An analytical evaluation of the cutting forces in self-piloting drilling using the model of shear zone with parallel boundaries. Part 1: Theory

The performance of a self-piloting tool is affected by its design and geometry parameters. These parameters constitute the tool-force system which directly defines quality of the machined holes, tool life and required power. This paper presents an analytical approach to describe the cutting forces in self-piloting drilling. The approach is useful at the level of tool and process design. The subject has been covered in two parts. Part one deals with the analysis of the cutting mechanics employing the shear-zone model with parallel boundaries. The analysis of the continuity condition results in better understanding of the traditional cutting model's characteristics, such as the chip compression ratio and velocity diagram. Based on this analysis and using the thermomechanical model of the work-material resistance to cutting, a cutting-force model is proposed and has been verified experimentally.     

Are U.K. Citizens Satisfied With E-Government Services? Identifying and Testing Antecedents of Satisfaction

Citizens’ satisfaction is acknowledged as one of the most significant influences for e-government adoption and diffusion. This study examines the impact of information quality, system quality, trust, and cost on user satisfaction of e-government services. Using a survey, this study collected 1518 valid responses from e-government service adopters across the United Kingdom. Our empirical outcomes show the five factors identified in this study have a significant impact on U.K. citizens’ satisfaction with e-government services.     

Image Super Resolution and Enhancement Using E-spline

E-splines （Exponential spline） polynomials represent the best smooth transition between continuous and discrete domains. As they are constructed from convolution of exponential segments, there are many degrees of freedom to optimally choose the most convenient E-spline, suitable for a specific application. In this paper, the parameters of these E-splines were optimally chosen, to enhance the performance of image zooming and interpolation schemes. The proposed technique is based on minimizing the total variation function of the detail coefficients of the E-spline based wavelet decomposition. In zooming applications, the quality of interpolated images are further improved and sharpened by applying ICA technique to them, in order to remove any dependency. Illustrative examples are given to verify image enhancement of the proposed E-spline scheme, when compared with the existing approaches.     

Privacy-enhanced architecture for smart metering

The recent deployment of smart grids promises to bring numerous advantages in terms of energy consumption reduction in both homes and businesses. A more transparent and instantaneous measurement of electricity consumption through smart meters utilization leads to an enhancement in the ability of monitoring, controlling and predicting energy usage. Nevertheless, it also has associated drawbacks related to the privacy of customers, since such management might reveal their personal habits, which electrical appliances they are using at each moment, whether they are at home or not, etc. In this work, we present a privacy-enhanced architecture for smart metering aimed at tackling this threat by means of encrypting individual measurements while allowing the electricity supplier to access the aggregation of the corresponding decrypted values.     

QuePED: Revisiting queueing networks for the performance evaluation of database designs

Databases form the common component of many software systems. However, performance models specifically targeted at the database design have not been extensively studied. In this paper, we propose QuePED – a queueing network performance evaluation model for database designs. QuePED provides for the performance modelling of database design constructs, including active database rules; thus, deviating from current methods that consider database designs as processing demands on the hardware architecture. We present a formal specification of QuePED and describe its application to database designs. Experimental evaluation has shown the ability of QuePED to capture the steady state performance of an implementation of the TPC-C benchmark.     

Anonymization of moving objects databases by clustering and perturbation

Preserving individual privacy when publishing data is a problem that is receiving increasing attention. Thanks to its simplicity the concept of k-anonymity, introduced by Samarati and Sweeney [1], established itself as one fundamental principle for privacy preserving data publishing. According to the k-anonymity principle, each release of data must be such that each individual is indistinguishable from at least k−1 other individuals.     

汉维统计机器翻译中的形态学处理

针对汉语和维吾尔语语序差别(前者是主-谓-宾结构,后者是主-宾-谓结构)及形态差别较大的问题,通过编写调序规则将汉语调整为主-宾-谓结构,将维吾尔语单词切分为词干、词缀等更小的词素单元来训练统计模型,同时测试词素的切分粒度对翻译性能的影响.实验结果表明,对汉语句法结构的调整及以词干、词缀等更小的词素形式参与训练可以有效...     

Soft groups and normalistic soft groups

Soft set theory, proposed by Molodtsov, has been regarded as an effective mathematical tool to deal with uncertainties. In this paper, first we correct some of the problematic cases in a previous paper by Akta? and Çag˜man [H. Akta?, N. Çag˜man, Soft sets and soft groups, Inf. Sci. 177 (2007) 2726-2735]. Moreover, we introduce the concepts of normalistic soft group and normalistic soft group homomorphism, study their several related properties, and investigate some structures that are preserved under normalistic soft group homomorphisms.     

Estimating the quality of process yield by fuzzy sets and systems

Fuzzy grading is a multi-class problem, and is used for grading the product according to the degree of fitness for use, customer acceptance or commercial value. In this respect, the production system requires intelligent adjustments. Fuzzy set theory has a variety of applications in different fields. The most fruitful applications are in the field of modeling and control of production systems. Fuzzy logic may be used to control the key quality parameters, grade product quality to reduce the variations and adjust to the specification limits.Fuzzy grading expresses the quality level of product by membership degrees in which belonging or not-belonging to a quality set is gradual. Similarly, the quality control charts are also focused on the reduction of variability and grading the key quality characteristics. The control limits are used to establish the natural spread or range of process so the controller will not signal changes in the process until the natural limits are exceeded. However, there is a logical inconsistency in control chart approaches, due to their crisp grading nature which are expressed as either conforming (good) or nonconforming (poor) to specifications. In this study, a new fuzzy grading approach was developed based on a fuzzy expert system. The outcomes of the fuzzy grading system were clearly proven to be more vigorous and flexible than the crisp control methods.