Encapsulation of MES Functionalities as RESTful Web Services for Knowledge-Driven Manufacturing Systems

Computer and network technologies are growing rapidly nowadays. For this reason, many doors are opened for implementing some of these technologies in different areas. Currently, manufacturing systems is considered as main consumer of new technologies such as web services and knowledge-based systems. therefore, new terms came to the surface like industry 4.0 and IoT devices. An example could be seen in the eScop pro-ject. The concept idea is addressed as designing a knowledge driven manufacturing system which is capable to be applied on various industrial facilities. In this regards, this thesis aims to define MES functions for the Open Knowledge-Driven Manufacturing Execution System (OKD-MES). The study took place on FASTory line located at FAST Lab. In Tampere University of Technology. It is used as a validation case study to proof the implementation of the functions. The objective of this thesis focuses on employing the MES functions as web services to suit the OKD-MES concept. In this research, the state of art reviews MES functions which were defined at a general level by MESA. Then, these MES functions are specifically defined to work with the layer concept of the OKD-MES which presented by the eScop project. The approach which has been developed for MES functions is a general platform that can be used for all MES functions even though the industry type is different. This approach tends to maximize the flexibility of configuring MES functions in the manufacturing system. At the same time, it minimizes the dependencies in the OKD-MES. With this approach, the user is responsible for defining the description of web services in ontology form as configuration and providing the functionality that suits the manufacturing system as functional scripts. These features of the presented approach allow the user to implement new logic for the MES functions or even use ready-made tools. Finally, the developed approach is tested with a production scenario. The results of the test show the advantage of using this approach in terms of configurability and simplicity of installation. Nevertheless, the presented approach holds chances for future development

Effect of soil mulching on growth, productivity, and water use efficiency of potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) under deficit irrigation

Two field studies were conducted consecutively in the summer season of 2015 and 2016 to investigate the effect of different soil mulching materials (bare soil: BS as a control, white plastic: WP, black plastic: BP and rice straw: RS) on growth, productivity, and water-use efficiency (WUE) of potato under three levels of irrigation (I100=100%, I80=80%, and I60=70% of crop evapotranspiration). Growth characteristics, yield and its components, and WUE were significantly (P ≤ 0.05) affected by both irrigation level and mulching materials. All mulching materials effectively enhanced growth and productivity when compared to bare soil. Potato plants grown under BP and WP as well as RS showed higher mean values of large size (> 60 mm) tubers and WUE compared to non-mulched treatment (BS) in both seasons. Mulching treatments noticeably increased tuber yield in the order of BP > RS > WP. Results displayed that, under different soil mulching materials, the I80 strategy studied here could be successfully applied during summer season in commercial potato production allowing water savings of 20% without any detrimental effect on plant growth or productivity

An approach for the bimanual manipulation of a deformable linear object using a dual-arm industrial robot : cable routing use case

The automation of processes that handle deformable materials is considered to be a complicated task. Due to their properties, these materials require specialised solutions for their manipulation, using robotic systems and mostly, using specifically developed hardware which limits its use for different deformable objects. To solve this issue, this paper presents an approach for bimanually manipulating Deformable Linear Objects (DLOs) using a dual-arm industrial robot. This approach aims at providing an automatic, generic, and easily reconfigurable solution and is implemented for routing cables in a human-centric platform. The approach consists of a cyber-physical system (CPS) composed by commercial hardware: a robot equipped with two parallel grippers, and a reconfigurable Robot Operating System (ROS) software. In more details, the developed software extracts information about the process, such as the routing path, keypoints of the workstation setup and objects dimensions. Then, it uses the extracted information to generate suitable bimanual trajectories for the robot. Finally, the approach has been tested for three different routine paths.acceptedVersionPeer reviewe

Antiproliferative and proapoptotic activities of ferulic acid in breast and liver cancer cell lines

Purpose: To explore the potential anticancer activities of ferulic acid (4-hydroxy-3-methoxycinnamic acid, FA) on two different human cancers cell lines, viz, breast (MCF-7) and hepatocellular (HepG2). Methods: MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide) cytotoxicity, Annexin V staining, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), as well as caspase-8 and -9 activation assays were used to evaluate the proapoptotic and antiproliferative potentials of ferulic acid (FA) on MCF-7 and HepG2 cell lines. Results: Ferulic acid exerted cytotoxic effects on MCF-7 and HepG2 cell lines with half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC50) of 75.4 and 81.38 μg/mL, respectively, at 48 h. Annexin V staining revealed evidence of apoptosis. Caspase-8 and-9 levels were elevated in both cell lines after incubation with ferulic acid. Conclusion: The findings of this study suggest that ferulic acid has promising therapeutic potentials for the treatment of breast and liver cancers by inducing apoptosis via activation of caspase-8 and -9 pathways

Machine Learning Techniques for Credit Card Fraud Detection

The term “fraud”, it always concerned about credit card fraud in our minds. And after the significant increase in the transactions of credit card, the fraud of credit card increased extremely in last years. So the fraud detection should include surveillance of the spending attitude for the person/customer to the determination, avoidance, and detection of unwanted behavior. Because the credit card is the most payment predominant way for the online and regular purchasing, the credit card fraud raises highly. The Fraud detection is not only concerned with capturing of the fraudulent practices, but also, discover it as fast as they can, because the fraud costs millions of dollar business loss and it is rising over time, and that affects greatly the worldwide economy. . In this paper we introduce 14 different techniques of how data mining techniques can be successfully combined to obtain a high fraud coverage with a high or low false rate, the Advantage and The Disadvantages of every technique, and The Data Sets used in the researches by researcher

Ontology-Driven Guidelines for Architecting Digital Twins in Factory Automation Applications

The rapid emerging technologies in various fields permitted the creation of simulation tools. These tools are designed to replicate physical systems in order to provide faster, cheaper and more detailed illustrative analysis of the physical system. In this regard, the concept of digital twins has been introduced to generally define these simulation tools. In fact, and according to the creator of the digital twin term Micheal Grieves, a digital twin is defined as a physical system, a digital replica of the physical system and information flow between the former parts. This definition is simple and generic for describing digital twins and yet, holistic. This broad definition creates a challenge for developers who target the development of such applications. Therefore, this paper presents a paradigm for architecting digital twins for manufacturing processes. The approach is inspired by the definitions of the ISA95 standard and the onion concept of computer applications to create multi-layer and multi-level concepts. Furthermore, and to satisfy the different required features by industries, the approach considers a multi-perspective concept that allows the separation of the digital twin views based on functionality. This paradigm aims at providing a modular, scalable, reusable, interoperable and composable approach for developing digital twins. Then, an implementation of the approach has been introduced using an ontology-based system and the IEC61499 standard. This implementation has been demonstrated on a discrete manufacturing assembly line.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Fingerprints Authentication Using Grayscale Fractal Dimension

Characterizing of visual objects is an important role in pattern recognition that can be performed through shape analysis. Several approaches have been introduced to extract relevant information of a shape. The complexity of the shape is the most widely used approach for this purpose where fractal dimension and generalized fractal dimension are methodologies used to estimate the complexity of the shapes. The box counting dimension is one of the methods that used to estimate fractal dimension. It is estimated basically to describe the self-similarity in objects. A lot of objects have the self-similarity; fingerprint is one of those objects where the generalized box counting dimension is used for recognizing of the fingerprints to be utilized for authentication process. A new fractal dimension method is proposed in this paper. It is verified by the experiment on a set of natural texture images to show its efficiency and accuracy, and a satisfactory result is found. It also offers promising performance when it is applied for fingerprint recognition

Straw biochar increases the abundance of inorganic phosphate solubilizing bacterial community for better rape (Brassica napus) growth and phosphate uptake

The direct application of inorganic-phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (iPSBs) for improving the efficiency of phosphorus (P) use leads to a low rate of bacterial survival. Biochar is a good inoculum carrier for microbial survival, and diverse feedstocks can have different effects. We generated an iPSB community using seven selected iPSB strains with various phylogenic taxonomies and P-solubilizing abilities. Biochar was then inoculated with the iPSB community and applied to soil in pots seeded with rape (Brassica napus). Growth of the rape for four weeks and the effects of biochars produced from six raw feedstocks, rice straw, rice husks, soybean straw, peanut shells, corn cobs and wood, were compared. The synthetic iPSB community had a larger capacity to solubilize inorganic P and exude organic anions than any of the individual strains. The structure of the iPSB community was analyzed by high-throughput sequencing four weeks after inoculation. All seven iPSB strains were detected, dominated by Arthrobacter defluvii 06-OD12. The abundance of the iPSB community was significantly correlated with rape biomass, P content and P uptake (P < 0.05). The biochar amendments conferred 6.86-24.24% survival of the iPSB community, with the straw biochars conferring the highest survival. The available-P content of the biochar rather than soil pH was the dominant factor for iPSB community structure, suggesting that the biochar material was critical for the survival and functioning of the iPSB community. Our study demonstrates the feasibility of biochar-assisted iPSB improvement of crop growth and P uptake

Evaluation of the knowledge and practices of pregnant Yemeni Women regarding teratogens

Purpose: To investigate the knowledge and practice of pregnant women with regards to teratogens.Methods: A month-long cross-sectional study was carried out among 150 pregnant women selected from four Motherhood and Child Healthcare Centers (MCHCs) in Mukalla District of Yemen. Data collection was conducted during face-to-face interviews using a questionnaire. Descriptive and simple regression analyses were used.Results: Of the 150 pregnant women who participated in the study, 95.3 % of the pregnant women were &lt; 36 years old, 7.4 % had children with congenital malformations, 62 % indicated that they had heard about folic acid; however, only 16.6 % knew the significance of folic acid. Regarding toxoplasmosis, 94.7 % indicated that they had heard about toxoplasmosis, and 76 % knew about the serious consequences of the disease (congenital malformation and abortion) during pregnancy. Based on simple regression analysis, the results indicate that education and parity, irrespective of age or income level, were the major factors determining better knowledge and practices in pregnancy with regards to toxoplasmosis.Conclusion: Knowledge of folic acid deficiency among pregnant women in Mukalla District of Yemen is relatively low. Furthermore, preventive practices to avoid folic acid deficiency are minimal.Keywords: Knowledge, Practices, Teratogens, Pregnant Yemeni women, Folic acid deficienc

Energy-Based Prognostics for Gradual Loss of Conveyor Belt Tension in Discrete Manufacturing Systems

This paper presents a data-driven approach for the prognosis of the gradual behavioural deterioration of conveyor belts used for the transportation of pallets between processing workstations of discrete manufacturing systems. The approach relies on the knowledge of the power consumption of a conveyor belt motor driver. Data are collected for two separate cases: the static case and dynamic case. In the static case, power consumption data are collected under different loads and belt tension. These data are used by a prognostic model (artificial neural network (ANN)) to learn the conveyor belt motor driver’s power consumption pattern under different belt tensions and load conditions. The data collected during the dynamic case are used to investigate how the belt tension affects the movement of pallets between conveyor zones. During the run time, the trained prognostic model takes real-time power consumption measurements and load information from a testbench (a discrete multirobot mobile assembling line) and predicts a belt tension class. A consecutive mismatch between the predicted belt tension class and optimal belt tension class is an indication of failure, i.e., a gradual loss of belt tension. Hence, maintenance steps must be taken to avoid further catastrophic situations such as belt slippages on head pulleys, material slippages and belt wear and tear.publishedVersionPeer reviewe