Wavefront Propagation and Fuzzy Based Autonomous Navigation

Path planning and obstacle avoidance are the two major issues in any navigation system. Wavefront propagation algorithm, as a good path planner, can be used to determine an optimal path. Obstacle avoidance can be achieved using possibility theory. Combining these two functions enable a robot to autonomously navigate to its destination. This paper presents the approach and results in implementing an autonomous navigation system for an indoor mobile robot. The system developed is based on a laser sensor used to retrieve data to update a two dimensional world model of therobot environment. Waypoints in the path are incorporated into the obstacle avoidance. Features such as ageing of objects and smooth motion planning are implemented to enhance efficiency and also to cater for dynamic environments

Optimal Quaternary Hermitian Linear Complementary Dual Codes for Entanglement-Assisted Quantum Error Correction

The objective of this thesis is to find suboptimal and optimal parameters from classical codes and import them into entanglement-assisted quantum codes. The thesis begins by introducing classical error correction, followed by a detailed introduction to quantum computing. Topics that are discussed in the introduction include qubits, quantum phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, and quantum gates/circuits. The thesis then reviews the basics of quantum error correction and provides Shor's code to reinforce the reader's understanding. Subsequently, the formalism of stabilizer codes is thoroughly examined. We then explain the generalized concept of stabilizer codes which is entanglement-assisted quantum codes. They do not require generators to satisfy the commutativity property. Rather, they utilize the usage of ebits to resolve the anti-commutativity constraint. Next, the thesis explains quaternary field and then the Java program implemented to find the optimal parameters. Lastly, the thesis concludes with presenting the parameters of the new codes that were obtained throughout the research. We have found the suboptimal largest distance for quaternary hermitian linear complementary dual codes that can be imported as entanglement-assisted quantum error correction for parameters [22, 9, 9 or 10]₄, [22, 12, 7 or 8]₄, [23, 8, 11 or 12]₄, [23, 10, 9 or 10]₄, [23, 13, 7 or 8]₄, [24, 10, 10 or 11]₄, [24, 11, 9 or 10]₄, [24, 14, 7 or 8]₄, [25, 12, 9 or 10]₄, [25, 13, 8 or 9]₄, as well as the optimal largest distance for [17, 11, 5]₄ and [17, 13, 3]₄

Transliteration Feasibility as a Means of Communication between Arab Expatriates and Their Progeny Abroad

This study is dedicated to exploring and understanding the role of transliteration as a means of remote communication between Arab expatriates and their children in foreign countries. Expatriates need this type of writing communication to communicate with their children for several reasons; especially when the vocal communication is impossible or not available due to technical problems or family and individual privacy. The study tries also to figure out the difference between transliteration and electronic chatting on one hand, and transliteration, translation and creative translation on the other hand. The study is mainly based on a questionnaire professionally and objectively designed and forwarded to a number of Arab expats living in The Netherlands in order to verify the hypothesis made related to the feasibility of transliteration technique and how far it is useful and practical as a remote means of communication between the Arab expatriates and their children due to the lack of proficiency of one of the parties in using the writing system of either language. The study highlights the importance of voice transmission in clarifying the correct pronunciation of words and phrases in a way that is accessible to all around the world beyond being obliged to know the characters of the language from which they are taken. Furthermore, the researcher has scrutinized, studied and analyzed the participants’ answers and consequently described them relying on objective and scientific criteria

Type-2 fuzzy system based blood pressure parameters estimation

Blood pressure parameters; Systolic, Diastolic and Mean Blood Pressure, have high correlation relationship with heart rate, but this relationship is nonlinear, multimode, and ambiguity. Type-2 Fuzzy is an intelligent technique and it has high capability to deal with the problem with high uncertainty that blood pressure parameters with heart rate relationship can be classify under them. This paper presents an Interval Type-2 Fuzzy System to estimate Systolic, Diastolic and Mean blood pressure; based on the relationship between systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressures and heart rate. The Interval Type-2 Fuzzy System is used to estimate systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressures values of thirty cases. The results are compared with real reading of systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressure and very encouraging results are achieved; the absolute value of mean of difference between real systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressures and estimated systolic, diastolic and mean blood pressures are less than 5 mmIIg. © 2008 IEEE

Assessing abdominal aorta narrowing using computational fluid dynamics

This paper investigates the effect of developing arterial blockage at the abdominal aorta on the blood pressure waves at an externally accessible location suitable for invasive measurements such as the brachial and the femoral arteries. Arterial blockages are created surgically within the abdominal aorta of healthy Wistar rats to create narrowing resemblance conditions. Blood pressure is measured using a catheter inserted into the right femoral artery. Measurements are taken at the baseline healthy condition as well as at four different severities (20, 50, 80 and 100 %) of arterial blockage. In vivo and in vitro measurements of the lumen diameter and wall thickness are taken using magnetic resonance imaging and microscopic techniques, respectively. These data are used to validate a 3D computational fluid dynamics model which is developed to generalize the outcomes of this work and to determine the arterial stress and strain under the blockage conditions. This work indicates that an arterial blockage in excess of 20 % of the lumen diameter significantly influences the pressure wave and reduces the systolic blood pressure at the right femoral artery. High wall shear stresses and low circumferential strains are also generated at the blockage site

Multi agent system for estimation of cardiovascular parameters

Many cardiovascular diseases can be avoided by continuous monitoring cardiovascular parameters. Heart rate, electrocardiogram, blood pressure and pulse wave velocity are the most important and popular cardiovascular parameters. These parameters can be measured by different sensors that have been developed and improved to achieve reliable, accurate and continuous measurements. A part of the processing of theses sensors data, to get the related information, is parameters estimation. This paper presents a new concept to estimate cardiovascular parameters via using a new multi-agent system; that combines two independent methods; first method depends on pulse wave velocity (PWV), while second method depends on heart rate and artery resistance. The outcome of this multi-agent system is a continuous and reliable estimation of cardiovascular parameters by using non-invasive, Cuffless cheap sensors. © 2005 IEEE

Recycle ineffective buildings on the main streets to solve the housing crisis in Iraq (Street 60 in the Dora area of the city of Baghdad as a case study)

Most of the buildings that overlook public streets in Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, occupy large areas of land as a result of the horizontal expansion of residential stores. These buildings that shift their use from residential to commercial have become unable to meet the contemporary needs of the community that seeks to be those streets and buildings overlooking it encourage people to move around, shop, entertain, and reduce car use. On the other hand, the age of these buildings that were constructed in the seventies and eighties of the last century has become structurally worn out and their designs are old. The structural coverage of 2.5 m is half the distance of the recoil to the upper floors. However, those sidewalks for pedestrians and parking lots lack design, furnishing and agriculture, which made them vulnerable to weather conditions and their weaker relationship with those buildings.   Those legislations also determined the height of the commercial buildings with three floors and determined the setback of the buildings at the time, which resulted in several problems and these buildings did not meet the needs of contemporary society, so the research aims to study this case to change these legislations and make room for either the owners, developers and financiers to interfere with reconsideration using Those buildings to contribute to solving the housing crisis by increasing the population densities. There is an increasing need for the lands on which these dilapidated buildings were constructed, and these areas were far from the center previously, but now they are part of it. Therefore, this problem and its urban dimensions must be addressed to achieve several goals: - Verify the quality of the buildings use or suitability for mixed use. - Recycle land use and ineffective buildings as an economic value. - Providing additional housing units by adjusting the proportional relationship between street widths and building height. - Increasing the areas of the upper floors allocated for housing through modify the law of reversion and structural coverage of the upper floors. - Organizing the building's relationship with the pedestrian and sidewalks movement. - Encourage owners and developers to reuse these buildings. Key words: urban economy, mixed use, setback, population densities, Building recycling. DOI: 10.7176/ADS/81-04 Publication date:April 30th 202

Estimation of Upper Limb Joint Angle Using Surface EMG Signal

In the development of robot-assisted rehabilitation systems for upper limb rehabilitation therapy, human electromyogram (EMG) is widely used due to its ability to detect the user intended motion. EMG is one kind of biological signal that can be recorded to evaluate the performance of skeletal muscles by means of a sensor electrode. Based on recorded EMG signals, user intended motion could be extracted via estimation of joint torque, force or angle. Therefore, this estimation becomes one of the most important factors to achieve accurate user intended motion. In this paper, an upper limb joint angle estimation methodology is proposed. A back propagation neural network (BPNN) is developed to estimate the shoulder and elbow joint angles from the recorded EMG signals. A Virtual Human Model (VHM) is also developed and integrated with BPNN to perform the simulation of the estimated angle. The relationships between sEMG signals and upper limb movements are observed in this paper. The effectiveness of our developments is evaluated with four healthy subjects and a VHM simulation. The results show that the methodology can be used in the estimation of joint angles based on EMG

Augmented Reality Based Reaching Exercise for shoulder Rehabilitation

Stroke or cerebrovascular accident (CVA) causes disability and affected the personâs quality of life. The rehabilitation therapies are normally conducted for post stroke patients to promote their quality of life and daily living standard. Among rehabilitation exercises, shoulder range of motion (ROM) exercise and muscle strengthening exercise are the most important rehabilitation therapies for post stroke patients as this can improve their activities of daily life. Among the shoulder ROM exercises, the reaching exercise is normally conducted with checkerboard in rehabilitation centre as a traditional therapy which becomes boring after trained for few times. To overcome this problem, same exercise with augmented reality (AR) based game like style incorporate with motivated visual and audio feedbacks has developed and details of the system is presented in this paper. The AR based reaching exercise has developed within the normal average range of motion. The system includes personal computer or laptop, webcam, marker and BioGraph Infiniti system. Thus, it can be used at home without modifying anything and patient can use easily by himself without extra help. The developed system has integrated with biofeedback system to become more effective in rehabilitation. The integrated system has already tested with healthy subject and worked perfectly with positive feedbacks