New approach for air traffic management based on control theory

Air traffic management aims to provide solutions to congestion problems in air traffic networks (ATNs) which in turn are mainly generated by the variation in the capacity of air sectors or airports due to adverse weather conditions. Most of the existing approaches to dealing with these problems are based on mathematical programming techniques and inherit its computational difficulty. In this paper, we introduce a control scientist point of view to this topic by proposing an approach to solve the ground-holding problem based on discrete event systems control theory. An ATN can effectively be considered as a timed discrete event system and can be efficiently modelled based on a Time Petri net tool. The main advantage is an explicit representation of the position of each aircraft in the ATN at each time instant. The state space is modelled by a Discrete Time Reachability Graph and the capacity constraints on the air sectors are modelled by time floating general mutual exclusion constraints. Feasible flight plans can be constructed based on control synthesis techniques, while an algorithm to compute the optimal flight plan is proposed assuming a realistic cost function.     

Accurate automatic analysis of cardiac cine images

Acquisition of noncontrast agent cine cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) gated images through the cardiac cycle is, at present, a well-established part of examining cardiac global function. However, regional quantification is less well established. We propose a new automated framework for analyzing the wall thickness and thickening function on these images that consists of three main steps. First, inner and outer wall borders are segmented from their surrounding tissues with a geometric deformable model guided by a special stochastic speed relationship. The latter accounts for Markov-Gibbs shape and appearance models of the object-of-interest and its background. In the second step, point-to-point correspondences between the inner and outer borders are found by solving the Laplace equation and provide initial estimates of the local wall thickness and the thickening function index. Finally, the effects of the segmentation error is reduced and a continuity analysis of the LV wall thickening is performed through iterative energy minimization using a generalized Gauss-Markov random field (GGMRF) image model. The framework was evaluated on 26 datasets from clinical cine CMR images that have been collected from patients with eleven independent studies, with chronic ischemic heart disease and heart damage. The performance evaluation of the proposed segmentation approach, based on the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) and Dice similarity coefficients (DSC) between manually drawn and automatically segmented contours, confirmed a high robustness and accuracy of the proposed segmentation approach. Furthermore, the Bland-Altman plot is used to assess the limit of agreement of our measurements of the global function parameters compared to the ground truth. Importantly, comparative results on the publicly available database (MICCAI 2009 Cardiac MR Left Ventricle Segmentation) demonstrated a superior performance of the proposed segmentation approach over published methods.     

A prototype simulation-based optimization approach to model feedstock development for chemical process industry

Incorporating non-traditional feedstocks, e.g., biomass, to chemical process industry (CPI) will require investments in research & development (R&D) and capacity expansions. The impact of these investments on the evolution of biomass to commodity chemicals (BTCC) system should be studied to ensure a cost-effective transition with acceptable risk levels. The BTCC system includes both exogenous, e.g., product demands (decision-independent) and endogenous, e.g., the change in technology cost with investment levels (decision-dependent) uncertainties. This paper presents a prototype simulation-based optimization (SIMOPT) approach to study the BTCC system evolution under exogenous and endogenous uncertainties, and provides a preliminary analysis of the impact of using three different sampling methods, i.e., Monte Carlo, Latin Hypercube, and Halton sequence, to generate the simulation runs on the computational cost of the SIMOPT approach. The results of a simplified case study suggest that annual demand increases is the dominant factor for the total cost of the BTCC system. The results also suggest that using Halton sequence as the sampling method yields the smallest number of samples, i.e., the least computational cost, to achieve a statistically significant solution.     

Dynamic Resource Allocation for Multimedia Document Retrieval over High Speed LANs

The emergence of gigabit local area networks (G-LANs) has spurred a tremendous interest in supporting networked multimedia applications over a LAN. In this paper, we propose a mechanism for dynamically allocating network resources in asynchronous LANs. Presentation of multimedia objects with required play-out quality requires Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees by the underlying networking infrastructure. Existing asynchronous LANs, such as Ethernet, do not support the notion of QoS due to their asynchronous media access protocol. For such networks, we propose a dynamic bandwidth management scheme that uses the concept of Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA). Significant performance improvement is observed through experimental results. In particular, the transmission rates for multimedia hosts improve significantly with low jitter variations in media streams. We also propose a framework for graceful degradation of play-out quality of multimedia objects in case the LAN's total capacity is not sufficient to meet the overall demand.     

A no reference quality metric to measure the blocking artefacts for video sequences

The need to measure video quality arises in the development of video equipment and in the delivery and storage of video and image information. In this paper, we propose a new perceptually significant video quality metric to estimate the effect of block coding for standards H.264 AVC and MPEG2. Our method operates in the spatial domain and does not require a high complexity of computation. We evaluate the performance of the proposed method by using three sequences CIF ‘common intermediate file’ with different compression rate. We compare it with Suthaharan’s and MSU’s techniques by using ‘LIVE’ and ‘IVP’ databases. Results indicate that the proposed method outperforms Suthaharan’s and MSU techniques in H264 coder. They also indicate that our method is more effective than MSU’s and Suthaharan’s techniques for the H.264 AVC standards with the Spearman Rank Order Correlation Coefficient.     

Mechanical investigation of confined amorphous phase in semicrystalline polymers: Case of PET and PLA

The effect of confinement onto the mechanical properties of the amorphous phase of Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and poly(lactic acid) (PLA) was investigated. These polymers have the advantage of being in bulk amorphous or in semicrystalline state allowing mechanical and physical investigation of the amorphous phase on bulk and confined configuration. Based on small angle X‐ray scattering (SAXS), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) experiments, the micro‐structural arrangement of the amorphous and crystalline phase, the rigid amorphous fraction, and the visco‐elastic mechanical properties of the different semicrystalline samples were investigated. DSC results help quantifying the rigid amorphous fraction dependence on the crystallinity. DMA measurements lead to quantify the viscoelastic properties of the free and confined amorphous phases for PET and PLA polymers. Indeed, based on the DMA tests, where the maximum of tan(δ) peak is usually related to the glass transition temperature, shifts upon crystallization, the mechanical properties of the restricted and mobile amorphous phase were determined. This result was correlated along with the amorphous phase thickness distribution determined by SAXS results. This observation was bolstered based on literature results about geometrical confinement configurations and their effect on the glass transition temperature of polymeric materials. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 55:397–405, 2015. © 2014 Society of Plastics Engineers     

Contents of volume 1

Microbiological profiles of ready-to-eat foods collected over a period of 3 years from street vendors in Egypt were assessed. The 114 samples of foods investigated included meat, meat organs and edible viscera, fish, rice and dishes containing rice, raw vegetables and salads, macaroni, spaghetti, desserts, milk, cheese, bean dishes, dates, tahina (sesame paste), pickles, olives, and barley-sugar water. Salmonella was not isolated from any sample. Shigella was isolated from a sample of greens and from a sample of tamea (deep-fat fried whipped beans and parsley). 41% of the samples that were tested for Staphylococcus aureus were positive; 58% of them had counts of at least 10³/g. Four of 15 samples of cooked meat, meat organs and edible viscera contained Clostridium perfringens. Presumptive Bacillus cereus was isolated from 37% of samples of rice and dishes containing rice, macaroni, spaghetti, desserts and bean dishes; half had counts of 10³/g or greater. Vibro parahaemolyticus was neither isolated from four samples of raw seafoods nor from three samples of cooked seafoods. 68% of the samples had aerobic colony counts (30°C) that exceeded 10⁶ CFU/g. 97% of the samples were within the temperature range of 15 to 44°C, at the time of collection; therefore, common microorganisms and many pathogens could multiply, particularly because holding times were usually prolonged.