Abstract: Markov games are a generalization of Markov
decision process to a multi-agent setting. Two-player zero-sum
Markov game framework offers an effective platform for designing
robust controllers. This paper presents two novel controller design
algorithms that use ideas from game-theory literature to produce
reliable controllers that are able to maintain performance in presence
of noise and parameter variations. A more widely used approach for
controller design is the H∞ optimal control, which suffers from high
computational demand and at times, may be infeasible. Our approach
generates an optimal control policy for the agent (controller) via a
simple Linear Program enabling the controller to learn about the
unknown environment. The controller is facing an unknown
environment, and in our formulation this environment corresponds to
the behavior rules of the noise modeled as the opponent. Proposed
controller architectures attempt to improve controller reliability by a
gradual mixing of algorithmic approaches drawn from the game
theory literature and the Minimax-Q Markov game solution
approach, in a reinforcement-learning framework. We test the
proposed algorithms on a simulated Inverted Pendulum Swing-up
task and compare its performance against standard Q learning.
Abstract: Method of determining of moisture diffusivity on two types of autoclaved aerated concretes with different bulk density is represented in the paper. On the specimens were measured one dimensional water transport only on liquid phase. Ever evaluation was done from moisture profiles measured in specific times by capacitance moisture meter. All values from capacitance meter were recalculated to moisture content by mass. Moisture diffusivity was determined in dependence on both moisture and temperature. The experiment temperatures were set at values 55, 65, 75 and 85°C.
Abstract: Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) have attracted the attention of many researchers. This has resulted in their rapid integration in very different areas such as precision agriculture,environmental monitoring, object and event detection and military surveillance. Due to the current WSN characteristics this technology is specifically useful in industrial areas where security, reliability and autonomy are basic, such as nuclear power plants, chemical plants, and others. In this paper we present a system based on WSNs to monitor environmental conditions around and inside a nuclear power plant, specifically, radiation levels. Sensor nodes, equipped with radiation sensors, are deployed in fixed positions throughout the plant. In addition, plant staff are also equipped with mobile devices with higher capabilities than sensors such as for example PDAs able to monitor radiation levels and other conditions around them. The system enables communication between PDAs, which form a Mobile Ad-hoc Wireless Network (MANET), and allows workers to monitor remote conditions in the plant. It is particularly useful during stoppage periods for inspection or in the event of an accident to prevent risk situations.
Abstract: This paper proposes the novel model order
formulation scheme to design a discrete PID controller for higher
order linear time invariant discrete systems. Modified PSO (MPSO)
based model order formulation technique has used to obtain the
successful formulated second order system. PID controller is tuned to
meet the desired performance specification by using pole-zero
cancellation and proposed design procedures. Proposed PID
controller is attached with both higher order system and formulated
second order system. System specifications are tabulated and closed
loop response is observed for stabilization process. The proposed
method is illustrated through numerical examples from literature.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the chemical
degradation of the organophosphorus pesticide of parathion and
carbamate insecticide of methomyl in the aqueous phase through
Fenton process. With the employment of batch Fenton process, the
degradation of the two selected pesticides at different pH, initial
concentration, humic acid concentration, and Fenton reagent dosages
was explored. The Fenton process was found effective to degrade
parathion and methomyl. The optimal dosage of Fenton reagents (i.e.,
molar concentration ratio of H2O2 to Fe2+) at pH 7 for parathion
degradation was equal to 3, which resulted in 50% removal of
parathion. Similarly, the optimal dosage for methomyl degradation
was 1, resulting in 80% removal of methomyl. This study also found
that the presence of humic substances has enhanced pesticide
degradation by Fenton process significantly. The mass spectroscopy
results showed that the hydroxyl free radical may attack the single
bonds with least energy of investigated pesticides to form smaller
molecules which is more easily to degrade either through
physio-chemical or bilolgical processes.
Abstract: In this paper, a self starting two step continuous block
hybrid formulae (CBHF) with four Off-step points is developed using
collocation and interpolation procedures. The CBHF is then used to
produce multiple numerical integrators which are of uniform order
and are assembled into a single block matrix equation. These
equations are simultaneously applied to provide the approximate
solution for the stiff ordinary differential equations. The order of
accuracy and stability of the block method is discussed and its
accuracy is established numerically.
Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between state and business in the context of structural and institutional transformations in Indonesia following the collapse of the New Order regime in 1998. Since 1998, Indonesia has embarked on a shift from an authoritarian to democratic polity and from a centralised to a decentralised system of governance, transforming the country into the third largest democracy and one of the most decentralised states in the world. This paper examines whether the transformation of the Indonesian state has altered the pattern of state and business relations with focus on clientism and corruption as the key dependent variable, and probes how/to what extent this has changed as a result of the transformation and the ensuring shifts in business and state relations. Based on interviews with key government and business actors as well as prominent scholars in Indonesia, it is found that since the demise of the New Order, business associations in Indonesia have become more independent of state control and more influential in public decision-making whereas the government has become more responsive of business concerns and more committed to combat corruption and clientism. However, these changes have not necessarily rendered business people completely leave individualclientelistic relationship with the government, and simply pursue wider sectoral and business-wide collectivism as an alternative way of channelling their aspirations, which is expected to help reduce corruption and clientism in Indonesia. This paper concludes that democratisation and a more open politics may have helped reduce corruption and clientism in Indonesia through changes in government. However, it is still difficult to imply that such political transformation has fostered business collective action and a broader, more encompassing pattern of business lobbying and activism, which is expected to help reduce corruption and clientism.
Abstract: This study investigates the use of genetic algorithms
in information retrieval. The method is shown to be applicable to
three well-known documents collections, where more relevant
documents are presented to users in the genetic modification. In this
paper we present a new fitness function for approximate information
retrieval which is very fast and very flexible, than cosine similarity
fitness function.
Abstract: Over the past decades, automatic face recognition has become a highly active research area, mainly due to the countless application possibilities in both the private as well as the public sector. Numerous algorithms have been proposed in the literature to cope with the problem of face recognition, nevertheless, a group of methods commonly referred to as appearance based have emerged as the dominant solution to the face recognition problem. Many comparative studies concerned with the performance of appearance based methods have already been presented in the literature, not rarely with inconclusive and often with contradictory results. No consent has been reached within the scientific community regarding the relative ranking of the efficiency of appearance based methods for the face recognition task, let alone regarding their susceptibility to appearance changes induced by various environmental factors. To tackle these open issues, this paper assess the performance of the three dominant appearance based methods: principal component analysis, linear discriminant analysis and independent component analysis, and compares them on equal footing (i.e., with the same preprocessing procedure, with optimized parameters for the best possible performance, etc.) in face verification experiments on the publicly available XM2VTS database. In addition to the comparative analysis on the XM2VTS database, ten degraded versions of the database are also employed in the experiments to evaluate the susceptibility of the appearance based methods on various image degradations which can occur in "real-life" operating conditions. Our experimental results suggest that linear discriminant analysis ensures the most consistent verification rates across the tested databases.
Abstract: Dill contains range of phytochemicals, such as vitamin C and polyphenols, which significantly contribute to their total antioxidant activity. The aim of the current research was to determine the best blanching method for processing of dill prior to microwave vacuum drying based on the content of phenolic compounds, vitamin C and free radical scavenging activity. Two blanching mediums were used – water and steam, and for part of the samples microwave pretreatment was additionally used. Evaluation of vitamin C, phenolic contents and scavenging of DPPH˙ radical in dried dill was performed. Blanching had an effect on all tested parameters and the blanching conditions are very important. After evaluation of the results, as the best method for dill pretreatment was established blanching at 90 °C for 30 seconds.
Abstract: The overlay approach has been widely used by many service providers for Traffic Engineering (TE) in large Internet backbones. In the overlay approach, logical connections are set up between edge nodes to form a full mesh virtual network on top of the physical topology. IP routing is then run over the virtual network. Traffic engineering objectives are achieved through carefully routing logical connections over the physical links. Although the overlay approach has been implemented in many operational networks, it has a number of well-known scaling issues. This paper proposes a new approach to achieve traffic engineering without full-mesh overlaying with the help of integrated approach and equal subset split method. Traffic engineering needs to determine the optimal routing of traffic over the existing network infrastructure by efficiently allocating resource in order to optimize traffic performance on an IP network. Even though constraint-based routing [1] of Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) is developed to address this need, since it is not widely tested or debugged, Internet Service Providers (ISPs) resort to TE methods under Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), which is the most commonly used intra-domain routing protocol. Determining OSPF link weights for optimal network performance is an NP-hard problem. As it is not possible to solve this problem, we present a subset split method to improve the efficiency and performance by minimizing the maximum link utilization in the network via a small number of link weight modifications. The results of this method are compared against results of MPLS architecture [9] and other heuristic methods.
Abstract: In this paper, we proposed a method to classify each
type of natural rock texture. Our goal is to classify 26 classes of rock
textures. First, we extract five features of each class by using
principle component analysis combining with the use of applied
spatial frequency measurement. Next, the effective node number of
neural network was tested. We used the most effective neural
network in classification process. The results from this system yield
quite high in recognition rate. It is shown that high recognition rate
can be achieved in separation of 26 stone classes.
Abstract: This paper study the behavior of the solution at the crack edges for an elliptical crack with developing cusps, Ω in the plane elasticity subjected to shear loading. The problem of finding the resulting shear stress can be formulated as a hypersingular integral equation over Ω and it is then transformed into a similar equation over a circular region, D, using conformal mapping. An appropriate collocation points are chosen on the region D to reduce the hypersingular integral equation into a system of linear equations with (2N+1)(N+1) unknown coefficients, which will later be used in the determination of shear stress intensity factors and maximum shear stress intensity. Numerical solution for the considered problem are compared with the existing asymptotic solution, and displayed graphically. Our results give a very good agreement to the existing asymptotic solutions.
Abstract: The major challenge faced by wireless sensor networks is security. Because of dynamic and collaborative nature of sensor networks the connected sensor devices makes the network unusable. To solve this issue, a trust model is required to find malicious, selfish and compromised insiders by evaluating trust worthiness sensors from the network. It supports the decision making processes in wireless sensor networks such as pre key-distribution, cluster head selection, data aggregation, routing and self reconfiguration of sensor nodes. This paper discussed the kinds of trust model, trust metrics used to address attacks by monitoring certain behavior of network. It describes the major design issues and their countermeasures of building trust model. It also discusses existing trust models used in various decision making process of wireless sensor networks.
Abstract: It can be said that the business sector is faced with a range of challenges–a rapidly changing business environment, an increase and diversification of customers- demands and the consequent need for quick response–for having in place flexible management and production info systems. As a matter of fact, many manufacturers have adopted production info management systems such as MES and ERP. Nevertheless, managers are having difficulties obtaining ever-changing production process information in real time, or responding quickly to any change in production related needs on the basis of such information. This is because they rely on poor production info systems which are not capable of providing real-time factory settings. If the manufacturer doesn-t have a capacity for collecting or digitalizing the 4 Ms (Man, Machine, Material, Method), which are resources for production, on a real time basis, it might to difficult to effectively maintain the information on production process. In this regard, this paper will introduce some new alternatives to the existing methods of collecting the 4 Ms in real time, which are currently comprise the production field.
Abstract: Nowadays, desalination of salt water is considered an important industrial process. In many parts of the world, particularly in the gulf countries, the multi-stage flash (MSF) water desalination has an essential contribution in the production of fresh water. In this study, a simple mathematical model is defined to design a MSF desalination system and the feasibility of using the MSF desalination process in proximity of a 42 MW power plant is investigated. This power plant can just provide 10 ton/h superheated steam from low pressure (LP) section of heat recovery steam generator (HRSG) for thermal desalting system. The designed MSF system with gained output ratio (GOR) of 10.3 has 24 flashing stages and can produce 2480 ton/d of fresh water. The expected performance characteristics of the designed MSF desalination plant are determined. In addition, the effect of motive water pressure on the amount of non-condensable gases removed by water jet vacuum pumps is investigated.
Abstract: The move towards internationalization of accounting encountered a great boost, when in 2002 EU delegated the IASB to provide the accounting standards to be applied inside its frontiers. Among the incentives of the standardization of accounting on the international level, is the reduction of the cost of capital. Romania made the move towards IFRS before EU, when the country was not yet a member of it. Even if this made Romania a special case, it was scarcely approached. The leak of real data is usually the reason for avoiding. The novelty of this paper is that it offers an insight from the reality of Romanian companies and their view regarding the IFRS. The paper is based on a survey that the authors made among the companies listed on the first two tiers of the Bucharest Stock Exchange (BSE), which are basically, the most important companies in the country.
Abstract: A mobile ad hoc network is a network of mobile nodes
without any notion of centralized administration. In such a network,
each mobile node behaves not only as a host which runs applications
but also as a router to forward packets on behalf of others. Clustering
has been applied to routing protocols to achieve efficient
communications. A CH network expresses the connected relationship
among cluster-heads. This paper discusses the methods for
constructing a CH network, and produces the following results: (1)
The required running costs of 3 traditional methods for constructing a
CH network are not so different from each other in the static
circumstance, or in the dynamic circumstance. Their running costs in
the static circumstance do not differ from their costs in the dynamic
circumstance. Meanwhile, although the routing costs required for the
above 3 methods are not so different in the static circumstance, the
costs are considerably different from each other in the dynamic
circumstance. Their routing costs in the static circumstance are also
very different from their costs in the dynamic circumstance, and the
former is one tenths of the latter. The routing cost in the dynamic
circumstance is mostly the cost for re-routing. (2) On the strength of
the above results, we discuss new 2 methods regarding whether they
are tolerable or not in the dynamic circumstance, that is, whether the
times of re-routing are small or not. These new methods are revised
methods that are based on the traditional methods. We recommended
the method which produces the smallest routing cost in the dynamic
circumstance, therefore producing the smallest total cost.
Abstract: The purpose of this work is to establish the theoretical
foundations for calculating and designing the sublimationcondensation
processes in chemical apparatuses which are intended
for production of ultrafine powders of crystalline and amorphous
materials with controlled fractional composition. Theoretic analysis
of the primary processes of nucleation and growth kinetics of the
clusters according to the degree of super-saturation and the
homogeneous or heterogeneous nature of nucleation has been carried
out. The engineering design procedures of desublimation processes
have been offered and tested for modification of the Claus process.
Abstract: Background: Regular physical activity contributes
positively to physical and psychological health. In the present study,
the stages of change of physical activity and the total physical
Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the proportion of
adolescent girls in each stages of change and the causative factors
associated with physical activity such as the related social support
and self efficacy in a sample of the high school students.
Methods: In this study, Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) and the
Transtheorical Model (TTM) guided instrument development. The
data regarding the demographics, psychosocial determinants of
physical activity, stage of change and physical activity was gathered
by questionnaires. Several measures of psychosocial determinants of
physical activity were translated from English into Persian using the
back-translation technique. These translated measures were
administered to 512 ninth and tenth-grade Iranian high school
students for factor analysis.
Results: The distribution of the stage of change for physical activity
was as follow: 18/5% in precontemplation, 23.4% in contemplation,
38.2% in preparation, 4.6% in action and 15.3% in maintenance.
They were in 80.1% pre-adoption stages (precontemplation stage,
contemplation stage and preparation stage) and 19.9% post-adoption
stages (action stage and maintenance stage) of physical activity.
There was a significant relate between age and physical activity in
adolescent girls (age-related decline of physical activity) p