Partition-based random search (PRS) provides a class of effective algorithms for global optimization. In each iteration of a PRS algorithm, the solution space is partitioned into subsets which are randomly sampled and evaluated. One subset is then determined to be the promising subset for further partitioning. In this paper, we propose the problem of allocating samples to each subset so that th…
This paper describes automated procedures for the design and deployment of artificial skin for humanoid robots. This problem is challenging under different perspectives: on the one hand, different robots are characterized by different shapes, thereby requiring a high degree of skin customization; on the other hand, it is necessary to define optimal criteria specifying how the skin must be plac…
Despite a large number of proofs of concept in nanotechnologies (e.g., nanosensors), nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) hardly come to the market. One of the bottlenecks is the packaging of NEMS which require handling, positioning, assembling and joining strategies in the mesoscale (from 100 nm to 10 , between nanoscale and microscale).It requires models of the interaction forces and adhesio…
This paper presents the results of a combined experimental and theoretical study of interfacial fracture in organic electronic structures. Interfacial fracture toughness is investigated as a function of mode mixity using Brazil disk specimens. The measured fracture toughness values are then compared with predictions determined from crack-tip shielding estimates and atomic force microscopy measu…
The reliability of structural and electrical properties of mixed As/Sb staggered gap tunnel field-effect transistors (TFETs) for high-temperature operation was comprehensively investigated from 25 ◦C to 150 ◦C. Temperature-dependent X-ray measurements showed identical strain relaxation of the active region, indicating that no additional dislocations were introduced at 150 ◦C. Symmetric 2-…
This paper presents the analysis, design, and closedloop motion control of a mobile microrobotic platform capable of micrometer positioning on a plane. The mobile microrobot, including chassis, actuators, drives, microprocessor, and electronics, is of low cost (less than $20), can be fabricated rapidly and is made of commercially available components. Its motion is induced by centrifugal forces…
This paper reports on the supply voltage dependency of single-event transient (SET) propagation and multinode charge collection phenomena in integrated circuits. We have found that the SET pulsewidth propagating to subsequent stages in a circuit may decrease with reduced power supply voltage, which runs counter to the general conclusion that ultralow power applications are much more susceptibl…
To assist nature observation, we develop two algorithms to enable automatic bird species filtering using crowd sourced videos as inputs where camera motion and parameters are often unknown. The first algorithm recognizes the time series of salient extremities, which is the inter-wing tip distance (IWTD), from motion segmented bird contours. To analyze the feasibility of the proposed algorithm, …
This paper presents measurement results of alphaparticle-induced soft errors and multiple-cell upsets (MCUs) in 65-nm 10T SRAM with a wide range of supply voltage from 1.0 to 0.3 V. We reveal that the soft-error rate (SER) at 0.3 V is six times higher than that at 1.0 V and the MCU rate significantly increases in the subthreshold region. To investigate the reason for the MCU increase, the depe…
Supervisory control is usually considered as an external control mechanism to a system by controlling the occurrences of its controllable events. There exist Petri net models whose legal reachability spaces are nonconvex. In this case, they cannot be optimally controlled by the conjunctions of linear constraints. For Petri net models of flexible manufacturing systems, this work proposes a metho…
Pick-place of single nanowires inside scanning electron microscopes (SEM) is useful for prototyping functional devices and characterizing nanowires’s properties. Nanowire pickplace has been typically performed via teleoperation,which is timeconsuming and highly skill-dependent. This paper presents an automated approach to the pick-place of single nanowires. Through SEM visual detection and vi…
Jellyfish are often the most prominent components of plankton, with severe consequences for fisheries and tourism. However, in tropical regions, there is much uncertainty about these consequences due to the lack of basic data. Our objective was to improve the knowledge about jellyfish in the Western Atlantic, with an emphasis on understanding diversity, abundance, and distribution patterns. Sam…
Autonomous vehicle-based storage and retrieval system (AVS/RS) offers considerable flexibility with respect to throughput capacity in the transfer of unit loads in high density storage areas. AVS/RS relies on autonomous vehicles to provide horizontal movement within a tier and uses lifts to provide vertical movement between tiers. In these systems, vehicle blocking delays in the aisles and cro…
Large-scale habitat use and movements of yellow American eels (Anguilla rostrata) from the St. Lawrence River were examined using acoustic telemetry from early summer to late fall in 2010 and 2011. Sixtyseven eels were tagged, and their passage or presence was recorded using fixed acoustic arrays covering a 400 km distance along the St. Lawrence River and Estuary. Sixty-four per cent of the 67 …
Care services within the patient rooms are the most critical and time consuming processes in patient care deliveries in emergency department, clinics, and other healthcare facilities. In this paper, we introduce a Markov chain model to study such processes. A closed, parallel, and reentrant network with limited resources is used to model the process. Formulas to evaluate the patient length of s…
Abstract—The goal of this paper is to experimentally and numerically study the thermal behaviors of flip-chip (FC) light-emitting diode (LED) packages with and without underfills and, furthermore, to compare it with conventional wire-bonding LED packages in order to understand its thermal dissipation mechanism. In experimental analyses, the junction temperature Tj and surface temperatures ar…
The community-based generation of content has been tremendously successful in the World-Wide Web—people help each other by providing information that could be useful to others.We are trying to transfer this approach to robotics in order to help robots acquire the vast amounts of knowledge needed to competently perform everyday tasks. ROBOEARTH is intended to be a web community by robots for …
Neural network modeling method is introduced for analyzing ultralarge scale integration (ULSI) nterconnect reliability for the first time. By training the simulation data from ANSYS (a finite-element tool), a neural network model is developed, where the prediction of ULSI interconnect reliability can be more effectively done. The proposed technique is useful for integrated circuit design since …
Owing to their rapid development, services are increasing rapidly in quantity. The consequence is that there are so many services that share the same or similar functions. Therefore, it is important to select a credible and optimal service. Reputation as one of the important parameters of services plays a significant role in the decision support for service selection. This paper proposes a nove…
Abstract—In this paper, we present a physics-aware, planning approach for automated transport of cells in an optical tweezers-assisted microfluidic chamber. The approach can be used for making a uniform distribution of cells inside the chamber to allow the study of a variety of biological processes, including cell signaling. Fluid forces inside the chamber, modeled using computational fluid d…
Improving quality in large volume battery manufacturing systems for hybrid and electric vehicles is of significant importance. In this paper, we present a flow model to analyze and improve product quality in electrical vehicle battery assembly lines with 100% inspections and repairs for defective parts. Specifically, a battery assembly line consisting of multiple inspection stations is consider…
In service-oriented computing, a user usually needs to locate a desired service for: (i) fulfilling her requirements or (ii) replacing a service, which disappears or is unavailable for some reasons, to perform an interaction.With the increasing number of services available within an enterprise and over the Internet, locating a service online may not be appropriate from the performance perspecti…
Process monitoring and fault diagnosis of the continuous annealing process lines (CAPLs) have been a primary concern in industry. Stable operation of the line is essential to final product quality and continuous processing of the upstream and downstream materials. In this paper, amultilevel principal component analysis (MLPCA)-based fault diagnosis method is proposed to provide meaningful monit…
This study proposes a general analytical compliance model for symmetric notch flexure hinges composed of segments with constant width and analytically defined variable thicknesses. Applying serial combination and longitudinal/transverse mirroring of base segments, the in-plane compliances of the full flexure are obtained as functions of one quarter-flexure compliances. The new right circularly …
3-D CAD models are an important digital resource in the manufacturing industry. 3-D CAD model retrieval has become a key technology in product lifecycle management enabling the reuse of existing design data. In this paper, we propose a new method to retrieve 3-D CAD models based on 2-D pen-based sketch inputs. Sketching is a common and convenient method for communicating design intent during ea…
Automotive painting shops consume electricity and natural gas to provide the required temperature and humidity for painting processes. The painting shop is not only responsible for a significant portion of energy consumption with automobile manufacturers, but also affects the quality of the product. Various storage devices play a crucial role in the management of multiple energy systems. It is…
Cigarette production scheduling is vital in improving production efficiency and reducing supply delay. In this paper, a workflow model combined with an immune algorithm is proposed to solve this problem for improving production efficiency. First, the problem is formulated as a mixed-integer quadratically constrained programming model. Afterwards, the problem is transformed into a workflow reso…
Water environment system is a complex system, and an agent-based model presents an effective approach that has been implemented in water resource management research. Urban water resource optimal allocation is a challenging and critical issue in water environment systems, which belongs to the resource optimal allocation problem. In this paper, a novel approach based on multiagent Q-learning is…
Buildingsworldwide account for nearly 40% of global energy consumption. The biggest energy consumer in buildings is the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems. HVAC also ranks top in terms of number of complaints by tenants. Maintaining HVAC systems in good conditions through early fault detection is thus a critical problem. The problem, however, is difficult since HVAC syste…
Hidden or partially observable degradation state of the equipment is frequently encountered in many engineering practices. This may encourage the state space modeling technique as a feasible way to estimate equipment’s remaining useful life (RUL). However, most of the existing state space models falling into this category are based on the assumptions that the degradation process is linear or…
In the assembly modeling of complex products, it is not unusual facing an explosive growth of assembly relations, or called combination explosion. Through integrating object-oriented methods with the knowledge template based modeling, in this paper, a new methodology is proposed to deal with the complexity of the assemblies of large-scale products. As such, the templates with various assembly r…
Fixtures are used in almost all modern manufacturing operations. In practice, there is a wide range of specifications on the manufacturing precision and thus different requirements on workpiece locating accuracy during each production process. In view of that, this paper developed a unified signed distance function framework. Under this framework, three systems of sensitivity equations, which …
From long to short term planning, decision processes inherent to operating theater organization are often subject of empiricism, leading to far from optimal results. Waiting lists for surgery have always been a societal problem, which governments have been fighting with different management and operational stimulus plans. The current hospital information systems available in Portuguese public …
Due to complex dynamic characteristics of the ball mill system, it is difficult to measure load parameters inside the ball mill. It has been noticed that the traditional single-model and ensemble-model based soft sensor approaches demonstrate weak generalization power. Also, mill motor current, feature subsets of the shell vibration and acoustical frequency spectra contain different useful in…
Frontline mental health care professionals (FMHPs) in a variety of roles such as nursing, social work, psychology, psychiatry, case managers and mental health workers are often required to provide a high degree of care to clients over time which can result in physical and psychological complaints often referred to as compassion fatigue (CF). The aim of this nonexperimental, cross sectional stud…
While combat-related loss is likely to result in the development of lingering stress responses, little is known about its impact on behavioral health. The purpose of this study was to present preliminary results on war-related losses and behavioral health among Operations Enduring Freedom/Iraqi Freedomveterans. Veterans who suffered losses, to include noncombat losses (relationships back home) …
Although a wide array of the scientific literature explores the links between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, coping strategies, and social support and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) as an outcome variable, their connections remain unclear. It is unknown whether PTSD symptom severity, coping strategies, and social support explain each a unique portion of variance of HRQoL…
We tested the hypothesis that early adolescents’ (N = 951) knowledge of who bullies whom is differentially distributed across peers. Knowledge of bullying was assessed by asking middle school students to nominate grademates who bullied or were bullied using physical or relational means. We hypothesized that peers who were closer to bullies and victims in the grade-level friendship network, s…
The pentose phosphate pathway (PPP) is a fundamental component of cellular metabolism. The PPP is important to maintain carbon homoeostasis, to provide precursors for nucleotide and amino acid biosynthesis, to provide reducing molecules for anabolism, and to defeat oxidative stress. The PPP shares reactions with the Entner–Doudoroff pathway and Calvin cycle and divides into an oxidative and n…
This review examined classroom science instruction for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). A total of 11 group and single-subject studies were analyzed. Across all group studies, a conservatively calculated mean effect size of .471 was obtained indicating the interventions as a whole had at least a small to moderate impact on students’ with EBD achievement. Findings were …
This study examined the feasibility and effectiveness of a comprehensive function-based intervention applied across multiple inclusive classroom settings. The participant was a middle school student diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome who exhibited chronic off-task behaviors across all academic environments. This study was conducted across two phases: (a) A descriptive functional behavior assess…
The most characterised Dasheen mosaic virus andmany other unreported putative viruses are involved in the mixed viral mosaic infection of elephant foot yam (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius). The in vitro propagation of corm bud tips for virus free plantlet production was carried out in three different culture phases consisting of callusing, shoot regeneration and rooting. A 100 % survival ratewas…
This paper identifies and describes two new norm-based strategies for institutional change to address intractable social problems. In both strategies, advocates “foreground” and criticize norms supporting the institutional status quo before either promoting an alternative existing norm via normative reframing of the issue, or creating and promoting an entirely new norm via normative innova…
Industrial automation is largely based on PLC-based control systems. PLCs are today mostly programmed in the languages of the IEC 61131 standard which are not ready to meet the new challenges of widely distributed automation systems. Currently, an extension of IEC 61131 which includes object oriented programming as well as the new standard IEC 61499 are available. Moreover, service-oriented pa…
Using American National Election Studies (NES) data from 1952 to 2008—a longer timespan than any analysis to date—we evaluate the leading claims about growing polarization along authoritarian/nonauthoritarian lines and the reasons for that growth. We find authoritarianism’s impact has grown for partisanship and voting but has been consistent for policy attitudes—usually present for “s…
Both arthropods and large grazing herbivores are important components and drivers of biodiversity in grassland ecosystems, but a synthesis of how arthropod diversity is affected by large herbivores has been largely missing. To fill this gap, we conducted a literature search, which yielded 141 studies on this topic of which 24 simultaneously investigated plant and arthropod diversity. Using the …
Outdoor experiential education has often been critiqued for its White, male, middle/upper-class, able-bodied history, thereby causing professionals and programs to consider issues of social justice. This state of knowledge paper will review the literature on social and environmental justice, identify gaps in current social justice literature and practice, and offer recommendations for creating …
Managing complexity and uncertainty in high-risk sociotechnical systems requires people to continuously adapt. Designing resilient systems that support adaptive behavior requires a deepened understanding of the context in which adaptations take place, of conditions and enablers to implement these adaptations, and of their effects on the overall system. Also, it requires a focus on how people …
This paper addresses the integrated multiobjective production planning and decomposing (P&D) problem for mineral processing. A novel multiobjective 0–1 mixed integer nonlinear programming model is presented for the simultaneous P&D problem (O-model). In order to reduce the computational cost for solving O-model, a rolling horizon-based two-level decomposition approach is proposed to separate…
This paper addresses the integrated multiobjective production planning and decomposing (P&D) problem for mineral processing. A novel multiobjective 0–1 mixed integer nonlinear programming model is presented for the simultaneous P&D problem (O-model). In order to reduce the computational cost for solving O-model, a rolling horizon-based two-level decomposition approach is proposed to separate…