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Literature on the commercial applications of dielectric industrial drying is plentiful; however, literature on the computations required for estimating dielectric drying power requirements is sparse. Dielectric drying involves several complicated heat and mass transfer phenomena, including absorption of electromagnetic energy, transport of the generated heat, generation of internal vapor, and changes, and changes due to shrinkage. Furthermore, this process involves an assortment of computational expertise, particularly dielectric property characterization. This paper addresses the computational iterations required to estimate the power requirements for unit operation dielectric drying .The objective of the investigation is to explain the theory of the power interaction between dielectric and the drying material. The purpose of this paper is to describe the design calculations for heat energy using microwave power and finally the computation process is applied to corrugated board manufacturing case study to calculate the drying requirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At macroscopic level, traffic can be described as a continuum flow. Lighthill Witham and Richards (LWR) have developed a traffic flow model based on the fluid dynamics continuity equation, which is known as the first order LWR traffic flow model. The resulting first order partial differential equation (PDE) can be analytically solved for some special cases, given initial and boundary conditions, and numerically using for example the finite element method (FEM). This paper makes use of the Galerkin FEM to solve the LWR model with constant speed. The road is divided into a number of road segments (elements) using the Galerkin FEM. Each element consists of two nodes. Each node has one degree of freedom (d.o.f.), namely the traffic density. The FEM provides a solution for the degrees of freedom, i.e. traffic densities of each node. The resulting simultaneous equations are solved at different time steps using the Euler backward time-integration algorithm. In Belgium and also in the Netherlands, there is a special technique that can be used in order to prevent traffic jams and increasing safety in situations with high volume of cars on the roads, i.e. block driving. It is a technique where cars drive in groups by order of the police when the roads are crowded. In this paper block driving is used as a practical example of the LWR model with constant speed. Thereby, it is simulated using the Galerkin FEM and the results are compared with the analytical solution. The FEM gives good results providing that: the road segments and time steps are small enough. A road with length 5000 m, constant speed of 25 m/s, segment length of 100 m and time steps of 1 s gives good results for the studied case. At points of traffic density rate discontinuities, depending on the road segment size and time step size, the Galerkin FEM is accurate and requires reasonable computational effort. From the research work carried out in this paper, it is found that the Galerkin FEM is suitable for modelling traffic flow at macroscopic level. The element size and time step size are important parameters in determining the convergence of the solution in case of discontinuities in traffic density rate. Although this paper considers the case of constant speed, the technique can be extended in the future to include the case of non-constant speed, i.e. speed as a function of traffic density. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The machining of complex shaped designs was difficult earlier, but with the advent of the new machining processes incorporating in it chemical, electrical & mechanical processes, manufacturing has redefined itself. This paper intends to deal with one of the revolutionary process called Electro Chemical Machining (ECM) which is unconventional process. New materials which have high strength to weight ratio, heat resistance and hardness and also complex shapes and need for accuracy demand newer type of machining process. These processes are called unconventional machining processes. ECM removes material without heat. Almost all types of metals can be machined by this process. In today's high precision and time sensitive scenario, ECM has wide scope of applications. The said paper is a experimental study of effect of voltage variation on MRR for Stainless steel EN Series 58A (AISI 302B) A comparative study of calculation for MRR on theoretical as well practical basis are given in tabular format with graphical representation. The said experimentation is carried out at Micromachining Cell I I T Bombay in the month of Dec 2008. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a new elastic-wave-based NDT system was proposed and then applied to reveal the defects inside the concrete specimens by imaging method. In this NDT system, it integrates the point-source/point-receiver scheme with the synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT) to achieve the effect like scanning with a phase array system; hence it is equipped with large functioning depth because of the high-energy feature that transient elastic wave method possessed over traditional ultrasonic method. This system is mainly composed of an impact source generator, a vertical displacement transducer, a signal capturing unit and operation software. To evaluate the feasibility of this system on NDT of concrete structures, some concrete slabs with artificial voids inside were built for experiment. 2D plane stress FEM numerical simulations were performed for further comparison. Experimental result shows good agreement with the numerical result not only on the B-scan diagram but also on the processed scanning image. The elastic-wave-based scanning system proposed in this paper exhibits high potential in inspecting the defects of in-situ concrete structures by imaging for civil engineering applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a concept and presents the experimental results for robotic end-effector operation for handling product items that are flexible or variable in physical properties such as size, shape or firmness and also describes a scheme by which a manipulator can use dynamic tactile sensing to detect when it is about to lose hold of a grasped object and take preventive measures before gross sliding occurs. This paper also elaborates the mechanical, sensing and control issues of such a system and presents results on a novel modular gripping system developed for this purpose. By detecting localized slips on the gripping surface which precede gross slip, the controller can modify the grasp force to prevent the object from slipping. Accurate knowledge of slip is essential when grasping fragile objects or manipulations with sliding. A tactile sensor enables a robot, cybernetic device or other appropriate automatic mechanism to sense an object, to measure the force of contact, and to determine the force required to seize an object. The tactile sensor used in this experiment predicts the partial slip of a tactile surface by sensing micro vibrations in tangential forces which are caused by the expansion of the slip regions within the contact area. Finally a summary of contributions is listed and the advantages of using this intelligent gripping system is elaborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper sets out to develop a new multiple-rotor system which can be used for attitude control of spacecraft. Unlike typical attitude control devices the new multirotor system has no disadvantages of reaction wheels, on the contrary, it possesses the advantages of a control moment gyroscope. The paper describes a new method of attitude reorientation of spacecraft with the help of the multirotor system. New multirotor system contains a lot of rotor-equipped rays, so it was called a "Rotor-type Spider" or a "Rotor-type Hedgehog". These systems allow using spinups and captures of conjugate rotors to perform compound attitude motion of spacecraft. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to design a position controller of a DC motor by selection of a PID parameters using genetic algorithm. The model of a DC motor is considered as a third order system. And this paper compares two kinds of tuning methods of parameter for PID controller. One is the controller design by the genetic algorithm, second is the controller design by the Ziegler and Nichols method. It was found that the proposed PID parameters adjustment by the genetic algorithm is better than the Ziegler & Nichols' method. The proposed method could be applied to the higher order system also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a method to analyse the thermal processes occurring in the cast composite solidification. The domain of cast is formed by parallel fibres bundle randomly immersed in a host metal matrix. The heat is transferred from the metal matrix and absorbed by fibres. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the volumetric fraction of fibres for which the solidification of metal matrix occurs. Our method is to compute Voronoi diagrams with Voronoi regions representing the geometry location of the fibres in the metal matrix and to use these regions as control volume within a variant of Control Volume Method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, under the assumption that the claimsize is Negatively dependent subexponentially distributed and the constant interest force is considered, a simple asymptotics of ruin probability for renewal risk model within finite horizon is obtained. The results obtained extended the corresponding results of related papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a four order unconditionally stable implicit scheme for hyperbolic equations. Based on the scheme and the concept of decomposition a class of parallel alternating group explicit (AGE) iterative method is derived, and convergence analysis is given. In order to verify the AGE iterative method, we give an example at the end of the paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an application of the Complex Variable Boundary Element Method (CVBEM) to solve a boundary value problem over two-dimensional multiply connected regions, in fact for the problem of a potential fluid flow around objects. The CVBEM is a powerful numerical tool for solving generally two-dimensional boundary value problems in which appear complex functions, and it represents a numerical application of Cauchy Integral Theorem. For solving the boundary integral the problem is reduced at there can be used different kinds of boundary elements. In this paper there are used linear boundary elements, so the geometries involved are approximated by polygonal lines and for the approximation of the unknowns there are used linear basis functions. The CVBEM's advantage over other techniques, pointed out by the present paper, is the fact that when this method is applied the approximation exactly solves the equation, so using this method good approximations can be found. A computer code based on this method is developed and numerical results are obtained for some particular cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

User's perceptive video quality differs greatly with video contents hence, it is of practical importance to classify videos. Videos are most commonly classified according to their spatial and temporal features. In this paper, we classify videos into groups based on objective video quality evaluation. Video quality measured in terms of the Mean Opinion Score (MOS), obtained by the application and network level parameters is classified into groups using cluster analysis with good prediction accuracy. The QoS (Quality of Service) parameters that affect video quality considered in this paper are send bitrate, frame rate in application and packet error rate in the network level. We then find the degree of influence of each of the QoS parameter and analyze the relationship between QoS parameters and content types by using principal component analysis for streaming MPEG4 video over wireless networks. We compare our classified contents to the spatio-temporal dynamics of the content and establish the relationship between video contents and video quality by equations obtained by multiple linear regression. Finally, we apply the results to rate control methods. The proposed scheme makes it possible to apply priority control to content delivery, based on content types with similar attributes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

WIMAX relay station mesh network has been approved by IEEE 802.16j as a standard to provide a highly data rate transmission , the RS was implemented to extend the coverage zone of the BS, for instance the MSs previously were out of the coverage of the BS they become in the coverage of the RS, therefore these MSs can have Admission control from the BS through the RS. This paper describe a problem in the mesh network Relay station, for instance the problem of how to serve the mobile stations (MSs) which are out of the Relay station coverage. This paper also proposed a solution for mobile stations out of the coverage of the WIMAX Relay stations mesh Network. Therefore Ad-hoc network defined as a solution by using its admission control schema and apply it on the mobiles inside and outside the Relay station coverage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multi-layer neural networks have been used in this paper for modeling nonlinear behaviour of concrete gravity dams under earthquake excitation. Koyna dam which has been studied extensively by other authors in the past has been studied as test example in this paper too, where the nonlinear response of its crest has been modelled by the proposed algorithm. The main steps of the algorithm are as follows: First the concrete gravity dam has been numerically analyzed for its nonlinear behaviour under earthquake excitation to generate numerical data to be used in the training of the neural networks. To this end the dam has been subjected to a white noise excitation so that the generated data could be rich enough for the training of a general neuro-modeller of the dam response. The neuro-modeller has then been trained on the generated data to learn the hysteretic behaviour of the dam implicitly. Then the neural network has been tested on a number of earthquakes including near field as well as very strong earthquakes for verification. The results obtained in this study prove that the method has been successful regarding the generalization capabilities of the trained neuro-modeller where other earthquakes than those used in its training have been used in its testing. In the tests, the neuro-modeller could predict the response with high precision. One significant benefit of using this algorithm is in cases where it is desired to use collected data from tests on experimental models or through monitoring of the response of a dam to prepare a suitable model for predicting its response under any earthquake. Another benefit is the time of analysis which can be reduced by this method. Once the neuro-modeller is trained, it can predict the response of the dam to any earthquake without the need to be updated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

IEEE802.16 is the standard defining the Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) for Metropolitan Area Network (MAN). WiMAX has recently being considered by Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as an attractive alternative to leasing lines from current ISPs or the deployment of new fiber networks. This is mainly the case since WiMAX is more flexible and much cheaper than other possible solutions. Our focus in this paper is on mobile WiMAX i.e. IEEE802.16e designed to provide broadband wireless access for mobile users. In this paper we have designed various scenarios using the Qualnet simulation package to evaluate the performance of WiMAX in delivering traffic under different operational conditions for a point to multi point configuration. The results showed how different factors such as load and mobility might affect the performance of WiMAX in a single cell environment. End to end delay, delay jitter and throughput were considered as the performance measures in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents and investigates a dynamic buffer management scheme for QoS control of multimedia services in a 3.5G wireless system i.e. the High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA). HSDPA was introduced to enhance UMTS for high-speed packet switched services. With HSDPA, packet scheduling and HARQ mechanisms in the base station require data buffering at the air interface thus introducing a potential bottleneck to end-to-end communication. Hence, for multimedia services with multiplexed parallel diverse flows such as video and data in the same end-user session, buffer management schemes in the base station are essential to support end-to-end QoS provision. We propose a dynamic buffer management scheme for HSDPA multimedia sessions with aggregated real-time and non real-time flows in the paper. The end-to-end performance impact of the scheme is evaluated with an example multimedia session comprising a real-time streaming flow concurrent with TCP-based non real-time flow via extensive HSDPA simulations. Results demonstrate that the scheme can guarantee the end-to-end QoS of the real-time streaming flow, whilst simultaneously protecting non real-time flow from starvation resulting in improved end-to-end throughput performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an alternative energy-based algorithm to provide speech/silence classification. The algorithm is capable to track non-stationary signals and dynamically calculate instantaneous value for threshold using adaptive scaling parameter. It is based on the observation of a noise power estimation used for computation of the threshold can be obtained using minimum and maximum values of a short-term energy estimate. The paper presents this novel voice activity detection algorithm, its performance, its limitations, and some other techniques which deal with energy estimation as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a study about human error optimization is presented. A discussion about the maintenance or operation management is done. The models of human error were made using a well known technique named Technique for Human Error Rate Prediction (THERP), wisely used in the nuclear area. These models were included in the Probabilistic Safety Analysis (PSA) to evaluate the impact of human error on the frequency of a damage plant states. This paper shows how the optimization of maintenance management is only possible with a global approach and it is not feasible focusing on each task in a particular way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the simultaneous scheduling of landside container handling operations in a container terminal. Issues addressed include scheduling the sequence of loading (unloading) of containers to (from) the vessels from (to) the quayside, assigning trucks to transport containers between quayside and yard side, and scheduling operations of yard cranes in different yard zones. A mathematical model describing the characteristics of the problem is developed. The objective is to minimize the total completion time for handling all the containers under consideration in the terminal. As optimizing the landside container handling operations in a terminal is known to be NP-hard, a new genetic algorithm with the selection process based on the principle of simulated annealing is developed in this paper to solve the problem. Comparison of the respective results obtained by using the proposed genetic algorithm, the canonical genetic algorithm and the simulated annealing algorithm clearly shows that the total completion times obtained by the proposed algorithm are 12%-18% shorter than that obtained by GA and SA, and the computing times of GA-SA are only 50% of that of GA. The proposed genetic algorithm is indeed superior to the other two algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a need of paradigm shift in maintenance system so as to improve performance of overall system in this global competition. It discovers flaws in present day maintenance strategies that were considered to be the rationale behind the need for this new paradigm; changing scheme from a problem solving maintenance to a problem understanding maintenance. To reply to that research gap, this study unveils want in quality system and systems thinking that must have got to be integrated into conception of the existing maintenance strategies. Having had demand for integration of these methodologies, this paper offers a novel framework that enable maintenance operatives to plan maintenance actions through the identification of true root cause of failures and the quest of optimal solutions by viewing problem as a system in its entirety. Unlike current maintenance strategies, the proposed framework will count not only 'hard' factors but also their relationships with nascent 'soft' factors as contributing elements in the cause of failure. It can then be developed from beneficial effect of integration between the Six Sigma and the System Dynamics benefiting from favorable merged characteristics of the two; quality system and systems thinking respectively, along with feedback mechanism. Details construction of the framework is explained thoroughly in every section of this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A Finite Element Analysis (FEA) and Fourier transform approach to obtain frequency response function (FRF) is presented in this paper. The aim in this paper is to eliminate the need for the classical impact experimental approach used in extracting structure's FRF. The numerical and experimental FRFs have been used to obtain stable regions in machining of thin walled structures, which gives a good comparison. Examples are presented and compared with experimental results with a satisfactory agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development, finite element(FE) analysis of magnetic field distribution, performance, control and testing of a new axial flux permanent magnet linear oscillating motor (PMLOM) along with a suitable speed and thrust control technique is described in this paper. The PMLOM can perform precision oscillation task without exceeding the given limit on allowable average power dissipation. The use of new powerful permanent magnet materials such as Neodymium-Iron-Boron alloys can greatly improve the performance of electrical machines. Also its performance parameters, such as the force, current etc. are experimentally assessed. The objective of this paper is to determine the forces for aluminium mover embedded with rare earth permanent magnet experimentally and analytically through FEMM software and develop a microcontroller based IGBT Inverter for its control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the immense growth of services offered by Internet, the requirement of broadband connectivity has increased significantly in past few years. Organizations and individuals are relying heavily on the internet for their daily communication needs. Consequently, networks have become more prone to different types of network attacks. Intrusion Detection Systems (IDS) offer a method to protect networks against many such attacks. Numerous IDS have been proposed in literature, which employ different techniques to identify attack patterns as well as abrupt changes in network traffic flows. Anomaly detection is a type of Intrusion Detection corresponding to a suite of techniques that can be used to identify novel or "zero-day" attacks against computers and network infrastructure. Different Anomaly-based Intrusion Detection Systems (ADS) work on different principles e.g., a few take into account the packet headers only, where as others operate on payload as well as packet headers. In this paper we evaluate six different ADS; three of them work on packet header only, while remaining three works on both header and payload. We aim to provide a conclusive comparison of these ADS (header only or both header and payload) in terms of accuracy, complexity and detection delay to highlight factors that must be considered while designing IDS in future. The comparison is performed using two real-world labeled datasets to enable cross-reference for future research in this field. In the end of this paper we will conclude that anomaly detectors which work on both header and payload perform better than those ADS which consider only header for intrusion detection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the optimal location and parameters of Unified Power Flow Controllers (UPFCs) in electrical power systems. The UPFC is one of the most promising FACTS devices in terms of its ability to control power system quantities. Shunt FACTS devices are used for controlling transmission voltage, power flow, reducing reactive losses, and damping of power system oscillations for high power transfer levels. In this paper the optimal location of a shunt FACT device is investigated for an actual line model of a transmission line having series compensation at the center. As one of the most promising FACTS devices in terms of its ability to control power system quantities, UPFC Effect of change in degree of series compensation on the optimal placement of the shunt FACTS device to get the highest possible benefit is studied. The results obtained shown that optimal placement of the shunt FACTS device varies with the change in the level of series compensation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents two simulation models for two variants of a large chipper drive used in a paper mill. If a slip ring induction motor is used, the impact of a rotor circuit rheostat with respect to starting behavior and heavy duty load impulses can be examined. Furthermore a speed controlled squirrel cage induction machine will be investigated. The modeling language for both drives is Modelica. The simulation results for both drives are compared and discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We present new outer bounds to the individual rates and the conditions under which these bounds become tight for the symmetric Gaussian cognitive radio (CR) channel in the low interference gain regime. The CR transmitter is assumed to use dirty paper coding while deriving the outer bounds. The capacity of the CR channel in the low interference scenario is known when the CR employs "polite" approach by devoting some portion of its power to transmit primary user's (PU's) message. However, this approach does not guarantee any quality of service for the CR users. Hence, we focus on the scenario when the CR goes for the "rude" approach, does not relay PU's message and tries to maximize its own rates only. It is shown that when both CR and the PU operate in low interference gain regime, then treating interference as additive noise at the PU receiver and doing dirty paper coding at the CR is nearly optimal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we give a general overview of fuzzy research according to the results found in the ISI Web of Knowledge. We present the most cited articles in fuzzy research, the top authors, the top journals, the evolution by years and the top countries. We also provide a longer list of journals in order to be informative to the scientific community, especially for the young researchers. Note that the results given in this paper are only a general orientation because the rankings can be developed in different ways depending on the variables that we want to take into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assimilation of formal logic into the domain of Software Engineering offers the possibility of enormous benefits in terms of software reliability and verifiability. To date, however, the integration of such techniques has proved difficult since they involve a significantly increased burden on the programmer in meeting the demands of the formal mechanisms being employed. The current paper investigates the advantages which may be gained by the software development process with the introduction of Artificial Neural Network technology into a formal software development system. Essentially, the adaptive artificial neural network model is employed to refine an existing formal software model in order to produce increasingly better approximations to a given solution. Each approximation is itself a valid formal system whose precise behaviour may be formally determined. The paper introduces a framework by which a programmer may define a system possessing the abstract structure of a traditional neural network but whose internal structures are taken from the formal mathematical domain of Constructive Type Theory. The system will then refine itself to produce successive approximations to a desired goal based on data presented to it. An example is presented addressing a problem domain which has previously proved difficult to model. Although the example presented is necessarily limited, it does provide an insight into the potential advantages of merging formal logic with artificial neural systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Close coordination among law enforcement agencies, researchers, and intelligence agencies is required to solve the problem of computer crime. There are several barriers to this cooperation including asymmetric laws, national interests, and poor communication mechanisms. Computers have not only led to new types of crimes, but have provided additional avenues for existing crimes. Laws for traditional crimes have not evolved quickly enough to accommodate technology developments. To foster increased cooperation, it is necessary to have a common vocabulary, which will avoid confusion in interpretation of laws, security policies, data, and research due to differences in language, vocabulary, and semantics. The basic premise of the paper is that security policies are the key instrument of security that will help in tacking international cybercrime and a shared vision of security would be achieved through common security policies. This paper presents recommendations and results from the creation of an initial security glossary compiled from public sources on the Internet as a part of research in developing metrics for information security policies. The large variation in terminology and definitions underscores the necessity of standardization of nomenclature in security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper examines the child's use of deictic gestures in the process of topical co-operation with his father. The method for the study is qualitative and data driven conversation analysis based on examining communicative practices in natural settings. The database is composed of videotaped naturalistic picture book conversations between the child (at the age from 1 to 2 years) and the adult. For the current paper, the sample of data is transcribed and analyzed focusing on the sequential organization of the participants' verbal and nonverbal action (gestures, gaze, vocalizations and adult's speech) focusing the analysis on referential actions in the sequence in which the topic is extended from the referent in the picture book to the referent outside the book. More specifically, the focus is on how both the verbal and nonverbal referential resources reveal the participants' orientations in the on-going interaction, creating a shared referential focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an analysis of several recorded conversations and shows that dialogue utterances can be categorised into two main types: (a) those whose primary function is to impart novel information, or propositional content, and (b) those whose primary function is to relay discourse-related and interpersonal or affect-related information. Whereas the former have characteristics that are closer to read speech, the latter are more varying in their prosody and present a considerable challenge to current speech synthesis systems. The paper shows that these apparently simple utterances are both very frequent and very variable, and illustrates with examples why they present such a difficult challenge to current speech processing methods and synthesis techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a program for structural synthesis -conception and design work-of the multiple fixture devices in the machine-tool structure. This program was created according to the principles of object-oriented programming. The program is also built upon two fundamental principles which characterize the evolution of the systems: the combination and the selection. The basic structural elements of the fixture devices are the clamping mechanisms. For this reason the program accomplishes clamping mechanism combinations, obtaining mathematically-possible combinations from which the combinations of technical incompatibility are excluded. Finally, the paper presents some fixtures functional structures obtained with the proposed program. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyze the bounds of the fixed common step-size parameter GMDF μ for the generalized multidelay adaptive filter (GMDF). Frequency domain adaptive filters are attractive in applications requiring a large number of coefficients such as acoustic echo cancellation (AEC). However, the very restrictive convergence bound for block LMS has limited its usefulness. Derivations on step-size bounds for the partitioned frequency-domain block LMS have been reported recently, but are not consistent with each other. Contrary to other researchers' work, this paper derives a not-restrictive step-size bound that supports a stable GMDF. We also derive relations of step-size parameters for NLMS and GMDF to have similar convergence properties. The results of extensive simulation experiments are included in the paper. These results show the bounds and the convergence behavior predicted by the analysis is in very good agreement with the experimental results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Face recognition has assigned a special place to itself because of its low intrusiveness, low cost and effort and acceptable accuracy. There are several methods for recognition and appearance based methods is one of the most popular one. Unfortunately most of the papers that have been published these years have just shown the results on the databases that are all without any noise and all of focus. But it is clear that for a real system all these problems can happen, so finding methods that are robust to such problems is important. In this paper we show that linear appearance based methods are robust to an acceptable degree to problems such as, when the camera is moving or it is defocus and when the image is influenced with Gaussian noise. For linear appearance based methods we chose Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) and Multiple Exemplar Discriminant Analysis (MEDA) that has shown better performance than other appearance based methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a recently developed fiber tracking algorithm to be used with diffusion tensor (DT) fields acquired via magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is improved and applied to real brain DT-MR images. The method performs satisfactorily in regions where branching and crossing fibers exist and offers the capability of reporting a probability value for the computed tracts. This certainty figure takes into account both the anisotropy and the information provided by all the eigenvectors and eigenvalues of the diffusion matrix at each voxel. In previous papers of the authors, a simpler algorithm was applied only to elementary synthetic DT-MR images. As now presented, this algorithm is now adequately used with more intricate synthetic images and is applied to real white matter DT-MR images with successful results. A novel neural network is used to estimate the main parameters of the algorithm. Numerical experiments show a performance gain over previous approaches, specially with respect to convergence and computational load. The tracking of white matter fibers in the human brain will improve the diagnosis and treatment of many neuronal diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moving object detection is very important for video surveillance. In this paper, we present a new real time motion detection algorithm that is based on the integration of accumulative optical flow and double background filtering method (long-term background and short-term background) to achieve better performance. The accumulative optical flow method is used to obtain and keep a stable background image to cope with variations on environmental changing conditions and the double background filtering method is used to eliminate the background information and separate the moving object from it. The biggest advantage of this algorithm is that it does not need to learn the background model from hundreds of images and can handle quick image variations without prior knowledge about the object size and shape. The algorithm has high capability of anti-interference and preserves high accurate rate detection at the same time. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for motion detection is demonstrated in a simulation environment and the evaluation results are reported in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The strength of Micro Systems Technology (MST) is the ability to fabricate a large number of small devices economically. However such devices tend to have errors caused by the variations of fabrication and inherent noise signals such as Brownian motion or Johnson noise. This paper advances the understanding of Micro Switch Group Sensors (MSGS). In this paper, a MSGS comprising of 20 switches has been built using electronic circuits and tested to verify the performance. The output signal is compared to the number of switches turned on and analysed. The fluctuations of the output signals and the measured performance of the electrical circuit was shown to be in good agreement with the theoretical prediction. The output signal is compared to the input signal and shows that MSGS has been successfully applied as a measurement tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the modified sensitivity analysis applied into an elastic-plastic finite element analysis of a 3D blank design in sheet metal forming. Originally the sensitivity method has successfully been applied to several arbitrary shapes. In the present paper the sensitivity coefficients are not considered constant during the analysis. The presented approach computes the new coefficients from the two last iterations. This method can produce an initial blank boundary shape that has any arbitrary flange shape. A cup with uniform flange has been studied in detail and results show a faster solution convergence than the published sensitivity method. Experimental tests were conducted to compare with the numerical simulations. The optimum blank shape obtained from the numerical simulations was used during the experimental trials. The results of experimental tests for both square and optimal blank are presented here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an important outcome of a research programme which focuses on the development of a method for synthesizing, under controlled conditions in the laboratory, the non-stationary random vibrations generated by road transport vehicles. It addresses an important limitation of current methods used for synthesising random vehicle vibrations which assume that vibrations produced by wheeled vehicles can be approximated by a zero-mean, normally-distributed (Gaussian) random process and, therefore, fails to accurately reproduce the fluctuations in vibration levels that occur naturally during road transportation realizations [1]. The paper builds upon the observation that non-stationary random vehicle vibrations are composed of a sequence of zero-mean random Gaussian processes of varying standard deviations [2]. It discusses the important parameters that need to be addressed when dealing with the synthesis of random sequences. The paper presents the development of a change-point detection algorithm that was used to determine the length of stationary segments within a large number of typical non-stationary random vibration records. These include measured vibration records as well as numerically-generated records based on measured pavement profiles. The algorithm, based on the cum-sum / bootstrapping techniques, was developed and applied to the instantaneous magnitude of sample vibration records. The statistical distribution of segment lengths for each vibration record was computed with the aim of identifying similarities and trends for the development of an overall statistical model for segment lengths to be used for synthesis purposes. One outcome of note was that the shape of the segment length distributions computed from a wide range of vibration records are generally comparable and exhibit an asymptotic-like decrease in probability of occurrence as the segment length increases. This behaviour was found to be adequately modelled with a hyperbolic trigonometric function which was found to be useful for characterising the general statistical behaviour of segment length for non-stationary random vibrations produced by road vehicles. Finally, the significance and relevance of this outcome with respect to the synthesis of non-stationary vibrations for package evaluation and validation purposes is highlighted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the initial results of a study aimed at improving the method by which the vibrations produced by transport vehicles are characterised and simulated. More specifically, this paper focuses on the rigid body vibrations generated by road transport vehicles in the context of distribution of packaged goods and produce. The research uses a variety of vibration data, collected from various vehicle types and routes in Spain and Australia with high-capacity vibration recorders. Vehicles used range from small transport vehicles to large truck-trailers with both airbags and steel spring suspensions while the routes travelled include suburban streets, main roads and motorways. The paper discusses the significance and limitations of the average power spectral density (PSD) and explains why the average PSD is not always adequate as the sole descriptor of road vehicle vibrations as the process generally tends to be non-stationary and non-Gaussian. The paper adopts an alternative analysis method, based on the statistical distribution of the moving root-mean-square (RMS) vibrations, as a supplementary indicator of overall ride quality. The measured data was used to compute the statistical distribution of each vibration record, the shape of which was compared for the entire set of records. The suitability of various mathematical models, based on the Weibull and Rayleigh distributions were investigated for describing the probability distribution function (PDF) of road vehicle vibration RMS time history. The paper proposes a single mathematical model that can accurately describe the statistical character of the random vibrations generated by road vehicles in general. It shows that the model can also effectively describe the statistical parameters of the process namely the mean, median, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents one of the outcomes of a research project concerned with the development of a method for synthesizing, under controlled conditions in the laboratory, the random vibrations generated by road transport vehicles. It addresses some of the deficiencies and limitations of current random vibration synthesis methods used for evaluating and validating the performance of packaging systems. The paper deals with the development of a technique for decomposing non-stationary random vibration signals into constituent Gaussian elements. The hypothesis that random non-stationary vehicle vibrations are essentially composed of a sequence of zero-mean random Gaussian processes of varying standard deviations is tested and the paper reveals that the variations in the magnitude of the vibrations are the cause of the leptokurtic, non-Gaussian nature of the process. It is shown how non-stationary vibration signals can be systematically decomposed into these independent random Gaussian elements by means of a numerical curve-fitting procedure. The paper describes the development of the algorithm which is designed to automatically extract the parameters of each constituent Gaussian process namely the RMS level and the Vibration Dose. The validity of the Random Gaussian Sequence Decomposition (RGSD) method was tested using a set of road vehicle vibration records and was found to be capable of successfully extract the Gaussian estimates as well as the corresponding Vibration Doses. Validation was achieved by comparing the sum of these Gaussian estimates against the PDF of the original vibration record. All validation cases studied show that the RGSD algorithm is very successful in breaking-down non-stationary random vibration records into their constituent Gaussian processes. Finally, the significance and relevance of this technique with respect to the synthesis of non-stationary vibrations for package evaluation and validation purposes is highlighted [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kernel-based Regularized least-squares Regression (RLSR) is a technique originally from Statistical Learning (SL) theory. RLSR can deal with non-linear problem through mapping the samples into a higher dimension space using a kernel function. This paper adopts the RLSR to time series forecasting and the resulted model is termed RLS-TS model getting the idea from applying neural network and support vector regression to time series forecasting. This paper applies the RLS-TS model to GBP/USD currency exchange rates. A grid search is used to choose the optimal parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building a time series forecasting model by independent component analysis mechanism presents in the paper. Different from using the time series directly with the traditional ARIMA forecasting model, the underlying factors extracted from time series is the forecasting base in our model. Within component ambiguity, correlation approximation and mean difference problems, independent component analysis mechanism has intrinsic limitations for time series forecasting. Solutions for those limitations were purposed in this paper. Under the linear time complexity, the component ambiguity and mean-difference problem was solved by our proposed evaluation to improve the forecasting reward. The empirical data show that our model exactly reveals the flexibility and accuracy in time series forecasting domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to study how algorithms of optimization affect the parametersestimation of Autoregressive AR(1)Models. In our research we have represented the AR(1) models in linear state space form and applied the Kalman Filters to estimate the different unknown parameters of the model. Many methods have been proposed by researchers for the estimation of the parameters in the case of the linear state space models. In our work we have emphasized on the estimation through the Maximum Likelihood (ML). Statisticians have used many algorithms to optimise the likelihood function and they have proposed many filters; publishing their results in many papers. In spite of the fact that this field is so extended, we have emphasized our study in the financial field. Two quasi-Newton algorithms: Berndt, Hall, Hall, and Hausman (BHHH) and Broyden-Fletcher-Goldfarb-Shanno (BFGS), and the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm have been chosen for this study. A practical study of these algorithms applied to the maximization of likelihood by means of the Kalman Filter have been done. The results are focused on efficiency in time of computation and precision of the unknown parameters estimation. A simulation study has been carried out, using as true values the parameters of this model published in the literature, in order to test the efficiency and precision of our implemented algorithms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers parameter estimation for nonlinear and non-Gaussian state-space models with correlation. We propose an asymptotic quasilikelihood (AQL) approach which utilises a nonparametric kernel estimator of the conditional variance covariances matrix St to replace the true St in the standard quasi-likelihood. The kernel estimation avoids the risk of potential miss-specification of St and thus make the parameter estimator more robust. This has been further verified by empirical studies carried out in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents a simplified mathematical model for a scroll-type air motor. Through air power/energy analysis, it has shown that a scroll-type air motor with a properly specified structure and suitable pressure of compressed air supply is able to achieve high energy efficiency and satisfies air power requirement. The features of a scroll-type air motor in geometry, mechanical structure, and pneumatic power transmission are studied in the paper. Differential geometry is used as the mathematical tool to parameterise the scroll. In this study, Matlab Symbolic Math Toolbox is found very efficient in finding analytic expressions of scroll chamber volumes and generalised torques. State shifting is employed to solve the dynamic system equations numerically. Energy efficiency of a scroll-type air motor is analysed based on the mathematical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes an introduction into ocean wave energy converter and it's impacts on power system. There are a lot of methods and systems for converting wave power into electrical power, The most common structure of wave power plant is Oscillating Water Column (OWC) plant. The turbine employed in OWC plant is normally Wells turbine. The Wells turbine has inherent disadvantages such as low efficiency, and poor starting characteristics. The objective of this paper is introduction of Wells turbine with fixed guide vanes in order to improve turbine performance. Modeling and computer simulation of OWC power plant components are presented and effect of out power fluctuation on power system is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lightning protection for power supply of electronic equipment is an important problem of low-voltage lightning protection systems. In this paper, lightning characteristics of electronic equipment's power supply are studied. Firstly impulse generator is developed. Then lightning characteristics tests for different power supply, such as switch model power supply, are done. Test results show: different power supply has different lightning impulse characteristics. Usually two different models are used for lightning performance evaluation: common and different model. Both impulse current and impulse voltage withstand capability in common model are stronger than those in different model. Flashover often occurs in the AC-DC conversion part inside of the switch power supply when there is lightning stroke. The manufacturing technology of the power supply has definite effect on withstand capability. The switch model power supply has some weak parts when there is lightning stroke, such as transformers in the AC-DC conversion part, the resistor and capacitor of the bridge rectifier. Switch model power supply have stronger lightning withstand capability than common small power supply we chose as equipment under test. It is necessary to measure lightning withstand capability when designing lightning protection system for power supply in low voltage electronic equipments. The data presented in this paper could provide reference for real situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper a new-generation integral motor-drive has been demonstrated. It proposes a compact unit built to operate in arduous industrial environments with optimized power consumption and best practice motor management under different load conditions. It is the first truly integrated motor-drive unit with a design to overcome heat, vibration and electromagnetic interference which are damaging to sensitive electronics without requirement of any additional cooling system. The critical issues such as; space limitations within the existing spatial dimensions of motor, management of heat transfer from the motor to the sensitive drive control unit, management of vibration transfer to the sensitive drive control unit, management of electromagnetic interference within the unit and externally, management of other environmental effects on the sensitive drive control unit have been considered and discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]