• Computers and Concrete
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.339-355
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• 2022

The high cost of ultra-high-performance engineered cementitious composite (UHP-ECC) is currently a crucial issue, especially in terms of the polyethylene (PE) fibers use. In this paper, cheap calcium carbonate whiskers (CW) were evaluated on the feasibility of hybrid with PE fibers. Diverse combinations of PE fibers and CW were employed to investigate the multi-scale enhancement on the UHP-ECC performance. A probabilistic-based UHP-ECC tensile strain reliability analysis approach was utilized, which was in general agreement with the experimental results. Furthermore, a multi-dimensional integrated representation was conducted for the comprehensive assessment of UHP-ECC. Results illustrated that CW improved the compressive strength and energy dissipation capacity of UHP-ECC owing to the microscopic strengthening mechanism. CW and PE fiber further promoted the saturated cracking of composite by multi-scale crack arresting effect. In particular, PE1.75-CW0.5 specimen possessed the best overall performance. The ultimate cracking width of PE1.75-CW0.5 group had 98 ㎛, which was 46.18% lower compared to PE2-CW0 group, the 28d compressive strength were slightly improved, the tensile strain capacity was comparable to that of PE2-CW0 group. The results above demonstrated that combinations of PE fiber and CW could significantly enhance the comprehensive performance of UHP-ECC, which was beneficial for large-scale engineering applications.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.39 no.6
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• pp.813-831
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• 2011

This paper presents an efficient version of Hilbert-Huang transform for nonlinear non-stationary systems analyses. An ensemble empirical mode decomposition (EEMD) is introduced to alleviate the problem of mode mixing between intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) decomposed by EMD. Yet the problem has not been fully resolved when a signal of a similar scale resides in different IMF components. Instead of using a trial and error method to select the "best" outcome generated by EEMD, a hybrid algorithm based on EEMD and EMD is proposed for multi-mode signal processing. The developed approach comprises the steps from a bandpass filter design for regrouping modes of the IMFs obtained from EEMD, to the mode extraction using EMD, and to the assessment of each mode in the marginal spectrum. A simulated two-mode signal is tested to demonstrate the efficiency and robustness of the approach, showing average relative errors all equal to 1.46% for various noise levels added to the signal. The developed approach is also applied to a real bridge structure, showing more reliable results than the pure EMD. Discussions on the mode determination are offered to explain the connection between modegrouping form on the one hand, and mode-grouping performance on the other.

• Research in Community and Public Health Nursing
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.647-660
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• 2001

Forming health care management model in small-scale enterprises was the purpose of this study. For the purpose, we tried to investigate the characteristics of small-scale enterprises and analyzed the pattern of their health care management. The results are as follow: 1. The strength of health managing agency and technical supporting program lies in team approach by specialized manpower. However, if the liaison between each part of the organization is not smooth, the overall management will be very difficult. 2. Small scale enterprises are characterized by their short life after the establishment, use of rental building, lack of welfare facilities, weakness in sanitary management and aggregation of factories of similar type of industry. Because of these characteristics, it is very difficult to solve problem basically, such as improvement of working environment. Therefore, it is important to focus on health education and community based approach. 3. Many workers in small-scale factories are in middle and old age. They have health problems mainly related to personal habits. Implementation of an appropriate health promotion program is needed. 4. The number of workplaces, which should be managed by health managing agent. is increasing rapidly. But the number of health managing agent is limited. In the aspect of the requirement of manpower and equipment, training personal agent is more urgent than founding institutional agent. 5. The uniform method of health management hampers the choice of employer and workers. The types of provision of health management should be diversified. 6. For an efficient management, a frequent visit of personal agent and the following referral to a specialist should be done. The specialists in charge of secondary management are from the field of occupational medicine, occupational hygiene, ergonomics, etc. 7. The health management of small-scale facilities should have six components. They are community-based approach, multi-disciplinary cooperative system, program based on the need of recipient, forming partnership of employer and worker, change of lifestyle, and evidence-based program.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.5 no.4
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• pp.415-426
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• 2009

This study focuses on the concept of multi-scale wireless sensor networks for damage detection in civil infrastructure systems by first over viewing the general network philosophy and attributes in the areas of data acquisition, data reduction, assessment and decision making. The data acquisition aspect includes a scalable wireless sensor network acquiring acceleration and strain data, triggered using a Restricted Input Network Activation scheme (RINAS) that extends network lifetime and reduces the size of the requisite undamaged reference pool. Major emphasis is given in this study to data reduction and assessment aspects that enable a decentralized approach operating within the hardware and power constraints of wireless sensor networks to avoid issues associated with packet loss, synchronization and latency. After over viewing various models for data reduction, the concept of a data-driven Bivariate Regressive Adaptive INdex (BRAIN) for damage detection is presented. Subsequent examples using experimental and simulated data verify two major hypotheses related to the BRAIN concept: (i) data-driven damage metrics are more robust and reliable than their counterparts and (ii) the use of heterogeneous sensing enhances overall detection capability of such data-driven damage metrics.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.678-700
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• 2023

Diagnosing breast diseases using ultrasound (US) images remains challenging because it is time-consuming and requires expert radiologist knowledge. As a result, the diagnostic performance is significantly biased. To assist radiologists in this process, computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems have been developed and used in practice. This type of system is used not only to assist radiologists in examining breast ultrasound images (BUS) but also to ensure the effectiveness of the diagnostic process. In this study, we propose a new approach for breast lesion localization and segmentation using a multi-scale pyramid of the ultrasound image of a breast organ and a convolutional semantic segmentation network. Unlike previous studies that used only a deep detection/segmentation neural network on a single breast ultrasound image, we propose to use multiple images generated from an input image at different scales for the localization and segmentation process. By combining the localization/segmentation results obtained from the input image at different scales, the system performance was enhanced compared with that of the previous studies. The experimental results with two public datasets confirmed the effectiveness of the proposed approach by producing superior localization/segmentation results compared with those obtained in previous studies.

• Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.347-371
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• 2015

A hybrid procedure based on multi-Criteria Satisfaction Analysis (MUSA) and a Network Data Envelopment Analysis (NDEA) is proposed to evaluate the relative efficiency of customer services in bank branches. First, a three-stage process including sub-processes such as customer expectations, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty, is defined to model the banking customer services. Then, fulfillment of customer expectations, customer loyalty level, and the customer satisfaction degree are measured and quantified through a multi-dimensional questionnaire based on customers' perceptions analysis and MUSA method, respectively. The customer services scores and the other criteria such as mean of employee evaluation score, operation costs, assets, deposits, loans, number of accounts are considered in network three-stage DEA model. The proposed NDEA model is formed based on multipliers perspective, output-oriented, and constant return to scale assumptions. The proposed NDEA model quantifies and assesses the total efficiency of main process and assigns the efficiency to customer expectations, customer satisfactions, and customer loyalties sub-processes in bank branches. The whole procedure is applied on 30 bank branches in IRAN. The proposed approach can be used in other organizations such as airports, airline agencies, urban transportation systems, railway organizations, chain stores, chain restaurants, public libraries, and entertainment centers.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.9 no.2
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• pp.107-116
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• 2003

This paper presents a systematic design methodology for fault tolerant controller against a fault in actuators and sensors of linear stochastic systems with uncertainties. The scheme is based on fault detection and diagnosis(isolation and estimation) using a bank of robust two-stage Kalman filters, and accommodation of the actuator fault by eigenstructure assignment and immediate compensation of the sensor's faulty measurement. In order to clarify the fault feature in test statistics of residual, noise reduction method is given by multi-scale discrete wavelet transform. The effectiveness of our approach Is shown via simulations for a VTOL(vertical take-off and landing) aircraft subjected to parameter variations, external disturbances, process and sensor noises.

• Journal of computational fluids engineering
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.89-97
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• 2016

In this study, direct code coupling, in which two codes share a single flow field, was conducted using 3-dimensional high resolution thermal hydraulics code, CUPID and 1-dimensional system analysis code, MARS. This approach provide the merit to use versatile capability of MARS for nuclear power plants and 3-dimensional T/H analysis capability of CUPID. Numerical Method to directly couple CUPID and MARS was described in this paper. The straight flow and manometer flow oscillation were calculated to verify conservation of coupled CUPID/MARS code in mass, momentum, and energy. This verification calculations indicates that the CUPID/MARS is coupled appropriately in numerical aspect and the coupled code can be applied to nuclear reactor thermal hydraulics after validation against integral transient experiments.

• Transactions of Materials Processing
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.174-179
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• 2004

The effect of grain refinement on the plastic deformation behaviour of nanocrystalline metallic materials is investigated. A phase mixture model in which a single phase material is considered as an effectively two-phase one is discussed. A distinctive feature of the model is that grain boundaries are treated as a separate phase deforming by a diffusion mechanism. For the grain interior phase two concurrent mechanisms are considered: dislocation glide and mass transfer by diffusion. The proposed constitutive model was implemented into a finite element code (DEFORM) using a semicoupled approach. The finite element method was applied to simulating room temperature tensile deformation of Cu down to the nanoscale grain size in order to investigate the pre- and post-necking behaviour.

• Coupled systems mechanics
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• v.10 no.6
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• pp.521-544
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• 2021

In this work, we present the development of a 3D lattice-type model at microscale based upon the Voronoi-cell representation of material microstructure. This model can capture the coupling between mechanic and electric fields with non-linear constitutive behavior for both. More precisely, for electric part we consider the ferroelectric constitutive behavior with the possibility of domain switching polarization, which can be handled in the same fashion as deformation theory of plasticity. For mechanics part, we introduce the constitutive model of plasticity with the Armstrong-Frederick kinematic hardening. This model is used to simulate a complete coupling of the chosen electric and mechanics behavior with a multiscale approach implemented within the same computational architecture.