Automatic inspection system for dimensional measurements of the saw blade milling cutter

The demand for measuring equipments of automatic optical inspection has grown rapidly, because of its benefits of promoted efficiency and higher precision. Instead of manual projection measurements, measurement performance and efficiency can be obviously enhanced by the image measurement system. In this investigation, digital image processing and geometrical measurement principles have been integrated to develop a dynamic measurement system for the dimensional measurements of a saw blade milling cutter. The repeatability of the measurement system has been analyzed and its accuracy has been verified by using commercial 3D image measurement system. The analysis results show that the dimensional precision of 25μm and the angular precision of 0.21° can be realized by the self-developed measurement system. Between the results of the developed system and reference standard system, there are 25μm deviation in dimensional measurement and 0.26° in angular measurement. That measuring performances can meet the industrial requirement and the higher measurement efficiency can be achieved.Peer Reviewe

Asymptotic Optimality in Byzantine Distributed Quickest Change Detection

Abstract:The Byzantine distributed quickest change detection (BDQCD) is studied, where a fusion center monitors the occurrence of an abrupt event through a bunch of distributed sensors that may be compromised. We first consider the binary hypothesis case where there is only one post-change hypothesis and prove a novel converse to the first-order asymptotic detection delay in the large mean time to a false alarm regime. This converse is tight in that it coincides with the currently best achievability shown by Fellouris et al.; hence, the optimal asymptotic performance of binary BDQCD is characterized. An important implication of this result is that, even with compromised sensors, a 1-bit link between each sensor and the fusion center suffices to achieve asymptotic optimality. To accommodate multiple post-change hypotheses, we then formulate the multi-hypothesis BDQCD problem and again investigate the optimal first-order performance under different bandwidth constraints. A converse is first obtained by extending our converse from binary to multi-hypothesis BDQCD. Two families of stopping rules, namely the simultaneous d-th alarm and the multi-shot d-th alarm, are then proposed. Under sufficient link bandwidth, the simultaneous d-th alarm, with d being set to the number of honest sensors, can achieve the asymptotic performance that coincides with the derived converse bound; hence, the asymptotically optimal performance of multi-hypothesis BDQCD is again characterized. Moreover, although being shown to be asymptotically optimal only for some special cases, the multi-shot d-th alarm is much more bandwidth-efficient and energy-efficient than the simultaneous d-th alarm. Built upon the above success in characterizing the asymptotic optimality of the BDQCD, a corresponding leader-follower Stackelberg game is formulated and its solution is found.View less &nbsp;</p

Proactive measures of governmental debt guarantees to facilitate Public-Private Partnerships project

Governmental Debt Guarantees (GDGs) are often used to encourage involvement by promoters and financial institutions in Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) projects. However, even after demonstrating the bankability of a project and reducing debt cost, the success of the project may be prevented by the lack of long-term commitment from shareholders. Equity contributions by promoters in the project company may be recovered from earnings on short-term construction activities. Based on lesson learned from early PPP projects with GDG, the hold-up problem for government in the view of transaction cost economic (TCE) theory may worsen if the designed contractual structure does not adequately manage opportunistic behaviours from promoters. This study empirically examined the effects of a structured GDG mechanism with particular complementary measures applied in joint projects to develop the Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations. A GDG game model was then applied to bridge the theoretical gap based on the Taipei MRT experience. The analysis shows that requiring the promoter to provide sufficient equity and ensuring the commitment of the lender to provide the loan are the appropriate proactive measures. This study demonstrates its practical value for policy makers by combining case study, TCE and game theory in contractual issues

Developing Blue Ocean Strategy of Sustainable Product Design and Development for Business Opportunities of BOP Groups in Taiwan

This study expands the definition of the poor group and attempts to delve into and make known the phenomenon of poverty in Taiwan and aims to explore the goals and possibilities of the BOP consumer market. Through a questionnaire survey and expert interviews, this research adopts the concept of sustainability to discuss the lifestyle and consumption characteristics of the BOP group and establishes a design strategic norm of the sustainable products. The findings show that the BOP group in Taiwan is new poverty or working poor and high quality and common prices are the main requirements; these should be introduced into the development model of sustainable design

QoS routing with link stability in mobile ad hoc networks

Abstract. In this paper, in accordance with requirements of different users and supplying effective usage of limited network resources, we propose a stable QoS routing mechanism to determine a guaranteed route suited for mobile ad hoc wireless networks. The manner exploits the received signal strength (RSS) techniques to estimate the distance and the signal change of the velocity to evaluate the breakaway. To ensure the QoS it chooses a steady path from the source to the destination and tries to reserve the bandwidth. Ultimately, it is clear to find that the performance never decrease even the growth of the overhead and the movement of users via the simulated by ns-2. Introduction Mobile Ad Hoc Wireless Networks (MANET), also called the Ad hoc network, is lots of moving nodes (mobile hosts) communicating with their adjacent mobile node by radio wave. Every node can contact each other without existence infrastructural network. In the Ad hoc network, it differs from cellular wireless networks that need base stations to deliver and receive the packets. Each node plays the role as a router. When one of them wants to deliver packets to destination out of its coverage, intermediate nodes will forward this packet to the next node till the destination node receive it. In traditional cellular wireless networks, generally we need to establish base stations in advance. Fixed nodes far and near connect to the backbone and become a wireless network environment. In this network the customer who wants to communicate with another must locate in the base station coverage. If user moved out of base station&apos;s service scope, he can&apos;t take the communication. Consequently, we need to establish enough base stations to achieve the objective. Ad hoc networks do not demand fixed network infrastructures and centralized management mechanisms, as well as can be built anytime, anywhere rapidly. Ad hoc networks also have the feature of self-creating, self-organization and elf-management as well as deploy and remove network easily. Ad hoc network has above advantages. However, the Ad hoc network environment has the following restricts [1], including of Network topology instable, Limited energy constrained and Limited network bandwidth-constrained QoS Routing with Link Stability in Mobile A

Study on the continuous phase evolution and physical properties of gas-atomized high-entropy alloy powders

In this study, AlCoCrFeNi high entropy alloy (HEA) powders were fabricated by gas atomization process, and the effects of annealing heat treatment on phase evolution and mechanical properties were investigated. The as-atomized powders have pure BCC phase with a spherical shape and equal composition distribution, and then the FCC and sigma phase sequentially generated after annealing. The mechanical property such as hardness was evidently enhanced, which was caused by precipitation hardening effect. After the raw powders were annealed at 600 °C, the FCC (Al-Ni) phase began to precipitate, the its phase intensity raised with the annealing temperature. Then, the sigma phase (Fe-Cr) formed as the annealing temperature reached 800 °C. Both mechanical properties and lattice constant were influenced by heating effect. According to the results, the lattice became loose with the increasing temperature. In summary, the mechanical properties and phase constitutions of gas-atomized AlCoCrFeNi HEA powders can be adjusted via annealing process, resulting in precipitation hardening effect

Comparison of a Chinese Herbal Medicine (CCH1) and Lactulose as First-Line Treatment of Constipation in Long-Term Care: A Randomized, Double-Blind, Double-Dummy, and Placebo-Controlled Trial

Many institutionalized patients and their healthcare providers are dissatisfied with current laxative therapy. This study compared therapeutic efficacy, safety, and laxative cost of an herbal formula (CCH1) and lactulose for long stay patients with constipation. In this double-blind, double-dummy, and placebo-controlled trial, we randomized 93 residents with chronic constipation from two long-term care facilities in Taiwan to receive either CCH1 with lactulose placebo or CCH1 placebo with lactulose for 8 weeks, then followed up for 4 weeks without study medication. Both treatments were effective and well tolerated for patients, but CCH1 produced more spontaneous bowel movements, less rectal treatments, less amount of rescue laxative, and lower laxative cost than lactulose during treatment. No significant differences were found in stool consistency, stool amount, global assessment, and safety concerns. In conclusion, our results suggest that CCH1 may have better efficacy and could be used as an alternative option to lactulose in the treatment of constipation in long-term care

Efficient Prodrug Activator Gene Therapy by Retroviral Replicating Vectors Prolongs Survival in an Immune-Competent Intracerebral Glioma Model.

Prodrug activator gene therapy mediated by murine leukemia virus (MLV)-based retroviral replicating vectors (RRV) was previously shown to be highly effective in killing glioma cells both in culture and in vivo. To avoid receptor interference and enable dual vector co-infection with MLV-RRV, we have developed another RRV based on gibbon ape leukemia virus (GALV) that also shows robust replicative spread in a wide variety of tumor cells. We evaluated the potential of GALV-based RRV as a cancer therapeutic agent by incorporating yeast cytosine deaminase (CD) and E. coli nitroreductase (NTR) prodrug activator genes into the vector. The expression of CD and NTR genes from GALV-RRV achieved highly efficient delivery of these prodrug activator genes to RG-2 glioma cells, resulting in enhanced cytotoxicity after administering their respective prodrugs 5-fluorocytosine and CB1954 in vitro. In an immune-competent intracerebral RG-2 glioma model, GALV-mediated CD and NTR gene therapy both significantly suppressed tumor growth with CB1954 administration after a single injection of vector supernatant. However, NTR showed greater potency than CD, with control animals receiving GALV-NTR vector alone (i.e., without CB1954 prodrug) showing extensive tumor growth with a median survival time of 17.5 days, while animals receiving GALV-NTR and CB1954 showed significantly prolonged survival with a median survival time of 30 days. In conclusion, GALV-RRV enabled high-efficiency gene transfer and persistent expression of NTR, resulting in efficient cell killing, suppression of tumor growth, and prolonged survival upon CB1954 administration. This validates the use of therapeutic strategies employing this prodrug activator gene to arm GALV-RRV, and opens the door to the possibility of future combination gene therapy with CD-armed MLV-RRV, as the latter vector is currently being evaluated in clinical trials

The Different Clinical Features Between Autoimmune and Infectious Status Epilepticus

Objective: The prognosis of status epilepticus (SE) is highly related to the underlying etiology. Inflammation of the central nervous system (CNS), including infection and autoimmune encephalitis, is one of the treatable conditions causing SE. The initial presentation of infectious and autoimmune CNS disorders can be quite similar, which may be difficult to differentiate at the beginning. However, treatment for these entities can be quite different. In this study, we aim to identify the differences in clinical features among patients with infectious and autoimmune SE, which could help the clinicians to select initial investigation and ensuing therapies that may improve overall outcomes.Methods: This was a retrospective study that included 501 patients with SE within a period of 10.5-years. Patients with inflammatory etiology were collected and separated into infectious and autoimmune SE. The symptoms at onset, SE semiology, status epilepticus severity score, and END-IT score at admission, treatment for SE, and outcome (modified Rankin Scale) on discharge and last follow-up were recorded. Data on the first cerebrospinal fluid, electroencephalography, and magnetic resonance imaging were also collected.Results: Forty-six (9.2%) of the 501 patients had SE with inflammatory etiology. Twenty-five (5%) patients were autoimmune SE and 21 (4.2%) were infectious SE. Patients with autoimmune SE have younger age and female predominance. As for clinical presentations, psychosis, non-convulsive SE, and super refractory SE were more common in patients with autoimmune SE. Nevertheless, the prognosis showed no difference between the two groups.Conclusion: The different initial clinical presentations and patient characteristics may provide some clues about the underlying etiology of SE. When inflammatory etiology is suspected in patients with SE, younger age, female sex, psychosis, non-convulsive SE, and super refractory SE are clinical features that suggest an autoimmune etiology