Human Body Posture Classification by a Neural Fuzzy Network and Home Care System Application

A new classification approach for human body postures based on a neural fuzzy network is proposed in this paper, and the approach is applied to detect emergencies that are caused by accidental falls. Four main body postures are used for posture classification, including standing, bending, sitting, and lying. After the human body is segmented from the background, the classification features are extracted from the silhouette. The body silhouette is projected onto horizontal and vertical axes, and then, a discrete Fourier transform is applied to each projected histogram. Magnitudes of significant Fourier transform coefficients together with the silhouette length-width ratio are used as features. The classifier is designed by a neural fuzzy network. The four postures can be classified with high accuracy according to experimental results. Classification results are also applicable to home care emergency detection of a person who suddenly falls and remains in the lying posture for a period of time due to experiments that were performed.     

Role Negotiation and Interaction: An Exploratory Case Study of the Impact of Management Consultants on ERP System Implementation in SMEs in Taiwan

Abstract

With growing pressures for collaborative information systems (IS) partnerships, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation has been an important activity for improving supply chains efficiency in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). Historically ERP consultants usually take a product-selling approach in SMEs, providing limited management consultancy services. However, a more constructive role for management consultants has become an emerging and challenging issue. This study explored the involvement of management consultants in ERP implementation, particularly with internal managers, ERP consultants and other project members. Extensive interviews were conducted with management consultants as well as 47 project members from four different SMEs in Taiwan employing ERP consultants. Using a grounded theory methodology, prior literature was used to sensitize the findings to key concepts of importance. The results were then analyzed and we described how owner-managers regard management consultants and how the consultants use role negotiation skills to work with both internal managers and ERP consultants. The study found resistance toward management consultants primarily from managers in SMEs, and not owner-managers. The relationships between management consultants and SME managers also differed from similar relationships in large organizations. Suggestions are also provided for academics and practitioners along with areas for future research to extend these exploratory findings.     

A novel, electrically protein-manipulated microcantilever biosensor for enhancement of capture antibody immobilization

This study demonstrated a microcantilever biosensor for enhancement of capture antibody immobilization. The electrically protein-manipulated, microcantilever biosensor is featured with enhanced capture antibody immobilization, miniaturization, and high sensitivity. Thanks to the electric property of biological substances in a real environment, given charged proteins can be manipulated with attraction in solution under an electric field. It is evident that higher amount of capture antibody molecules immobilized onto sensing surfaces captures or detects specific molecules, indicating greater deflection and stresses as well. This however leads to significant cost in biosensors. With the merit of MEMS technique that allows highly fabrication-compatible integration into microcantilever biosensors, sparsely distributed antibody molecules in solution are attracted in focus onto a sensing solid surface under electric fields. As the sensing element of the gold-coated, V-shaped silicon nitride microcantilever also serves as an electrode, the electric fields are applied in a channel of flowing microfluidics by locally in-plane electrodes or by a top electrode arranged for three-dimensional fields. As expected, most charged proteins distributed in solution are effectively attracted onto the sensing area within the electric fields. This improves the efficiency of capture antibody immobilization and achieves an eight-fold reduction over the necessary amount of capture antibodies without applying electric fields. With such a successful manipulation of charged proteins, the novel microcantilever biosensor exhibits efficient use of capture antibodies in solution.     

Evolutionary-based feature selection approaches with new criteria for data mining: A case study of credit approval data

In this paper, the feature selection problem was formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem, and new criteria were proposed to fulfill the goal. Foremost, data were pre-processed with missing value replacement scheme, re-sampling procedure, data type transformation procedure, and min-max normalization procedure. After that a wide variety of classifiers and feature selection methods were conducted and evaluated. Finally, the paper presented comprehensive experiments to show the relative performance of the classification tasks. The experimental results revealed the success of proposed methods in credit approval data. In addition, the numeric results also provide guides in selection of feature selection methods and classifiers in the knowledge discovery process.     

Laboratory investigation of basic oxygen furnace slag for substitution of aggregate in porous asphalt mixture

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mixture performance and the sound absorption characteristic of porous asphalt mixture with different percentages of basic oxygen furnace (BOF) slag. Mixtures made with 0%, 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% BOF slag by volume as a coarse aggregate substitution were considered. The packing grading mixture design method (PGMDM) was applied in the design of porous asphalt. The test results show that BOF slag has high specific gravity, high absorption, high angularity, low L.A. abrasion, and low soundness compared with crushed stone (CS). The mixtures with BOF slag enhance skid resistance, moisture susceptibility, rutting resistance and sound absorption. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) used for micrograph demonstration shows that the rough surface pores and surface texture of BOF slag have a strong bond characteristic and an excellent interfacial zone for asphalt binder. The Duncan’s multiple range test results indicate that the BOF slag substitution percentage is significantly different in terms of mixture performance. The CS completely replaced by the BOF slag for porous asphalt mixture is recommended to obtain the optimum performance.     

A new construction of frequency-hopping codes

This article presents a new construction of frequency-hopping (FH) codes for multilevel frequency-shift-keying/frequency-hopping code-division multiple-access (MFSK/ FH-CDMA) systems. Exactly P³ -P FH patterns of length P³ and frequency slots P³ are constructed for every prime, P. These new FH patterns possess ideal autocorrelation and good cross-correlation properties. Furthermore, these new FH patterns can be partitioned into P(P+1) groups, of which the auto- and cross-correlation properties between any two FH patterns in the same group are both ideal     

采用Kalman滤波器的实时混合试验方法

等效力控制方法采用力反馈控制代替隐式积分方法中的迭代过程,从而使等效力控制方法在避免隐式积分方法的迭代过程的同时仍具有隐式积分方法的无条件稳定性。利用该力反馈控制,等效力控制方法还具有对实时子结构试验中的时滞进行补偿的作用。但是,在实际的实时子结构试验中,能够影响等效力控制方法时滞补偿效果的因素有很多,噪声就是其中之一。本文研究了噪声对等效力控制方法稳定性的影响。提高等效力PID控制器的比例增益可对系统时滞起到补偿作用,但是当比例增益较大时,等效力反馈中的噪声会降低等效力控制方法的稳定性。为了对等效力反馈中的噪声进行滤波,本文采用了基于作动器模型设计的Kalman滤波器,并通过实时子结构实验方法对其滤波效果进行研究。研究结果表明此滤波器能够有效地过滤噪声,消除噪声对等效力控制方法稳定性的影响。     

Microstructural and abrasive characteristics of high carbon Fe–Cr–C hardfacing alloy

A series of high carbon Fe–Cr–C hardfacing alloys were produced by gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). Chromium and graphite alloy fillers were used to deposit hardfacing alloys on ASTM A36 steel substrates. Depending on the four different graphite additions in these alloy fillers, this research produced hypereutectic microstructures of Fe–Cr phase and (Cr,Fe)₇C₃ carbides on hard-facing alloys. The microstructural results indicated that primary (Cr,Fe)₇C₃ carbides and eutectic colonies of [Cr–Fe+(Cr,Fe)₇C₃] existed in hardfacing alloys. With increasing the C contents of the hardfacing alloys, the fraction of primary (Cr,Fe)₇C₃ carbides increased and their size decreased. The hardness of hardfacing alloys increased with fraction of primary (Cr.Fe)₇C₃ carbides. Regarding the abrasive characteristics, the wear resistance of hardfacing alloys were related to the fraction of primary (Cr,Fe)₇C₃ carbides. The wear mechanism was also dominated by the fraction of primary (Cr,Fe)₇C₃ carbides. Fewer primary carbides resulted in continuous scratches worn on the surface of hardfacing alloy. In addition, the formation of craters resulted from the fracture of carbides. However, the scratches became discontinuous with increasing fraction of the carbides. More primary carbides can effectively prevent the eutectic colonies from the damage of abrasive particles.     

High Electromagnetic Shielding of a 2.5-Gbps Plastic Transceiver Module Using Dispersive Multiwall Carbon Nanotubes

A novel polyimide film, consisting of finely dispersed multiwall carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) in an ionic liquid (IL), is demonstrated to be high shielding effectiveness (SE) for use in packaging a 2.5-Gbps plastic transceiver module. The IL-dispersed MWCNT composite exhibits a high SE of 40 ~ 46 dB. By comparison, the composite fabricated by nondispersive process requires a higher loading of MWCNTs at 50 wt- % than the IL-dispersed process at only 30 wt-%. The electromagnetic susceptibility (EMS) performance is experimentally evaluated by the eye diagram and bit-error-rate for a 2.5-Gbps lightwave transmission system. The package housing fabricated by the dispersive MWCNT composites shows an enhanced EMS performance, an improved mask margin, and a lower-power penalty. These results indicate that the IL-dispersed MWCNT composites are suitable for packaging low-cost and high-performance optical transceiver modules used in the fiber to the home lightwave transmission systems.     

Augmented Cell Performance of NO-Based Storage Dielectric by N$_2$ O-Treated Nitride Film for Trench DRAM

Owing to the delayed introduction of high-kappa storage dielectric for trench DRAM, a new technology to extend the existing NO storage dielectric becomes a prerequisite. For trench DRAM, the nitride film of NO-based storage dielectric has been proved to possess higher quality by proper treatment, which enables further reduction in nitride thickness and extension of scaling limit for the existing storage dielectric. A 164% leakage current improvement without sacrificing the cell capacitance can be achieved through this process, while keeping the outstanding reliability performance of less than 438 ppm failure rate after a ten-year operation. Most importantly, this new process can be fully integrated into incumbent furnace process, which means that no additional tool investment is required, and it is crucial for trench DRAM manufacturers to maintain their competitive advantage before the high-k material prevails at 65 nm technology node.