The aim of this study is to find the cost design of RC tension with varying conditions using the Artificial Neural Network. Design constraints were used to cover all reliable design parameters, such as limiting cross sectional dimensions and; their reinforcement ratio and even the beahviour of optimally designed sections. The design of the RC tension members were made using Indian and European standard specifications which were discussed. The designed tension members according to both codes satisfy the strength and serviceability criteria. While no literature is available on the optimal design of RC tension members, the cross-sectional dimensions of the tension membersfor different grades of concrete and steel, and area of formwork are considered as the variables in the present optimum design model. A design example is explained and the results are presented. It is concluded that the proposed optimum design model yields rational, reliable, and practical designs.

One of the basic parameters which describes road traffic is Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT). Its accurate determination is possible only on the basis of data from the continuous measurement of traffic. However, such data for most road sections is unavailable, so AADT must be determined on the basis of short periods of random measurements. This article presents different methods of estimating AADT on the basis of daily traffic (VOL), and includes the traditional Factor Approach, developed Regression Models and Artificial Neural Network models. As explanatory variables, quantitative variables (VOL and the share of heavy vehicles) as well as qualitative variables (day of the week, month, level of AADT, the cross-section, road class, nature of the area, spatial linking, region of Poland and the nature of traffic patterns) were used. Based on comparisons of the presented methods, the Factor Approach was identified as the most useful.

Journal bearings are the most common type of bearings in which a shaft freely rotates in a metallic sleeve. They find a lot of applications in industry, especially where extremely high loads are involved. Proper analysis of the various bearing faults and predicting the modes of failure beforehand are essential to increase the working life of the bearing. In the current study, the vibration data of a journal bearing in the healthy condition and in five different fault conditions are collected. A feature extraction method is employed to classify the different fault conditions. Automatic fault classification is performed using artificial neural networks (ANN). As the probability of a correct prediction goes down for a higher number of faults in ANN, the method is made more robust by incorporating deep neural networks (DNN) with the help of autoencoders. Training was done using the scaled conjugate gradient algorithm and the performance was calculated by the cross entropy method. Due to the increased number of hidden layers in DNN, it is possible to achieve a high efficiency of 100% with the feature extraction method.

The prediction of machined surface parameters is an important factor in machining centre development. There is a great need to elaborate a method for on-line surface roughness estimation [1-7]. Among various measurement techniques, optical methods are considered suitable for in-process measurement of machined surface roughness. These techniques are non-contact, fast, flexible and tree-dimensional in nature.

The optical method suggested in this paper is based on the vision system created to acquire an image of the machined surface during the cutting process. The acquired image is analyzed to correlate its parameters with surface parameters. In the application of machined surface image analysis, the wavelet methods were introduced. A digital image of a machined surface was described using the one-dimensional Digital Wavelet Transform with the basic wavelet as Coiflet. The statistical description of wavelet components made it possible to develop the quality measure and correlate it with surface roughness [8-11].

For an estimation of surface roughness a neural network estimator was applied [12-16]. The estimator was built to work in a recurrent way. The current value of the Ra estimation and the measured change in surface image features were used for forecasting the surface roughness Ra parameter. The results of the analysis confirmed the usability of the application of the proposed method in systems for surface roughness monitoring.

In this paper an artificial neural network, which realizes a nonlinear adaptive control algorithm, has been applied in a control system of variable speed generating system. The speed is adjusted automatically as a function of load power demand. The controller employs a single layer neural network to estimate the unknown plant nonlinearities online. Optimization of the controller is difficult because the plant is nonlinear and no stationary. Furthermore, it deals with the situation where the plant becomes uncontrollable without any restrictive assumptions. In contrast to previous work [1] on the same subject, the number of neural networks has been reduced to only one network. The number of the neurons in a network structure as well as choosing certain design parameters was specified a priori. The computer test results have been presented to show performance of proposed neural controller.

Malignant melanomas are the most deadly type of skin cancer, yet detected early have high chances of successful treatment. In the last twenty years, the interest in automatic recognition and classification of melanoma dynamically increased, partly because of appearing public datasets with dermatoscopic images of skin lesions. Automated computer-aided skin cancer detection in dermatoscopic images is a very challenging task due to uneven sizes of datasets, huge intra-class variation with small interclass variation, and the existence of many artifacts in the images. One of the most recognized methods of melanoma diagnosis is the ABCD method. In the paper, we propose an extended version of this method and an intelligent decision support system based on neural networks that uses its results in the form of hand-crafted features. Automatic determination of the skin features with the ABCD method is difficult due to the large diversity of images of various quality, the existence of hair, different markers and other obstacles. Therefore, it was necessary to apply advanced methods of pre-processing the images. The proposed system is an ensemble of ten neural networks working in parallel, and one network using their results to generate a final decision. This system structure enables to increase the efficiency of its operation by several percentage points compared with a single neural network. The proposed system is trained on over 5000 and tested afterwards on 200 skin moles. The presented system can be used as a decision support system for primary care physicians, as a system capable of self-examination of the skin with a dermatoscope and also as an important tool to improve biopsy decision making.

The development of digital signal processors and the increase in their computing capabilities bring opportunities to employ algorithms with multiple variable parameters in active noise control systems. Of particular interest are the algorithms based on artificial neural networks. This paper presents an active noise control algorithm based on a neural network and a nonlinear input-output system identification model. The purpose of the algorithm is an active noise control system with a nonlinear primary path. The algorithm uses the NARMAX system identification model. The neural network employed in the proposed algorithm is a multilayer perceptron. The error backpropagation rule with adaptive learning rate is employed to update the weight of the neural network. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been tested by numerical simulations. Results for narrow-band input signals and nonlinear primary path are presented below.

The article presents the prototype of a measurement system with a hot probe, designed for testing thermal parameters of heat insulation materials. The idea is to determine parameters of thermal insulation materials using a hot probe with an auxiliary thermometer and a trained artificial neural network. The network is trained on data extracted from a nonstationary two-dimensional model of heat conduction inside a sample of material with the hot probe and the auxiliary thermometer. The significant heat capacity of the probe handle is taken into account in the model. The finite element method (FEM) is applied to solve the system of partial differential equations describing the model. An artificial neural network (ANN) is used to estimate coefficients of the inverse heat conduction problem for a solid. The network determines values of the effective thermal conductivity and effective thermal diffusivity on the basis of temperature responses of the hot probe and the auxiliary thermometer. All calculations, like FEM, training and testing processes, were conducted in the MATLAB environment. Experimental results are also presented. The proposed measurement system for parameter testing is suitable for temporary measurements in a building site or factory.

In the paper a method using active thermography and a neural algorithm for material defect characterization is presented. Experimental investigations are conducted with the stepped heating method, so-called time-resolved infrared radiometry, for the test specimen made of a material with low thermal diffusivity. The results of the experimental investigations were used in simulations of artificial neural networks. Simulations are performed for three datasets representing three stages of the heating process occurring in the investigated sample. In this work, the simulation research aimed to determine the accuracy of defect depth estimation with the use of the mentioned algorithm is descibed

When an artificial neural network is used to determine the value of a physical quantity its result is usually presented without an uncertainty. This is due to the difficulty in determining the uncertainties related to the neural model. However, the result of a measurement can be considered valid only with its respective measurement uncertainty. Therefore, this article proposes a method of obtaining reliable results by measuring systems that use artificial neural networks. For this, it considers the Monte Carlo Method (MCM) for propagation of uncertainty distributions during the training and use of the artificial neural networks.

Two low-cost methods of estimating the road surface condition are presented in the paper, the first one

based on the use of accelerometers and the other on the analysis of images acquired from cameras installed

in a vehicle. In the first method, miniature positioning and accelerometer sensors are used for evaluation of

the road surface roughness. The device designed for installation in vehicles is composed of a GPS receiver

and a multi-axis accelerometer. The measurement data were collected from recorded ride sessions taken

place on diversified road surface roughness conditions and at varied vehicle speeds on each of examined

road sections. The data were gathered for various vehicle body types and afterwards successful attempts

were made in constructing the road surface classification employing the created algorithm. In turn, in the

video method, a set of algorithms processing images from a depth camera and RGB cameras were created.

A representative sample of the material to be analysed was obtained and a neural network model for classification

of road defects was trained. The research has shown high effectiveness of applying the digital image

processing to rejection of images of undamaged surface, exceeding 80%. Average effectiveness of identification

of road defects amounted to 70%. The paper presents the methods of collecting and processing the

data related to surface damage as well as the results of analyses and conclusions.

The paper presents local dynamic approach to integration of an ensemble of predictors. The classical fusing of many predictor results takes into account all units and takes the weighted average of the results of all units forming the ensemble. This paper proposes different approach. The prediction of time series for the next day is done here by only one member of an ensemble, which was the best in the learning stage for the input vector, closest to the input data actually applied. Thanks to such arrangement we avoid the situation in which the worst unit reduces the accuracy of the whole ensemble. This way we obtain an increased level of statistical forecasting accuracy, since each task is performed by the best suited predictor. Moreover, such arrangement of integration allows for using units of very different quality without decreasing the quality of final prediction. The numerical experiments performed for forecasting the next input, the average PM10 pollution and forecasting the 24-element vector of hourly load of the power system have confirmed the superiority of the presented approach. All quality measures of forecast have been significantly improved.