Abstract: The problem of generation expansion planning (GEP)
has been extensively studied for many years. This paper presents
three topics in GEP as follow: statistical model, models for
generation expansion, and expansion problem. In the topic of
statistical model, the main stages of the statistical modeling are
briefly explained. Some works on models for GEP are reviewed in
the topic of models for generation expansion. Finally for the topic of
expansion problem, the major issues in the development of a longterm
expansion plan are summarized.
Abstract: Most of the well known methods for generating
Gaussian variables require at least one standard uniform distributed
value, for each Gaussian variable generated. The length of the
random number generator therefore, limits the number of
independent Gaussian distributed variables that can be generated
meanwhile the statistical solution of complex systems requires a
large number of random numbers for their statistical analysis. We
propose an alternative simple method of generating almost infinite
number of Gaussian distributed variables using a limited number of
standard uniform distributed random numbers.
Abstract: The business strategy of any company wanting to be
competitive on the market should be designed around the concept of
intangibles, with an increasingly decisive role in knowledge transfer
of the biggest corporations. Advancing the research in these areas,
this study integrates the two approaches, emphasizing the
relationships between the components of intellectual capital and
corporate social responsibility. The three dimensions of intellectual
capital in terms of sustainability requirements are debated. The paper
introduces the concept of sustainable intellectual capital and debates
it within an assessment model designed on the base of key
performance indicators. The results refer to the assessment of
possible ways for including the information on intellectual capital
and corporate responsibility within the corporate strategy. The
conclusions enhance the need for companies to be ready to support
the integration of this type of information the knowledge transfer
process, in order to develop competitive advantage on the market.
Abstract: Data Warehousing tools have become very popular and currently many of them have moved to Web-based user interfaces to make it easier to access and use the tools. The next step is to enable these tools to be used within a portal framework. The portal framework consists of pages having several small windows that contain individual data warehouse query results. There are several issues that need to be considered when designing the architecture for a portal enabled data warehouse query tool. Some issues need special techniques that can overcome the limitations that are imposed by the nature of data warehouse queries. Issues such as single sign-on, query result caching and sharing, customization, scheduling and authorization need to be considered. This paper discusses such issues and suggests an architecture to support data warehouse queries within Web portal frameworks.
Abstract: Let a and b be nonnegative integers with 2 ≤ a < b, and
let G be a Hamiltonian graph of order n with n ≥ (a+b−4)(a+b−2)
b−2 .
An [a, b]-factor F of G is called a Hamiltonian [a, b]-factor if F
contains a Hamiltonian cycle. In this paper, it is proved that G has a
Hamiltonian [a, b]-factor if |NG(X)| > (a−1)n+|X|−1
a+b−3 for every nonempty
independent subset X of V (G) and δ(G) > (a−1)n+a+b−4
a+b−3 .
Abstract: The main objective of this article is to present the semi-active vibration control using an electro-rheological fluid embedded sandwich structure for a cantilever beam. ER fluid is a smart material, which cause the suspended particles polarize and connect each other to form chain. The stiffness and damping coefficients of the ER fluid can be changed in 10 micro seconds; therefore, ERF is suitable to become the material embedded in the tunable vibration absorber to become a smart absorber. For the ERF smart material embedded structure, the fuzzy control law depends on the experimental expert database and the proposed self-tuning strategy. The electric field is controlled by a CRIO embedded system to implement the real application. This study investigates the different performances using the Type-1 fuzzy and interval Type-2 fuzzy controllers. The Interval type-2 fuzzy control is used to improve the modeling uncertainties for this ERF embedded shock absorber. The self-tuning vibration controllers using Type-1 and Interval Type-2 fuzzy law are implemented to the shock absorber system. Based on the resulting performance, Internal Type-2 fuzzy is better than the traditional Type-1 fuzzy control for this vibration control system.
Abstract: This paper presents the development and application of an adaptive neuro fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) based intelligent hybrid neuro fuzzy controller for automatic generation control (AGC) of two-area interconnected thermal power system with reheat non linearity. The dynamic response of the system has been studied for 1% step load perturbation in area-1. The performance of the proposed neuro fuzzy controller is compared against conventional proportional-integral (PI) controller, state feedback linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller and fuzzy gain scheduled proportionalintegral (FGSPI) controller. Comparative analysis demonstrates that the proposed intelligent neuro fuzzy controller is the most effective of all in improving the transients of frequency and tie-line power deviations against small step load disturbances. Simulations have been performed using Matlab®.
Abstract: Low carbon deep drawing steel DC 01 according to EN 10130-91 was nitrooxidized in dissociated ammonia at 580°C/45 min and consequently oxidised at 380°C/5 min in vapour of distilled water. Material after nitrooxidation had 54 % increase of yield point, 34 % increase of strength and 10-times increased resistance to atmospheric corrosion in comparison to the material before nitrooxidation. The microstructure of treated material consisted of thin ε-phase layer connected to layer containing precipitated massive needle shaped Fe4N - γ' nitrides. This layer passed to a diffusion layer consisting of fine irregular shaped Fe16N2 - α'' nitrides regularly dispersed in ferritic matrix. Fatigue properties were examined under bending load with frequency of 20 kHz and sinusoidal symmetric cycle. The results confirmed positive influence of nitrooxidation on fatigue properties as fatigue limit of treated material was double in comparison to untreated material.
Abstract: Increasing growth of information volume in the
internet causes an increasing need to develop new (semi)automatic
methods for retrieval of documents and ranking them according to
their relevance to the user query. In this paper, after a brief review
on ranking models, a new ontology based approach for ranking
HTML documents is proposed and evaluated in various
circumstances. Our approach is a combination of conceptual,
statistical and linguistic methods. This combination reserves the
precision of ranking without loosing the speed. Our approach
exploits natural language processing techniques for extracting
phrases and stemming words. Then an ontology based conceptual
method will be used to annotate documents and expand the query.
To expand a query the spread activation algorithm is improved so
that the expansion can be done in various aspects. The annotated
documents and the expanded query will be processed to compute
the relevance degree exploiting statistical methods. The outstanding
features of our approach are (1) combining conceptual, statistical
and linguistic features of documents, (2) expanding the query with
its related concepts before comparing to documents, (3) extracting
and using both words and phrases to compute relevance degree, (4)
improving the spread activation algorithm to do the expansion based
on weighted combination of different conceptual relationships and
(5) allowing variable document vector dimensions. A ranking
system called ORank is developed to implement and test the
proposed model. The test results will be included at the end of the
paper.
Abstract: This study examined the effects of two dynamic
visualizations on 60 Malaysian primary school student-s performance
(time on task), retention and transference. The independent variables
in this study were the two dynamic visualizations, the video and the
animated instructions. The dependent variables were the gain score of
performance, retention and transference. The results showed that the
students in the animation group significantly outperformed the
students in the video group in retention. There were no significant
differences in terms of gain scores in the performance and
transference among the animation and the video groups, although the
scores were slightly higher in the animation group compared to the
video group. The conclusion of this study is that the animation
visualization is superior compared to the video in the retention for a
procedural task.
Abstract: Conventional approaches in the implementation of logic programming applications on embedded systems are solely of software nature. As a consequence, a compiler is needed that transforms the initial declarative logic program to its equivalent procedural one, to be programmed to the microprocessor. This approach increases the complexity of the final implementation and reduces the overall system's performance. On the contrary, presenting hardware implementations which are only capable of supporting logic programs prevents their use in applications where logic programs need to be intertwined with traditional procedural ones, for a specific application. We exploit HW/SW codesign methods to present a microprocessor, capable of supporting hybrid applications using both programming approaches. We take advantage of the close relationship between attribute grammar (AG) evaluation and knowledge engineering methods to present a programmable hardware parser that performs logic derivations and combine it with an extension of a conventional RISC microprocessor that performs the unification process to report the success or failure of those derivations. The extended RISC microprocessor is still capable of executing conventional procedural programs, thus hybrid applications can be implemented. The presented implementation is programmable, supports the execution of hybrid applications, increases the performance of logic derivations (experimental analysis yields an approximate 1000% increase in performance) and reduces the complexity of the final implemented code. The proposed hardware design is supported by a proposed extended C-language called C-AG.
Abstract: Global climate change has become the preeminent
threat to human security in the 21st century. From mitigation perspective, this study aims to evaluate the performance of biogas
renewable project under clean development mechanism activities
(namely Korat-Waste-to-Energy) in Thailand and to assess local perceptions towards the significance of climate change mitigation and
sustainability of such project in their community. Questionnaire was
developed based on the national sustainable development criteria and
was distributed among systematically selected households within
project boundaries (n=260). Majority of the respondents strongly agreed with the reduction of odor problems (81%) and air pollution
(76%). However, they were unsure about greenhouse gas reduction from such project and ignorant about the key issues of climate change. A lesson learned suggested that there is a need to further
investigate the possible socio-psychological barriers may significantly shape public perception and understandings of climate
change in the local context.
Abstract: The kinematics of manipulators is a central problem in the automatic control of robot manipulators. Theoretical background for the analysis of the 5 Dof Lynx-6 educational Robot Arm kinematics is presented in this paper. The kinematics problem is defined as the transformation from the Cartesian space to the joint space and vice versa. The Denavit-Harbenterg (D-H) model of representation is used to model robot links and joints in this study. Both forward and inverse kinematics solutions for this educational manipulator are presented, An effective method is suggested to decrease multiple solutions in inverse kinematics. A visual software package, named MSG, is also developed for testing Motional Characteristics of the Lynx-6 Robot arm. The kinematics solutions of the software package were found to be identical with the robot arm-s physical motional behaviors.
Abstract: This paper deals about four items assembly process of
linear drive. This assembly will be realized in flexible assembly cell
on Institute of Manufacturing Systems and Applied Mechanics. There
is defined manufacturing cell, individual actuators created our
flexible cell. Next chapter is about control type, detailed describe a
sequence control type, which will be used in mentioned flexible
assembly cell. All cell control is divided in individual steps
instructions. There instructions illustrate table number III.
Abstract: Effects of bio-nitrogen fertilizer (bio-N), as a partial
alternative to mineral-nitrogen fertilizer (mineral-N), on growth,
yield and yield quality of broccoli plants were investigated. Bio-N
was applied at 1, 2 or 3 doses in combination with 65% of the
recommended dose of mineral-N (bio-N1, bio-N2 or bio-N3 +
⅔mineral-N). However, 100% of the recommended dose of mineral-
N was applied as a control. Significant positive influences of the bio-
N3 + ⅔mineral-N treatment were observed on growth traits, leaf
contents of nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, nitrate and nitrite, and
yield quality when compared to the other two combined treatments.
In contrast, there were no significant differences in these parameters
between the bio-N3 + ⅔mineral-N and the control treatments, except
for leaf contents of nitrate and nitrite. They showed lower contents in
the bio-N3 + ⅔mineral-N treatment than the control. Therefore, we
recommend using bio-N as a partial alternative to mineral-N for
healthy nutrition.
Abstract: Repeated observation of a given area over time yields
potential for many forms of change detection analysis. These
repeated observations are confounded in terms of radiometric
consistency due to changes in sensor calibration over time,
differences in illumination, observation angles and variation in
atmospheric effects.
This paper demonstrates applicability of an empirical relative
radiometric normalization method to a set of multitemporal cloudy
images acquired by Resourcesat1 LISS III sensor. Objective of this
study is to detect and remove cloud cover and normalize an image
radiometrically. Cloud detection is achieved by using Average
Brightness Threshold (ABT) algorithm. The detected cloud is
removed and replaced with data from another images of the same
area. After cloud removal, the proposed normalization method is
applied to reduce the radiometric influence caused by non surface
factors. This process identifies landscape elements whose reflectance
values are nearly constant over time, i.e. the subset of non-changing
pixels are identified using frequency based correlation technique. The
quality of radiometric normalization is statistically assessed by R2
value and mean square error (MSE) between each pair of analogous
band.
Abstract: In the present work, the effective moisture diffusivity
and activation energy were calculated using an infinite series solution
of Fick-s diffusion equation. The results showed that increasing
drying temperature accelerated the drying process. All drying
experiments had only falling rate period. The average effective
moisture diffusivity values varied from 2.807x10-10 to 6.977x10-10m2
s_1 over the temperature and velocity range. The temperature
dependence of the effective moisture diffusivity for the thin layer
drying of the ginger slices was satisfactorily described by an
Arrhenius-type relationship with activation energy values of 19.313-
22.722 kJ.mol-1 within 40–70 °C and 0.8-3 ms-1 temperature range.
Abstract: Malaria is transmitted to the human by biting of
infected Anopheles mosquitoes. This disease is a serious, acute and
chronic relapsing infection to humans. Fever, nausea, vomiting, back
pain, increased sweating anemia and splenomegaly (enlargement of
the spleen) are the symptoms of the patients who infected with this
disease. It is caused by the multiplication of protozoa parasite of the
genus Plasmodium. Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax,
Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium ovale are the four types of
Plasmodium malaria. A mathematical model for the transmission of
Plasmodium Malaria is developed in which the human and vector
population are divided into two classes, the susceptible and the
infectious classes. In this paper, we formulate the dynamical model
of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax malaria. The
standard dynamical analysis is used for analyzing the behavior for
the transmission of this disease. The Threshold condition is found
and numerical results are shown to confirm the analytical results.
Abstract: The process of wafer fabrication is arguably the most
technologically complex and capital intensive stage in semiconductor
manufacturing. This large-scale discrete-event process is highly reentrant,
and involves hundreds of machines, restrictions, and
processing steps. Therefore, production control of wafer fabrication
facilities (fab), specifically scheduling, is one of the most challenging
problems that this industry faces. Dispatching rules have been
extensively applied to the scheduling problems in semiconductor
manufacturing. Moreover, lot release policies are commonly used in
this manufacturing setting to further improve the performance of such
systems and reduce its inherent variability. In this work, simulation is
used in the scheduling of re-entrant flow shop manufacturing systems
with an application in semiconductor wafer fabrication; where, a
simulation model has been developed for the Intel Five-Machine Six
Step Mini-Fab using the ExtendTM simulation environment. The
Mini-Fab has been selected as it captures the challenges involved in
scheduling the highly re-entrant semiconductor manufacturing lines.
A number of scenarios have been developed and have been used to
evaluate the effect of different dispatching rules and lot release
policies on the selected performance measures. Results of simulation
showed that the performance of the Mini-Fab can be drastically
improved using a combination of dispatching rules and lot release
policy.
Abstract: A low cost Short Message System (SMS) based Home security system equipped with motion, smoke, temperature, humidity and light sensors has been studied and tested. The sensors are controlled by a microprocessor PIC 18F4520 through the SMS having password protection code for the secure operation. The user is able to switch light and the appliances and get instant feedback. Also in cases of emergencies such as fire or robbery the system will send alert message to occupant and relevant civil authorities. The operation of the home security has been tested on Vodafone- Fiji network and Digicel Fiji Network for emergency and feedback responses for 25 samples. The experiment showed that it takes about 8-10s for the security system to respond in case of emergency. It takes about 18-22s for the occupant to switch and monitor lights and appliances and then get feedback depending upon the network traffic.