Harmonic identification using parallel neural networks in single-phase systems

In this paper, artificial neural networks are employed in a novel approach to identify harmonic components of single-phase nonlinear load currents, whose amplitude and phase angle are subject to unpredictable changes, even in steady-state. The first six harmonic current components are identified through the variation analysis of waveform characteristics. The effectiveness of this method is tested by applying it to the model of a single-phase active power filter, dedicated to the selective compensation of harmonic current drained by an AC controller. Simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the proposed approach. (C) 2010 Elsevier B. V. All rights reserved.

A Parallel Hardware Architecture for Scale and Rotation Invariant Feature Detection

This paper proposes a parallel hardware architecture for image feature detection based on the Scale Invariant Feature Transform algorithm and applied to the Simultaneous Localization And Mapping problem. The work also proposes specific hardware optimizations considered fundamental to embed such a robotic control system on-a-chip. The proposed architecture is completely stand-alone; it reads the input data directly from a CMOS image sensor and provides the results via a field-programmable gate array coupled to an embedded processor. The results may either be used directly in an on-chip application or accessed through an Ethernet connection. The system is able to detect features up to 30 frames per second (320 x 240 pixels) and has accuracy similar to a PC-based implementation. The achieved system performance is at least one order of magnitude better than a PC-based solution, a result achieved by investigating the impact of several hardware-orientated optimizations oil performance, area and accuracy.

Development, implementation, and assessment of a distance module in endocrine physiology

Rangel EM, Mendes IA, Carnio EC, Marchi Alves LM, Godoy S, Crispim JA. Development, implementation, and assessment of a distance module in endocrine physiology. Adv Physiol Educ 34: 70-74, 2010; doi: 10.1152/advan.00070.2009.-This study aimed to develop, implement, and assess a distance module in endocrine physiology in TelEduc for undergraduate nursing students from a public university in Brazil, with a sample size of 44 students. Stage 1 consisted of the development of the module, through the process of creating a distance course by means of the Web. Stage 2 was the planning of the module's practical functioning, and stage 3 was the planning of student evaluations. In the experts' assessment, the module complied with pedagogical and technical requirements most of the time. In the practical functioning stage, 10 h were dedicated for on-site activities and 10 h for distance activities. Most students (93.2%) were women between 19 and 23 yr of age (75%). The internet was the most used means to remain updated for 23 students (59.0%), and 30 students (68.2%) accessed it from the teaching institution. A personal computer was used by 23 students (56.1%), and most of them (58.1%) learned to use it alone. Access to a forum was more dispersed (variation coefficient: 86.80%) than access to chat (variation coefficient: 65.14%). Average participation was 30 students in forums and 22 students in the chat. Students' final grades in the module averaged 8.5 (SD: 1.2). TelEduc was shown to be efficient in supporting the teaching- learning process of endocrine physiology.

Democracy on the edge: limits and possibilities for the implementation of an urban reform agenda in Brazil

In Brazil the 1990s constituted years of institutional achievements in the fields of housing and urban rights, given the incorporation of the principles of the social function of cities and property, the recognition of tenure rights for slum dwellers and the direct participation of citizens in the decision making process of urban policies, within the 1988 Constitution. These proposals have become the pillars of the Urban Reform agenda which has penetrated the federal government apparatus since the creation of the Ministry of Cities under Lula's administration. The article evaluates the limits and possibilities for the implementation of this agenda through the analysis of two policies proposed by the Ministry: the National Council of Cities and the campaign for Participatory Master Plans. The approach is based on the organization of the Brazilian State in terms of urban development, the relationship with the political system and the characteristics of Brazilian democracy.

Status of Early 19th-Century Names Authored in Parallel by Wied and Schinz for South American Reptiles and Amphibians, with Designations of Three Nomina Protecta

Prince Maximilian zu Wied's great exploration of coastal Brazil in 1815-1817 resulted in important collections of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals, many of which were new species later described by Wied himself The bulk of his collection was purchased for the American Museum of Natural History in 1869, although many ""type specimens"" had disappeared earlier. Wied carefully identified his localities but did not designate type specimens or type localities, which are taxonomic concepts that were not yet established. Information and manuscript names on a fraction (17 species) of his Brazilian reptiles and amphibians were transmitted by Wied to Prof. Heinrich Rudolf Schinz at the University of Zurich. Schinz included these species (credited to their discoverer ""Princ. Max."") in the second volume of Das Thierreich ... (1822). Most are junior objective synonyms of names published by Wied. However, six of the 17 names used by Schinz predate Wied's own publications. Three were manuscript names never published by Wied because he determined the species to be previously known. (1) Lacerta vittata Schinz, 1822 (a nomen oblitum) = Lacerta striata sensu Wied (a misidentification, non Linnaeus nec sensu Merrem) = Kentropyx calcarata Spix, 1825, herein qualified as a nomen protectum. (2) Polychrus virescens Schinz, 1822 = Lacerta marmorata Linnaeus, 1758 (now Polychrus marmoratus). (3) Scincus cyanurus Schinz, 1822 (a nomen oblitum) = Gymnophthalmus quadrilineatus sensu Wied (a misidentification, non Linnaeus nec sensu Merrem) = Micrablepharus maximiliani (Reinhardt and Lutken, ""1861"" [1862]), herein qualified as a nomen protectum. Qualifying Scincus cyanurus Schinz, 1822, as a nomen oblitum also removes the problem of homonymy with the later-named Pacific skink Scincus cyanurus Lesson (= Emoia cyanura). The remaining three names used by Schinz are senior objective synonyms that take priority over Wied's names. (4) Bufo cinctus Schinz, 1822, is senior to Bufo cinctus Wied, 1823; both, however, are junior synonyms of Bufo crucifer Wied, 1821 = Chaunus crucifer (Wied). (5) Agama picta Schinz, 1822, is senior to Agama picta Wied, 1823, requiring a change of authorship for this poorly known species, to be known as Enyalius pictus (Schinz). (6) Lacerta cyanomelas Schinz, 1822, predates Teius cyanomelas Wied, 1824 (1822-1831) both nomina oblita. Wied's illustration and description shows cyanomelas as apparently conspecific with the recently described but already well-known Cnemidophorus nativo Rocha et al., 1997, which is the valid name because of its qualification herein as a nomen protectum. The preceding specific name cyanomelas (as corrected in an errata section) is misspelled several ways in different copies of Schinz's original description (""cyanom las,"" ""cyanomlas,"" and cyanom""). Loosening, separation, and final loss of the last three letters of movable type in the printing chase probably accounts for the variant misspellings.

Covariant Gauge on the Lattice: A New Implementation

We derive a new implementation of linear covariant gauges on the lattice, based on a minimizing functional that can be interpreted as the Hamiltonian of a spin-glass model in a random external magnetic field. We show that our method solves most problems encountered in earlier implementations, mostly related to the no-go condition formulated by Giusti [Nucl. Phys. B498, 331 (1997)]. We carry out tests in the SU(2) case in four space-time dimensions. We also present preliminary results for the transverse gluon propagator at different values of the gauge parameter xi.

Surveillance Programme for Healthcare Associated Infections in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil. Implementation and the first three years` results

Governmental programmes should be developed to collect and analyse data on healthcare associated infections (HAIs). This study describes the healthcare setting and both the implementation and preliminary results of the Programme for Surveillance of Healthcare Associated Infections in the State of Sao Paulo (PSHAISP), Brazil, from 2004 to 2006. Characterisation of the healthcare settings was carried out using a national database. The PSHAISP was implemented using components for acute care hospitals (ACH) or long term care facilities (LTCF). The components for surveillance in ACHs were surgical unit, intensive care unit and high risk nursery. The infections included in the surveillance were surgical site infection in clean surgery, pneumonia, urinary tract infection and device-associated bloodstream infections. Regarding the LTCF component, pneumonia, scabies and gastroenteritis in all inpatients were reported. In the first year of the programme there were 457 participating healthcare settings, representing 51.1% of the hospitals registered in the national database. Data obtained in this study are the initial results and have already been used for education in both surveillance and the prevention of HAI. The results of the PSHAISP show that it is feasible to collect data from a large number of hospitals. This will assist the State of Sao Paulo in assessing the impact of interventions and in resource allocation. (C) 2010 The Hospital Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Guidance for the implementation of best practice for the care of patients with tuberculosis

The first two chapters of Best practice for the care of patients with tuberculosis: a guide for low-income countries include an introduction and guidance regarding implementation of best practice. The background to how the guide was developed is significant, as it was developed in collaboration with nurses and other health workers working in the most challenging settings. It therefore provides realistic and practical guidance for best practice where patient loads are large and resources are stretched. Guidance regarding standard setting and clinical audit is an important part of enabling people to recognise the strengths that already exist in their practice and approach those areas that require change in a systematic and practical way. The guide itself consists of a series of standards covering different aspects of patient care, from the moment they seek health care with symptoms to their diagnosis to early stages of treatment, directly observed treatment, the continuation phase and transfer of treatment. There are also standards relating specifically to HIV testing and the care of patients co-infected with tuberculosis and HIV. The standards themselves will appear in full in the subsequent chapters of this series.

Integrating structural and input design of a 2-DOF high-speed parallel manipulator: A flexible model-based approach

This paper discusses the integrated design of parallel manipulators, which exhibit varying dynamics. This characteristic affects the machine stability and performance. The design methodology consists of four main steps: (i) the system modeling using flexible multibody technique, (ii) the synthesis of reduced-order models suitable for control design, (iii) the systematic flexible model-based input signal design, and (iv) the evaluation of some possible machine designs. The novelty in this methodology is to take structural flexibilities into consideration during the input signal design; therefore, enhancing the standard design process which mainly considers rigid bodies dynamics. The potential of the proposed strategy is exploited for the design evaluation of a two degree-of-freedom high-speed parallel manipulator. The results are experimentally validated. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Process oriented framework to support PLM implementation

Product lifecycle management (PLM) innovates as it defines both the product as a central element to aggregate enterprise information and the lifecycle as a new time dimension for information integration and analysis. Because of its potential benefits to shorten innovation lead-times and to reduce costs, PLM has attracted a lot of attention at industry and at research. However, the current PLM implementation stage at most organisations still does not apply the lifecycle management concepts thoroughly. In order to close the existing realisation gap, this article presents a process oriented framework to support effective PLM implementation. The framework central point consists of a set of lifecycle oriented business process reference models which links the necessary fundamental concepts, enterprise knowledge and software solutions to effectively deploy PLM. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tropical woods: influence of density in hardness parallel and normal to the grain for some Brazilian tropical tree species

The aim of this work is to verify the possibility to correlating specific gravity and wood hardness parallel and perpendicular to the grain. The purpose is to offer one more tool to help in the decision about wood species choice for use in floors and sleepers. To reach this intent, we considered the results of standard tests (NBR 7190:1997, Timber Structures Design, Annex B, Brazilian Association of Technical Standards) to determine hardness parallel and normal to the grain in fourteen tropical high density wood species (over 850 kg/m(3), at 12% moisture content). For each species twelve determinations were made, based on the material obtained at Sao Carlos and its regional wood market. Statistical analysis led to some expressions to describe the cited properties relationships, with a determination coefficient about 0.8.

Hybrid fault diagnosis scheme implementation for power distribution systems automation

Power distribution automation and control are import-ant tools in the current restructured electricity markets. Unfortunately, due to its stochastic nature, distribution systems faults are hardly avoidable. This paper proposes a novel fault diagnosis scheme for power distribution systems, composed by three different processes: fault detection and classification, fault location, and fault section determination. The fault detection and classification technique is wavelet based. The fault-location technique is impedance based and uses local voltage and current fundamental phasors. The fault section determination method is artificial neural network based and uses the local current and voltage signals to estimate the faulted section. The proposed hybrid scheme was validated through Alternate Transient Program/Electromagentic Transients Program simulations and was implemented as embedded software. It is currently used as a fault diagnosis tool in a Southern Brazilian power distribution company.

Implementation of a Control Loop Experiment in a Network-Based Control System With LonWorks Technology and IP Networks

Considering the increasing popularity of network-based control systems and the huge adoption of IP networks (such as the Internet), this paper studies the influence of network quality of service (QoS) parameters over quality of control parameters. An example of a control loop is implemented using two LonWorks networks (CEA-709.1) interconnected by an emulated IP network, in which important QoS parameters such as delay and delay jitter can be completely controlled. Mathematical definitions are provided according to the literature, and the results of the network-based control loop experiment are presented and discussed.

A family of implementation-friendly BN elliptic curves

For the last decade, elliptic curve cryptography has gained increasing interest in industry and in the academic community. This is especially due to the high level of security it provides with relatively small keys and to its ability to create very efficient and multifunctional cryptographic schemes by means of bilinear pairings. Pairings require pairing-friendly elliptic curves and among the possible choices, Barreto-Naehrig (BN) curves arguably constitute one of the most versatile families. In this paper, we further expand the potential of the BN curve family. We describe BN curves that are not only computationally very simple to generate, but also specially suitable for efficient implementation on a very broad range of scenarios. We also present implementation results of the optimal ate pairing using such a curve defined over a 254-bit prime field. (C) 2001 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Parallel Dynamic Optimization of Steel Risers

This paper addresses the use of optimization techniques in the design of a steel riser. Two methods are used: the genetic algorithm, which imitates the process of natural selection, and the simulated annealing, which is based on the process of annealing of a metal. Both of them are capable of searching a given solution space for the best feasible riser configuration according to predefined criteria. Optimization issues are discussed, such as problem codification, parameter selection, definition of objective function, and restrictions. A comparison between the results obtained for economic and structural objective functions is made for a case study. Optimization method parallelization is also addressed. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4001955]