• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.30 no.5 s.248
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• pp.481-487
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• 2006

Spot-welding is a widely used manufacturing method for thin-sheet components, especially in mass-production industries such as the car industry. Automobiles are often constructed by multi-lap spot welding to secure the passenger from the accident, where optimisation of the welding conditions is a major economic consideration. This research is conducted to investigate weldability characteristics with various welding conditions on the 4-lap spot welded joint of structural steel sheets in automobile. The relationship between the tensile-shear strength and the indentation depth has been investigated to propose the optimum welding conditions. The welding current and the welding time have a greater effect on the welding characteristics than the electrode force. It was found that the electrode force has a relatively close relationship with the expulsion occurrence. The design curves for optimum welding are proposed for the 4-lap spot welded joint.

• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.245-266
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• 2004

Incremental launching method is one of the highly competitive techniques for construction of concrete bridges. It avoids costly and time consuming form work and centralizes all construction activities in a small casting yard, thus saving in cost and time against conventional bridge construction. From the quality point of view, it eliminates the uncertainty of monolithic behaviour by allowing high repetitiveness and industrial environment. But, from analysis and design point of view, the most characteristic aspect of incrementally launched bridges is that, it has to absorb the stresses associated with the temporary supports that are gradually taken on by the deck during its launch. So, it is necessary to analyse the structure for each step of launching which is a tedious and time consuming process. Effect of support settlements or temperature variation makes the problem more complex. By using transfer matrix method, this problem can be handled efficiently with minimal computational effort. This paper gives insight into method of analysis, formulation for optimization of the structural system, effect of support settlement and temperature gradient, during construction, on the stress state of incrementally launched bridges.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.151-154
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• 2008

Dramatic price increases of fossil fuels and the economic development of emerging nations accelerates the transformation of forest lands into monocultures, e.g. for biofuel production. On this account, cost efficient methods to enable the monitoring of land resources has become a vital ambition. The application of remote sensing techniques has become an integral part of forest attribute estimation and mapping. The aim of this study was to evaluate the potentials of the kNN method by combining terrestrial with remotely sensed data for the development of a pixel-based monitoring system for the small scaled mosaic of different land use types of the off-reserve forests of the Goaso forest district in Ghana, West Africa. For this reason, occurrence and distribution of land use types like cocoa and non-timber forest resources, such as bamboo and raphia palms, were estimated, applying the kNN method to ASTER satellite data. Averaged overall accuracies, ranging from 79% for plantain, to 83% for oil palms, were found for single-attribute classifications, whereas a multi-attribute approach showed overall accuracies of up to 70%. Values of k between 3 and 6 seem appropriate for mapping bamboo. Optimisation of spectral bands improves results considerably.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.419-429
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• 2018

The seismic vulnerability analysis of multi-span bridges can be based on the response of the piers, provided that deck, bearings and foundations remain elastic. The lateral response of an RC bridge pier can be affected by different mechanisms (i.e., flexure, shear, lap-splice or buckling of the longitudinal reinforcement bars, second order effects). In the literature, simplified formulations are available for mechanisms different from the flexure. On the other hand, the flexural response is usually calculated with a numerically-based Moment-Curvature diagram of the base section and equivalent plastic hinge length. The goal of this paper is to propose a simplified analytical solution to obtain the Moment-Curvature relationship for hollow circular RC sections. This based on calibrated polynomials, fitted against a database comprising 720 numerical Moment-Curvature analyses. The section capacity curve is defined through the position of 6 characteristic points and they are based on four input parameters: void ratio of the hollow section, axial force ratio, longitudinal reinforcement ratio, transversal reinforcement ratio. A case study RC bridge pier is assessed with the proposed solution and the results are compared to a refined numerical FEM analysis, showing good match.

• Journal of Plant Biotechnology
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.71-76
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• 2002

In order to achieve repetitive somatic embryogenesis in cacao (Theobroma cacao L.), callus derived from floral tissues were continuously cultured in a medium containing 2,4-D. In 5% of the explants, repetitive somatic embryogenesis was observed after 8 weeks and maintained in a globular stage for several weeks. This is the first report showing repetitive somatic embryogenesis in cacao. The calli were bombarded with a plasmid containing $\beta$-glucuronidase (gus) as reporter gene. Two week old calli showed the high average number of cells expressing the us gene. The effect of osmotic agents (mannitol, sorbitol and sucrose) on gene expression was evaluated. Pre-treatment during 16 h with 0.25 M mannitol revealed an improvement in gene expression. The potential utilization of the repetitive embryogenesis, combined with osmotic treatment, is discussed as an alternative to achieve stable transgenic cacao plants.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.16 no.5
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• pp.1145-1157
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• 2020

A convolution neural networks (CNNs) has demonstrated outstanding performance compared to other algorithms in the field of face recognition. Regarding the over-fitting problem of CNN, researchers have proposed a residual network to ease the training for recognition accuracy improvement. In this study, a novel face recognition model based on game theory for call-over in the classroom was proposed. In the proposed scheme, an image with multiple faces was used as input, and the residual network identified each face with a confidence score to form a list of student identities. Face tracking of the same identity or low confidence were determined to be the optimisation objective, with the game participants set formed from the student identity list. Game theory optimises the authentication strategy according to the confidence value and identity set to improve recognition accuracy. We observed that there exists an optimal mapping relation between face and identity to avoid multiple faces associated with one identity in the proposed scheme and that the proposed game-based scheme can reduce the error rate, as compared to the existing schemes with deeper neural network.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society for Food Science of Animal Resources Conference
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• 2002.05a
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• pp.17-25
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• 2002

Application of electrical stimulation in the red meat species (eg. beef and sheep) processing has been erratic around the world and this may reflect an incomplete knowledge of how to optimise the technology. Although it is well established that stimulation increases the rate of post-mortem glycolysis other biochemical and biophysical effects have been implicated with the use of this technology. On the basis of currently available knowledge, this mini-review seeks to examine the current theories about the effect of stimulation on post-mortem muscle. The classical view that stimulation prevents muscle from shortening excessively during rigor development has been expanded to include the possibility that it also results in physical disruption of muscle structure. The interaction of these effects with the acceleration of the rate of proteolysis through activation of the calpain protease system has not been comprehensively reviewed in the past. As a result of conclusion driven, this article highlights several areas that may prove fruitful for further research. The challenge for further development of electrical stimulation systems is optimisation of the activation of the enzyme systems in parallel with manipulation of chilling regimes so as to ensure rigor mortis is achieved at temperatures which minimise shortening. The potential of regional stimulation of sections of the carcass to achieve this outcome is worthy of study given the different fibre composition of muscles and temperature gradients.

• Smart Structures and Systems
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• v.6 no.3
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• pp.335-347
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• 2010

Recent advances in hardware and instrumentation technology have allowed the possibility of deploying very large sensor arrays on structures. Exploiting the huge amount of data that can result in order to perform vibration-based structural health monitoring (SHM) is not a trivial task and requires research into a number of specific problems. In terms of pressing problems of interest, this paper discusses: the design and optimisation of appropriate sensor networks, efficient data reduction techniques, efficient and automated feature extraction methods, reliable methods to deal with environmental and operational variability, efficient training of machine learning techniques and multi-scale approaches for dealing with very local damage. The paper is a result of the ESF-S3T Eurocores project "Smart Sensing For Structural Health Monitoring" (S3HM) in which a consortium of academic partners from across Europe are attempting to address issues in the design of automated vibration-based SHM systems for structures.

• International Journal of High-Rise Buildings
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.49-72
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• 2017

The Guangzhou International Finance Centre (IFC) is a landmark building that symbolizes the emerging international strength of Guangzhou, China's third largest city. It is also one of the dual iconic towers along the main axis of Guangzhou Zhujiang New Town. Arup adopted a total engineering approach in embracing sustainability and aiming at high efficiency solutions based on performance-based design principles covering structures, building services, fire engineering, vertical transportation, and façade performance to constitute an efficient and cost-effective overall building design. Through dynamic integration of architectural and engineering principles, Guangzhou IFC represents a pioneering supertall building in China. It adopts a diagrid exoskeleton structural form that is clearly expressed through the building's façade and gives the building its distinctive character. The aerodynamic shape of the building not only presents the aesthetic quality of elegant simplicity, but also reduces the effects of wind, thereby reducing the size and weight of the structure. State-of-the-art advanced engineering methods, such as optimization techniques and nonlinear finite element modelling, were applied in parallel with large-scale experimental programs to achieve an efficient and high-performance design taking into account the constructability and cost-effectiveness for a project of this scale.

• Aerospace Engineering and Technology
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• v.5 no.2
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• pp.114-118
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• 2006

This paper describes the thrusters configuration optimized in preliminary performances for COMS (Communication, Ocean and Meteorological Satellite). The exact values of the thrusters tilt angles must be frozen for the manufacturing of COMS platform based on the EUROSTAR 3000 platform as these angles depend on the spacecraft center of mass position and thrusters location, the definition process has to be performed specifically for COMB. Concerning pitch control thrusters (6, 7), South thrusters (1, 2, 3), and East/West thrusters (4. ~, their optimum positions and force orientations based on the thrusters A/B middle position and MOL (Middle Of Life) are obtained. The torques of thrusters (plume and geometrical torques) are minimized to improve the preliminary performance of thrusters.