Key Exchange Protocol over Insecure Channel

Key management represents a major and the most sensitive part of cryptographic systems. It includes key generation, key distribution, key storage, and key deletion. It is also considered the hardest part of cryptography. Designing secure cryptographic algorithms is hard, and keeping the keys secret is much harder. Cryptanalysts usually attack both symmetric and public key cryptosystems through their key management. We introduce a protocol to exchange cipher keys over insecure communication channel. This protocol is based on public key cryptosystem, especially elliptic curve cryptosystem. Meanwhile, it tests the cipher keys and selects only the good keys and rejects the weak one.

Artificial Neural Network based Parameter Estimation and Design Optimization of Loop Antenna

Artificial Neural Network (ANN)s are best suited for prediction and optimization problems. Trained ANNs have found wide spread acceptance in several antenna design systems. Four parameters namely antenna radiation resistance, loss resistance, efficiency, and inductance can be used to design an antenna layout though there are several other parameters available. An ANN can be trained to provide the best and worst case precisions of an antenna design problem defined by these four parameters. This work describes the use of an ANN to generate the four mentioned parameters for a loop antenna for the specified frequency range. It also provides insights to the prediction of best and worst-case design problems observed in applications and thereby formulate a model for physical layout design of a loop antenna.

Robotic End-Effector Impedance Control without Expensive Torque/Force Sensor

A novel low-cost impedance control structure is proposed for monitoring the contact force between end-effector and environment without installing an expensive force/torque sensor. Theoretically, the end-effector contact force can be estimated from the superposition of each joint control torque. There have a nonlinear matrix mapping function between each joint motor control input and end-effector actuating force/torques vector. This new force control structure can be implemented based on this estimated mapping matrix. First, the robot end-effector is manipulated to specified positions, then the force controller is actuated based on the hall sensor current feedback of each joint motor. The model-free fuzzy sliding mode control (FSMC) strategy is employed to design the position and force controllers, respectively. All the hardware circuits and software control programs are designed on an Altera Nios II embedded development kit to constitute an embedded system structure for a retrofitted Mitsubishi 5 DOF robot. Experimental results show that PI and FSMC force control algorithms can achieve reasonable contact force monitoring objective based on this hardware control structure.

A Study on Applying 3D Reconstruction to 3D Last Morphing

When it comes to last, it is regarded as the critical foundation of shoe design and development. A computer aided methodology for various last form designs is proposed in this study. The reverse engineering is mainly applied to the process of scanning for the last form. Then with the minimum energy for revision of surface continuity, the surface reconstruction of last is rebuilt by the feature curves of the scanned last. When the surface reconstruction of last is completed, the weighted arithmetic mean method is applied to the computation on the shape morphing for the control mesh of last, thus 3D last form of different sizes is generated from its original form feature with functions remained. In the end, the result of this study is applied to an application for 3D last reconstruction system. The practicability of the proposed methodology is verified through later case studies.

Remaining Useful Life Prediction Using Elliptical Basis Function Network and Markov Chain

This paper presents a novel method for remaining useful life prediction using the Elliptical Basis Function (EBF) network and a Markov chain. The EBF structure is trained by a modified Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm in order to take into account the missing covariate set. No explicit extrapolation is needed for internal covariates while a Markov chain is constructed to represent the evolution of external covariates in the study. The estimated external and the unknown internal covariates constitute an incomplete covariate set which are then used and analyzed by the EBF network to provide survival information of the asset. It is shown in the case study that the method slightly underestimates the remaining useful life of an asset which is a desirable result for early maintenance decision and resource planning.

Negotiation Support for Value-based Decision in Construction

A Negotiation Support is required on a value-based decision to enable each stakeholder to evaluate and rank the solution alternatives before engaging into negotiation with the other stakeholders. This study demonstrates a process of negotiation support model for selection of a building system from value-based design perspective. The perspective is based on comparison of function and cost of a building system. Multi criteria decision techniques were applied to determine the relative value of the alternative solutions for performing the function. A satisfying option game theory are applied to the criteria of value-based decision which are LCC (life cycle cost) and function based FAST. The results demonstrate a negotiation process to select priorities of a building system. The support model can be extended to an automated negotiation by combining value based decision method, group decision and negotiation support.

Arrival and Departure Scheduling at Hub Airports Considering Airlines Level

As the air traffic increases at a hub airport, some flights cannot land or depart at their preferred target time. This event happens because the airport runways become occupied to near their capacity. It results in extra costs for both passengers and airlines because of the loss of connecting flights or more waiting, more fuel consumption, rescheduling crew members, etc. Hence, devising an appropriate scheduling method that determines a suitable runway and time for each flight in order to efficiently use the hub capacity and minimize the related costs is of great importance. In this paper, we present a mixed-integer zero-one model for scheduling a set of mixed landing and departing flights (despite of most previous studies considered only landings). According to the fact that the flight cost is strongly affected by the level of airline, we consider different airline categories in our model. This model presents a single objective minimizing the total sum of three terms, namely 1) the weighted deviation from targets, 2) the scheduled time of the last flight (i.e., makespan), and 3) the unbalancing the workload on runways. We solve 10 simulated instances of different sizes up to 30 flights and 4 runways. Optimal solutions are obtained in a reasonable time, which are satisfactory in comparison with the traditional rule, namely First- Come-First-Serve (FCFS) that is far apart from optimality in most cases.

Induction Motor Speed Control Using Fuzzy Logic Controller

Because of the low maintenance and robustness induction motors have many applications in the industries. The speed control of induction motor is more important to achieve maximum torque and efficiency. Various speed control techniques like, Direct Torque Control, Sensorless Vector Control and Field Oriented Control are discussed in this paper. Soft computing technique – Fuzzy logic is applied in this paper for the speed control of induction motor to achieve maximum torque with minimum loss. The fuzzy logic controller is implemented using the Field Oriented Control technique as it provides better control of motor torque with high dynamic performance. The motor model is designed and membership functions are chosen according to the parameters of the motor model. The simulated design is tested using various tool boxes in MATLAB. The result concludes that the efficiency and reliability of the proposed speed controller is good.

The Role of Human Resource System on Crisis Resolve

Within the new world order, the term “crisis" is nowadays familiar to companies. Organizations are experiencing conditions which are surprising, uncertain, often adverse and usually unstable. The companies, who grasp the importance of transformation within the information age, have felt the need to develop modern methods to achieve the ability to thrive despite severe shocks. Through strategically managing human resource and developing appropriate elements of human resource system, companies can be assured for resolving the crisis. In this paper the role of HR system on resolving crisis has been evaluated. To help accomplish this, an insight on previous strategic HRM literature and an introduction to the elements and relationship within HR systems has been presented. It also reviews different attitude around resilience in literature. It continues by reviewing three elements central to developing an organization-s capacity for crisis resolving and it will demonstrate how designing proper elements of HR system can lead the organizations to possess the ability for passing through crisis. Finally it will evaluate an Iranian Insurance organization in case of one of the three central elements (specific cognitive ability) and observe how successful they were on developing an effective HR system to be ready for facing crisis.

Communication Behaviors as Predictors of Long-Term Dyadic Adjustment: Personality as a Moderator

In this longitudinal study, we examined the moderating role of personality in the relationship between communication behaviors and long-term dyadic adjustment. A sample of 82 couples completed the NEO Five-Factor Inventory and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. These couples were also videotaped during a 15-minute problem-solving discussion. Approximately 2.5 years later, these couples completed again the Dyadic Adjustment Scale. Results show that personality of both men and women moderates the relationship between communication behaviors of the partner and long-term dyadic adjustment of the individual. Women-s openness and men-s extraversion moderate the relationship between some communication behaviors and long-term dyadic adjustment

Computational Intelligence Hybrid Learning Approach to Time Series Forecasting

Time series forecasting is an important and widely popular topic in the research of system modeling. This paper describes how to use the hybrid PSO-RLSE neuro-fuzzy learning approach to the problem of time series forecasting. The PSO algorithm is used to update the premise parameters of the proposed prediction system, and the RLSE is used to update the consequence parameters. Thanks to the hybrid learning (HL) approach for the neuro-fuzzy system, the prediction performance is excellent and the speed of learning convergence is much faster than other compared approaches. In the experiments, we use the well-known Mackey-Glass chaos time series. According to the experimental results, the prediction performance and accuracy in time series forecasting by the proposed approach is much better than other compared approaches, as shown in Table IV. Excellent prediction performance by the proposed approach has been observed.

Improvement of the Quality of Internet Service Based On an Internet Exchange Point (IXP)

Internet is without any doubt the fastest and effective mean of communication making it possible to reach a great number of people in the world. It draws its base from exchange points. Indeed exchange points are used to inter-connect various Internet suppliers and operators in order to allow them to exchange traffic and it is with these interconnections that Internet made its great strides. They thus make it possible to limit the traffic delivered via the operators of transits. This limitation allows a significant improvement of the quality of service, a reduction in the latency time just as a reduction of the cost of connection for the final subscriber. Through this article we will show how the installation of an IXP allows an improvement and a diversification of the services just as a reduction of the Internet connection costs.

Assessing Local Knowledge Dynamics: Regional Knowledge Economy Indicators

The paper represents a reflection on how to select proper indicators to assess the progress of regional contexts towards a knowledge-based society. Taking the first research methodologies elaborated at an international level (World Bank, OECD, etc.) as a reference point, this work intends to identify a set of indicators of the knowledge economy suitable to adequately understand in which manner and to which extent the territorial development dynamics are correlated with the knowledge-base of the considered local society. After a critical survey of the variables utilized within other approaches adopted by international or national organizations, this paper seeks to elaborate a framework of variables, named Regional Knowledge Economy Indicators (ReKEI), necessary to describe the knowledge-based relations of subnational socio-economic contexts. The realization of this framework has a double purpose: an analytical one consisting in highlighting the regional differences in the governance of knowledge based processes, and an operative one consisting in providing some reference parameters for contributing to increasing the effectiveness of those economic policies aiming at enlarging the knowledge bases of local societies.

Web Driving Performance Monitoring System

Safer driver behavior promoting is the main goal of this paper. It is a fact that drivers behavior is relatively safer when being monitored. Thus, in this paper, we propose a monitoring system to report specific driving event as well as the potentially aggressive events for estimation of the driving performance. Our driving monitoring system is composed of two parts. The first part is the in-vehicle embedded system which is composed of a GPS receiver, a two-axis accelerometer, radar sensor, OBD interface, and GPRS modem. The design considerations that led to this architecture is described in this paper. The second part is a web server where an adaptive hierarchical fuzzy system is proposed to classify the driving performance based on the data that is sent by the in-vehicle embedded system and the data that is provided by the geographical information system (GIS). Our system is robust, inexpensive and small enough to fit inside a vehicle without distracting the driver.

An Analytical Solution for Vibration of Elevator Cables with Small Bending Stiffness

Responses of the dynamical systems are highly affected by the natural frequencies and it has a huge impact on design and operation of high-rise and high-speed elevators. In the present paper, the variational iteration method (VIM) is employed to investigate better understanding the dynamics of elevator cable as a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) swing system. Comparisons made among the results of the proposed closed-form analytical solution, the traditional numerical iterative time integration solution, and the linearized governing equations confirm the accuracy and efficiency of the proposed approach. Furthermore, based on the results of the proposed closed-form solution, the linearization errors in calculating the natural frequencies in different cases are discussed.

Effects of Drought on Yield and Some Yield Components of Chickpea

This research was conducted to determine responses of chickpeas to drought in different periods (early period, late period, no-irrigation, two times irrigation as control). The trial was made in “Randomized Complete Block Design" with three replications on 2010 and 2011 years in Konya-Turkey. Genotypes were consisted from 7 lines of ICARDA, 2 certified lines and 1 local population. The results showed that; as means of years and genotypes, early period stress showed highest (207.47 kg da-1) seed yield and it was followed by control (202.33 kg da-1), late period (144.64 kg da-1) and normal (106.93 kg da-1) stress applications. The genotypes were affected too much by drought and, the lowest seed was taken from non-irrigated plots. As the means of years and stress applications, the highest (196.01 kg da-1) yield was taken from genotype 22255. The reason of yield variation could be derived from different responses of genotypes to drought.

A Study on Linking Upward Substitution and Fuzzy Demands in the Newsboy-Type Problem

This paper investigates the effect of product substitution in the single-period 'newsboy-type' problem in a fuzzy environment. It is supposed that the single-period problem operates under uncertainty in customer demand, which is described by imprecise terms and modelled by fuzzy sets. To perform this analysis, we consider the fuzzy model for two-item with upward substitution. This upward substitutability is reasonable when the products can be stored according to certain attribute levels such as quality, brand or package size. We show that the explicit consideration of this substitution opportunity increase the average expected profit. Computational study is performed to observe the benefits of product's substitution.

A Genetic Algorithm for Optimum Design of PID Controller in Load Frequency Control

In this paper, determining the optimal proportionalintegral- derivative (PID) controller gains of an single-area load frequency control (LFC) system using genetic algorithm (GA) is presented. The LFC is notoriously difficult to control optimally using conventionally tuning a PID controller because the system parameters are constantly changing. It is for this reason the GA as tuning strategy was applied. The simulation has been conducted in MATLAB Simulink package for single area power system. the simulation results shows the effectiveness performance of under various disturbance.

3D Model Retrieval based on Normal Vector Interpolation Method

In this paper, we proposed the distribution of mesh normal vector direction as a feature descriptor of a 3D model. A normal vector shows the entire shape of a model well. The distribution of normal vectors was sampled in proportion to each polygon's area so that the information on the surface with less surface area may be less reflected on composing a feature descriptor in order to enhance retrieval performance. At the analysis result of ANMRR, the enhancement of approx. 12.4%~34.7% compared to the existing method has also been indicated.

Temperature-Dependence of Hardness and Wear Resistance of Stellite Alloys

A group of Stellite alloys are studied in consideration of temperature effects on their hardness and wear resistance. The hardness test is conducted on a micro-hardness tester with a hot stage equipped that allows heating the specimen up to 650°C. The wear resistance of each alloy is evaluated using a pin-on-disc tribometer with a heating furnace built-in that provides the temperature capacity up to 450°C. The experimental results demonstrate that the hardness and wear resistance of Stellite alloys behave differently at room temperature and at high temperatures. The wear resistance of Stellite alloys at room temperature mainly depends on their carbon content and also influenced by the tungsten content in the alloys. However, at high temperatures the wear mechanisms of Stellite alloys become more complex, involving multiple factors. The relationships between chemical composition, microstructure, hardness and wear resistance of these alloys are studied, with focus on temperature effect on these relations.