A multiple multilayer perceptron neural network with an adaptive learning algorithm for thyroid disease diagnosis in the internet of medical things

The Journal of Supercomputing - Medical information systems such as Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) are gained special attention over recent years. X-ray and MRI images are important sources of...     

A Multiscale Approach to Leak Detection and Localization in Water Pipeline Network

Leak detection and localization in water pipeline networks is of paramount importance to industry, especially in regions where water is scarce. In this paper, we present a novel multi-modal and multi-scale approach for leak detection and localization in water pipeline networks, in which pressure measurements at various points on the network are used to localize the pipe segment in which the leak is occurring, and then the vibration sensors are used to localize the leak within this segment. In some situations where the complete pipeline model is not available, pressure data alone may not be effective in localizing the leak. However, in such a situation, by supplementing pressure data with vibration data, the leak can be localized, as these additional data are easier to acquire at arbitrary points, since vibration sensors are non-invasive. In order to validate the effectiveness of the approach that needs both pressure and vibration data, we simulate the pipeline model using EPANET that includes models for flow and pressure at various points on the pipeline, then integrate the vibration model with it in MATLAB, since EPNAET does not include models for vibration measurements. A case study of a pipeline network is considered, and the proposed scheme is used to detect and localize the leak. Extensive simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed scheme in providing accurate leak detection and localization.     

Coupled snakelets for curled text-line segmentation from warped document images

Camera-captured, warped document images usually contain curled text-lines because of distortions caused by camera perspective view and page curl. Warped document images can be transformed into planar document images for improving optical character recognition accuracy and human readability using monocular dewarping techniques. Curled text-lines segmentation is a crucial initial step for most of the monocular dewarping techniques. Existing curled text-line segmentation approaches are sensitive to geometric and perspective distortions. In this paper, we introduce a novel curled text-line segmentation algorithm by adapting active contour (snake). Our algorithm performs text-line segmentation by estimating pairs of x-line and baseline. It estimates a local pair of x-line and baseline on each connected component by jointly tracing top and bottom points of neighboring connected components, and finally each group of overlapping pairs is considered as a segmented text-line. Our algorithm has achieved curled text-line segmentation accuracy of above 95% on the DFKI-I (CBDAR 2007 dewarping contest) dataset, which is significantly better than previously reported results on this dataset.     

A secure migration process for mobile agents

This article describes a decentralized secure migration process of mobile agents between Mobile‐C agencies. Mobile‐C is an IEEE Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents (FIPA) standard compliant multi‐agent platform for supporting C/C++ mobile and stationary agents. Mobile‐C is specially designed for mechatronic and factory automation systems where malicious agents may cause physical damage to machinery and personnel. As a mobile agent migrates from one agency to another in an open network, the security concern of mobile agent systems should not be neglected. Security breaches can be minimized considerably if an agency only accepts mobile agents from agencies known and trusted by the system administrator. In Mobile‐C, a strong authentication process is used by sender and receiver agencies to authenticate each other before agent migration. The security framework also aims to guarantee the integrity and confidentiality of the mobile agent while it is in transit. This assures that all agents within an agency framework were introduced to that framework under the supervision and permission of a trusted administrator. The Mobile‐C Security protocol is inspired from the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, which avoids a single point of failure since it does not rely on a singular remote third party for the security process. In this protocol, both agencies must authenticate each other using public key authentication, before a secure migration process. After successful authentication, an encrypted mobile agent is transferred and its integrity is verified by the receiver agency. This article describes the Mobile‐C secure migration process and presents a comparison study with the SSH protocol. The performance analysis of the secure migration process is performed by comparing the turnaround time of mobile agent with and without security options in a homogeneous environment. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Electron beam melting of gamma titanium aluminide and investigating the effect of EBM layer orientation on milling performance

Electron beam melting (EBM) is one of the growing processes of additive manufacturing technology (AMT) to fabricate 3D parts from various difficult-to-process materials such as titanium alloys. A major limitation of the EBM process is the poor surface finish of the produced parts which ultimately demands a subsequent subtractive method (secondary finishing operation) to improve the surface finish for shaping the part to be fit for-end use applications where high surface finish is commonly required. With respect to the EBM layer build direction, the fabricated part has different orientations with varying surface characteristics. Therefore, in order to perform secondary finishing operation (e.g., milling) there are different choices of EBM part orientation to select the direction of tool feed. In this research, 3D parts of titanium alloy (gamma titanium aluminide; γ-TiAl) are additively manufactured through EBM process. The effect of EBM layer/part orientation on the milling performance is further investigated in terms of surface finish improvement and edge chipping evaluation. It has been observed that the EBM layer/part orientation with respect to milling tool feed direction (TFD) plays a vital role in milling performance. Thus, a care must be taken to select the appropriate tool feed direction and layer/part orientation in order to achieve maximum surface finish with minimum edge chipping. The results revealed the vertical milling can be adopted as a secondary finishing operation to be performed on EBM produced parts of γ-TiAl and it allows to significantly improve the poor surface finish generated by EBM (R_a 31 μm). Furthermore, among the available part orientation choices, the part orientation in which the milling tool is fed across the EBM layer build direction is the best orientation resulting into high surface finish (R_a 0.12 μm) with relatively smooth edges (minimum chipping-off).     

Energy management in residential buildings using energy hub approach

Building Simulation - Building-owned micro energy hubs (EHs) usually focus on optimal energy consumption cost and emission, whereas, macro energy hubs (MEHs) mainly concentrate on utility’s...     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: Image pattern recognition in big data: taxonomy and open challenges: survey

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Image pattern recognition in the field of big data has gained increasing importance and attention from researchers and practitioners in many domains of science...     

Mechanical,dielectric and EMI shielding response of styrene acrylonitrile,styrene acrylonitrile/polyaniline polymer blends,upon incorporation of few layer graphene at low filler loadings

The malfunction of electronic devices and many health-related issues may be caused due to electromagnetic interference (EMI) pollution. To overcome this problem a new set of material SAN/PANI/FLG hybrid composite with better EMI shielding properties is prepared using solution casting technique. Conductive polyaniline (PANI) is added (5 wt% and 10 wt%) to otherwise, an insulative polymer styrene acrylonitrile (SAN). Furthermore, few layer graphene (FLG) is added (0.1–1 wt%) to SAN/PANI polymer blends for preparation of SAN/PANI/FLG hybrid composites. The incorporation of PANI in SAN produces a phase separated morphology, whereas graphene appears in sheet like structure. For 0.1 wt% FLG/SAN/PANI-10 composite, total shielding effectiveness (SE_T) is enhanced from 1.1 to 24.3 dB (100 Hz), mainly due to enhanced dielectric characteristics. However, the maximum increase in tensile strength (49.6 MPa) and modulus (1.5 GPa) is observed for 0.5 wt% FLG/SAN/PANI-5.0 hybrid composite. The increase in dielectric properties and shielding efficiency of SAN/PANI/FLG may be credited to the accumulation of space charges or electric dipoles at the insulator conductor-interface.     

Effect of operating parameters on permeate flux decline caused by cake formation — a model study

A phenomenological model employing cake formation theory has been developed for describing permeate fluxdecline in cross-flow membrane filtration. In the model the physicochemical parameters, which are often difficult to estimate, were excluded. Instead, the flux decline due to cake formation caused by inorganic scaling/precipitation was related to the operating parameters for fouling prediction. The processes of solute deposition on membrane surface and its re-dissolution back to the bulk phase were modeled to estimate dynamic cake formation and permeate flux profiles. The modeled results show that the permeate flux declined rapidly at the early stage of cake formation, then gradually leveled off as time progressed, and eventually reached a steady-state “ultimate” flux when the rate of solid deposition was balanced by back dissolution. Sensitivity analyses show that an increase of cross-flow velocity from 0.06 to 0.14 m/s increased the ultimate flux from 0.016 m/h to 0.035 m/h. Membrane permeability and transmembrane pressure (400-750 kPa) affected the initial flux but not the ultimate flux. The flux decline pattern strongly depended on the specific cake resistance, which affects the time to reach steady state but not the ultimate flux. Verification of the model with data in the literature showed excellent agreement.