Proceedings

Stringent emission regulations combined with customer demands for improved fuel economy and performance have forced the automotive industry to consider more advanced powertrain configurations than standard port-fuel injected gasoline engines. Modern state-of-the-art powertrain systems may combine several power sources (internal combustion engines, electric motors, fuel cells, etc.) and various exhaust aftertreatment devices (catalytic converters, lean NOx traps, particulate filters, etc.) in addition to conventional engine subsystems such as turbochargers and exhaust gas recirculation. The determination of the way in which these systems need to be operated to meet driver's torque demand, performance and fuel economy expectations while satisfying federal emission regulations is a complex and a multiobjective optimal control problem. This paper reviews some of the approaches to this problem in the context of two case studies

Dry eye is a very common condition in many parts of the world. Both ophthalmologists and other healthcare professionals, such as optometrists and general practitioners, are often involved in the care of these patients. The main thrust of dry eye management is over-the-counter tear lubricants. There is a wide range of tear lubricants available today. These lubricants vary in viscosity, duration of action, type of preservatives, osmolarity/osmolality and pH. This article aims to educate healthcare professionals on 1) how to assess and manage patients with mild to moderate dry eyes and 2) how to identify patients who may need a referral to an ophthalmologist. Strategies on the use of available treatments and their limitations, as well as factors that may affect patient compliance will be discussed.

In the last decade, surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) met increasing interest in the detection of chemical and biological agents due to its rapid performance and ultra-sensitive features. SERS is a combination of Raman spectroscopy and nanotechnology; it includes the advantages of Raman spectroscopy, providing rapid spectra collection, small sample sizes, and characteristic spectral fingerprints for specific analytes. In this paper, we detected label-free SERS signals for arbitrarily configurations of dimers, trimers, etc., composed of gold nanoshells (AuNSs) and applied to the mapping of osteosarcoma intracellular components.

Recent developments in multispectral cameras have demonstrated how compact and low-cost spectral sensors can be made by monolithically integrating filters on top of commercially available image sensors. In this paper, the fabrication of a RGB + NIR variation to such a single-chip imaging system is described, including the integration of a metallic shield to minimize crosstalk, and two interference filters: a NIR blocking filter, and a NIR bandpass filter. This is then combined with standard polymer based RGB colour filters. Fabrication of this chip is done in imec’s 200 mm cleanroom using standard CMOS technology, except for the addition of RGB colour filters and microlenses, which is outsourced.

With the pace of increasing online transactions and communication, the demand for security and privacy increases. To protect confidential information and to authenticate people electronically, several solutions already introduced. Traditional biometric systems that are based on single biometric usually suffer from problems like impostors' attack or hacking, unacceptable error rates. To improve security and privacy and system's reliability two or more biometrics of the same identity could be combined in a method that enhances the efficiency of the system. The biometric information, however, is irreplaceable information, when it is compromised. Thereby, one must give a special attention to protection of such information. We propose a novel protection technique for the biometric information, especially the feature information and the templates. The point of our proposal is securely embeds and extracts an iris template in a fingerprint image using a combined DWT and LSB based biometric watermarking algorithm in each authentication. The embedded data travel through insecure communication line like the internet, and they are used in matching process. This technique causes security against eavesdropping and replay attacks on the internet, because the watermark embedded transmitted data are used in the authentication session after watermark extraction.

Buildings are the key factor to transform cities and to contribute to recent European energy efficiency objectives for 2030 and long-term 2050. New buildings account to only 1–2% annually. Yet, ninety percent of the existing building stock in Europe was built before 1990, it is therefore necessary to promote their energy renovation to achieve the set objectives. Renovation solutions are available on the market, yet a wrong implementation and integration due to a lack of knowledge neither maximizes the energy performance of the post-retrofitting nor the financial optimisation and viability of the projects. This paper presents research on a plug & play, modular, easy installable façade and ICT decision making technologies to provide affordable solutions in order to overcome those deep renovation barriers. The paper sets out by defining a value framework that can be applied by real estate investors for making better retrofitting decisions for residential buildings, through mapping targ...

The paper describes Portuguese large-scale linguistic resources, mainly computational lexicons and grammars, developed by LabEL. These resources are formalized and applied to texts by means of finite-state techniques, more and more acknowledged in Natural Language Processing. On the one hand, it illustrates methods on lexical representation for simple words and multi-word expressions; on the other hand, it provides examples (in form of concordances) of linguistic structures recognized after the application of disambiguation and parsing grammars to texts. The paper ends with a short reference to the publicly available data highlighting its contribution towards dissemination of LabEL's knowledge on language technology.

The Climate-Weather Research and Forecasting (CWRF) is the climate extension of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, incorporating all WRF functionalities for numerical weather predictions while enhancing the capability for climate applications. This report focuses on the construction and implementation of surface boundary conditions (SBCs) specifically designed for CWRF mesoscale modeling applications. The primary SBCs include surface topography (mean elevation, slope, curvature, and their standard ...

During the last decade, several authors have addressed that the Perfectly Matched Layers (PML) technique can be used not only for the computation of the near-field in time-dependent and time-harmonic scattering problems, but also to compute numerically the resonances in open cavities. Despite such complex resonances are not natural eigen-frequencies of the physical system, the numerical determination of this kind of eigenvalues provides information about the model, what can be used in further applications. The present work will be focused on two main specific goals—firstly, the mathematical analysis of the frequency-dependent highly non-linear eigenvalue problem associated to the computation of resonances with the standard PML technique. Second, the implementation of a robust numerical method to approximate resonances in open cavities.

Recognizing human action from image sequences is an active area of research in computer vision. In this paper, we present a novel method for human action recognition from image sequences in different viewing angles that uses the Cartesian component of optical flow velocity and human body shape feature vector information. We use principal component analysis to reduce the higher dimensional shape feature space into low dimensional shape feature space. We represent each action using a set of multidimensional discrete hidden Markov model and model each action for any viewing direction. We performed experiments of the proposed method by using KU gesture database. Experimental results based on this database of different actions show that our method is robust.

The two 911mm-diameter adaptive secondary (AS) mirrors for the Large Binocular telescope (LBT) are currently under manufacturing process. Each unit has 672 electromagnetic force actuators. They control the figure of the Gregorian secondary 1.6mm-thick mirrors with an internal loop using the signal of co-located capacitive sensors. The obtained computational power of the on-board control electronics allows to use it as real-time computer for wavefront reconstruction. We present the progress in manufacturing and assembling of the first telescope unit, the progress in software production, the status of the testing facilities and an update on the latest modification of the design.

Human metabolism often results in the emission of many VOCs through the skin. Ethanol is one of volatile compounds which are evaporated by perspiration. The aim of our research consists to develop chemical sensors for monitoring ethanol emission after alcohol consumption. The interest of using chemical sensors is noninvasive measurement and controlling alcohol level in the human body and to make the link between these measurements and that in the blood or in the breath. Recent clinical trials demonstrated the feasibility and relevance of this measurement method. Metal oxide sensors were calibrated in respect of the thermodynamic conditions of the surface of the skin. In this paper we show the first sensor responses by perspiration.

The objective of this work was to develop a LIDAR-like equation model to analyze the measured Optical coherence tomography (OCT) signal and determine the total extinction coefficient of a scattering sample. OCT is an interferometric technique that explore sample backscattering feature to acquire in depth crosssection images using a low coherence light source. Although, almost of the OCT applications are intended to generate images for diagnostic, similar to histological images, but the backscattering signal carries much more information. The backscattering problem is similar to those found on LIDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) problem, this similar situation indicate a path that should be followed to solve the OCT problem.

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This paper proposes an in-home behavioral observation method employing Internet of Things (IoT) sensors. Behavioral change programs based on information provision approaches have begun to be employed in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in the residential sector. To improve efforts to save energy, a behavioral observation method that aims to understand the reality of users’ daily activities could be an effective approach. However, problems with existing methods include observations costs, privacy implications and the other complications regarding the specific behaviors of the person being observed. An in-home behavioral observation method employing IoT sensors is therefore proposed to both reduce costs and alleviate the privacy impact on user’s in-home activities. The use of sensor-based observation presents several relevant advantages. For example, the cost of sensor-based observation is relatively cheap compared to human-based approaches. In addition, it employs a minimum ...

Most definitions on presence have been based on cognitive or environmental aspects. However, we think that presence, like all human experiences, is influenced by emotions. EMMA project (IST-2001-39192) is aimed to study the nature of this relationship between emotions and presence. One of the main hypotheses proposed by EMMA is that emotions may enhance presence. In this line, the main objective of the present paper is to study the differences in presence between "emotional" environments and "neutral" environments. In order to achieve this objective, we have designed a Mood Induction Procedure using VR (VR-MIP, to induce different moods (sadness, joy, anxiety and relax) in experimental subjects. Our results point out that VR-MIPs are able to induce different moods in the users. Regarding the role of mood on the sense of presence, our results show differences between emotional and neutral environments in some presence measurements.

This paper presents evidence that banks provide some special service with their lending activity that is not available from other lenders. I find evidence that bank borrowers. not CD holders. bear the cost of reserve requirements on CDs. In addition. I ftnd a positive stock price response to the announcement of new bank credit agreements that is larger than the stock price response associated with announcements of private placements or public straight debt offerings. Finally. I find significantly negative returns for announcements of private placements and straight debt issues used to repay bank loans.

The Foresight Future Flooding project has analysed future flood risk in a scenario framework for the whole of the UK. The analysis predicts increasing flood risk unless current flood management policies and investment levels are changed, with up to a twentyfold increase in economic risk by the 2080s. The increase is attributable to a combination of climate change and increasing value of household, industrial and infrastructure assets. Potential responses are assessed in terms of the three pillars of sustainability: social, environmental and economic. The work described has formed much of the evidence base for the new government strategy for flood risk management in England, 'Making space for water'.

Interband cascade (IC) infrared (IR) photodetectors (ICIPs) are a new type of detector that combines features of conventional interband photodiodes with the discrete nature of quantum-well IR photodetectors (QWIPs) and IC lasers. The operation of ICIPs takes advantage of fast intersubband relaxation and interband tunneling for carrier transport, and relatively slow interband transitions (long lifetime) for photon generation. As such, ICIPs can be tailored to optimize device performance for specific application requirements. We report our initial efforts in the development of ICIPs. We have observed the photocurrent from an InAs-based IC laser with a cutoff wavelength near 8 μm at 80 K, and significant photocurrent from GaSb-based ICIPs with cutoff wavelengths near 5 μm at 80 K and 7 μm at above room temperature.

This paper describes a database of dysarthric speech produced by 19 speakers with cerebral palsy. Speech materials consist of 765 isolated words per speaker: 300 distinct uncommon words and 3 repetitions of digits, computer commands, radio alphabet and common words. Data is recorded through an 8-microphone array and one digital video camera. Our database provides a fundamental resource for automatic speech recognition development for people with neuromotor disability. Research on articulation errors in dysarthria will benefit clinical treatments and contribute to our knowledge of neuromotor mechanisms in speech production. Data files are available via secure ftp upon request.

... Gabriel Simon, Jean-Marie A. Parel, Gerard N. Kervick, Pascal O. Rol, Khalil Hanna, Keith P. Thompson. ... Usually, the epithelium is mechanically removed, and Bowman's layer and stromal tissue are photoablated to precomputed depths and shapes that are based on known ...

His thesis is on the relationships between store names and product brand names as brand signals. His research interests also include marketing research methods and marketing science with particular emphasis to applications making use of covariance structure analysis. He has published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, Marketing Intelligence & Planning and Journal of Database Marketing & Customer Strategy Management. He is a Highly Commended Award Winner at the Literati Network Awards for Excellence 2009. More information about the author can be found on his webpage http://andrea.vocino.name. Jason Buchanan is the Managing Director of Research Now's Asia Pacific region , and was responsible for establishing Research Now in Australia in 2005. In his 5+ years with Research Now both in the UK and in Australia , Jason has worked across a wide range of online market research projects, across a diverse portfolio of clients. Overall, Jason possesses over fifteen years commercial experience, seven of which have been fostered within the market research, marketing and advertising based industries. He holds a B.Bus (Marketing) from the Queensland University of Technology, is a full member of AMSRS and is on the AMSRS/AMSRO joint task force to develop guidelines to increase online research quality and standards in Australia.

Heating and cooling consume half of the EU's energy and much of it is wasted. The lion's share of heating and cooling is still generated from fossil fuels, mainly natural gas, while only 18% is generated from renewable energy. In order to fulfil the EU's climate and energy goals, the heating and cooling sector must therefore sharply reduce its energy consumption and cut its use of fossil fuels. To this end the European Commission adopted a heating and cooling strategy in February 2016 as part of the wider Energy Union Package. A number of activities and projects funded by the programmes of European Union are supporting this new EU heating and cooling strategy.

We describe a system for model based speech separation which achieves superhuman recognition performance when two talkers speak at similar levels. The system can separate the speech of two speakers from a single channel recording with remarkable results. It incorporates a novel method for performing two-talker speaker identification and gain estimation. We extend the method of model based high resolution signal reconstruction to incorporate temporal dynamics. We report on two methods for introducing dynamics; the first uses dynamics in the acoustic model space, the second incorporates dynamics based on sentence grammar. The addition of temporal constraints leads to dramatic improvements in the separation performance. Once the signals have been separated they are then recognized using speaker dependent labeling.

SUMMARY Power systems in China are being interconnected into a unified one which is running according to its physical rules (KCL, KVL and Ohm's Law) but being managed and controlled by own regional control centres separately and independently. Each sub-...

A new fiber strain sensor based on the Laser-Self-Mixing effect in Distributed Feedback Laser diodes is presented. Compared with existing fiber strain sensors based on Fiber Bragg Gratings, that are sensitive to local strain, our device achieves comparable sensitivity (~ 1 /le) distributed along the whole fib er length and requires a much simpler electronics. The sensor is based on the interferometric principle of the laser-self-mixing in the moderate feedback regime, whereby the fiber strain results in a variation of the optical path-length seen by the radiation reflected by the end facet of the fiber itself. Increasing or decreasing strain recognition is directly provided by the sign of the sawtooth-like fringes derivative.

Coupling is considered by many to be an important concept in measuring design quality There is still much to be learned about which aspects of coupling affect design quality or other external attributes of software. Much of the existing work concentrates on direct coupling, that is, forms of coupling that exists between entities that are directly related to each other. A form of coupling that has so far received little attention is indirect coupling, that is, coupling between entities that are not directly related. What little discussion there is in the literature suggests that any form of indirect coupling is simple the transitive closure of a form of direct coupling. We demonstrate that this is not the case, that there are forms of indirect coupling that cannot be represented in this way and suggest ways to measure it. We present a tool that identifies a particular form of indirect coupling that is integrated in the Eclipse IDE.

Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey were stratified by weight, gender, and ethnicity for six survey years from 1999 to 2010 for variables that satisfy the criteria for metabolic syndrome (MS). Results showed that 34% of the US adult population had MS. No significant gender disparities in MS prevalence were found. Black men had a significantly lower prevalence of MS than Black women and White men from 1999 to 2008 (P < 0.05). Women had a 60% higher abdominal adiposity than men in the US population (P = 0.00048; pregnant females were excluded). Although there seem to be ethnic differences in the prevalence of MS, the expression of MS is not a sufficient risk to culminate in cardiovascular disease; rather, nutritional, genetic, and environmental factors are necessary to finalize its expression into overt disease.

This revised version of Abhyankar's old lecture notes contains the original proof of the Galois case of the n-variable Jacobian problem. They also contain proofs for some cases of the 2-variable Jacobian, including the two characteristic pairs case. In addition, proofs of some of the well-known formulas enunciated by Abhyankar are actually written down. These include the Taylor Resultant Formula and the Semigroup Conductor formula for plane curves. The notes are also meant to provide inspiration for applying the expansion theoretic techniques to the Jacobian problem.

Timber-concrete composite floors can be seen as bi-dimensional elements constituted by repeatable longitudinal elements (timber beams) connected through an element capable to spread the load on the transverse direction (concrete slab). This is usually a fact to “take advantage of” in terms of design, in the light of current regulations, with the analysis of a “T-shape” beam. Nevertheless, when concerning the action of concentrated loads, considering them supported entirely by the beam to which they are applied can result in a disadvantage rather than an advantage. This study focus on the distribution of load in the transverse direction when composite floors are subjected to concentrated loads. There were analyzed not only timber-concrete composite floors, that already have proven their value, but also relatively new solutions as those using cross laminated timber (CLT) combined with steel beams. The results show that the load received by “the loaded beam” can be far from 100%.

An important stage in robust control design is to define the desired performances of the closed loop control system using the models of the frequency sensitivity functions S. If the frequency sensitivity functions remain within the limits imposed by these models, the control performances are met. In terms of the sensitivity functions, the specifications include: shape of S over selected frequency ranges, peak magnitude of S, bandwidth frequency, and tracking error at selected frequencies. In this context, this paper presents a study of the effects of the specifications of the weighting functions on the performances of robust control systems.

Raman spectroscopy has been well established as a powerful method for studying biological tissues and diagnosing diseases. In this study we have developed a breast cancer animal model and collected in vivo Raman spectra of mammary glands of 27 Sprague-Dawley female rats treated with DMBA and 5 non-treated used as control group. A dispersive Raman spectrometer with a @785 nm laser excitation coupled a fiber optic probe and a CCD detector was used to obtain the spectra. The obtained in vivo transcutaneous Raman spectra have shown important differences between normal and abnormal tissues when acquired from one side to the other side of the lesion.

The mechanism of propulsion in swimming has been widely researched in recent years, but not completely clarified. While it is obvious that the movement of arms provides most of the thrust, it is unclear how each phase of the stroke translates into body acceleration. Investigation is carried out mainly by video analysis or using Inertial Measurement Units (IMUs) which do not measure forces. In this paper, we present a wearable data acquisition system for swimmers. The system is composed of two instrumented paddles, measuring the pressure difference between palm and back of the hands, and an IMU. The paddles provide information about the forces that cause propulsion, while the IMU measures the effects of these forces. Data are acquired by a microcontroller unit placed in waterproof case at the athlete's waist, and transferred to PC via a Bluetooth link. Early experimental data are presented.

Numerous studies have been done with the purpose of identify and try to reduce the impact generated by the construction industry, mainly focused on the use stage in the search to increase the energy efficiency. However, as these stage has been improved and the impact produced has been reduced, it has become evident the need to focus the research on the elements and life cycle stages that follow on the affectation scale. Therefore, the present research analyzes the importance of the embodied energy and the affectation generated by the materials with a LCA perspective, comparing one square meter of three different systems used as interior partition walls: hollow clay brick (HB), hollow concrete block (CB) and gypsum board (GB). The analyzed stages are from production of the materials to the building construction (stages A1–A5), using the Eco-invent database with the LCA manager software. The results of the analysis indicate the values of the environmental affectations and the consumpt...

Department of Primary School Teacher Education, Universitas Negeri Makassar, Indonesia 

rhnsyamsuddin@gmail.com
Abstract. This study aims to determine the influence of reading comprehension skills of English for PGSD students through the application of SQ3R learning method. The type of this research is Pre-Experimental research because it is not yet a real experiment, there are external variables that influence the formation of a dependent variable, this is because there is no control variable and the sample is not chosen randomly. The research design is used is onegroup pretest-post-test design involving one group that is an experimental group. In this design, the observation is done twice before and after the experiment. Observations made before the experiment (O1) are called pretests and the post-experimental observation (O2) is called posttest. The difference between O1 and O2 ie O2 - O1 is the effect of the treatment. The results showed that there was an improvement in reading comprehension skills of PGSD students in Class M.4.3 using SQ3R method, and better SQ3R enabling SQ3R to improve English comprehension skills.  Keywords: reading comprehension skills, application of SQ3R method

Rolf Nordahl Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen Lautrupvang 15 2750 Ballerup, DK rn@media.aau.dk ... Stefania Serafin Medialogy, Aalborg University Copenhagen Lautrupvang 15 2750 Ballerup, DK sts@media.aau.dk ... ABSTRACT In this paper we advocate the ...

E xtracting minutiae from fingerprint images is one of the most important steps in automatic fingerprint identification and classification. Minutiae are local discontinuities in the fingerprint pattern, mainly terminations and bifurcations. Most of the minutiae detection methods are based on image binarization while some others extract the minutiae directly from gray-scale images. In this work we compare these two approaches and propose two different methods for fingerprint ridge image enhancement. The first one is carried out using local histogram equalization, Wiener filtering, and image binarization. The second method uses a unique anisotropic filter for direct gray-scale enhancement. The results achieved are compared with those obtained through some other methods. Both methods show some improvement in the minutiae detection process in terms of time required and efficiency.

This paper presents the design of a sliding mode fuzzy logic-based controller for an active vehicle suspension system. The controller design is based on a Macpherson strut model and combines sliding mode techniques with fuzzy logic methodologies. This control ...

Field-oriented control methodology requires knowledge of the machine parameters and, in particular, the rotor time constant. The interest here is in tracking the value of T R as it changes due to ohmic heating so that an accurate value is available to estimate the rotor flux linkages for a field-oriented controller. The approach presented here uses a nonlinear least-squares approach using measurements of the stator currents and voltages along with the rotor speed. The nature of this technique lends itself directly to an online implementation and therefore can be used to track the rotor time constant. Experimental results are presented to demonstrate the validity of the approach.

The CAVE is a multi-person, room-sized, high-resolution, 3D video and auditory environment, which can be used to present very immersive virtual environment experiences. This paper describes the CAVE technology and the capability of the CAVE system as ...

Interactive story writing is a new medium for creative expression. The story "writer" uses a computer game (such as BioWare's Neverwinter Nights) to create an interactive story where the "reader" is an active participant. The state of the art is that the story (plot, character behaviors, character interactions, conversations, etc.) is specified by writing scripts. Unfortunately, scripting is too low level for non-programmers. ScriptEase is a tool for writing interactive stories in roleplaying games that frees the author from doing explicit computer programming. Stories are created by selecting and customizing familiar patterns. From this specification, ScriptEase automatically generates Neverwinter Nights scripting code. To test the usability of ScriptEase, the tool has been used as an aid to help with the short story unit of a Grade 10 Alberta high school English curriculum. This paper describes ScriptEase and reports on our experience in using it in the classroom.

Logistics and traceability are important issues for big scale firms. Traceability is primarily viewed as a tool for the food safety by providing a mean for recall as well as proof for the authenticity of food, but it is also related to food quality. Maintaining the cold chain not only effecting the customer's preference and satisfaction but also the profitability, production and logistic costs for big scale firms especially producing perishable food products. Recently, the trend of utilizing GIS based traceability systems is increasing, which facilitates to minimize the production and distribution of unsafe and low quality food products. This paper presents a GIS based system enabling network analysis, which might be efficiently and effectively used in the firms operating in ready-to-eat pastry sector, intended to be used for full-automation through all the stages from production to retail was developed and a partial application was performed.