Abstract: In this paper back-propagation artificial neural
network (BPANN) with Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm is
employed to predict the limiting drawing ratio (LDR) of the deep
drawing process. To prepare a training set for BPANN, some finite
element simulations were carried out. die and punch radius, die arc
radius, friction coefficient, thickness, yield strength of sheet and
strain hardening exponent were used as the input data and the LDR
as the specified output used in the training of neural network. As a
result of the specified parameters, the program will be able to
estimate the LDR for any new given condition. Comparing FEM and
BPANN results, an acceptable correlation was found.
Abstract: In this work we study the reflection of circularly
polarised light from a nano-structured biological material found in
the exocuticle of scarabus beetles. This material is made of a stack
of ultra-thin (~5 nm) uniaxial layers arranged in a left-handed
helicoidal stack, which resonantly reflects circularly polarized light.
A chirp in the layer thickness combined with a finite absorption
coefficient produce a broad smooth reflectance spectrum. By
comparing model calculations and electron microscopy with
measured spectra we can explain our observations and quantify most
relevant structural parameters.
Abstract: Silver nano-particles have been used for antibacterial
purpose and it is also believed to have removal of odorous compounds,
oxidation capacity as a metal catalyst. In this study, silver
nano-particles in nano sizes (5-30 nm) were prepared on the surface of
NaHCO3, the supporting material, using a sputtering method that
provided high silver content and minimized conglomerating problems
observed in the common AgNO3 photo-deposition method. The silver
nano-particles were dispersed by dissolving Ag-NaHCO3 into water,
and the dispersed silver nano-particles in the aqueous phase were
applied to remove inorganic odor compounds, H2S, in a scrubbing
reactor. Hydrogen sulfide in the gas phase was rapidly removed by the
silver nano-particles, and the concentration of sulfate (SO4
2-) ion
increased with time due to the oxidation reaction by silver as a
catalyst. Consequently, the experimental results demonstrated that the
silver nano-particles in the aqueous solution can be successfully
applied to remove odorous compounds without adding additional
energy sources and producing any harmful byproducts
Abstract: With today's fast lifestyles and busy schedule, nuclear
families are becoming popular. Thus, the elderly members of these
families are often neglected. This has lead to the popularity of the
concept of Community living for the aged. The elders reside at a
centre, which is controlled by the MANAGER. The manager takes
responsibility of the functioning of the centre which includes taking
care of 'residents' at the centre along with managing the daily chores
of the centre, which he accomplishes with the help of a number of
staff members and volunteers Often the Manager is not an employee
but a volunteer. In such cases especially, time is an important
constraint. A system, which provides an easy and efficient manner of
managing the working of an old age home in detail, will prove to be
of great benefit. We have developed a P.C. based organizer used to
monitor the various activities of an old age home. It is an effective
and easy-to-use system which will enable the manager to keep an
account of all the residents, their accounts, staff members, volunteers,
the centre-s logistic requirements etc. It is thus, a comprehensive
'Organizer' for Old Age Homes.
Abstract: In image processing and visualization, comparing two
bitmapped images needs to be compared from their pixels by matching
pixel-by-pixel. Consequently, it takes a lot of computational time
while the comparison of two vector-based images is significantly
faster. Sometimes these raster graphics images can be approximately
converted into the vector-based images by various techniques. After
conversion, the problem of comparing two raster graphics images
can be reduced to the problem of comparing vector graphics images.
Hence, the problem of comparing pixel-by-pixel can be reduced to
the problem of polynomial comparisons. In computer aided geometric
design (CAGD), the vector graphics images are the composition of
curves and surfaces. Curves are defined by a sequence of control
points and their polynomials. In this paper, the control points will be
considerably used to compare curves. The same curves after relocated
or rotated are treated to be equivalent while two curves after different
scaled are considered to be similar curves. This paper proposed an
algorithm for comparing the polynomial curves by using the control
points for equivalence and similarity. In addition, the geometric
object-oriented database used to keep the curve information has also
been defined in XML format for further used in curve comparisons.
Abstract: Whereas cellular wireless communication systems are
subject to short-and long-term fading. The effect of wireless channel
has largely been ignored in most of the teletraffic assessment
researches. In this paper, a mathematical teletraffic model is proposed
to estimate blocking and forced termination probabilities of cellular
wireless networks as a result of teletraffic behavior as well as the
outage of the propagation channel. To evaluate the proposed
teletraffic model, gamma inter-arrival and general service time
distributions have been considered based on wireless channel fading
effect. The performance is evaluated and compared with the classical
model. The proposed model is dedicated and investigated in different
operational conditions. These conditions will consider not only the
arrival rate process, but also, the different faded channels models.
Abstract: PT XYZ is a bottled drinking water company. To preserve production resources owned by the company so that the resources could be utilized well, it has implemented maintenance management system, which has important role in company's profitability, and is one of the factors influenced overall company's performance. Yet, up to now the company has never measured maintenance activities' contribution to company's performance. Performance evaluation is done according to adapted Balanced Scorecard model fitted to maintenance function context. This model includes six perspectives: innovation and growth, production, maintenance, environment, costumer, and finance. Actual performance measurement is done through Analytic Hierarchy Process and Objective Matrix. From the research done, we can conclude that the company's maintenance function is categorized in moderate performance. But, there are some indicators which has high priority but low performance, which are: costumers' complain rate, work lateness rate, and Return on Investment.
Abstract: Detection and tracking of the lip contour is an important
issue in speechreading. While there are solutions for lip tracking
once a good contour initialization in the first frame is available,
the problem of finding such a good initialization is not yet solved
automatically, but done manually. We have developed a new tracking
solution for lip contour detection using only few landmarks (15
to 25) and applying the well known Active Shape Models (ASM).
The proposed method is a new LMS-like adaptive scheme based on
an Auto regressive (AR) model that has been fit on the landmark
variations in successive video frames. Moreover, we propose an extra
motion compensation model to address more general cases in lip
tracking. Computer simulations demonstrate a fair match between
the true and the estimated spatial pixels. Significant improvements
related to the well known LMS approach has been obtained via a
defined Frobenius norm index.
Abstract: The new optimization method for fiber orientation
angle optimization of symmetrical multilayer plates like plywood is
proposed. Optimization method consists of seeking for minimal
compliance by choosing appropriate fiber orientation angle in outer
layers of flexural plate. The discrete values of fiber orientation angles
are used in method. Optimization results of simply supported plate
and multispan plate with uniformly distributed load are provided.
Results show that stiffness could be increased up to 20% by changing
wood fiber orientation angle in one or two outer layers.
Abstract: In this paper we present an adaptive method for image
compression that is based on complexity level of the image. The
basic compressor/de-compressor structure of this method is a multilayer
perceptron artificial neural network. In adaptive approach
different Back-Propagation artificial neural networks are used as
compressor and de-compressor and this is done by dividing the
image into blocks, computing the complexity of each block and then
selecting one network for each block according to its complexity
value. Three complexity measure methods, called Entropy, Activity
and Pattern-based are used to determine the level of complexity in
image blocks and their ability in complexity estimation are evaluated
and compared. In training and evaluation, each image block is
assigned to a network based on its complexity value. Best-SNR is
another alternative in selecting compressor network for image blocks
in evolution phase which chooses one of the trained networks such
that results best SNR in compressing the input image block. In our
evaluations, best results are obtained when overlapping the blocks is
allowed and choosing the networks in compressor is based on the
Best-SNR. In this case, the results demonstrate superiority of this
method comparing with previous similar works and JPEG standard
coding.
Abstract: In today-s era of plasma and laser cutting, machines using oxy-acetylene flame are also meritorious due to their simplicity and cost effectiveness. The objective to devise a Computer controlled Oxy-Fuel profile cutting machine arose from the increasing demand for metal cutting with respect to edge quality, circularity and lesser formation of redeposit material. The System has an 8 bit micro controller based embedded system, which assures stipulated time response. A new window based Application software was devised which takes a standard CAD file .DXF as input and converts it into numerical data required for the controller. It uses VB6 as a front end whereas MS-ACCESS and AutoCAD as back end. The system is designed around AT89C51RD2, powerful 8 bit, ISP micro controller from Atmel and is optimized to achieve cost effectiveness and also maintains the required accuracy and reliability for complex shapes. The backbone of the system is a cleverly designed mechanical assembly along with the embedded system resulting in an accuracy of about 10 microns while maintaining perfect linearity in the cut. This results in substantial increase in productivity. The observed results also indicate reduced inter laminar spacing of pearlite with an increase in the hardness of the edge region.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a novel limited feedback scheme for task planning with service robots. Instead of sending the full service robot state information for the task planning, the proposed scheme send the best-M indices of service robots with a indicator. With the indicator, the proposed scheme significantly reduces the communication overhead for task planning as well as mitigates the system performance degradation in terms of the utility. In addition, we analyze the system performance of the proposed scheme and compare the proposed scheme with the other schemes.
Abstract: Migration in breast cancer cell wound healing assay
had been studied using image fractal dimension analysis. The
migration of MDA-MB-231 cells (highly motile) in a wound healing
assay was captured using time-lapse phase contrast video microscopy
and compared to MDA-MB-468 cell migration (moderately motile).
The Higuchi fractal method was used to compute the fractal
dimension of the image intensity fluctuation along a single pixel
width region parallel to the wound. The near-wound region fractal
dimension was found to decrease three times faster in the MDA-MB-
231 cells initially as compared to the less cancerous MDA-MB-468
cells. The inner region fractal dimension was found to be fairly
constant for both cell types in time and suggests a wound influence
range of about 15 cell layer. The box-counting fractal dimension
method was also used to study region of interest (ROI). The MDAMB-
468 ROI area fractal dimension was found to decrease
continuously up to 7 hours. The MDA-MB-231 ROI area fractal
dimension was found to increase and is consistent with the behavior
of a HGF-treated MDA-MB-231 wound healing assay posted in the
public domain. A fractal dimension based capacity index has been
formulated to quantify the invasiveness of the MDA-MB-231 cells in
the perpendicular-to-wound direction. Our results suggest that image
intensity fluctuation fractal dimension analysis can be used as a tool
to quantify cell migration in terms of cancer severity and treatment
responses.
Abstract: Most CT reconstruction system x-ray computed
tomography (CT) is a well established visualization technique in
medicine and nondestructive testing. However, since CT scanning
requires sampling of radiographic projections from different viewing
angles, common CT systems with mechanically moving parts are too
slow for dynamic imaging, for instance of multiphase flows or live
animals. A large number of X-ray projections are needed to
reconstruct CT images, so the collection and calculation of the
projection data consume too much time and harmful for patient. For
the purpose of solving the problem, in this study, we proposed a
method for tomographic reconstruction of a sample from a limited
number of x-ray projections by using linear interpolation method. In
simulation, we presented reconstruction from an experimental x-ray
CT scan of a Aluminum phantom that follows to two steps: X-ray
projections will be interpolated using linear interpolation method and
using it for CT reconstruction based upon Ordered Subsets
Expectation Maximization (OSEM) method.
Abstract: The research study evaluated the performance of
irrigation system by using special scientific tools like Remote
Sensing and GIS technology, so that proper measurements could be
taken for the sustainable agriculture and water management.
Different performance evaluation parameters had been calculated for
the purposed data was gathered from field investigation and different
government and private organizations. According to the calculations,
organic matter ranges from 0.19% (low value) to 0.76% (high value).
In flat irrigation system for wheat yield ranges from 3347.16 to
5260.39 kg/ha, while the total water applied to wheat crop ranges
from 252.94 to 279.19 mm and WUE ranges from 13.07 to 18.37
kg/ha/mm. For rice yield ranges from 3347.47 to 5433.07 kg/ha with
total water supplied to rice crop ranges from 764.71 to 978.15 mm
and WUE ranges from 3.49 to 5.71 kg/ha/mm. Similarly, in raised
bed system wheat yield ranges from 4569.13 to 6008.60 kg/ha, total
water supplied ranges from 158.87 to 185.09 mm and WUE ranges
from 27.20 to 33.54 kg/ha/mm while in rice crop, yield ranges from
5285.04 to 6716.69 kg/ha, total water supplied ranges from 600.72 to
755.06 mm and WUE ranges from 6.41 to 10.05 kg/ha/mm. Almost
51.3% water saving is observed in bed irrigation system as compared
to flat system. Less water supplied to beds is more affective as its
WUE value is higher than flat system where more water is supplied
in both the seasons. Similarly, RWS values show that maximum
water deficit while minimum area is getting adequate water supply.
Greater yield is recorded in bed system as plant per square meter is
more in bed system in comparison of flat system Thus, the integration
of GIS tools to regularly compute performance indices could provide
irrigation managers with the means for managing efficiently the
irrigation system.
Abstract: This paper presents a complete procedure for tool path
planning and blade machining in 5-axis manufacturing. The actual
cutting contact and cutter locations can be determined by lead and tilt
angles. The tool path generation is implemented by piecewise curved
approximation and chordal deviation detection. An application about
drive surface method promotes flexibility of tool control and stability
of machine motion. A real manufacturing process is proposed to
separate the operation into three regions with five stages and to modify
the local tool orientation with an interactive algorithm.
Abstract: A new conceptual architecture for low-level neural
pattern recognition is presented. The key ideas are that the brain
implements support vector machines and that support vectors are
represented as memory patterns in competitive queuing memories. A
binary classifier is built from two competitive queuing memories
holding positive and negative valence training examples respectively.
The support vector machine classification function is calculated in
synchronized evaluation cycles. The kernel is computed by bisymmetric
feed-forward networks feed by sensory input and by
competitive queuing memories traversing the complete sequence of
support vectors. Temporary summation generates the output
classification. It is speculated that perception apparatus in the brain
reuses structures that have evolved for enabling fluent execution of
prepared action sequences so that pattern recognition is built on
internalized motor programmes.
Abstract: Generally speaking, the mobile robot is capable of
sensing its surrounding environment, interpreting the sensed
information to obtain the knowledge of its location and the
environment, planning a real-time trajectory to reach the object. In
this process, the issue of obstacle avoidance is a fundamental topic to
be challenged. Thus, an adaptive path-planning control scheme is
designed without detailed environmental information, large memory
size and heavy computation burden in this study for the obstacle
avoidance of a mobile robot. In this scheme, the robot can gradually
approach its object according to the motion tracking mode, obstacle
avoidance mode, self-rotation mode, and robot state selection. The
effectiveness of the proposed adaptive path-planning control scheme
is verified by numerical simulations of a differential-driving mobile
robot under the possible occurrence of obstacle shapes.
Abstract: Delivering course material via a virtual environment
is beneficial to today-s students because it offers the interactivity,
real-time interaction and social presence that students of all ages
have come to accept in our gaming rich community. It is essential
that the Net Generation also known as Generation Why, have
exposure to learning communities that encompass interactivity to
form social and educational connections. As student and professor
become interconnected through collaboration and interaction in a
virtual learning space, relationships develop and students begin to
take on an individual identity. With this in mind the research project
was developed to investigate the use of virtual environments on
student satisfaction and the effectiveness of course delivery.
Furthermore, the project was designed to integrate both interactive
(real-time) classes conducted in the Virtual Reality (VR)
environment while also creating archived VR sessions for student use
in retaining and reviewing course content.
Abstract: This paper explores gender related barriers to interagency collaboration in statutory children safeguard partnerships against a theoretical framework that considers individuals, professions and organisations interacting as part of a complex adaptive system. We argue that gender-framed obstacles to effective communication between culturally discrepant agencies can ultimately impact on the effectiveness of policy delivery,. We focused our research on three partnership structures in Sefton Metropolitan Borough in order to observe how interactions occur, whether the agencies involved perceive their occupational environment as being gender affected and whether they believe this can hinder effective collaboration with other biased organisations. Our principal empirical findings indicate that there is a general awareness amongst professionals of the role that gender plays in each of the agencies reviewed, that gender may well constitute a barrier to effective communication, but there is a sense in which there is little scope for change in the short term. We aim to signal here, however, the need to change against the risk of service failure.