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Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal (ASTESJ)

Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal (ASTESJ) is an online-only journal dedicated to publishing significant advances covering all aspects of technology relevant to the physical science and engineering communities. As a web-based journal with rapid publication time, Advances in Science, Technology and Engineering Systems Journal is responsive to the many new developments expected in these fields. The interdisciplinary approach of the publication ensures that the editors draw from authors from around the world across a diverse range of active and expanding fields. The journal is published online only on a bi-monthly basis (6 issues per year).

Volume 1, Issue 4, September-October 2016

Articles

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Mortar is used all over the world for construction purpose. It consists of cement paste and fine aggregates and admixtures if required are also incorporated to modify some of its properties. In this study coconut fibers and human hair were used as an additive materials in the mortar and its effects on compressive strength of the mortar were investigated. Coconut fibers and human hair are waste materials which are produced in millions of tons every year which create not only biodegradability problems but also cause pollution. Coconut fibers and human hair were used as additive materials in mortar in 2, 4 and 6 % to prepare blended mortar. Mortar samples of coconut fibers and human hair were prepared and compared with each other and control samples. Cement to sand ratio was kept 1:3 with water cement ratio of 0.6 for all mixes. Cubes having dimensions of 2×2×2 inches were used in this project. All the mixes were cured at normal room temperature for 3, 7 and 28 days. Results revealed that mix with 4% coconut fibers showed higher compressive strength at 3 days and 6% higher compressive strength at 28 days. With increase of coconut fibers compressive strength increased. However, mortar with human hair initially shows higher strength when 2 % was incorporated but with increasing percentage of human hair, strength was reduced. With addition of mix fibers i.e. coconut fibers and human hair into the mix, the compressive strength initially increased at 3rd day of curing, showing higher compressive strength at 3 days for all percentages of mix compare to reference mortar, however with further increase of percentage of mix fibers into the mortar, the compressive strength was reduced showing lowest compressive strength at 28th days for 4% of mix fibers i.e. coconut fibers and human hair.

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Global warming and Climate change are commonly acknowledged as the most noteworthy environmental quandary the world is undergoing today. Contemporary studies have revealed that the Earth’s surface air temperature has augmented by 0.6°C – 0.8°C in the course of the 20th century, together with alterations in the hydrological cycle. This study focuses on detecting trends in seasonal temperature for the five selected stations in the Upper Indus Basin. The Mann-Kendall test was run at 5% significance level on time series data for each of the five stations during the time period, 1985 to 2014. The Standard Test Statistic (Zs) indicates the presence of trend and whether it is increasing or decreasing. The analysis showed an increasing trend in mean monthly temperature at Astore, Gilgit and Gupiz in March and a decreasing trend for Astore, Drosh, Gilgit and Skardu in September. Gilgit and Gupiz showed unexpected increasing trend in October. This study concludes that the temperature starts increasing in March and stays elevated till the month of June and starts rising again in October thus resulting in expansion of summer season and prolonged glacial melting.

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Volume 1, Issue 5, Special issue on Recent Advances in Electrical and Electronics Engineering

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In this paper, an application of artificial neural network (ANN) using bayesian regularization (BR) learning algorithm  based on multilayer perceptron (MLP) model is presented for computing the operating frequency of C-shaped patch antennas (CPAs) in UHF band.  Firstly, the operating frequencies of 144 CPAs having varied dimensions and electrical parameters were simulated by the XFDTD software package based on the finite-difference time domain (FDTD) method in order to generate the data set for the training and testing processes of the ANN-BR model. Then ANN-BR model was built with data set and while 129 simulated CPAs and remaining 15 simulated CPAs were employed for ANN-BR model training and testing respectively. In order to demonstrate its validity and accuracy, the proposed ANN-BR model was also tested over the simulation data given in the literature. The obtained results show that ANN-BR technique can be successfully used to compute the operating frequency of CPAs without involving any sophisticated methods.

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In this paper, a full duplex Gigabit Passive Optical Network (GPON) architecture supporting 10Gbps data transmission through single fiber cable network is proposed and demonstrated. A Non Return to Zero Differential Phase Shift Keying (NRZ-DPSK) is utilized for downstream and re-modulate the downstream signal using intensity modulator (on-off keying OOK) in Return to Zero (RZ) format in order to transmit upstream data, sustaining data rate of 10 Gbps/channel is an optimized network in full duplex mode. Simulation results shows that uninterrupted transmission using 50 GHz channel spacing is accomplish over a distance of 25 km.

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With the advancement of technology intelligent devices are fast approaching the realm of necessity from the status of luxury. With limited energy resources, it is the need of time to revolutionize the traditional methods of counting visitors inside hotels, recreational places, meeting rooms and cinemas to control the electrical appliances. Moreover, the improved living standards demand developing circuits that would ease the complexity of life. Many systems have been developed to fill this technological gap but most of them are not applicable in real time scenarios due to their limitations. This paper describes the development and implementation of real time bidirectional visitor counter along with automatic room light controller. The proposed system keeps track of visitors visiting a room as well as takes over the control of the room lights. As a visitor enters the room, the count is incremented by one and the lights are switched on. While the count is decremented if a person leaves the room. Lights of the room are switched off only if there is no person inside. Though a number of systems have been developed in this field but most of them are not practically applicable due to outdated technology. In this paper, we have used state of the art components to develop a practically applicable system. Finally, the system was deployed and tested in real world situations to enumerate its efficiency.

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Computers and Information Technology

Representation of Clinical Information in Outpatient Oncology for Prognosis Using Regression

Jennifer Winikus, Laura E. Brown

Adv. Sci. Technol. Eng. Syst. J. 1(5), 16-20 (2016);

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The determination of length of survival, or prognosis, is often viewed through statistical hazard models or with respect to a future reference time point in a classification approach (e.g., survival after 2 or 5 years). In this research, regression was used to determine a patient’s prognosis. Also, multiple behavioral representations of clinical data, including difference trends and splines, are considered for predictor variables, which is different from demographic and tumor characteristics often used. With this approach the amount of clinical samples considered from the available patient data in the model in conjunction with the behavioral representation was explored. The models with the best prognostic performance had data representations that included limited clinical samples and some behavioral interpretations.

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Smart electronic devices and gadgets and their applications are becoming more and more popular. Most of those devices and their applications handle personal, financial, medical and other sensitive data that require security and privacy protection. In this paper we describe one aspect of such protection – user authentication protocol based on the use of X.509 certificates. The system uses Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), challenge/response protocol, mobile proxy servers, and Java cards with crypto capabilities used as a Secure Element. Innovative design of the protocol, its implementation, and evaluation results are described. In addition to end-user authentication, the described solution also supports the use of X.509 certificates for additional security services – confidentiality, integrity, and non-repudiation of transactions and data in an open network environment. The system uses Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to access Java cards functions and credentials that can be used as add-ons to enhance any mobile application with security features and services.

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Geo-fencing (geofencing) is a great feature in a software program that uses Global Positioning System (GPS) or radio frequency identification (RFID) to define the geographical boundaries feature. Actually geofence is a virtual barrier. Geofencing is an innovative technology, an online marketplace for proactive contextual services that allows users to easily find interesting services, can easily subscribe to it and to allow providers offer their services for a variety of applications such as electronic toll collection, contextual advertising or tourist information systems, even without additional infrastructure. The main objective of this research was to understand how the use of spatial data can improve advertising performance for customers. Tracking systems and monitoring, based on global navigation services by satellite, and include geofencing function, could also contribute to the exact location of an institution or company and increase sales and business perspective efficiently. Instead of large billboards they can now advertise on smartphones which is economically and accurately tested. Therefore, we have developed a concept for a market that offers geofence, which can be applied by all and increase the use and integration of proactive services based on location in everyday life.

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Power Electronics, Systems and Applications

Stand-alone Inverter: Reviews, Models and Tests the exist system in Term of the Power Quality, and Suggestions to Design it

Ali Algaddafi

Adv. Sci. Technol. Eng. Syst. J. 1(5), 34-41 (2016);

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Developments in power electronics have enabled the widespread application of Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) inverters, notably for obtaining electricity from renewable systems. This paper critical review the previous studies in designing stand-alone inverter and modelling the inverter with two control loops to improve and provide a high-quality power of a stand-alone inverter. Multi-loop control techniques for a stand-alone inverter are utilised as the first loop is a capacitor current control to provide active damping and improve transient and steady state inverter performance. The capacitor current control is cheaper than inductor current control, where a small current sensing resistor is used. The second loop is the output voltage control that is used to improve the system performance and also control the output voltage. The power quality of the off-grid system is measured experimentally and compared with the grid power, showing power quality of off-grid system to be better than that of the grid. The suggestions and key findings to design the stand-alone inverter are given based in the reviewing of previous publications and from the literature’s point of view.

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Signal Processing

A Comparative Study For Color Systems Used In The DCT-DWT Watermarking Algorithm

Khalid A. Al-Afandy, El-Sayed M. EL-Rabaie, Fathi E. Abd El-Samie, Osama S. Faragallah, Ahmed ELmhalaway, A. M. Shehata

Adv. Sci. Technol. Eng. Syst. J. 1(5), 42-49 (2016);

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This paper presents a comparative study of using different color systems on watermarking algorithms. This comparison aim is to determining the robustness and the stability of the color systems used in the watermarking scheme. The watermarking algorithm that is used in this paper is a hybrid scheme using the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) in the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) domain. The DCT-DWT watermarking algorithm is applied using three color systems, the RGB (Red, Green and Blue) color system, the HSV (Hue, Saturation and Value) color system and the YIQ color system. The comparison is based on visualization to detect any degradation in the watermarked image, the Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) of the watermarked image, the Normalized Correlation (NC) of the extracted watermark after extraction, the embedding algorithm CPU time, and applying different types of attacks and then calculating the PSNR and the NC.

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In this work  fenugreek(Trigonella Foenum Graecum) extract  was  used  to  synthesis gold nanoparticles by simple and safe method .In aqueous solution of chloroaurate ions, fenugreek extract was used as reducing agent and gum Arabic as stabilizer by one synthetic route which is microwave irradiation .The nanoparticles were characterized and investigated by ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry, transmission electron microscopy (TEM), energy-dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD)and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy(FTIR). The size and shape of the nanoparticles were found to be very sensitive to the quantity of the extract. And the shape of gold nanoparticles was found to be multiform; the EDX spectrum show high peaks of gold that indicate the pure nature of gold nanoparticles in chemical composition.

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Visual analysis of human behavior is a broad field within computer vision.  In this field of work, we are interested in dynamic methods in the analysis of crowd behavior which consist in detecting the abnormal entities in a group in a dense scene. These scenes are characterized by the presence of a great number of people in the camera’s field of vision. The major problem is the development of an autonomous approach for the management of a great number of anomalies which is almost impossible to carry out by human operators. We present in this paper a new approach for the detection of dynamic anomalies of very dense scenes measuring the speed of both the individuals and the whole group. The various anomalies are detected by dynamically switching between two approaches: An artificial neural network (ANN) for the management of group anomalies of people, and a Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Application with Noise (DBSCAN) in the case of entities. For greater robustness and effectiveness, we introduced two routines that serve to eliminate the shades and the management of occlusions. The two latter phases have proven that the results of the simulation are comparable to existing work.

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