length serve as control variables. A constrained optimization
problem is derived and the first–order optimality system is set up
to obtain the adjoint equations. Numerical solutions are carried out
using a steepest descent algorithm. A computer program in MATLAB
is developed for simulations.
Abstract: This paper describes a new supervised fusion (hybrid)
electrocardiogram (ECG) classification solution consisting of a new
QRS complex geometrical feature extraction as well as a new version
of the learning vector quantization (LVQ) classification algorithm
aimed for overcoming the stability-plasticity dilemma. Toward this
objective, after detection and delineation of the major events of ECG
signal via an appropriate algorithm, each QRS region and also its
corresponding discrete wavelet transform (DWT) are supposed as
virtual images and each of them is divided into eight polar sectors.
Then, the curve length of each excerpted segment is calculated
and is used as the element of the feature space. To increase the
robustness of the proposed classification algorithm versus noise,
artifacts and arrhythmic outliers, a fusion structure consisting of
five different classifiers namely as Support Vector Machine (SVM),
Modified Learning Vector Quantization (MLVQ) and three Multi
Layer Perceptron-Back Propagation (MLP–BP) neural networks with
different topologies were designed and implemented. The new proposed
algorithm was applied to all 48 MIT–BIH Arrhythmia Database
records (within–record analysis) and the discrimination power of the
classifier in isolation of different beat types of each record was
assessed and as the result, the average accuracy value Acc=98.51%
was obtained. Also, the proposed method was applied to 6 number
of arrhythmias (Normal, LBBB, RBBB, PVC, APB, PB) belonging
to 20 different records of the aforementioned database (between–
record analysis) and the average value of Acc=95.6% was achieved.
To evaluate performance quality of the new proposed hybrid learning
machine, the obtained results were compared with similar peer–
reviewed studies in this area.
Abstract: Fixed-point simulation results are used for the
performance measure of inverting matrices by Cholesky
decomposition. The fixed-point Cholesky decomposition algorithm
is implemented using a fixed-point reconfigurable processing
element. The reconfigurable processing element provides all
mathematical operations required by Cholesky decomposition. The
fixed-point word length analysis is based on simulations using
different condition numbers and different matrix sizes. Simulation
results show that 16 bits word length gives sufficient performance
for small matrices with low condition number. Larger matrices and
higher condition numbers require more dynamic range for a fixedpoint
implementation.
Abstract: Most routing protocols (DSR, AODV etc.) that have
been designed for wireless adhoc networks incorporate the broadcasting
operation in their route discovery scheme. Probabilistic broadcasting
techniques have been developed to optimize the broadcast operation
which is otherwise very expensive in terms of the redundancy
and the traffic it generates. In this paper we have explored percolation
theory to gain a different perspective on probabilistic broadcasting
schemes which have been actively researched in the recent years.
This theory has helped us estimate the value of broadcast probability
in a wireless adhoc network as a function of the size of the network.
We also show that, operating at those optimal values of broadcast
probability there is at least 25-30% reduction in packet regeneration
during successful broadcasting.
Abstract: Power cables are vulnerable to failure due to aging or
defects that occur with the passage of time under continuous
operation and loading stresses. PD detection and characterization
provide information on the location, nature, form and extent of the
degradation. As a result, PD monitoring has become an important
part of condition based maintenance (CBM) program among power
utilities. Online partial discharge (PD) localization of defect sources
in power cable system is possible using the time of flight method.
The information regarding the time difference between the main and
reflected pulses and cable length can help in locating the partial
discharge source along the cable length. However, if the length of
the cable is not known and the defect source is located at the extreme
ends of the cable or in the middle of the cable, then double ended
measurement is required to indicate the location of PD source. Use of
multiple sensors can also help in discriminating the cable PD or local/
external PD. This paper presents the experience and results from
online partial discharge measurements conducted in the laboratory
and the challenges in partial discharge source localization.
Abstract: Endemic Artemia franciscana populations can be found throughout the American continent and also as an introduced specie in several country all over the world, such as in the Mediterranean region where Artemia franciscana was identified as an invasive specie replacing native Artemia parthenogenetica and Artemia salina. In the present study, the characterization of the new invasive Artemia franciscana reported from Sabkhet Halk El-Menzel (Tunisia) was done based on the cysts biometry, nauplii instar-I length, Adult sexual dimorphism and fatty acid profile. The mean value of the diameter of non-decapsulated and decapsulated cysts, chorion thickness and naupliar length is 235.8, 226.3, 4.75 and 426.8 μm, respectively. Sexual dimorphism for adults specimen showed that maximal distance between compound eyes, diameter for compound eyes, length of first antenna and the abdomen length compared to the total body length ratio, are the most important variables for males and females discrimination with a total contribution of 62.39 %. The analysis of fatty acid methyl esters profile of decapsulated cysts resulted in low levels of linolenic acid (LLA, C18:3n-3) and high levels of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, C20:5n-3) with 3.11 and 11.10 %, respectively. Low quantity of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3) was also observed with 0.17 mg.g-1 dry weight.