Design and implementation of a smart card based healthcare information system

Smart cards are used in information technologies as portable integrated devices with data storage and data processing capabilities. As in other fields, smart card use in health systems became popular due to their increased capacity and performance. Their efficient use with easy and fast data access facilities leads to implementation particularly widespread in security systems. In this paper, a smart card based healthcare information system is developed. The system uses smart card for personal identification and transfer of health data and provides data communication via a distributed protocol which is particularly developed for this study. Two smart card software modules are implemented that run on patient and healthcare professional smart cards, respectively. In addition to personal information, general health information about the patient is also loaded to patient smart card. Health care providers use their own smart cards to be authenticated on the system and to access data on patient cards. Encryption keys and digital signature keys stored on smart cards of the system are used for secure and authenticated data communication between clients and database servers over distributed object protocol. System is developed on Java platform by using object oriented architecture and design patterns.     

Fatigue life of 2017(A) aluminum alloy under proportional constant-amplitude bending with torsion in the energy approach

We present the results obtained for 2017(A) aluminum alloy under the conditions of pure bending with constant amplitude, pure torsion, and two combinations of proportional bending with torsion. All results can be described by a single criterion based on the parameter of strain-energy density in the critical plane. The critical plane is defined as the plane where the parameter attains its maximum value. The fatigue life is affected by the sum of the densities of normal and shear strain energies in the accepted critical plane. The results are presented in a scatter band with coefficient equal to three for the case of pure bending. Published in Fizyko-Khimichna Mekhanika Materialiv, Vol. 44, No. 4, pp. 68–74, July–August, 2008.     

Design and implementation of a multiagent stock trading system

Stock trading is one of the key items in an economy and estimating its behavior and taking the best decision in it are among the most challenging issues. Solutions based on intelligent agent systems are proposed to cope with those challenges. Agents in a multiagent system (MAS) can share a common goal or they can pursue their own interests. That nature of MASs exactly fits the requirements of a free market economy. Although existing studies include noteworthy proposals on agent‐based market simulation and researchers discuss theoretical design issues of agent‐based stock exchange systems, unfortunately only a very few of the studies consider exact development and implementation of multiagent stock trading systems within the software engineering perspective and guides to the software engineers for constructing such software systems starting from scratch. To fill this gap, in this paper, we discuss the development of a multiagent‐based stock trading system by taking into consideration software design according to a well‐defined agent oriented software engineering methodology and implementation with a widely‐used MAS software development framework. Each participant in the system is first designed as belief–desire–intention agents with their facts, goals, and plans, and then belief–desire–intention reasoning and behavioral structure of the designed agents are implemented. Lessons learned during design and development within the software engineering perspective and evaluation of the implemented multiagent stock exchange system are also reported. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The influence of enzymatic treatment on the surface modification of PET fibers

The paper deals with the assessment of the surface modification of glossy continuous poly(ethylene terephthalate) fibers from the point of view of changes in their surface structure in terms of its micro‐topography and the molecular and supermolecular structure of the filament surface layers. The performed SEM and AFM investigations have shown differences in the fiber surface carving before and after modification (smoothing or increased roughness), depending on the type of applied enzymatic preparation. Measurements with the use of the ATR‐IR method have shown changes in the physicochemical character of the investigated fiber surface. The cleavage of the ester bonds in PET macromolecular chains, resulting from the modifications used, leads to the formation of reactive ? OH and ? COOH groups. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2011     

The Inhibition Effect of 2-Thiobarbituric Acid on the Corrosion Performance of Mild Steel in HCl Solutions

We study the inhibition effect of 2-thiobarbituric acid on the corrosion performance of low-carbon steel in a 0.5 M HCl solution by the methods of potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and long-term measurements of hydrogen release and variations of the corrosion potential depending on the time of immersion. The potentiodynamic polarization curves are used to determine the activation energy of corrosion within the temperature range 298–328°K. It is shown that 2-thiobarbituric acid inhibits the process of corrosion of steel in solutions of hydrochloric acid. The efficiency of inhibition is proportional to the concentration of the inhibitor. __________ Published in Fizyko-Khimichna Mekhanika Materialiv, Vol. 41, No. 3, pp. 51–56, May–June, 2005.     

Inhibition Effect of Rhodanine for Corrosion of Mild Steel in Hydrochloric Acid Solution

The inhibition effect of Rhodanine on the corrosion performance of mild steel (MS) was studied in 0.5 M HCl solution. For this purpose, potentiodynamic polarization, electrochemical impedance spectroscopy, and long-term corrosion tests including hydrogen evolution and change in open-cirquit potential during immersion time were used. To determine activation energy of corrosion process, potentiodynamic polarization curves were also obtained in a temperature range from 298 to 328 K. The results show that Rhodanine effectively inhibits the MS corrosion in hydrochloric acid solution. __________ From Zashchita Metallov, Vol. 41, No. 6, 2005, pp. 628–632. Original English Text Copyright ? 2005 by Solmaz, Kardas, Yazici, Erbil. The text was submitted by authors in English.     

Fatigue life under variable-amplitude loading according to the cycle-counting and spectral methods

We compare the values for the fatigue life of 12010.3 steel determined experimentally under variable-amplitude tension-compression and calculated by two methods in time and frequency ranges. The first method is based on the schematization of the loading history and uses the rainflow algorithm. The fatigue life was calculated according to the Serensen-Kogaev linear hypothesis of damage accumulation wit the use of the Manson-Coffin dependence. The second method is based on power spectral density functions. These methods differ in the approaches used for the determination of the probability density of amplitude distribution from the deformation history. It is established that, in the case considered, the values of fatigue life calculated by the cycle-counting method and by the spectral method are close to the values determined experimentally. Published in Fizyko-Khimichna Mekhanika Materialiv, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 121–128, May–June, 2006.     

A systematic approach to evaluating domain-specific modeling language environments for multi-agent systems

Multi-agent systems (MASs) include multiple interacting agents within an environment to provide a solution for complex systems that cannot be easily solved with individual agents or monolithic systems. However, the development of MASs is not trivial due to the various agent properties such as autonomy, responsiveness, and proactiveness, and the need for realization of the many different agent interactions. To support the development of MASs various domain-specific modeling languages (DSMLs) have been introduced that provide a declarative approach for modeling and supporting the generation of agent-based systems. To be effective, the proposed DSMLs need to meet the various stakeholder concerns and the related quality criteria for the corresponding MASs. Unfortunately, very often the evaluation of the DSML is completely missing or has been carried out in idiosyncratic approach. If the DSMLs are not well defined, then implicitly this will have an impact on the quality of the MASs. In this paper, we present an evaluation framework and systematic approach for assessing existing or newly defined DSMLs for MASs. The evaluation is specific for MAS DSMLs and targets both the language and the corresponding tools. To illustrate the evaluation approach, we first present SEA_ML, which is a model-driven MAS DSML for supporting the modeling and generation of agent-based systems. The evaluation of SEA_ML is based on a multi-case study research approach and provides both qualitative evaluation and quantitative analysis. We report on the lessons learned considering the adoption of the evaluation approach as well as the SEA_ML for supporting the generation of agent-based systems.     

A multi-agent system for minimizing energy costs in cement production

A cement production planning system is expected to minimize energy costs. Further, such a system needs to be as autonomous as possible to decrease time loss during the communication between related departments of the plant. Hence, in this paper, we present a multi-agent system (MAS) in which software agents work collaboratively in order to assist production, planning and sales departments of a cement plant for the generation of cost-effective cement production plans. Implemented system was deployed and actively used inside one of the plants of a leading cement company in Turkey. Evaluation result shows that the utilization of the proposed system caused a significant energy cost saving. Moreover, workers in the planning department of the cement plant saved approximately 75% of their working hour by using the system. Total workload of the employees (including all departments) decreased to its half.