The allocation of design tolerances between the components of a mechanical assembly and manufacturing tolerances can significantly affect the functionality of products and related production costs. This paper introduces Imperialist Competitive Algorithm (ICA) approach to solve the machining tolerance allocation of an overrunning clutch assembly.  The objective is to obtain optimum tolerances of...

This paper presents a new mathematical model for a hybrid flow shop scheduling problem with multiprocessor tasks in which sequence dependent set up times and preemption are considered. The objective is to minimize the weighted sum of makespan and maximum tardiness. Three meta-heuristic methods based on genetic algorithm (GA), imperialist competitive algorithm (ICA) and a hybrid approach of GA a...

It is well known that principal component analysis (PCA) only considers the second-order statistics and that independent component analysis (ICA) exploits higher-order statistics of the data. In this paper, for whitened data, we give an elegant way to incorporate higherorder statistics implicitly in the form of second-order moments, and show that ICA can be performed by PCA following a simple t...

To investigate the cellular mechanisms for altered Ca homeostasis and contractility in cardiac hypertrophy, we measured whole-cell L-type Ca currents (ICa,L), whole-cell Ca 21 transients ([Ca]i), and Ca 21 sparks in ventricular cells from 6-month-old spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and from ageand sex-matched Wistar-Kyoto and Sprague-Dawley control rats. By echocardiography, SHR hearts h...

To investigate the cellular mechanisms for altered Ca2+ homeostasis and contractility in cardiac hypertrophy, we measured whole-cell L-type Ca2+ currents (ICa,L), whole-cell Ca2+ transients ([Ca2+]i), and Ca2+ sparks in ventricular cells from 6-month-old spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) and from age- and sex-matched Wistar-Kyoto and Sprague-Dawley control rats. By echocardiography, SHR he...

PURPOSE Reduced flow in the internal carotid artery (ICA) is related to cerebral ischemia. We established a classification of reduced ICA flow through color-coded carotid duplex (CCD) sonography. METHODS We retrospectively reviewed 25,000 CCD images in sonography laboratory. RESULTS Reduced ICA flow [flow volume (FV) less than 100 mL/min] was found in 1.2% of all studies, and 270 patients w...

PURPOSE The goal of this study was to directly measure the association between the internal carotid artery (ICA) morphometry and the presence of ICA-posterior communicating artery (PCOM) aneurysm. MATERIALS AND METHODS The authors intraoperatively measured the length of the supraclinoid ICA because it is impossible to radiologically determine the exact location of the anterior clinoid process...

Objective: Vessel-wall-volume (VWV) and localized vessel-wall-thickness (VWT) measured from 3D ultrasound (US) carotid images are sensitive to anti-atherosclerotic effects of medical/dietary treatments. VWV VWT measurements require the lumen-intima (LIB) media-adventitia boundaries (MAB) at common internal arteries (CCA ICA). However, most existing segmentation techniques were capable automatin...