Abstract: Vector quantization is a powerful tool for speech
coding applications. This paper deals with LPC Coding of speech
signals which uses a new technique called Multi Switched Split
Vector Quantization (MSSVQ), which is a hybrid of Multi, switched,
split vector quantization techniques. The spectral distortion
performance, computational complexity, and memory requirements
of MSSVQ are compared to split vector quantization (SVQ), multi
stage vector quantization(MSVQ) and switched split vector
quantization (SSVQ) techniques. It has been proved from results that
MSSVQ has better spectral distortion performance, lower
computational complexity and lower memory requirements when
compared to all the above mentioned product code vector
quantization techniques. Computational complexity is measured in
floating point operations (flops), and memory requirements is
measured in (floats).
Abstract: This paper proposes a framework for product
development including hardware and software components. It
provides separation of hardware dependent software, modifications of
current product development process, and integration of software
modules with existing product configuration models and assembly
product structures. In order to decide the dependent software, the
framework considers product configuration modules and engineering
changes of associated software and hardware components. In order to
support efficient integration of the two different hardware and
software development, a modified product development process is
proposed. The process integrates the dependent software development
into product development through the interchanges of specific product
information. By using existing product data models in Product Data
Management (PDM), the framework represents software as modules
for product configurations and software parts for product structure.
The framework is applied to development of a robot system in order to
show its effectiveness.
Abstract: Soils are normally dried in either a convection oven or stove. Laboratory moisture content testing indicated that the typical drying durations for a convection oven were, 24 hours. The purpose of this study was to determine the accuracy and soil drying duration of both, moisture content and liquid limit using microwave radiation. The soils were tested with both, convection and microwave ovens. The convection oven was considered to produce the true values for both, natural moisture content and liquid limit of soils; it was, therefore, used as a basis for comparison for the results of the microwave ovens. The samples used in this study were obtained from different projects of Consulting Engineering Bureau of College of Engineering of Sulaimani University. These samples were collected from different locations and at the different depths and consist mostly of brown and light brown clay and silty clay. A total of 102 samples were prepared. 26 of them were tested for natural moisture determination, while the other 76 were used for liquid limits determination
Abstract: Lighting upgrades involve relatively lower costs which
allow the benefits to be spread more widely than is possible with any
other energy efficiency measure. In order to popularize the adoption of
CFL in Taiwan, the authority proposes to implement a new energy efficient lamp comparative label system. The current study was
accordingly undertaken to investigate the factors affecting the performance and the deviation of actual and labeled performance of
commercially available integrated CFLs. In this paper, standard test
methods to determine the electrical and photometric performances of
CFL were developed based on CIE 84-1989 and CIE 60901-1987,
then 55 selected CFLs from market were tested. The results show that
with higher color temperature of CFLs lower efficacy are achieved. It
was noticed that the most packaging of CFL often lack the information of Color Rendering Index. Also, there was no correlation between
price and performance of the CFLs was indicated in this work. The results of this paper might help consumers to make more informed
CFL-purchasing decisions.
Abstract: Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) is an important
commercial fish and shows to be more and more demanded for
human consumption. Therefore, it is very important to find good
methods for monitoring the freshness of the fish in order to keep it in
the best quality for human consumption. In this study, the fish was
stored in ice up to 2 weeks. Quality changes during storage were
assessed by the Quality Index Method (QIM), quantitative
descriptive analysis (QDA) and Torry scheme, by texture
measurements: puncture tests and Texture Profile Analysis (TPA)
tests on texture analyzer TA.XT2i, and by electronic nose (e-nose)
measurements using FreshSense instrument. Storage time of herring
in ice could be estimated by QIM with ± 2 days using 5 herring per
lot. No correlation between instrumental texture parameters and
storage time or between sensory and instrumental texture variables
was found. E-nose measurements could be use to detect the onset of
spoilage.
Abstract: Querying a data source and routing data towards sink
becomes a serious challenge in static wireless sensor networks if sink
and/or data source are mobile. Many a times the event to be observed
either moves or spreads across wide area making maintenance of
continuous path between source and sink a challenge. Also, sink can
move while query is being issued or data is on its way towards sink.
In this paper, we extend our already proposed Grid Based Data
Dissemination (GBDD) scheme which is a virtual grid based
topology management scheme restricting impact of movement of
sink(s) and event(s) to some specific cells of a grid. This obviates the
need for frequent path modifications and hence maintains continuous
flow of data while minimizing the network energy consumptions.
Simulation experiments show significant improvements in network
energy savings and average packet delay for a packet to reach at sink.
Abstract: In today-s new technology era, cluster has become a
necessity for the modern computing and data applications since many
applications take more time (even days or months) for computation.
Although after parallelization, computation speeds up, still time
required for much application can be more. Thus, reliability of the
cluster becomes very important issue and implementation of fault
tolerant mechanism becomes essential. The difficulty in designing a
fault tolerant cluster system increases with the difficulties of various
failures. The most imperative obsession is that the algorithm, which
avoids a simple failure in a system, must tolerate the more severe
failures. In this paper, we implemented the theory of watchdog timer
in a parallel environment, to take care of failures. Implementation of
simple algorithm in our project helps us to take care of different
types of failures; consequently, we found that the reliability of this
cluster improves.
Abstract: We board the problem of creating a seismic alert
system, based upon artificial neural networks, trained by using the
well-known back-propagation and genetic algorithms, in order to emit
the alarm for the population located into a specific city, about an
eminent earthquake greater than 4.5 Richter degrees, and avoiding
disasters and human loses. In lieu of using the propagation wave, we
employed the magnitude of the earthquake, to establish a correlation
between the recorded magnitudes from a controlled area and the city,
where we want to emit the alarm. To measure the accuracy of the
posed method, we use a database provided by CIRES, which contains
the records of 2500 quakes incoming from the State of Guerrero
and Mexico City. Particularly, we performed the proposed method to
generate an issue warning in Mexico City, employing the magnitudes
recorded in the State of Guerrero.
Abstract: Every commercial bank optimises its asset portfolio
depending on the profitability of assets and chosen or imposed
constraints. This paper proposes and applies a stylized model for
optimising banks' asset and liability structure, reflecting profitability
of different asset categories and their risks as well as costs associated
with different liability categories and reserve requirements. The level
of detail for asset and liability categories is chosen to create a
suitably parsimonious model and to include the most important
categories in the model. It is shown that the most appropriate
optimisation criterion for the model is the maximisation of the ratio
of net interest income to assets. The maximisation of this ratio is
subject to several constraints. Some are accounting identities or
dictated by legislative requirements; others vary depending on the
market objectives for a particular bank. The model predicts variable
amount of assets allocated to loan provision.
Abstract: Vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) process can be
used for water purification or the desalination of salt water. The
process simply consists of a flat sheet hydrophobic micro porous
PTFE membrane and diaphragm vacuum pump without a condenser
for the water recovery or trap. The feed was used aqueous NaCl
solution. The VMD experiments were performed to evaluate the heat
and mass transfer coefficient of the boundary layer in a membrane
module. The only operating parameters are feed inlet temperature,
and feed flow rate were investigated. The permeate flux was strongly
affected by the feed inlet temperature, feed flow rate, and boundary
layer heat transfer coefficient. Since lowering the temperature
polarization coefficient is essential enhance the process performance
considerable and maximizing the heat transfer coefficient for
maximizes the mass flux of distillate water. In this paper, the results
of VMD experiments are used to measure the boundary layer heat
transfer coefficient, and the experimental results are used to reevaluate
the empirical constants in the Dittus- Boelter equation.
Abstract: Image synthesis is an important area in image processing.
To synthesize images various systems are proposed in
the literature. In this paper, we propose a bio-inspired system to
synthesize image and to study the generating power of the system, we
define the class of languages generated by our system. We call image
as array in this paper. We use a primitive called iso-array to synthesize
image/array. The operation is double splicing on iso-arrays. The
double splicing operation is used in DNA computing and we use
this to synthesize image. A comparison of the family of languages
generated by the proposed self restricted double splicing systems on
iso-arrays with the existing family of local iso-picture languages is
made. Certain closure properties such as union, concatenation and
rotation are studied for the family of languages generated by the
proposed model.
Abstract: In this paper, an improved technique for contingency
ranking using artificial neural network (ANN) is presented. The
proposed approach is based on multi-layer perceptrons trained by
backpropagation to contingency analysis. Severity indices in dynamic
stability assessment are presented. These indices are based on the
concept of coherency and three dot products of the system variables.
It is well known that some indices work better than others for a
particular power system. This paper along with test results using
several different systems, demonstrates that combination of indices
with ANN provides better ranking than a single index. The presented
results are obtained through the use of power system simulation
(PSS/E) and MATLAB 6.5 software.
Abstract: In Grid computing, a data transfer protocol called
GridFTP has been widely used for efficiently transferring a large volume
of data. Currently, two versions of GridFTP protocols, GridFTP
version 1 (GridFTP v1) and GridFTP version 2 (GridFTP v2), have
been proposed in the GGF. GridFTP v2 supports several advanced
features such as data streaming, dynamic resource allocation, and
checksum transfer, by defining a transfer mode called X-block mode.
However, in the literature, effectiveness of GridFTP v2 has not been
fully investigated. In this paper, we therefore quantitatively evaluate
performance of GridFTP v1 and GridFTP v2 using mathematical
analysis and simulation experiments. We reveal the performance
limitation of GridFTP v1, and quantitatively show effectiveness of
GridFTP v2. Through several numerical examples, we show that by
utilizing the data streaming feature, the average file transfer time of
GridFTP v2 is significantly smaller than that of GridFTP v1.
Abstract: Heart-s electric field can be measured anywhere on
the surface of the body (ECG). When individuals touch, one person-s
ECG signal can be registered in other person-s EEG and elsewhere
on his body. Now, the aim of this study was to test the hypothesis
that physical contact (hand-holding) of two persons changes their
heart rate variability. Subjects were sixteen healthy female (age: 20-
26) which divided into eight sets. In each sets, we had two friends
that they passed intimacy test of J.sternberg. ECG of two subjects
(each set) acquired for 5 minutes before hand-holding (as control
group) and 5 minutes during they held their hands (as experimental
group). Then heart rate variability signals were extracted from
subjects' ECG and analyzed in linear feature space (time and
frequency domain) and nonlinear feature space. Considering the
results, we conclude that physical contact (hand-holding of two
friends) increases parasympathetic activity, as indicate by increase
SD1, SD1/SD2, HF and MF power (p
Abstract: The Pulsed Compression Reactor promises to be a
compact, economical and energy efficient alternative to conventional
chemical reactors.
In this article, the production of synthesis gas using the Pulsed
Compression Reactor is investigated. This is done experimentally as
well as with simulations. The experiments are done by means of a
single shot reactor, which replicates a representative, single
reciprocation of the Pulsed Compression Reactor with great control
over the reactant composition, reactor temperature and pressure and
temperature history. Simulations are done with a relatively simple
method, which uses different models for the chemistry and
thermodynamic properties of the species in the reactor. Simulation
results show very good agreement with the experimental data, and
give great insight into the reaction processes that occur within the
cycle.
Abstract: The zinc and iron environments in different growth
stages have been studied with EXAFS and XANES with Brookhaven
Synchrotron Light Source. Tissue samples included meat, organ,
vegetable, leaf, and yeast. The project studied the EXAFS and
XANES of tissue samples using Zn and Fe K-edges. Duck embryo
samples show that brain and intestine would contain shorter EXFAS
determined Zn-N/O bond; as with the cases of fresh yeast versus
reconstituted live yeast and green leaf versus yellow leaf. The
XANES Fourier transform characteristic-length would be useful as a
functionality index for selected types of tissue samples in various
physical states. The extension to the development of functional
synchrotron imaging for tissue engineering application based on
spectroscopic technique is discussed.
Abstract: As an adult man and woman love each other and come to have faith in each other as their spouse, they marry each other. Recently people-s economic life has become individualized and women are enjoying a high education level and increased participation in social activities, and these changes are creating environment favorable for single life. Thus, an increasing number of people are choosing celibacy, and many people prefer cohabitation to marriage. Nevertheless, marriage is still regarded as a must-to-do in our thought. Most of people throughout the world admit marriage as one of natural processes of life, and is an important passage rite in life that all people experience as we can see everywhere in the world despite the diversity of lifestyles. With regard to wedding ceremony, however, each country and culture has its own unique tradition and style of festival. It is not just a congratulatory ceremony but contains multiple concepts representing the age, country or culture. Moreover, the form and contents of wedding ceremony changes over time, and such features of wedding ceremony are well represented in films. This study took note of the fact that films reflect and reproduce each country-s historicity, culturality and analyzed four films, which are believed to show differences between Eastern and Western wedding ceremonies. The selected films are: A Perfect Match (2002), Marriage Is a Crazy Thing (2001), Bride Wars (2009) and 27 Dresses (2008). The author attempted to examine wedding ceremonies described in the four films, differences between the East and the West suggested by the films, and changes in their societies.
Abstract: The paper describes a new approach for fingerprint
classification, based on the distribution of local features (minute
details or minutiae) of the fingerprints. The main advantage is that
fingerprint classification provides an indexing scheme to facilitate
efficient matching in a large fingerprint database. A set of rules based
on heuristic approach has been proposed. The area around the core
point is treated as the area of interest for extracting the minutiae
features as there are substantial variations around the core point as
compared to the areas away from the core point. The core point in a
fingerprint has been located at a point where there is maximum
curvature. The experimental results report an overall average
accuracy of 86.57 % in fingerprint classification.
Abstract: For most image fusion algorithms separate
relationship by pixels in the image and treat them more or less
independently. In addition, they have to be adjusted different
parameters in different time or weather. In this paper, we propose a
region–based image fusion which combines aspects of feature and
pixel-level fusion method to replace only by pixel. The basic idea is
to segment far infrared image only and to add information of each
region from segmented image to visual image respectively. Then we
determine different fused parameters according different region. At
last, we adopt artificial neural network to deal with the problems of
different time or weather, because the relationship between fused
parameters and image features are nonlinear. It render the fused
parameters can be produce automatically according different states.
The experimental results present the method we proposed indeed
have good adaptive capacity with automatic determined fused
parameters. And the architecture can be used for lots of applications.
Abstract: The Beshar River is one aquatic ecosystem, which is
located next to the city of Yasuj in southern Iran. The Beshar river
has been contaminated by industrial factories such as effluent of
sugar factory, agricultural and other activities in this region such as,
Imam Sajjad hospital, drainage from agricultural farms, Yasuj urban
surface runoff and effluent of wastewater treatment plants ,specially
Yasuj waste water treatment plant. In order to evaluate the effects of
these pollutants on the quality of the Beshar river, five monitoring
stations were selected along its course. The first station is located
upstream of Yasuj near the Dehnow village; stations 2 to 4 are
located east, south and west of city; and the 5th station is located
downstream of Yasuj. Several water quality parameters were
sampled. These include pH, dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen
demand (BOD), temperature, conductivity, turbidity, total dissolved
solids and discharge or flow measurements. Water samples from the
five stations were collected and analyzed to determine the following
physicochemical parameters: EC, pH, T.D.S, T.H, No2, DO, BOD5,
COD during 2008 to 2010. The study shows that the BOD5 value of
station 1 is at a minimum (1.7 ppm) and increases downstream from
stations 2 to 4 to a maximum (11.6 ppm), and then decreases at
station 5. The DO values of station 1 is a maximum (8.45 ppm),
decreases downstream to stations 2 - 4 which are at a minimum (3.1
ppm), before increasing at station 5. The amount of BOD and TDS
are highest at the 4th station and the amount of DO is lowest at this
station, marking the 4th station as more highly polluted than the
other stations .This study shows average amount of the water quality
parameters in first year of sampling (2008) have had a better quality
relation to third year in 2010 because of recent drought in this region
and pollutant increasing .As the Beshar river path after 5th station
goes through the mountain area with more slope and flow velocity
,so the physicochemical parameters improve at the 5th station due to
pollutant degradation and dilution. Finally the point and nonpoint
pollutant sources of Beshar river were determined and compared to
the monitoring results.