Planning the sustainable eco-city in Taipei: The implementation of green design and green building schemes

Taipei City has put a significant effort toward the implementation of green design and green building schemes towards a sustainable eco-city. Although some of the environmental indicators have not indicated significant progress in environmental improvement, implementing the two schemes has obtained considerable results; therefore, the two schemes are on the right path towards promoting a sustainable eco-city. However, it has to be admitted that the two schemes are a rather “technocratic” set of solutions and eco-centric approach. It is suggested that not only the public sector but also the private sector need to put more effort toward implement the schemes, and the government needs to encourage the private sector to adopt the schemes in practice.

Design, implementation and evaluation of broadband low noise amplifier (LNA) for radiometer

The two major applications of microwave remote sensors are radiometer and radar. Because of its importance and the nature of the application, much research has been made on the various aspects of the radar. This paper will focus on the various aspects of the radiometer from a design point of view and the Low Noise Amplifier will be designed and implemented. The paper is based on a study in radio Frequency Communications engineering and understanding of electronic and RF circuits. Some research study about the radiometer and practical implementation of Low Noise Amplifier for Radiometer will be the main focus of this paper. Basically the paper is divided into two parts. In the first part some background study about the radiometer will be carried out and commonly used types of radiometer will be discussed. In the second part LNA for the radiometer will be designed.

Design, implementation and testing of an intelligent knowledge-based system for the supervisory control of a hot rolling mill

This paper describes the design, implementation and testing of an intelligent knowledge-based supervisory control (IKBSC) system for a hot rolling mill process. A novel architecture is used to integrate an expert system with an existing supervisory control system and a new optimization methodology for scheduling the soaking pits in which the material is heated prior to rolling. The resulting IKBSC system was applied to an aluminium hot rolling mill process to improve the shape quality of low-gauge plate and to optimise the use of the soaking pits to reduce energy consumption. The results from the trials demonstrate the advantages to be gained from the IKBSC system that integrates knowledge contained within data, plant and human resources with existing model-based systems. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Jpowder: a Java-based program for the display and examination of powder diffraction data

The ability to display and inspect powder diffraction data quickly and efficiently is a central part of the data analysis process. Whilst many computer programs are capable of displaying powder data, their focus is typically on advanced operations such as structure solution or Rietveld refinement. This article describes a lightweight software package, Jpowder, whose focus is fast and convenient visualization and comparison of powder data sets in a variety of formats from computers with network access. Jpowder is written in Java and uses its associated Web Start technology to allow ‘single-click deployment’ from a web page, http://www.jpowder.org. Jpowder is open source, free and available for use by anyone.

Neurofuzzy design and model construction of nonlinear dynamical processes from data

A common problem in many data based modelling algorithms such as associative memory networks is the problem of the curse of dimensionality. In this paper, a new two-stage neurofuzzy system design and construction algorithm (NeuDeC) for nonlinear dynamical processes is introduced to effectively tackle this problem. A new simple preprocessing method is initially derived and applied to reduce the rule base, followed by a fine model detection process based on the reduced rule set by using forward orthogonal least squares model structure detection. In both stages, new A-optimality experimental design-based criteria we used. In the preprocessing stage, a lower bound of the A-optimality design criterion is derived and applied as a subset selection metric, but in the later stage, the A-optimality design criterion is incorporated into a new composite cost function that minimises model prediction error as well as penalises the model parameter variance. The utilisation of NeuDeC leads to unbiased model parameters with low parameter variance and the additional benefit of a parsimonious model structure. Numerical examples are included to demonstrate the effectiveness of this new modelling approach for high dimensional inputs.

Hardware development of the Yorick series of active vision systems

This paper presents a review of the design and development of the Yorick series of active stereo camera platforms and their integration into real-time closed loop active vision systems, whose applications span surveillance, navigation of autonomously guided vehicles (AGVs), and inspection tasks for teleoperation, including immersive visual telepresence. The mechatronic approach adopted for the design of the first system, including head/eye platform, local controller, vision engine, gaze controller and system integration, proved to be very successful. The design team comprised researchers with experience in parallel computing, robot control, mechanical design and machine vision. The success of the project has generated sufficient interest to sanction a number of revisions of the original head design, including the design of a lightweight compact head for use on a robot arm, and the further development of a robot head to look specifically at increasing visual resolution for visual telepresence. The controller and vision processing engines have also been upgraded, to include the control of robot heads on mobile platforms and control of vergence through tracking of an operator's eye movement. This paper details the hardware development of the different active vision/telepresence systems.