Abstract: Biofuels, like biobutanol, have been recognized for
being renewable and sustainable fuels which can be produced from
lignocellulosic biomass. To convert lignocellulosic biomass to
biofuel, pretreatment process is an important step to remove
hemicelluloses and lignin to improve enzymatic hydrolysis. Dilute
acid pretreatment has been successful developed for pretreatment of
corncobs and the optimum conditions of dilute sulfuric and
phosphoric acid pretreatment were obtained at 120 °C for 5 min with
15:1 liquid to solid ratio and 140 °C for 10 min with 10:1 liquid to
solid ratio, respectively. The result shows that both of acid
pretreatments gave the content of total sugar approximately 34–35
g/l. In case of inhibitor content (furfural), phosphoric acid
pretreatment gives higher than sulfuric acid pretreatment.
Characterizations of corncobs after pretreatment indicate that both of
acid pretreatments can improve enzymatic accessibility and the better
results present in corncobs pretreated with sulfuric acid in term of
surface area, crystallinity, and composition analysis.
Abstract: The last Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change, stating that the greatest risk in climate
change affects sustainability is now widely known and accepted.
However, it has not provoked substantial reaction and attention in
Hungary, while international and national efforts have also not
achieved expected results so far. Still, there are numerous examples
on different levels (national, regional, local, household) making
considerable progress in limiting their own emissions and making
steps toward mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. The
local level is exceptionally important in sustainability adaptation, as
local communities are often able to adapt more flexibly to changes in
the natural environment.The aim of this paper is to attempt a review
of the national climate policy and the local climate change strategies
in Hungary considering sustainable development.
Abstract: This study proposes a conceptual model and
empirically tests the relationships between customers and librarians
(i.e. tangibles, responsiveness, assurance, reliability and empathy)
with a dependent variable (customer satisfaction) regarding library
services. The SERVQUAL instrument was administered to 100
respondents which comprises of staff and students at a public higher
learning institution in the Federal Territory of Labuan, Malaysia.
They were public university library users. Results revealed that all
service quality dimensions tested were significant and influenced
customer satisfaction of visitors to a public university library.
Assurance is the most important factor that influences customer
satisfaction with the services rendered by the librarian. It is
imperative for the library management to take note that the top five
service attributes that gained greatest attention from library visitors-
perspective includes employee willingness to help customers,
availability of customer representatives online for response to
queries, library staff actively and promptly provide services, signs in
the building are clear and library staff are friendly and courteous.
This study provides valuable results concerning the determinants of
the service quality and customer satisfaction of public university
library services from the users' perspective.
Abstract: The so-called all-pass filter circuits are commonly
used in the field of signal processing, control and measurement.
Being connected to capacitive loads, these circuits tend to loose their
stability; therefore the elaborate analysis of their dynamic behavior is
necessary. The compensation methods intending to increase the
stability of such circuits are discussed in this paper, including the socalled
lead-lag compensation technique being treated in detail. For
the dynamic modeling, a two-port network model of the all-pass filter
is being derived. The results of the model analysis show, that
effective lead-lag compensation can be achieved, alone by the
optimization of the circuit parameters; therefore the application of
additional electric components are not needed to fulfill the stability
requirement.
Abstract: This paper presents a computational methodology
based on matrix operations for a computer based solution to the
problem of performance analysis of software reliability models
(SRMs). A set of seven comparison criteria have been formulated to
rank various non-homogenous Poisson process software reliability
models proposed during the past 30 years to estimate software
reliability measures such as the number of remaining faults, software
failure rate, and software reliability. Selection of optimal SRM for
use in a particular case has been an area of interest for researchers in
the field of software reliability. Tools and techniques for software
reliability model selection found in the literature cannot be used with
high level of confidence as they use a limited number of model
selection criteria. A real data set of middle size software project from
published papers has been used for demonstration of matrix method.
The result of this study will be a ranking of SRMs based on the
Permanent value of the criteria matrix formed for each model based
on the comparison criteria. The software reliability model with
highest value of the Permanent is ranked at number – 1 and so on.
Abstract: A state of the art Speaker Identification (SI) system requires a robust feature extraction unit followed by a speaker modeling scheme for generalized representation of these features. Over the years, Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) modeled on the human auditory system has been used as a standard acoustic feature set for SI applications. However, due to the structure of its filter bank, it captures vocal tract characteristics more effectively in the lower frequency regions. This paper proposes a new set of features using a complementary filter bank structure which improves distinguishability of speaker specific cues present in the higher frequency zone. Unlike high level features that are difficult to extract, the proposed feature set involves little computational burden during the extraction process. When combined with MFCC via a parallel implementation of speaker models, the proposed feature set outperforms baseline MFCC significantly. This proposition is validated by experiments conducted on two different kinds of public databases namely YOHO (microphone speech) and POLYCOST (telephone speech) with Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM) as a Classifier for various model orders.
Abstract: In this paper we study the fuzzy c-mean clustering algorithm
combined with principal components method. Demonstratively
analysis indicate that the new clustering method is well rather than
some clustering algorithms. We also consider the validity of clustering
method.
Abstract: Manufacturing processes demand tight dimensional
tolerances. The paper concerns a transducer for precise measurement
of displacement, based on a camera containing a linescan chip.
When tests were conducted using a track of black and white stripes
with a 2mm pitch, errors in measuring on individual cycle amounted
to 1.75%, suggesting that a precision of 35 microns is achievable.
Abstract: Multiphase flow transport in porous medium is very common and significant in science and engineering applications. For example, in CO2 Storage and Enhanced Oil Recovery processes, CO2 has to be delivered to the pore spaces in reservoirs and aquifers. CO2 storage and enhance oil recovery are actually displacement processes, in which oil or water is displaced by CO2. This displacement is controlled by pore size, chemical and physical properties of pore surfaces and fluids, and also pore wettability. In this study, a technique was developed to measure the pressure profile for driving gas/liquid to displace water in pores. Through this pressure profile, the impact of pore size on the multiphase flow transport and displacement can be analyzed. The other rig developed can be used to measure the static and dynamic pore wettability and investigate the effects of pore size, surface tension, viscosity and chemical structure of liquids on pore wettability.
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: Paper presents simple sixport principle and its frequency bandwidth. The novel multisixport approach is presented with its possibilities, typical parameters and frequency bandwidth. Practical implementation is shown with its measurement parameters and calibration. The bandwidth circa 1:100 is obtained.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to present a non invasive
method for the marginal adaptation evaluation in class V composite
restorations. Standardized class V cavities, prepared in human
extracted teeth, were filled with Premise (Kerr) composite. The
specimens were thermo cycled. The interfaces were examined by
Optical Coherence Tomography method (OCT) combined with the
confocal microscopy and fluorescence. The optical configuration
uses two single mode directional couplers with a superluminiscent
diode as the source at 1300 nm. The scanning procedure is similar to
that used in any confocal microscope, where the fast scanning is enface
(line rate) and the depth scanning is much slower (at the frame
rate). Gaps at the interfaces as well as inside the composite resin
materials were identified. OCT has numerous advantages which
justify its use in vivo as well as in vitro in comparison with
conventional techniques.
Abstract: Corporate credit rating prediction using statistical and
artificial intelligence (AI) techniques has been one of the attractive
research topics in the literature. In recent years, multiclass
classification models such as artificial neural network (ANN) or
multiclass support vector machine (MSVM) have become a very
appealing machine learning approaches due to their good
performance. However, most of them have only focused on classifying
samples into nominal categories, thus the unique characteristic of the
credit rating - ordinality - has been seldom considered in their
approaches. This study proposes new types of ANN and MSVM
classifiers, which are named OMANN and OMSVM respectively.
OMANN and OMSVM are designed to extend binary ANN or SVM
classifiers by applying ordinal pairwise partitioning (OPP) strategy.
These models can handle ordinal multiple classes efficiently and
effectively. To validate the usefulness of these two models, we applied
them to the real-world bond rating case. We compared the results of
our models to those of conventional approaches. The experimental
results showed that our proposed models improve classification
accuracy in comparison to typical multiclass classification techniques
with the reduced computation resource.
Abstract: The output beam quality of multi transverse modes of
laser, are relatively poor. In order to obtain better beam quality, one
may use an aperture inside the laser resonator. In this case, various
transverse modes can be selected. We have selected various
transverse modes both by simulation and doing experiment. By
inserting a circular aperture inside the diode end-pumped Nd:YAG
pulsed laser resonator, we have obtained 00 TEM , 01 TEM
, 20 TEM and have studied which parameters, can change the mode
shape. Then, we have determined the beam quality factor of TEM00
gaussian mode.
Abstract: In this paper, a new approach based on the extent of
friendship between the nodes is proposed which makes the nodes to
co-operate in an ad hoc environment. The extended DSR protocol is
tested under different scenarios by varying the number of malicious
nodes and node moving speed. It is also tested varying the number of
nodes in simulation used. The result indicates the achieved
throughput by extended DSR is greater than the standard DSR and
indicates the percentage of malicious drops over total drops are less
in the case of extended DSR than the standard DSR.
Abstract: The study of human hand morphology reveals that developing an artificial hand with the capabilities of human hand is an extremely challenging task. This paper presents the development of a robotic prosthetic hand focusing on the improvement of a tendon driven mechanism towards a biomimetic prosthetic hand. The design of this prosthesis hand is geared towards achieving high level of dexterity and anthropomorphism by means of a new hybrid mechanism that integrates a miniature motor driven actuation mechanism, a Shape Memory Alloy actuated mechanism and a passive mechanical linkage. The synergy of these actuators enables the flexion-extension movement at each of the finger joints within a limited size, shape and weight constraints. Tactile sensors are integrated on the finger tips and the finger phalanges area. This prosthesis hand is developed with an exact size ratio that mimics a biological hand. Its behavior resembles the human counterpart in terms of working envelope, speed and torque, and thus resembles both the key physical features and the grasping functionality of an adult hand.
Abstract: Non-saturated soils that while saturation greatly
decrease their volume, have sudden settlement due to increasing
humidity, fracture and structural crack are called loess soils. Whereas
importance of civil projects including: dams, canals and
constructions bearing this type of soil and thereof problems, it is
required for carrying out more research and study in relation to loess
soils. This research studies shear strength parameters by using
grading test, Atterberg limit, compression, direct shear and
consolidation and then effect of using cement and lime additives on
stability of loess soils is studied. In related tests, lime and cement are
separately added to mixed ratios under different percentages of soil
and for different times the stabilized samples are processed and effect
of aforesaid additives on shear strength parameters of soil is studied.
Results show that upon passing time the effect of additives and
collapsible potential is greatly decreased and upon increasing
percentage of cement and lime the maximum dry density is
decreased; however, optimum humidity is increased. In addition,
liquid limit and plastic index is decreased; however, plastic index
limit is increased. It is to be noted that results of direct shear test
reveal increasing shear strength of soil due to increasing cohesion
parameter and soil friction angle.
Abstract: Time varying network induced delays in networked
control systems (NCS) are known for degrading control system-s
quality of performance (QoP) and causing stability problems. In
literature, a control method employing modeling of communication
delays as probability distribution, proves to be a better method. This
paper focuses on modeling of network induced delays as probability
distribution.
CAN and MIL-STD-1553B are extensively used to carry periodic
control and monitoring data in networked control systems.
In literature, methods to estimate only the worst-case delays for
these networks are available. In this paper probabilistic network
delay model for CAN and MIL-STD-1553B networks are given.
A systematic method to estimate values to model parameters from
network parameters is given. A method to predict network delay in
next cycle based on the present network delay is presented. Effect of
active network redundancy and redundancy at node level on network
delay and system response-time is also analyzed.
Abstract: The aim of this paper to characterize a larger set of
wavelet functions for implementation in a still image compression
system using SPIHT algorithm. This paper discusses important
features of wavelet functions and filters used in sub band coding to
convert image into wavelet coefficients in MATLAB. Image quality
is measured objectively using peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and
its variation with bit rate (bpp). The effect of different parameters is
studied on different wavelet functions. Our results provide a good
reference for application designers of wavelet based coder.
Abstract: Independent component analysis (ICA) is a computational method for finding underlying signals or components from multivariate statistical data. The ICA method has been successfully applied in many fields, e.g. in vision research, brain imaging, geological signals and telecommunications. In this paper, we apply the ICA method to an analysis of mass spectra of oligomeric species emerged from aluminium sulphate. Mass spectra are typically complex, because they are linear combinations of spectra from different types of oligomeric species. The results show that ICA can decomposite the spectral components for useful information. This information is essential in developing coagulation phases of water treatment processes.