Ant-based service selection framework for a smart home monitoring environment

Selecting ambient media services in a smart home monitoring environment is challenging. Services in such an environment should be ubiquitous, adaptive, and robust with respect to access and delivery. Many different techniques exist for selecting services in smart environments, for example, dynamic programming, genetic algorithms, and fuzzy logic. However, existing approaches to service selection fail to address the dynamic nature of the services and the requirement of considering the user context and user satisfaction. We address this issue by proposing an ant-inspired service selection framework based on dynamic user preferences and satisfaction. This ant-inspired approach is robust to failures and adaptive to dynamic context. The proposed framework enables different categories of residents (e.g., elderly people, fathers with children, mothers, and so on) to access various media services in such a way that their experiences are optimized with regard to their surrounding environment. Experimental results demonstrate the viability of the proposed framework.     

Adaptable Decentralized Service Oriented Architecture

In the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), BPEL specified business processes are executed by non-scalable centralized orchestration engines. In order to address the scalability issue, decentralized orchestration engines are applied, which decentralize BPEL processes into static fragments at design time without considering runtime requirements. The fragments are then encapsulated into runtime components such as agents. There are a variety of attitudes towards workflow decentralization; however, only a few of them produce adaptable fragments with runtime environment. In this paper, producing runtime adaptable fragments is presented in two aspects. The first one is frequent-path adaptability that is equal to finding closely interrelated activities and encapsulating them in the same fragment to omit the communication cost of the activities. Another aspect is proportional-fragment adaptability, which is analogous to the proportionality of produced fragments with number of workflow engine machines. It extenuates the internal communication among the fragments on the same machine. An ever-changing runtime environment along with the mentioned adaptability aspects may result in producing a variety of process versions at runtime. Thus, an Adaptable and Decentralized Workflow Execution Framework (ADWEF) is introduced that proposes an abstraction of adaptable decentralization in the SOA orchestration layer. Furthermore, ADWEF architectures Type-1 and Type-2 are presented to support the execution of fragments created by two decentralization methods, which produce customized fragments known as Hierarchical Process Decentralization (HPD) and Hierarchical Intelligent Process Decentralization (HIPD). However, mapping the current system conditions to a suitable decentralization method is considered as future work. Evaluations of the ADWEF decentralization methods substantiate both adaptability aspects and demonstrate a range of improvements in response-time, throughput, and bandwidth-usage compared to previous methods.     

Automatic analysis of human posture equilibrium using empirical mode decomposition

The present study proposes a new approach for the assessment of the human balance control. This approach is based on the decomposition of the center of pressure displacement using empirical mode decomposition (EMD) that provides an effective time-frequency analysis of non-stationary signals. Twenty-eight healthy subjects performed quiet standing in four conditions—feet apart/together with respect to eyes open/closed—while recording the stabilometric signals in the anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) directions. The EMD method decomposes each stabilometric signal into several subsignals called intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). Stabilogram-diffusion analysis technique is applied to generate the diffusion curve of each IMF signal. Each diffusion curve is modeled as a second-order system and provides representative features, such as the gain parameter. Analysis of the gain parameter shows the major effect of visual input and feet conditions on the strategy to control/stabilize the balance. Significant differences were found between young and elderly, and between women and men. In addition, the impact of feet position seems to be higher in ML direction than in AP direction.     

Nanoscale mass nanosensor based on the vibration analysis of embedded magneto-electro-elastic nanoplate made of FGMs via nonlocal Mindlin plate theory

Microsystem Technologies - In the current paper, the sensitivity performance of functionally graded magneto-electro-elastic (FG-MEE) nanoplate with attached nanoparticles as a nanosensor is...     

Effect of processing parameters on compression molded PMR-15/C3K composites

The consolidation and curing history during the processing of composite materials affects the final properties of a part in various inter-related ways. In order to improve the quality of composites, these process-property relations must be understood in detail. Using a computer-controlled compression molding and data acquisition system, the processing of PMR-15/C3k composites has been investigated. The process parameters considered were the pressure, the time at which it was applied and the crosslinking temperature. Parts were tested for inter-laminar shear strength and flexural modulus, and measurements were made for void content and thickness. Full compaction strength, optimum compaction strength and void sensitivity factor have been defined.     

Flexural and Charpy impact behaviour of epoxy/glass fabric treated by nano-SiO2 and silane blend

A sizing formulation, containing compatible and incompatible silane coupling agents with epoxy resin in conjunction with nanoscale colloidal silica, was used to modify the surface of glass fabric. The modified glass fabric/epoxy resin composite panels were fabricated and characterised by flexural test, Charpy impact test and scanning electron microscope (SEM). By combining nano silica with silane blend in the fabric sizing, more energy was consumed under bending and impacting, which resulted in an improvement of the toughness in composites. The flexural strength, bending stain and Charpy impact strength of the epoxy composite/glass fabric treated with 1?wt-% nano silica and silane blend were ～42, ～22 and 35%, respectively, higher than those of silane blend coated glass fabric-reinforced composites (without nano silica). Furthermore, the change of the brittle fracture of the composite into ductile fracture was investigated by SEM micrographs. A possible toughening mechanism was also proposed.     

Monitoring of pesticide residues on cucumber, tomatoes and strawberries in Gaza Governorates, Palestine

Three techniques of gas chromatography (GC) either with flame photometric-detector (FPD), electron capture detector (ECD), or with mass-spectrometry (MS) were applied for identification and quantification of pesticide residues on 45 samples of cucumber, tomatoes, and strawberries in fifteen locations in Gaza Governorates. GC-FPD analysis showed the presence of four different organo-phosphorus (OP) pesticides, their levels were very low and below maximum residue limits (MRL's). GC-ECD detected ten different pesticides at levels below the MRL's. Using the GC-MS technique, alpha and beta-endosulfan, chlorpyrifos, carbofuran, chlorfluazuron, triadimenol I and II, penconazole, coptafolmetabolite, pyrimethanil and iprodione were detected and confirmed on some samples of cucumber, tomatoes and strawberries. All GC-MS pesticide residues detected on tomato were below the MRL's except chlorfluazuron while on strawberry were below the MRL's except penconazole, chlorfluazuron and pyrimethanil, but on cucumber were slightly higher than the MRL's except alpha and beta-endosulfan. Also, statistical analysis of pesticide residues in all samples showed that most of the detected residues mean were significantly lower than the MRL's (p < 0.05). Generally, tomatoes showed the least number and level of pesticide residues by all the GC-techniques. On the other hand, strawberries showed greater number and levels of pesticide residues, particularly by the GC-MS technique. These results indicate that the protective period to elapse before harvesting should be increased especially on strawberry. The results also can help in risk assessment of consumers exposure to the expected pesticide residues.     

Blind parametric identification of non-Gaussian FIR systems using higher order cumulants

Two approaches are introduced for the identification of linear time-invariant systems when only output data are available. The input sequences are independent and must be non-Gaussian. To estimate the parameters of the system, we use only the fourth-order cumulants of the output, which may be contaminated by an additive, zero mean, Gaussian noise of unknown variance. To measure the performance of the proposed algorithms against existing methods, we compared them with the Zhang's algorithm. Simulations verify an apparent performance of the second algorithm, compared with the first and Zhang's algorithms, in a low signal-to-noise ratio and for small data. The simulation results show that the first algorithm has the same performance compared with Zhang's one. But the second algorithm achieves better performance compared with the first and Zhang is algorithm. For validation purposes, the second algorithm is used to search for a model able to describe and simulate the data set representing the wind speed.     

The Ablation and Oxidation Behaviors of SiC Coatings on Graphite Prepared by Slurry Sintering and Pack Cementation

SiC coatings were generated on graphite using slurry sintering (SS) and pack cementation (PC). The samples’ ablation features were assessed by an oxyacetylene torch. The rates of mass ablation of the PC–SiC and SS–SiC coatings were approximated 2.17?×?10^?3 and 9.52?×?10^?3 g s^?1, respectively, decreased by 84.1 and 29.6% compared to the uncoated samples. It was mainly attributed to the formation of a SiO₂ layer on the surface. The continuous SiO₂ molten film formed via the PC–SiC oxidation generates a sealing mechanism which can be an obstacle against the oxygen diffusion and hinder more ablation. This is while discontinuous SiO₂ film formed from the thin SS–SiC cannot protect the graphite effectively. The non-isothermal oxidation test shows that without the SiC coating, the sample weight is lost largely from 25 to 1500 °C, and its weight loss was 2.2% after the TGA. However, after coating, the samples possessed excellent oxidation protection and weight losses of SS–SiC and PC–SiC coatings are down to 1.3 and 0.6%, respectively. The more oxidation of the graphite substrate occurred due to the formation of macrocracks in the coating during the TGA and also the formation of holes on SiO₂ glass layer owing to release of CO or CO₂.