Abstract: 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.
Abstract: 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.
Abstract: A preliminary evaluation of the urban land system is
presented in the article together with the instruments of land policy in
Serbia. The main reason for the analysis is demand for
definition of reform framework for urban land management in
Serbia in the period of transition towards market-led system. It
is concluded that due to the limitations of the current regulation it
will be impossible in the future to apply market principles in the
urban land policy (supply and demand of land, land capitalization,
investment efficiency, et al.). Based on the estimation that the urban
land system and land policy are key factors of competitiveness
between regions and towns in Serbia, it is necessary to initiate
changes in this field. There are indicated on an option of privatization
of urban public land and possible establishment of leasehold land. A
comparative analysis of the possibilities of the reform urban land
system in Serbia has been carried out in relation to two approaches of
market systems: (a) with dominant private ownership of urban land
(neo/liberal approach) and (b) with dominant public ownership of
urban land (system of leasehold)whose findings can be a basis for
further study of the new system in Serbia.. The attanied results are
part of studies matter for the making of Strategy of territorial
development of Serbia.
Abstract: Increasing demand on the performance of Subsea
Production Systems (SPS) suggests a need for more detailed
investigation of fluid behavior taking place in subsea equipment.
Complete CFD cool down analyses of subsea equipment are very
time demanding. The objective of this paper is to investigate a
Locked CFD approach, which enables significant reduction of the
computational time and at the same time maintains sufficient
accuracy during thermal cool down simulations. The result
comparison of a dead leg simulation using the Full CFD and the three
LCFD-methods confirms the validity of the locked flow field
assumption for the selected case. For the tested case the LCFD
simulation speed up by factor of 200 results in the absolute thermal
error of 0.5 °C (3% relative error), speed up by factor of 10 keeps the
LCFD results within 0.1 °C (0.5 % relative error) comparing to the
Full CFD.
Abstract: The mechanical properties of blends consisting of
plasticized poly(vinyl butyral) (PVB) and plasticized poly(vinyl
chloride) (PVC) are studied, in order to evaluate the possibility of
using recycled PVB waste derived from windshields. PVC was
plasticized with 38% of diisononyl phthalate (DINP), while PVB was
plasticized with 28% of triethylene glycol, bis(2-ethylhexanoate)
(3GO). The optimal process conditions for the PVB/PVC blend in 1:1
ratio were determined. Entropy was used in order to theoretically
predict the blends miscibility. The PVB content of each blend
composition used was ranging from zero to 100%. Tensile strength
and strain were tested. In addition, a comparison between recycled
and original PVB, used as constituents of the blend, was performed.
Abstract: In this paper, a new approach for quality assessment
tasks in lossy compressed digital video is proposed. The research
activity is based on the visual fixation data recorded by an eye
tracker. The method involved both a new paradigm for subjective
quality evaluation and the subsequent statistical analysis to match
subjective scores provided by the observer to the data obtained from
the eye tracker experiments. The study brings improvements to the
state of the art, as it solves some problems highlighted in literature.
The experiments prove that data obtained from an eye tracker can be
used to classify videos according to the level of impairment due to
compression. The paper presents the methodology, the experimental
results and their interpretation. Conclusions suggest that the eye
tracker can be useful in quality assessment, if data are collected and
analyzed in a proper way.
Abstract: 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.
Abstract: The focus of this paper is to highlight the design and
development of an educational game prototype as an evaluation
instrument for the Malaysia driving license static test. This
educational game brings gaming technology into the conventional
objective static test to make it more effective, real and interesting.
From the feeling of realistic, the future driver can learn something,
memorized and use it in the real life. The current online objective
static test only make the user memorized the answer without knowing
and understand the true purpose of the question. Therefore, in real
life, they will not behave as expected due to behavior and moral
lacking. This prototype has been developed inform of multiple-choice
questions integrated with 3D gaming environment to make it simulate
the real environment and scenarios. Based on the testing conducted,
the respondent agrees with the use of this game prototype it can
increase understanding and promote obligation towards traffic rules.
Abstract: Renewable and non-renewable resource constraints have been vast studied in theoretical fields of project scheduling problems. However, although cumulative resources are widespread in practical cases, the literature on project scheduling problems subject to these resources is scant. So in order to study this type of resources more, in this paper we use the framework of a resource constrained project scheduling problem (RCPSP) with finish-start precedence relations between activities and subject to the cumulative resources in addition to the renewable resources. We develop a branch and bound algorithm for this problem customizing precedence tree algorithm of RCPSP. We perform extensive experimental analysis on the algorithm to check its effectiveness and performance for solving different instances of the problem in question.
Abstract: With the development of technology, the growing
trend of fast and safe passenger transport, air pollution, traffic
congestion, increase in problems such as the increasing population
and the high cost of private vehicle usage made many cities around
the world with a population of more or less, start to build rail systems
as a means of urban transport in order to ensure the economic and
environmental sustainability and more efficient use of land in the
city. The implementation phase of rail systems costs much more than
other public transport systems. However, social and economic returns
in the long term made these systems the most popular investment tool
for planned and developing cities.
In our country, the purpose, goals and policies of transportation
plans are away from integrity, and the problems are not clearly
detected. Also, not defined and incomplete assessment of
transportation systems and insufficient financial analysis are the most
important cause of failure. Rail systems and other transportation
systems to be addressed as a whole is seen as the main factor in
increasing efficiency in applications that are not integrated yet in our
country to come to this point has led to the problem.
Abstract: Methanol-to-olefins coupled with transformation of
coal or natural gas to methanol gives an interesting and promising way
to produce ethylene and propylene. To investigate solid concentration
in gas-solid fluidized bed for methanol-to-olefins process catalyzed by
SAPO-34, a cold model experiment system is established in this paper.
The system comprises a gas distributor in a 300mm internal diameter
and 5000mm height acrylic column, the fiber optic probe system and
series of cyclones. The experiments are carried out at ambient
conditions and under different superficial gas velocity ranging from
0.3930m/s to 0.7860m/s and different initial bed height ranging from
600mm to 1200mm. The effects of radial distance, axial distance,
superficial gas velocity, initial bed height on solid concentration in the
bed are discussed. The effects of distributor shape and porosity on
solid concentration are also discussed. The time-averaged solid
concentration profiles under different conditions are obtained.
Abstract: In the closed quantum system, if the control system is
strongly regular and all other eigenstates are directly coupled to the
target state, the control system can be asymptotically stabilized at the
target eigenstate by the Lyapunov control based on the state error.
However, if the control system is not strongly regular or as long as
there is one eigenstate not directly coupled to the target state, the
situations will become complicated. In this paper, we propose an
implicit Lyapunov control method based on the state error to solve the
convergence problems for these two degenerate cases. And at the same
time, we expand the target state from the eigenstate to the arbitrary
pure state. Especially, the proposed method is also applicable in the
control system with multi-control Hamiltonians. On this basis, the
convergence of the control systems is analyzed using the LaSalle
invariance principle. Furthermore, the relation between the implicit
Lyapunov functions of the state distance and the state error is
investigated. Finally, numerical simulations are carried out to verify
the effectiveness of the proposed implicit Lyapunov control method.
The comparisons of the control effect using the implicit Lyapunov
control method based on the state distance with that of the state error
are given.
Abstract: This paper describes the implementation and testing
of a multichannel active noise control system (ANCS) based on the
filtered-inverse LMS (FILMS) algorithm. The FILMS algorithm is
derived from the well-known filtered-x LMS (FXLMS) algorithm
with the aim to improve the rate of convergence of the multichannel
FXLMS algorithm and to reduce its computational load. Laboratory
setup and techniques used to implement this system efficiently are
described in this paper. Experiments performed in order to test the
performance of the FILMS algorithm are discussed and the obtained
results presented.
Abstract: There is a complex situation on the transport environment in the cities of the world. For the analysis and prevention of environmental problems an accurate calculation hazardous substances concentrations at each point of the investigated area is required. In the turbulent atmosphere of the city the wellknown methods of mathematical statistics for these tasks cannot be applied with a satisfactory level of accuracy. Therefore, to solve this class of problems apparatus of mathematical physics is more appropriate. In such models, because of the difficulty as a rule the influence of uneven land surface on streams of air masses in the turbulent atmosphere of the city are not taken into account. In this paper the influence of the surface roughness, which can be quite large, is mathematically shown. The analysis of this problem under certain conditions identified the possibility of areas appearing in the atmosphere with pressure tending to infinity, i.e. so-called "wall effect".
Abstract: This paper presents a novel template-based method to
detect objects of interest from real images by shape matching. To
locate a target object that has a similar shape to a given template
boundary, the proposed method integrates three components: contour
grouping, partial shape matching, and boundary verification. In the
first component, low-level image features, including edges and
corners, are grouped into a set of perceptually salient closed contours
using an extended ratio-contour algorithm. In the second component,
we develop a partial shape matching algorithm to identify the
fractions of detected contours that partly match given template
boundaries. Specifically, we represent template boundaries and
detected contours using landmarks, and apply a greedy algorithm to
search the matched landmark subsequences. For each matched
fraction between a template and a detected contour, we estimate an
affine transform that transforms the whole template into a hypothetic
boundary. In the third component, we provide an efficient algorithm
based on oriented edge lists to determine the target boundary from
the hypothetic boundaries by checking each of them against image
edges. We evaluate the proposed method on recognizing and
localizing 12 template leaves in a data set of real images with clutter
back-grounds, illumination variations, occlusions, and image noises.
The experiments demonstrate the high performance of our proposed
method1.
Abstract: This paper presents a method to estimate load profile
in a multiple power flow solutions for every minutes in 24 hours per
day. A method to calculate multiple solutions of non linear profile is
introduced. The Power System Simulation/Engineering (PSS®E) and
python has been used to solve the load power flow. The result of this
power flow solutions has been used to estimate the load profiles for
each load at buses using Independent Component Analysis (ICA)
without any knowledge of parameter and network topology of the
systems. The proposed algorithm is tested with IEEE 69 test bus
system represents for distribution part and the method of ICA has
been programmed in MATLAB R2012b version. Simulation results
and errors of estimations are discussed in this paper.
Abstract: Stochastic models of biological networks are well established in systems biology, where the computational treatment of such models is often focused on the solution of the so-called chemical master equation via stochastic simulation algorithms. In contrast to this, the development of storage-efficient model representations that are directly suitable for computer implementation has received significantly less attention. Instead, a model is usually described in terms of a stochastic process or a "higher-level paradigm" with graphical representation such as e.g. a stochastic Petri net. A serious problem then arises due to the exponential growth of the model-s state space which is in fact a main reason for the popularity of stochastic simulation since simulation suffers less from the state space explosion than non-simulative numerical solution techniques. In this paper we present transition class models for the representation of biological network models, a compact mathematical formalism that circumvents state space explosion. Transition class models can also serve as an interface between different higher level modeling paradigms, stochastic processes and the implementation coded in a programming language. Besides, the compact model representation provides the opportunity to apply non-simulative solution techniques thereby preserving the possible use of stochastic simulation. Illustrative examples of transition class representations are given for an enzyme-catalyzed substrate conversion and a part of the bacteriophage λ lysis/lysogeny pathway.
Abstract: A new nonlinear PID controller and its stability
analysis are presented in this paper. A nonlinear function is deduced
from the similarities between the control effort and the electric-field
effect of a capacitor. The conventional linear PID controller can be
modified into a nonlinear one by this function. To analyze the stability
of the nonlinear PID controlled system, an idea of energy equivalence
is adapted to avoid the conservativeness which is usually arisen from
some traditional theorems and Criterions. The energy equivalence is
naturally related with the conceptions of Passivity and T-Passivity. As
a result, an engineering guideline for the parameter design of the
nonlinear PID controller is obtained. An inverted pendulum system is
tested to verify the nonlinear PID control scheme.
Abstract: Controlled modification of appropriate sharpness for
nanotips is of paramount importance to develop novel materials and
functional devices at a nanometer resolution. Herein, we present a
reliable and unique strategy of laser irradiation enhanced
physicochemical etching to manufacture super sharp tungsten tips
with reproducible shape and dimension as well as high yields
(~80%). The corresponding morphology structure evolution of
tungsten tips and laser-tip interaction mechanisms were
systematically investigated and discussed using field emission
scanning electron microscope (SEM) and physical optics statistics
method with different fluences under 532 nm laser irradiation. This
work paves the way for exploring more accessible metallic tips
applications with tunable apex diameter and aspect ratio, and,
furthermore, facilitates the potential sharpening enhancement
technique for other materials used in a variety of nanoscale devices.
Abstract: This paper introduces an intelligent system, which can be applied in the monitoring of vehicle speed using a single camera. The ability of motion tracking is extremely useful in many automation problems and the solution to this problem will open up many future applications. One of the most common problems in our daily life is the speed detection of vehicles on a highway. In this paper, a novel technique is developed to track multiple moving objects with their speeds being estimated using a sequence of video frames. Field test has been conducted to capture real-life data and the processed results were presented. Multiple object problems and noisy in data are also considered. Implementing this system in real-time is straightforward. The proposal can accurately evaluate the position and the orientation of moving objects in real-time. The transformations and calibration between the 2D image and the actual road are also considered.