Abstract: The performance of schedules released to a shop floor may greatly be affected by unexpected disruptions. Thus, this paper considers the flexible job shop scheduling problem when processing times of some operations are represented by a uniform distribution with given lower and upper bounds. The objective is to find a predictive schedule that can deal with this uncertainty. The paper compares two genetic approaches to obtain predictive schedule. To determine the performance of the predictive schedules obtained by both approaches, an experimental study is conducted on a number of benchmark problems.
Abstract: DNA shuffling is a powerful method used for in vitro
evolute molecules with specific functions and has application in areas
such as, for example, pharmaceutical, medical and agricultural
research. The success of such experiments is dependent on a variety
of parameters and conditions that, sometimes, can not be properly
pre-established. Here, two computational models predicting DNA
shuffling results is presented and their use and results are evaluated
against an empirical experiment. The in silico and in vitro results
show agreement indicating the importance of these two models and
motivating the study and development of new models.
Abstract: This study aimed to detect and to identify the main
strains of airborne microorganisms present in the Shanghai Metro
system. Samples were collected using agar plates exposed to the air
and microorganisms were identified using catalase, plasma coagulase
and hymolytic analysis. The results show that the concentration of
mildew present within a newly opened metro line was significantly
higher than for other lines. Differences among underground and
elevated stations can be attributed to differences in passenger flow and
the environment surrounding the stations. Additionally, the
investigation indicated that bacteria reached maximum levels at
different times on weekdays and weekends. The bacteria in the Metro
stations were identified as primarily Gram positive, consisting mainly
of coagulase-negative staphylococcus strains (CNS).
Abstract: The present models and simulation algorithms of intracellular stochastic kinetics are usually based on the premise that diffusion is so fast that the concentrations of all the involved species are homogeneous in space. However, recents experimental measurements of intracellular diffusion constants indicate that the assumption of a homogeneous well-stirred cytosol is not necessarily valid even for small prokaryotic cells. In this work a mathematical treatment of diffusion that can be incorporated in a stochastic algorithm simulating the dynamics of a reaction-diffusion system is presented. The movement of a molecule A from a region i to a region j of the space is represented as a first order reaction Ai k- ! Aj , where the rate constant k depends on the diffusion coefficient. The diffusion coefficients are modeled as function of the local concentration of the solutes, their intrinsic viscosities, their frictional coefficients and the temperature of the system. The stochastic time evolution of the system is given by the occurrence of diffusion events and chemical reaction events. At each time step an event (reaction or diffusion) is selected from a probability distribution of waiting times determined by the intrinsic reaction kinetics and diffusion dynamics. To demonstrate the method the simulation results of the reaction-diffusion system of chaperoneassisted protein folding in cytoplasm are shown.
Abstract: The mosaicing technique has been employed in more and more application fields, from entertainment to scientific ones. In the latter case, often the final evaluation is still left to human beings, that assess visually the quality of the mosaic. Many times, a lack of objective measurements in microscopic mosaicing may prevent the mosaic from being used as a starting image for further analysis. In this work we analyze three different metrics and indexes, in the domain of signal analysis, image analysis and visual quality, to measure the quality of different aspects of the mosaicing procedure, such as registration errors and visual quality. As the case study we consider the mosaicing algorithm we developed. The experiments have been carried out by considering mosaics with very different features: histological samples, that are made of detailed and contrasted images, and live stem cells, that show a very low contrast and low detail levels.
Abstract: Whilst there is growing evidence that activity
across the lifespan is beneficial for improved health, there are
also many changes involved with the aging process and
subsequently the potential for reduced indices of health. The
nexus between health, physical activity and aging is complex
and has raised much interest in recent times due to the
realization that a multifaceted approached is necessary in
order to counteract a growing obesity epidemic. By
investigating age based trends within a population adhering to
competitive sport at older ages, further insight might be
gleaned to assist in understanding one of many factors
influencing this relationship.
BMI was derived using data gathered on a total of 6,071
masters athletes (51.9% male, 48.1% female) aged 25 to 91
years ( =51.5, s =±9.7), competing at the Sydney World
Masters Games (2009). Using linear and loess regression it
was demonstrated that the usual tendency for prevalence of
higher BMI increasing with age was reversed in the sample.
This trend in reversal was repeated for both male and female
only sub-sets of the sample participants, indicating the
possibility of improved prevalence of BMI with increasing
age for both the sample as a whole and these individual subgroups.
This evidence of improved classification in one index of
health (reduced BMI) for masters athletes (when compared to
the general population) implies there are either improved
levels of this index of health with aging due to adherence to
sport or possibly the reduced BMI is advantageous and
contributes to this cohort adhering (or being attracted) to
masters sport at older ages. Demonstration of this
proportionately under-investigated World Masters Games
population having an improved relationship between BMI and
increasing age over the general population is of particular
interest in the context of the measures being taken globally to
curb an obesity epidemic.
Abstract: Maintenance is one of the most important activities in
the shipyard industry. However, sometimes it is not supported by
adequate services from the shipyard, where inaccuracy in estimating
the duration of the ship maintenance is still common. This makes
estimation of ship maintenance duration is crucial. This study uses
Data Mining approach, i.e., CART (Classification and Regression
Tree) to estimate the duration of ship maintenance that is limited to
dock works or which is known as dry docking. By using the volume
of dock works as an input to estimate the maintenance duration, 4
classes of dry docking duration were obtained with different linear
model and job criteria for each class. These linear models can then be
used to estimate the duration of dry docking based on job criteria.
Abstract: This paper proposes the numerical simulation of the
investment casting of gold jewelry. It aims to study the behavior of
fluid flow during mould filling and solidification and to optimize the
process parameters, which lead to predict and control casting defects
such as gas porosity and shrinkage porosity. A finite difference
method, computer simulation software FLOW-3D was used to
simulate the jewelry casting process. The simplified model was
designed for both numerical simulation and real casting production.
A set of sensor acquisitions were allocated on the different positions
of the wax tree of the model to detect filling times, while a set of
thermocouples were allocated to detect the temperature during
casting and cooling. Those detected data were applied to validate the
results of the numerical simulation to the results of the real casting.
The resulting comparisons signify that the numerical simulation can
be used as an effective tool in investment-casting-process
optimization and casting-defect prediction.
Abstract: In this paper, we employ the approach of linear
programming to propose a new interactive broadcast method. In our
method, a film S is divided into n equal parts and broadcast via k
channels. The user simultaneously downloads these segments from k
channels into the user-s set-top-box (STB) and plays them in order.
Our method assumes that the initial p segments will not have
fast-forwarding capabilities. Every time the user wants to initiate d
times fast-forwarding, according to our broadcasting strategy, the
necessary segments already saved in the user-s STB or are just
download on time for playing. The proposed broadcasting strategy not
only allows the user to pause and rewind, but also to fast-forward.
Abstract: As new challenges emerge in power electrical
workplace safety, it is the responsibility of the systems designer to
seek out new approaches and solutions that address them. Design
decisions made today will impact cost, safety and serviceability of
the installed systems for 40 or 50 years during the useful life for the
owner. Studies have shown that this cost is an order of magnitude of
7 to 10 times the installed cost of the power distribution equipment.
This paper reviews some aspects of earthing system design in power
substation surrounded by residential houses. The electrical potential
rise and split factors are discussed and a few recommendations are
provided to achieve a safety voltage in the area beyond the boundary
of the substation.
Abstract: This research involved fingerprints on ballistics after shooting. Two objectives of research were as follow; (1) to study the duration of the existence of latent fingerprints on .38, .45, 9 mm and .223 cartridge case after shooting, and (2) to compare the effectiveness of the detection of latent fingerprints by Black Powder, Super Glue, Perma Blue and Gun Bluing. The latent fingerprint appearance were studied on .38, .45, 9 mm. and .223 cartridge cases before and after shooting with Black Powder, Super Glue, Perma Blue and Gun Bluing. The detection times were 3 minute, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 42, 48, 54, 60, 66, 72, 78 and 84 hours respectively. As a result of the study, it can be conclude that
Before shooting, the detection of latent fingerprints on 38, .45, and 9 mm. and .223 cartridge cases with Black Powder, Super Glue, Perma Blue and Gun Bluing can detect the fingerprints at all detection times.
After shooting, the detection of latent fingerprints on .38, .45, 9 mm. and .223 cartridge cases with Black Powder, Super Glue did not appear. The detection of latent fingerprints on .38, .45, 9 mm. cartridge cases with Perma Blue and Gun Bluing were found 100% of the time and the detection of latent fingerprints on .223 cartridge cases with Perma Blue and Gun Bluing were found 40% and 46.67% of the time, respectively.
Abstract: Online auctions are not very popular in Croatia. The
main reason for this is a very limited number of services which can
be used by Croatian users. Until recent times, even selling through
the most popular online auction site eBay wasn't possible because
PayPal services could not make payment to bank or debit card
accounts in Croatia. Furthermore, many foreign sellers do not offer
delivery of their products to Croatia which means that large
quantities of goods initially offered on such sites are not available.
With that in mind, it is necessary to analyze the buying and selling
habits of Croatian users and existing online auction sites, both
Croatian and foreign, and create a model for new domestic site. This
site will have to exploit every positive aspect of existing models and
neutralize every negative perception indicated by users in the survey
so that, hopefully, it would attract new users.
Abstract: In the national and professional music of oral tradition
of many people in the East there is the metric formula called “ussuli",
that is to say rhythmic constructions of different character and a
composition. Ussuli in translation from Arabic means the law. The
cultural contacts of the ancient and medieval inhabitants of the
Central Asia, India, China, East Turkestan, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Turkey, and Iran have played a certain role in formation of both
musical and dancing heritage of each of these people. During
theatrical shows many dances were performed under the
accompaniment of percussion instruments as nagra, dayulpaz, doll.
The abovementioned tools are used as the obligatory accompanying
tool in an orchestra and at support of dancing acts as the solo tool.
Dynamics of development of a dancing composition, at times
execution of technique of movement depends on various
combinations of ussuli and their receptions of execution.
Abstract: The peculiarities of the nanoscale structure-phase
states formed after electroexplosive carburizing and subsequent
electron-beam treatment of technically pure titanium surface in different regimes are established by methods of transmission electron
diffraction microscopy and physical mechanisms are discussed. Electroexplosive carburizing leads to surface layer formation
(40 m thickness) with increased (in 3.5 times) microhardness. It consists of β-titanium, graphite (monocrystals 100-150 nm,
polycrystals 5-10 nm, amorphous particles 3-5nm), TiC (5-10 nm), β-Ti02 (2-20nm). After electron-beam treatment additionally increasing the microhardness the surface layer consists of TiC.
Abstract: A novel path planning approach is presented to solve
optimal path in stochastic, time-varying networks under priori traffic
information. Most existing studies make use of dynamic programming
to find optimal path. However, those methods are proved to
be unable to obtain global optimal value, moreover, how to design
efficient algorithms is also another challenge.
This paper employs a decision theoretic framework for defining
optimal path: for a given source S and destination D in urban transit
network, we seek an S - D path of lowest expected travel time
where its link travel times are discrete random variables. To solve
deficiency caused by the methods of dynamic programming, such as
curse of dimensionality and violation of optimal principle, an integer
programming model is built to realize assignment of discrete travel
time variables to arcs. Simultaneously, pruning techniques are also
applied to reduce computation complexity in the algorithm. The final
experiments show the feasibility of the novel approach.
Abstract: The hand is one of the essential parts of the body for
carrying out Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). Individuals use their
hands and fingers in everyday activities in the both the workplace
and home. Hand-intensive tasks require diverse and sometimes
extreme levels of exertion, depending on the action, movement or
manipulation involved. The authors have undertaken several studies
looking at grip choice and comfort. It is hoped that in providing
improved understanding of discomfort during ADLs this will aid in
the design of consumer products.
Previous work by the authors outlined a methodology for
calculating pain frequency and pain level for a range of tasks. From
an online survey undertaken by the authors with regards
manipulating objects during everyday tasks, tasks involving
gripping were seen to produce the highest levels of pain and
discomfort. Questioning of the participants showed that cleaning
tasks were seen to be ADL's that produced the highest levels of
discomfort, with women feeling higher levels of discomfort than
men.
This paper looks at the methodology for calculating pain
frequency and pain level with particular regards to gripping
activities. This methodology shows that activities such as mopping,
sweeping and hoovering shows the highest numbers of pain
frequency and pain level at 3112.5 frequency per month while the
pain level per person doing this action was 0.78.The study then uses
thin-film force sensors to analyze the force distribution in the hand
whilst hoovering and compares this for differing grip styles and
genders. Women were seen to have more of their hand under a
higher pressure than men when undertaking hoovering. This
suggests that women may feel greater discomfort than men since
their hand is at a higher pressure more of the time.
Abstract: The Muslim faith requires individuals to fast between
the hours of sunrise and sunset during the month of Ramadan. Our
recent work has concentrated on some of the changes that take place
during the daytime when fasting. A questionnaire was developed to
assess subjective estimates of physical, mental and social activities,
and fatigue. Four days were studied: in the weeks before and after
Ramadan (control days) and during the first and last weeks of
Ramadan (experimental days). On each of these four days, this
questionnaire was given several times during the daytime and once
after the fast had been broken and just before individuals retired at
night.
During Ramadan, daytime mental, physical and social activities
all decreased below control values but then increased to abovecontrol
values in the evening. The desires to perform physical and
mental activities showed very similar patterns. That is, individuals
tried to conserve energy during the daytime in preparation for the
evenings when they ate and drank, often with friends. During
Ramadan also, individuals were more fatigued in the daytime and
napped more often than on control days. This extra fatigue probably
reflected decreased sleep, individuals often having risen earlier
(before sunrise, to prepare for fasting) and retired later (to enable
recovery from the fast).
Some physiological measures and objective measures of
performance (including the response to a bout of exercise) have also
been investigated. Urine osmolality fell during the daytime on
control days as subjects drank, but rose in Ramadan to reach values
at sunset indicative of dehydration. Exercise performance was also
compromised, particularly late in the afternoon when the fast had
lasted several hours. Self-chosen exercise work-rates fell and a set
amount of exercise felt more arduous. There were also changes in
heart rate and lactate accumulation in the blood, indicative of greater
cardiovascular and metabolic stress caused by the exercise in
subjects who had been fasting. Daytime fasting in Ramadan produces
widespread effects which probably reflect combined effects of sleep
loss and restrictions to intakes of water and food.
Abstract: Some meta-schedulers query the information system of individual supercomputers in order to submit jobs to the least busy supercomputer on a computational Grid. However, this information can become outdated by the time a job starts due to changes in scheduling priorities. The MSR scheme is based on Multiple Simultaneous Requests and can take advantage of opportunities resulting from these priorities changes. This paper presents the SWARM meta-scheduler, which can speed up the execution of large sets of tasks by minimizing the job queuing time through the submission of multiple requests. Performance tests have shown that this new meta-scheduler is faster than an implementation of the MSR scheme and the gLite meta-scheduler. SWARM has been used through the GridQTL project beta-testing portal during the past year. Statistics are provided for this usage and demonstrate its capacity to achieve reliably a substantial reduction of the execution time in production conditions.
Abstract: Computers are being integrated in the various aspects
of human every day life in different shapes and abilities. This fact
has intensified a requirement for the software development
technologies which is ability to be: 1) portable, 2) adaptable, and 3)
simple to develop. This problem is also known as the Pervasive
Computing Problem (PCP) which can be implemented in different
ways, each has its own pros and cons and Context Oriented
Programming (COP) is one of the methods to address the PCP.
In this paper a design for a COP framework, a context aware
framework, is presented which has eliminated weak points of a
previous design based on interpreter languages, while introducing the
compiler languages power in implementing these frameworks.
The key point of this improvement is combining COP and
Dependency Injection (DI) techniques. Both old and new frameworks
are analyzed to show advantages and disadvantages. Finally a
simulation of both designs is proposed to indicating that the practical
results agree with the theoretical analysis while the new design runs
almost 8 times faster.
Abstract: We propose a fast and robust hierarchical face detection system which finds and localizes face images with a cascade of classifiers. Three modules contribute to the efficiency of our detector. First, heterogeneous feature descriptors are exploited to enrich feature types and feature numbers for face representation. Second, a PSO-Adaboost algorithm is proposed to efficiently select discriminative features from a large pool of available features and reinforce them into the final ensemble classifier. Compared with the standard exhaustive Adaboost for feature selection, the new PSOAdaboost algorithm reduces the training time up to 20 times. Finally, a three-stage hierarchical classifier framework is developed for rapid background removal. In particular, candidate face regions are detected more quickly by using a large size window in the first stage. Nonlinear SVM classifiers are used instead of decision stump functions in the last stage to remove those remaining complex nonface patterns that can not be rejected in the previous two stages. Experimental results show our detector achieves superior performance on the CMU+MIT frontal face dataset.