Search results for: binary morphological operation
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 4448

Search results for: binary morphological operation

3998 Determination of Morphological Characteristics of Brassica napus, Sinapis arvensis, Sinapis alba and Camelina sativa

Authors: Betül Gıdık, Fadul Önemli

Abstract:

The Brassicaceae (Cruciferae) is an important family of plants that include many economically important vegetable production, industrial oilseed, spice, fodder crop species and energy production. Canola and mustard species that are in Brassicaceae family have too high contribution to world herbal production. In this study, genotypes of two kinds of (Caravel and Excalibul) canola (Brassica napus), wild mustard (Sinapis arvensis), white mustard (Sinapis alba) and Camelina (Camelina sativa) were grown in the experimental field, and their morphological characteristics were determined. According to the results of the research; plant length was varied between 76.75 cm and 151.50 cm, and the longest plant was belonging to species of Sinapis arvensis. The number of branches varied from 3.75 piece/plant to 17.75 piece/plant and the most numerous branch was counted in species of Sinapis alba. It was determined that the number of grains in one capsule was between 3.75 piece/capsule and 35.75 piece/capsule and the largest amount of grains in the one capsule was in the Excalibul variety of species of Brassica napus. In our research, it has been determined that the plant of Sinapis arvensis is a potential plant for industrial of oil production; such as Brassica napus, Sinapis alba and Camelina (Camelina sativa).

Keywords: Brassica napus, Camelina sativa, canola, Sinapis alba, Sinapis arvensis, wild mustard

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3997 A Two-Stage Bayesian Variable Selection Method with the Extension of Lasso for Geo-Referenced Data

Authors: Georgiana Onicescu, Yuqian Shen

Abstract:

Due to the complex nature of geo-referenced data, multicollinearity of the risk factors in public health spatial studies is a commonly encountered issue, which leads to low parameter estimation accuracy because it inflates the variance in the regression analysis. To address this issue, we proposed a two-stage variable selection method by extending the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) to the Bayesian spatial setting, investigating the impact of risk factors to health outcomes. Specifically, in stage I, we performed the variable selection using Bayesian Lasso and several other variable selection approaches. Then, in stage II, we performed the model selection with only the selected variables from stage I and compared again the methods. To evaluate the performance of the two-stage variable selection methods, we conducted a simulation study with different distributions for the risk factors, using geo-referenced count data as the outcome and Michigan as the research region. We considered the cases when all candidate risk factors are independently normally distributed, or follow a multivariate normal distribution with different correlation levels. Two other Bayesian variable selection methods, Binary indicator, and the combination of Binary indicator and Lasso were considered and compared as alternative methods. The simulation results indicated that the proposed two-stage Bayesian Lasso variable selection method has the best performance for both independent and dependent cases considered. When compared with the one-stage approach, and the other two alternative methods, the two-stage Bayesian Lasso approach provides the highest estimation accuracy in all scenarios considered.

Keywords: Lasso, Bayesian analysis, spatial analysis, variable selection

Procedia PDF Downloads 142
3996 Morphological and Chemical Characterization of the Surface of Orthopedic Implant Materials

Authors: Bertalan Jillek, Péter Szabó, Judit Kopniczky, István Szabó, Balázs Patczai, Kinga Turzó

Abstract:

Hip and knee prostheses are one of the most frequently used medical implants, that can significantly improve patients’ quality of life. Long term success and biointegration of these prostheses depend on several factors, like bulk and surface characteristics, construction and biocompatibility of the material. The applied surgical technique, the general health condition and life-quality of the patient are also determinant factors. Medical devices used in orthopedic surgeries have different surfaces depending on their function inside the human body. Surface roughness of these implants determines the interaction with the surrounding tissues. Numerous modifications have been applied in the recent decades to improve a specific property of an implant. Our goal was to compare the surface characteristics of typical implant materials used in orthopedic surgery and traumatology. Morphological and chemical structure of Vortex plate anodized titanium, cemented THR (total hip replacement) stem high nitrogen REX steel (SS), uncemented THR stem and cup titanium (Ti) alloy with titanium plasma spray coating (TPS), cemented cup and uncemented acetabular liner HXL and UHMWPE and TKR (total knee replacement) femoral component CoCrMo alloy (Sanatmetal Ltd, Hungary) discs were examined. Visualization and elemental analysis were made by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS). Surface roughness was determined by atomic force microscopy (AFM) and profilometry. SEM and AFM revealed the morphological and roughness features of the examined materials. TPS Ti presented the highest Ra value (25 ± 2 μm, followed by CoCrMo alloy (535 ± 19 nm), Ti (227 ± 15 nm) and stainless steel (170 ± 11 nm). The roughness of the HXL and UHMWPE surfaces was in the same range, 147 ± 13 nm and 144 ± 15 nm, respectively. EDS confirmed typical elements on the investigated prosthesis materials: Vortex plate Ti (Ti, O, P); TPS Ti (Ti, O, Al); SS (Fe, Cr, Ni, C) CoCrMo (Co, Cr, Mo), HXL (C, Al, Ni) and UHMWPE (C, Al). The results indicate that the surface of prosthesis materials have significantly different features and the applied investigation methods are suitable for their characterization. Contact angle measurements and in vitro cell culture testing are further planned to test their surface energy characteristics and biocompatibility.

Keywords: morphology, PE, roughness, titanium

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3995 Integration of an Augmented Reality System for the Visualization of the HRMAS NMR Analysis of Brain Biopsy Specimens Using the Brainlab Cranial Navigation System

Authors: Abdelkrim Belhaoua, Jean-Pierre Radoux, Mariana Kuras, Vincent Récamier, Martial Piotto, Karim Elbayed, François Proust, Izzie Namer

Abstract:

This paper proposes an augmented reality system dedicated to neurosurgery in order to assist the surgeon during an operation. This work is part of the ExtempoRMN project (Funded by Bpifrance) which aims at analyzing during a surgical operation the metabolic content of tumoral brain biopsy specimens by HRMAS NMR. Patients affected with a brain tumor (gliomas) frequently need to undergo an operation in order to remove the tumoral mass. During the operation, the neurosurgeon removes biopsy specimens using image-guided surgery. The biopsy specimens removed are then sent for HRMAS NMR analysis in order to obtain a better diagnosis and prognosis. Image-guided refers to the use of MRI images and a computer to precisely locate and target a lesion (abnormal tissue) within the brain. This is performed using preoperative MRI images and the BrainLab neuro-navigation system. With the patient MRI images loaded on the Brainlab Cranial neuro-navigation system in the operating theater, surgeons can better identify their approach before making an incision. The Brainlab neuro-navigation tool tracks in real time the position of the instruments and displays their position on the patient MRI data. The results of the biopsy analysis by 1H HRMAS NMR are then sent back to the operating theater and superimposed on the 3D localization system directly on the MRI images. The method we have developed to communicate between the HRMAS NMR analysis software and Brainlab makes use of a combination of C++, VTK and the Insight Toolkit using OpenIGTLink protocol.

Keywords: neuro-navigation, augmented reality, biopsy, BrainLab, HR-MAS NMR

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3994 The Study about the New Monitoring System of Signal Equipment of Railways Using Radio Communication

Authors: Masahiko Suzuki, Takashi Kato , Masahiro Kobayashi

Abstract:

In our company, the monitoring system for signal equipment has already implemented. So, we can know the state of signal equipment, sitting in the control room or the maintenance center. But this system was installed over 20 years ago, so it cannot stand the needs such as 'more stable operation', 'broadband data transfer', 'easy construction and easy maintenance'. To satisfy these needs, we studied the monitoring system using radio communication as a new method which can realize the operation in the terrible environment along railroads. In these studies, we have developed the terminals and repeaters based on the ZigBee protocol and have implemented the application using two different radio bands simultaneously. At last, we got the good results from the fundamental examinations using the developed equipment.

Keywords: monitoring, radio communication, 2 bands, ZigBee

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3993 Existence of Systemic Risk in Turkish Banking Sector: An Evidence from Return Distributions

Authors: İlhami Karahanoglu, Oguz Ceylan

Abstract:

As its well-known definitions; systemic risk refers to whole economic system down-turn movement even collapse together in very severe cases. In fact, it points out the contagion effects of the defaults. Such a risk is can be depicted with the famous Chinese game of falling domino stones. During and after the Bear & Sterns and Lehman Brothers cases, it was well understood that there is a very strong effect of systemic risk in financial services sector. In this study, we concentrate on the existence of systemic risk in Turkish Banking Sector based upon the Halkbank Case during the end month of 2013; there was a political turmoil in Turkey in which the close relatives of the upper politicians were involved in illegal trading activities. In that operation, the CEO of Halkbank was also arrested and in investigation, Halkbank was considered as part of such illegal actions. That operation had an impact on Halkbanks stock value. The Halkbank stock value during that time interval decreased remarkably, the distributional profile of stock return changed and became more volatile as well as more skewed. In this study, the daily returns of 5 leading banks in Turkish banking sector were used to obtain 48 return distributions (for each month, 90-days-back stock value returns are used) of 5 banks for the period 12/2011-12/2013 (pre operation period) and 12/2013-12/2015 (post operation period). When those distributions are compared with timely manner, interestingly; the distribution of the 5 other leading banks in Turkey, public or private, had also distribution profiles which was different from the past 2011-2013 period just like Halkbank. Those 5 big banks, whose stock values are monitored with sub index in Istanbul stock exchange (BIST) as BN10, had more skewed distribution just following the Halkbank stock return movement during the post operation period, with lover mean value and as well higher volatility. In addition, the correlation between the stock value return distributions of the leading banks after Halkbank case, where the returns are more skewed to the left, increased (which is measured in monthly base before and after the operation). The dependence between those banks was stronger under the case where the stock values were falling compared with the normal market condition. Such distributional effect of stock returns between the leading banks in Turkey, which is valid for down sub-market (financial/banking sector) condition, can be evaluated as an evidence for the existence of contagious effect and systemic risk.

Keywords: financial risk, systemic risk, banking sector, return distribution, dependency structure

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3992 Exploring Polar Syntactic Effects of Verbal Extensions in Basà Language

Authors: Imoh Philip

Abstract:

This work investigates four verbal extensions; two in each set resulting in two opposite effects of the valency of verbs in Basà language. Basà language is an indigenous language spoken in Kogi, Nasarawa, Benue, Niger states and all the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) councils. Crozier & Blench (1992) and Blench & Williamson (1988) classify Basà as belonging to Proto–Kru, under the sub-phylum Western –Kru. It studies the effects of such morphosyntactic operations in Basà language with special focus on ‘reflexives’ ‘reciprocals’ versus ‘causativization’ and ‘applicativization’ both sets are characterized by polar syntactic processes of either decreasing or increasing the verb’s valency by one argument vis-à-vis the basic number of arguments, but by the similar morphological processes. In addition to my native intuitions as a native speaker of Basà language, data elicited for this work include discourse observation, staged and elicited spoken data from fluent native speakers. The paper argues that affixes attached to the verb root, result in either deriving an intransitive verb from a transitive one or a transitive verb from a bi/ditransitive verb and equally increase the verb’s valence deriving either a bitransitive verb from a transitive verb or a transitive verb from a intransitive one. Where the operation increases the verb’s valency, it triggers a transformation of arguments in the derived structure. In this case, the applied arguments displace the inherent ones. This investigation can stimulate further study on other transformations that are either syntactic or morphosyntactic in Basà and can also be replicated in other African and non-African languages.

Keywords: verbal extension, valency, reflexive, reciprocal, causativization, applicativization, Basà

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3991 Eco-Ethology of Bees Visitors on Vicia faba L. var. Major (Fabaceae) in Algeria

Authors: L. Bendifallah, S. Doumandji, K. Louadi, S. Iserbyt, F. Acheuk

Abstract:

Due to their ecological key position and diversity, plant-bee relationships constitute excellent models to understand the processes of food specialisation. The purpose of this study is to define and identify the most important species of bees foraging broadbean flowers, we estimated morphological, phonological and behavioural features. We discuss the results by considering the food specialisation level of the visitor. In the studied populations (Algiers, Algeria), visiting bees belong to four different genus: Apis, Andrena, Eucera and Xylocopa. Eucera is foraging broad beans flowers during months of April, May. The genus Andrena and Xylocopa were found on weeds after the flowering period of beans. The two species have not a preferred type of vegetation compared to Eucera. The main pollinators were generalist bees such as Apis mellifera L. and Xylocopa pubescens Spinola (Apidae), and specialist bees such Eucera numida Lep. (Apidae). The results show that no one of the studied species, neither the specialist, nor the generalist ones, share adaptative morphological or behavioural features that may improve foraging on Vicia faba. However, there is a narrow synchronisation between the daily and yearly phenologies of Eucera numida and those of V. faba. This could be an adaptation of the specialist bee to its host plant. Thus, the food specialisation of Eucera numida, as for most specialist bees, would be more linked to its adapted phenology than to an adapted morphology.

Keywords: Vicia faba, bees, pollinators, Algeria

Procedia PDF Downloads 319
3990 An Image Processing Scheme for Skin Fungal Disease Identification

Authors: A. A. M. A. S. S. Perera, L. A. Ranasinghe, T. K. H. Nimeshika, D. M. Dhanushka Dissanayake, Namalie Walgampaya

Abstract:

Nowadays, skin fungal diseases are mostly found in people of tropical countries like Sri Lanka. A skin fungal disease is a particular kind of illness caused by fungus. These diseases have various dangerous effects on the skin and keep on spreading over time. It becomes important to identify these diseases at their initial stage to control it from spreading. This paper presents an automated skin fungal disease identification system implemented to speed up the diagnosis process by identifying skin fungal infections in digital images. An image of the diseased skin lesion is acquired and a comprehensive computer vision and image processing scheme is used to process the image for the disease identification. This includes colour analysis using RGB and HSV colour models, texture classification using Grey Level Run Length Matrix, Grey Level Co-Occurrence Matrix and Local Binary Pattern, Object detection, Shape Identification and many more. This paper presents the approach and its outcome for identification of four most common skin fungal infections, namely, Tinea Corporis, Sporotrichosis, Malassezia and Onychomycosis. The main intention of this research is to provide an automated skin fungal disease identification system that increase the diagnostic quality, shorten the time-to-diagnosis and improve the efficiency of detection and successful treatment for skin fungal diseases.

Keywords: Circularity Index, Grey Level Run Length Matrix, Grey Level Co-Occurrence Matrix, Local Binary Pattern, Object detection, Ring Detection, Shape Identification

Procedia PDF Downloads 228
3989 English Pashto Contact: Morphological Adaptation of Bilingual Compound Words in Pashto

Authors: Imran Ullah Imran

Abstract:

Language contact is a familiar concept in the present global world. Across the globe, languages get mixed up at different levels. Borrowing, code-switching are some of the means through which languages interact. This study examines Pashto-English contact at word and syllable levels. By recording the speech of 30 Pashto native speakers, selected via 'social network' sampling, the study located a number of Pashto-English compound words, which is a unique contact of its kind. In data analysis, tokens were categorized on the basis of their pattern and morphological structure. The study shows that Pashto-English Bilingual Compound words (BCWs) are very prevalent in the Pashto language. The study also found that the BCWs in Pashto are completely productive and have their own meanings. It also shows that the dominant pattern of hybrid words in Pashto is the conjugation of an independent English root word followed by a Pashto inflectional morpheme, which contributes to the core semantic content of the construction. The BCWs construction shows that how both the languages are closer to each other. Pashto-English contact results into bilingual compound and hybrid words, which forms a considerable number of tokens in the present-day spoken Pashto. On the basis of these findings, the study assumes that the same phenomenon may increase with the passage of time that would, in turn, result in the formation of more bilingual compound or hybrid words.

Keywords: code-mixing, bilingual compound words, pashto-english contact, hybrid words, inflectional lexical morpheme

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3988 Geometric Morphometric Analysis of Allometric Variation in the Hand Morphology of Adults

Authors: Aleksandr S. Ermolenko

Abstract:

Allometry is an important factor of morphological integration, contributing to the organization of the phenotype and its variability. The allometric change in the shape of the hand is particularly important in primate evolution, as the hand has important taxonomic features. Some of these features are known to parts with the shape, especially the ratio of the lengths of the index and ring fingers (2d: 4d ratio). The hand is a fairly well-studied system in the context of the evolutionary development of complex morphological structures since it consists of various departments (basipodium, metapodium, acropodium) that form a single structure –autopodium. In the present study, we examined the allometric variability of acropodium. We tested the null hypothesis that there would be no difference in allometric variation between the two components. Geometric morphometry based on a procrustation of 16 two-dimensional (2D) landmarks was analyzed using multivariate shape-by-size regressions in samples from 100 people (50 men and 50 women). The results obtained show that men have significantly greater allometric variability for the ring finger (variability in the transverse axis prevails), while women have significantly greater allometric variability for the index finger (variability in the longitudinal axis prevails). The influence of the middle finger on the shape of the hand is typical for both men and women. The influence of the little finger on the shape of the hand, regardless of gender, was not revealed. The results of this study support the hypothesis that allometry contributes to the organization of variation in the human hand.

Keywords: human hand, size and shape, 2d:4d ratio, geometric morphometry

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3987 Computer-Aided Detection of Simultaneous Abdominal Organ CT Images by Iterative Watershed Transform

Authors: Belgherbi Aicha, Hadjidj Ismahen, Bessaid Abdelhafid

Abstract:

Interpretation of medical images benefits from anatomical and physiological priors to optimize computer-aided diagnosis applications. Segmentation of liver, spleen and kidneys is regarded as a major primary step in the computer-aided diagnosis of abdominal organ diseases. In this paper, a semi-automated method for medical image data is presented for the abdominal organ segmentation data using mathematical morphology. Our proposed method is based on hierarchical segmentation and watershed algorithm. In our approach, a powerful technique has been designed to suppress over-segmentation based on mosaic image and on the computation of the watershed transform. Our algorithm is currency in two parts. In the first, we seek to improve the quality of the gradient-mosaic image. In this step, we propose a method for improving the gradient-mosaic image by applying the anisotropic diffusion filter followed by the morphological filters. Thereafter, we proceed to the hierarchical segmentation of the liver, spleen and kidney. To validate the segmentation technique proposed, we have tested it on several images. Our segmentation approach is evaluated by comparing our results with the manual segmentation performed by an expert. The experimental results are described in the last part of this work.

Keywords: anisotropic diffusion filter, CT images, morphological filter, mosaic image, simultaneous organ segmentation, the watershed algorithm

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3986 Laser Based Microfabrication of a Microheater Chip for Cell Culture

Authors: Daniel Nieto, Ramiro Couceiro

Abstract:

Microfluidic chips have demonstrated their significant application potentials in microbiological processing and chemical reactions, with the goal of developing monolithic and compact chip-sized multifunctional systems. Heat generation and thermal control are critical in some of the biochemical processes. The paper presents a laser direct-write technique for rapid prototyping and manufacturing of microheater chips and its applicability for perfusion cell culture outside a cell incubator. The aim of the microheater is to take the role of conventional incubators for cell culture for facilitating microscopic observation or other online monitoring activities during cell culture and provides portability of cell culture operation. Microheaters (5 mm × 5 mm) have been successfully fabricated on soda-lime glass substrates covered with aluminum layer of thickness 120 nm. Experimental results show that the microheaters exhibit good performance in temperature rise and decay characteristics, with localized heating at targeted spatial domains. These microheaters were suitable for a maximum long-term operation temperature of 120ºC and validated for long-time operation at 37ºC. for 24 hours. Results demonstrated that the physiology of the cultured SW480 adenocarcinoma of the colon cell line on the developed microheater chip was consistent with that of an incubator.

Keywords: laser microfabrication, microheater, bioengineering, cell culture

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3985 Design of Chaos Algorithm Based Optimal PID Controller for SVC

Authors: Saeid Jalilzadeh

Abstract:

SVC is one of the most significant devices in FACTS technology which is used in parallel compensation, enhancing the transient stability, limiting the low frequency oscillations and etc. designing a proper controller is effective in operation of svc. In this paper the equations that describe the proposed system have been linearized and then the optimum PID controller has been designed for svc which its optimal coefficients have been earned by chaos algorithm. Quick damping of oscillations of generator is the aim of designing of optimum PID controller for svc whether the input power of generator has been changed suddenly. The system with proposed controller has been simulated for a special disturbance and the dynamic responses of generator have been presented. The simulation results showed that a system composed with proposed controller has suitable operation in fast damping of oscillations of generator.

Keywords: chaos, PID controller, SVC, frequency oscillation

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3984 Strategic Management of a Geoscience Education and Training Program

Authors: Lee Ock-Sun

Abstract:

The effective development of a geoscience education and training program takes account of the rapidly changing environment in the geoscience market, includes information about resource-rich countries which have international education demands. In this paper, we introduce the geoscience program run bythe International School for Geoscience Resources at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (IS-Geo of KIGAM),and show its remarkable performance. To further effective geoscience program planning and operation, we present recommendations for strategic management for customer-oriented operation with a more favorable program format and advanced training aids. Above all, the IS-Geo of KIGAM should continue improve through‘plan-do-see-feedback’activities based on the recommendations.

Keywords: demand survey, geoscience program, program performance, strategic management

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3983 Investigating the Impacts on Cyclist Casualty Severity at Roundabouts: A UK Case Study

Authors: Nurten Akgun, Dilum Dissanayake, Neil Thorpe, Margaret C. Bell

Abstract:

Cycling has gained a great attention with comparable speeds, low cost, health benefits and reducing the impact on the environment. The main challenge associated with cycling is the provision of safety for the people choosing to cycle as their main means of transport. From the road safety point of view, cyclists are considered as vulnerable road users because they are at higher risk of serious casualty in the urban network but more specifically at roundabouts. This research addresses the development of an enhanced mathematical model by including a broad spectrum of casualty related variables. These variables were geometric design measures (approach number of lanes and entry path radius), speed limit, meteorological condition variables (light, weather, road surface) and socio-demographic characteristics (age and gender), as well as contributory factors. Contributory factors included driver’s behavior related variables such as failed to look properly, sudden braking, a vehicle passing too close to a cyclist, junction overshot, failed to judge other person’s path, restart moving off at the junction, poor turn or manoeuvre and disobeyed give-way. Tyne and Wear in the UK were selected as a case study area. The cyclist casualty data was obtained from UK STATS19 National dataset. The reference categories for the regression model were set to slight and serious cyclist casualties. Therefore, binary logistic regression was applied. Binary logistic regression analysis showed that approach number of lanes was statistically significant at the 95% level of confidence. A higher number of approach lanes increased the probability of severity of cyclist casualty occurrence. In addition, sudden braking statistically significantly increased the cyclist casualty severity at the 95% level of confidence. The result concluded that cyclist casualty severity was highly related to approach a number of lanes and sudden braking. Further research should be carried out an in-depth analysis to explore connectivity of sudden braking and approach number of lanes in order to investigate the driver’s behavior at approach locations. The output of this research will inform investment in measure to improve the safety of cyclists at roundabouts.

Keywords: binary logistic regression, casualty severity, cyclist safety, roundabout

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3982 Preliminary Study of Sponge Spicule to Understand Paleobathymetry, Sentolo Formation, Kulon Progo, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta

Authors: Akmaluddin, Aulia Agus Patria, Adniwan Shubhi Banuzaki, Lucia Hardiana Kurnia Pratiwi

Abstract:

The phylum Porifera, commonly known as sponges, is a group of primitive animals living since Paleozoic-recent, currently have over 8300 described species, where the majority lives in the marine environment and sessile or in situ. Sponge spicule is one part of the body that secreted by sponge; this spicule can be well preserved because it composed of silicate material. Sponge spicule was identified based on morphological form, which was classified into two main classes, Megasclere and Microsclere. Any form of spicule morphology will indicate a particular sponge species, and it also related to the sponge living environment. Therefore, understanding the paleobathymetry using spicules can be done and more detailed because of sponge living in situ. The methods used in this paper are stratigraphic measurement, continuous sampling, and sieve preparation to dissolve calcareous and siliciclastics materials. Then, each spicule was picked by picking method for every 100 grams of each sample and identified the morphological form to determine the order and abundance of spicule. 10 samples have analyzed, 1489 spicules were identified, there were two classes of Porifera, Demospongiae, and Hexactinellida. Five orders of Porifera also identified in the research area, Haplosclerida, Hadromerida, Agelasida, Lithistids, and Lyssacinosida. The results from descriptive analysis and spicule abundance can be understood that the paleobathymetry of research area was in intertidal zone. Furthermore, the variation and abundance of sponge spicule can be used to understand the paleobathymetry and depositional environment.

Keywords: paleobathymetry, Sentolo formation, sponge, spicule

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3981 The Importance of Upholding Corporate Governance: A Case Study of Government Pension Funds

Authors: Pichamon Chansuchai

Abstract:

This qualitative research paper aimed to study the best practice regulation of the Government Pension Fund of Thailand or GPF to explore the importance of good corporate governance and to identify and compare impacts towards the organizational operation and image before and after adopting the corporate good governance practice. The study employed the six principles of good corporate governance and best practice including accountability, responsibility, equitable treatment, transparency, value creation and ethics. The study pointed out that the GPF was a good example of the organization that regained public trust and receiving a positive image and credibility after implementing corporate good governance in all aspects of its organizational management.

Keywords: corporate governance, government, pension funds, organizational operation

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3980 Maintenance Alternatives Related to Costs of Wind Turbines Using Finite State Markov Model

Authors: Boukelkoul Lahcen

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The cumulative costs for O&M may represent as much as 65%-90% of the turbine's investment cost. Nowadays the cost effectiveness concept becomes a decision-making and technology evaluation metric. The cost of energy metric accounts for the effect replacement cost and unscheduled maintenance cost parameters. One key of the proposed approach is the idea of maintaining the WTs which can be captured via use of a finite state Markov chain. Such a model can be embedded within a probabilistic operation and maintenance simulation reflecting the action to be done. In this paper, an approach of estimating the cost of O&M is presented. The finite state Markov model is used for decision problems with number of determined periods (life cycle) to predict the cost according to various options of maintenance.

Keywords: cost, finite state, Markov model, operation and maintenance

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3979 Automatic Detection of Traffic Stop Locations Using GPS Data

Authors: Areej Salaymeh, Loren Schwiebert, Stephen Remias, Jonathan Waddell

Abstract:

Extracting information from new data sources has emerged as a crucial task in many traffic planning processes, such as identifying traffic patterns, route planning, traffic forecasting, and locating infrastructure improvements. Given the advanced technologies used to collect Global Positioning System (GPS) data from dedicated GPS devices, GPS equipped phones, and navigation tools, intelligent data analysis methodologies are necessary to mine this raw data. In this research, an automatic detection framework is proposed to help identify and classify the locations of stopped GPS waypoints into two main categories: signalized intersections or highway congestion. The Delaunay triangulation is used to perform this assessment in the clustering phase. While most of the existing clustering algorithms need assumptions about the data distribution, the effectiveness of the Delaunay triangulation relies on triangulating geographical data points without such assumptions. Our proposed method starts by cleaning noise from the data and normalizing it. Next, the framework will identify stoppage points by calculating the traveled distance. The last step is to use clustering to form groups of waypoints for signalized traffic and highway congestion. Next, a binary classifier was applied to find distinguish highway congestion from signalized stop points. The binary classifier uses the length of the cluster to find congestion. The proposed framework shows high accuracy for identifying the stop positions and congestion points in around 99.2% of trials. We show that it is possible, using limited GPS data, to distinguish with high accuracy.

Keywords: Delaunay triangulation, clustering, intelligent transportation systems, GPS data

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3978 Morphological Transformations and Variations in Architectural Language from Tombs to Mausoleums: From Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic

Authors: Uğur Tuztaşi, Mehmet Uysal, Yavuz Arat

Abstract:

The tomb (grave) structures that have influenced the architectural culture from the Seljuk times to the Ottoman throughout Anatolia are members of a continuing building tradition in terms of monumental expression and styles. This building typology which has religious and cultural permeability in view of spatial traces and structural formations follows the entire trajectory of the respect to death and the deceased from the Seljuks to the Ottomans and also the changing burial traditions epitomised in the form of mausoleums in the Turkish Republic. Although the cultural layers have the same contents with regards to the cult of monument this architectural tradition which evolved from tombs to mausoleums changed in both typological formation and structural size. In short, the tomb tradition with unique examples of architectural functions and typological formations has been encountered from 13th century onwards and continued during the Ottoman period with changes in form and has transformed to mausoleums during the 20th century. This study analyses the process of transformation from complex structures to simple structures and then to monumental graves in terms of architectural expression. Moreover, the study interrogates the architectural language of Anatolian Seljuk tombs to Ottoman tombs and monumental graves built during the republican period in terms of spatial and structural contexts.

Keywords: death and space in Turks, monumental graves, language of architectural style, morphological transformations

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3977 Study on Total Chlorine in Crude Palm Oil from Various Palm Oil Mill Operation Units

Authors: Norliza Saparin, Ahmadilfitri Noor, Mohd Suria Affandi Yusoff, Shawaluddin Tahiruddin

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A palm oil mill produces crude palm oil (CPO) and has many operation units that comprises of sterilization, stripping, digestion and pressing, clarification, purification, drying and storage. This study investigated the total chlorine in palm fruit and CPO after each operating units. The total chlorine were determined by Mitsubishi NSX-2100 H, Trace Elemental Analyzer. The trace elemental analyzer is a furnace system with a micro-coulometric detector that was used for measuring and detecting total chlorine whether in organic or inorganic form. This determination is important as the chlorine is a direct precursor for 3-MCPD ester.

Keywords: chlorine, micro-coulometric, palm oil, 3-MCPD

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3976 Equivalences and Contrasts in the Morphological Formation of Echo Words in Two Indo-Aryan Languages: Bengali and Odia

Authors: Subhanan Mandal, Bidisha Hore

Abstract:

The linguistic process whereby repetition of all or part of the base word with or without internal change before or after the base itself takes place is regarded as reduplication. The reduplicated morphological construction annotates with itself a new grammatical category and meaning. Reduplication is a very frequent and abundant phenomenon in the eastern Indian languages from the states of West Bengal and Odisha, i.e. Bengali and Odia respectively. Bengali, an Indo-Aryan language and a part of the Indo-European language family is one of the largest spoken languages in India and is the national language of Bangladesh. Despite this classification, Bengali has certain influences in terms of vocabulary and grammar due to its geographical proximity to Tibeto-Burman and Austro-Asiatic language speaking communities. Bengali along with Odia belonged to a single linguistic branch. But with time and gradual linguistic changes due to various factors, Odia was the first to break away and develop as a separate distinct language. However, less of contrasts and more of similarities still exist among these languages along the line of linguistics, leaving apart the script. This paper deals with the procedure of echo word formations in Bengali and Odia. The morphological research of the two languages concerning the field of reduplication reveals several linguistic processes. The revelation is based on the information elicited from native language speakers and also on the analysis of echo words found in discourse and conversational patterns. For the purpose of partial reduplication analysis, prefixed class and suffixed class word formations are taken into consideration which show specific rule based changes. For example, in suffixed class categorization, both consonant and vowel alterations are found, following the rules: i) CVx à tVX, ii) CVCV à CVCi. Further classifications were also found on sentential studies of both languages which revealed complete reduplication complexities while forming echo words where the head word lose its original meaning. Complexities based on onomatopoetic/phonetic imitation of natural phenomena and not according to any rule-based occurrences were also found. Taking these aspects into consideration which are very prevalent in both the languages, inferences are drawn from the study which bring out many similarities in both the languages in this area in spite of branching away from each other several years ago.

Keywords: consonant alteration, onomatopoetic, partial reduplication and complete reduplication, reduplication, vowel alteration

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3975 Characteristic of Taro (Colocasia esculenta), Seaweed (Gracilaria Sp.), and Fishes Bone Collagens Flour Based Analog Rice

Authors: Y. S. Darmanto, P. H. Riyadi, S. Susanti

Abstract:

Recently, approximately 9.1 million people of 237.56 million of Indonesian population suffer diabetes. Such condition was caused by high rice consumption of most Indonesian people. It has been known that rice contains low amylose, high calorie, and possesses hyperglycemic properties. Through this study, we tried to solve that problem by creating a super food in order to provide an alternative healthy and balanced diet. We formulated Taro and Seaweed flour based analog rice that fortified by various fishes bone collagens. Corms of Taro contain easily digestible starch and seaweed is rich in fiber, vitamin, and mineral. That mixture was fortified with collagen-containing unique amino acids such as glysine, lysine, alanine, arginine, proline, and hydroxyprolin. Subsequently, super analog rice was characterized about its nutritional composition such are proximate analyses, water, dietary fiber and amylose content. Furthermore, its morphological structure was analyzed by using scanning electron microscopy while the level of consumer preferences was performed by hedonic test. Results demonstrated that fortification by using various fishes bone collagen into analog rice were significantly different in nutritional composition, morphological structure as well as its preferences. Thus, this study was expected as new avenue in functional food discovery especially in the treatment and prevention of diabetic diseases.

Keywords: analogue rice, taro, seaweed, collagen

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3974 The Automatisation of Dictionary-Based Annotation in a Parallel Corpus of Old English

Authors: Ana Elvira Ojanguren Lopez, Javier Martin Arista

Abstract:

The aims of this paper are to present the automatisation procedure adopted in the implementation of a parallel corpus of Old English, as well as, to assess the progress of automatisation with respect to tagging, annotation, and lemmatisation. The corpus consists of an aligned parallel text with word-for-word comparison Old English-English that provides the Old English segment with inflectional form tagging (gloss, lemma, category, and inflection) and lemma annotation (spelling, meaning, inflectional class, paradigm, word-formation and secondary sources). This parallel corpus is intended to fill a gap in the field of Old English, in which no parallel and/or lemmatised corpora are available, while the average amount of corpus annotation is low. With this background, this presentation has two main parts. The first part, which focuses on tagging and annotation, selects the layouts and fields of lexical databases that are relevant for these tasks. Most information used for the annotation of the corpus can be retrieved from the lexical and morphological database Nerthus and the database of secondary sources Freya. These are the sources of linguistic and metalinguistic information that will be used for the annotation of the lemmas of the corpus, including morphological and semantic aspects as well as the references to the secondary sources that deal with the lemmas in question. Although substantially adapted and re-interpreted, the lemmatised part of these databases draws on the standard dictionaries of Old English, including The Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, and A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. The second part of this paper deals with lemmatisation. It presents the lemmatiser Norna, which has been implemented on Filemaker software. It is based on a concordance and an index to the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, which comprises around three thousand texts and three million words. In its present state, the lemmatiser Norna can assign lemma to around 80% of textual forms on an automatic basis, by searching the index and the concordance for prefixes, stems and inflectional endings. The conclusions of this presentation insist on the limits of the automatisation of dictionary-based annotation in a parallel corpus. While the tagging and annotation are largely automatic even at the present stage, the automatisation of alignment is pending for future research. Lemmatisation and morphological tagging are expected to be fully automatic in the near future, once the database of secondary sources Freya and the lemmatiser Norna have been completed.

Keywords: corpus linguistics, historical linguistics, old English, parallel corpus

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3973 The Role of Glutamine-Rich Region of Candida Albicans Tec1p in Mediating Morphological Transition and Invasive Growth

Authors: W. Abu Rayyan, A. Singh, A. M. Al-Jaafreh, W. Abu Dayyih, M. Bustami, S. Salem, N. Seder, K. Schröppel

Abstract:

Hyphal growth and the transcriptional regulation to the host environment are key issues during the pathogenesis of C. albicans. Tec1p is the C. albicans homolog of a TEA transcription factor family, which share a conserved DNA-binding TEA domain in their N-terminal. In order to define a structure-function relationship of the C. albicans Tec1p protein, we constructed several mutations on the N terminal, C terminal or in the TEA binding domain itself by homologous recombination technology. The modifications in the open reading frame of TEC1 were tested for reconstitution of the morphogenetic development of the tec1/tec1 mutant strain CaAS12. Mutation in the TEA consensus sequence did not confer transition to hyphae whereas the reconstitution of the full-length Tec1p has reconstituted hyphal development. A deletion in one of glutamine-rich regions either in the Tec1p N-terminal or the C-terminal in regions of 53-212 or 637–744 aa, respectively, did not restore morphological development in mutant CaAS12 strain. Whereas, the reconstitution with Tec1p mutants other than the glutamate-rich region has restored the morphogenetic switch. Additionally, the deletion of the glutamine-rich region has attenuated the invasive growth and the heat shock resistance of C. albicans. In conclusion, we show that a glutamine-rich region of Tec1p is essential for the hyphal development and mediating adaptation to the host environment of C. albicans.

Keywords: Candida albicans, morphogenetic development, TEA domain, hyphal formation, TEC1

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3972 Localized Analysis of Cellulosic Fibrous Insulation Materials

Authors: Chady El Hachem, Pan Ye, Kamilia Abahri, Rachid Bennacer

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Considered as a building construction material, and regarding its environmental benefits, wood fiber insulation is the material of interest in this work. The definition of adequate elementary representative volume that guarantees reliable understanding of the hygrothermal macroscopic phenomena is very critical. At the microscopic scale, when subjected to hygric solicitations, fibers undergo local dimensionless variations. It is therefore necessary to master this behavior, which affects the global response of the material. This study consists of an experimental procedure using the non-destructive method, X-ray tomography, followed by morphological post-processing analysis using ImageJ software. A refine investigation took place in order to identify the representative elementary volume and the sufficient resolution for accurate structural analysis. The second part of this work was to evaluate the microscopic hygric behavior of the studied material. Many parameters were taken into consideration, like the evolution of the fiber diameters, distribution along the sorption cycle and the porosity, and the water content evolution. In addition, heat transfer simulations based on the energy equation resolution were achieved on the real structure. Further, the problematic of representative elementary volume was elaborated for such heterogeneous material. Moreover, the material’s porosity and its fibers’ thicknesses show very big correlation with the water content. These results provide the literature with very good understanding of wood fiber insulation’s behavior.

Keywords: hygric behavior, morphological characterization, wood fiber insulation material, x-ray tomography

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3971 The South Looking East: The New Geopolitics of Latin America

Authors: Heike Pintor Pirzkall

Abstract:

The positive economic evolution of many countries in the Latin American Continent, mainly in South America, has changed the geopolitical position of the region in the world. It is no longer the Hinterland or backyard of the United States, now it has become the Heartland for Europe and Asia. This position has favored the interest of countries like China or India, who are combining trade agreements with special assistance and aid agreements in many fields like agriculture, alternative energy resources, defense and mining. As many countries in the region are no longer low income countries, a more equal relationship in development aid has been created were the donor and the recipient have become partners and where new actors intervene in a triangular relationship that promotes new alternative aid structures. Triangular co-operation brings together the best of different actors who are providers of development co-operation, partners in SouthSouth co-operation and international organizations. The objective is to share knowledge and implement projects that support the common goal of reducing poverty and promoting development. The intention of this paper is to explain the reasons for Latin America´s “virage” to the east and to give examples of projects and agreements between Latin American countries, China and India which will help to understand the intensification of south-east relations in recent years.

Keywords: development cooperation, China, Latin America, triangular cooperation, natural resources, partnership

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3970 Passive Solar Distiller with Low Cost of Implementation, Operation and Maintenance

Authors: Valentina Alessandra Carvalho do Vale, Elmo Thiago Lins Cöuras Ford, Rudson de Sousa Lima

Abstract:

Around the planet Earth, access to clean water is a problem whose importance has increased due to population growth and its misuse. Thus, projects that seek to transform water sources improper (salty and brackish) in drinking water sources are current issues. However, this transformation generally requires a high cost of implementation, operation and maintenance. In this context, the aim of this work is the development of a passive solar distiller for brackish water, made from recycled and durable materials such as aluminum, cement, glass and PVC basins. The results reveal factors that influence the performance and viability of the expansion project.

Keywords: solar distiller, passive distiller, distiller with pyramidal roof, ecologically correct

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3969 Intelligent Decision Support for Wind Park Operation: Machine-Learning Based Detection and Diagnosis of Anomalous Operating States

Authors: Angela Meyer

Abstract:

The operation and maintenance cost for wind parks make up a major fraction of the park’s overall lifetime cost. To minimize the cost and risk involved, an optimal operation and maintenance strategy requires continuous monitoring and analysis. In order to facilitate this, we present a decision support system that automatically scans the stream of telemetry sensor data generated from the turbines. By learning decision boundaries and normal reference operating states using machine learning algorithms, the decision support system can detect anomalous operating behavior in individual wind turbines and diagnose the involved turbine sub-systems. Operating personal can be alerted if a normal operating state boundary is exceeded. The presented decision support system and method are applicable for any turbine type and manufacturer providing telemetry data of the turbine operating state. We demonstrate the successful detection and diagnosis of anomalous operating states in a case study at a German onshore wind park comprised of Vestas V112 turbines.

Keywords: anomaly detection, decision support, machine learning, monitoring, performance optimization, wind turbines

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