Search results for: computational vision
1909 A Computational Fluid Dynamics Simulation of Single Rod Bundles with 54 Fuel Rods without Spacers
Authors: S. K. Verma, S. L. Sinha, D. K. Chandraker
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The Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) is a vertical pressure tube type, heavy water moderated and boiling light water cooled natural circulation based reactor. The fuel bundle of AHWR contains 54 fuel rods arranged in three concentric rings of 12, 18 and 24 fuel rods. This fuel bundle is divided into a number of imaginary interacting flow passage called subchannels. Single phase flow condition exists in reactor rod bundle during startup condition and up to certain length of rod bundle when it is operating at full power. Prediction of the thermal margin of the reactor during startup condition has necessitated the determination of the turbulent mixing rate of coolant amongst these subchannels. Thus, it is vital to evaluate turbulent mixing between subchannels of AHWR rod bundle. With the remarkable progress in the computer processing power, the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology can be useful for investigating the thermal–hydraulic characteristics phenomena in the nuclear fuel assembly. The present report covers the results of simulation of pressure drop, velocity variation and turbulence intensity on single rod bundle with 54 rods in circular arrays. In this investigation, 54-rod assemblies are simulated with ANSYS Fluent 15 using steady simulations with an ANSYS Workbench meshing. The simulations have been carried out with water for Reynolds number 9861.83. The rod bundle has a mean flow area of 4853.0584 mm2 in the bare region with the hydraulic diameter of 8.105 mm. In present investigation, a benchmark k-ε model has been used as a turbulence model and the symmetry condition is set as boundary conditions. Simulation are carried out to determine the turbulent mixing rate in the simulated subchannels of the reactor. The size of rod and the pitch in the test has been same as that of actual rod bundle in the prototype. Water has been used as the working fluid and the turbulent mixing tests have been carried out at atmospheric condition without heat addition. The mean velocity in the subchannel has been varied from 0-1.2 m/s. The flow conditions are found to be closer to the actual reactor condition.Keywords: AHWR, CFD, single-phase turbulent mixing rate, thermal–hydraulic
Procedia PDF Downloads 3201908 Carotenoids a Biologically Important Bioactive Compound
Authors: Aarti Singh, Anees Ahmad
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Carotenoids comprise a group of isoprenoid pigments. Carotenes, xanthophylls and their derivatives have been found to play an important role in all living beings through foods, neutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. α-carotene, β-carotene and β-cryptoxanthin play a vital role in humans to provide vitamin A source for the growth, development and proper functioning of immune system and vision. They are very crucial for plants and humans as they protect from photooxidative damage and are excellent antioxidants quenching singlet molecular oxygen and peroxyl radicals. Diet including more intake of carotenoids results in reduced threat of various chronic diseases such as cancer (lung, breast, prostrate, colorectal and ovarian cancers) and coronary heart diseases. The blue light filtering efficiency of the carotenoids in liposomes have been reported to be maximum in lutein followed by zeaxanthin, β-carotene and lycopene. Lycopene plays a vital role for the protection from CVD. Lycopene in serum is directly related to reduced risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Carotenoids have major role in the treatment of skin disorders. There is need to identify and isolate novel carotenoids from diverse natural sources for human health benefits.Keywords: antioxidants, carotenoids, neutraceuticals, osteoporosis, pharmaceuticals
Procedia PDF Downloads 3761907 Motion-Based Detection and Tracking of Multiple Pedestrians
Authors: A. Harras, A. Tsuji, K. Terada
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Tracking of moving people has gained a matter of great importance due to rapid technological advancements in the field of computer vision. The objective of this study is to design a motion based detection and tracking multiple walking pedestrians randomly in different directions. In our proposed method, Gaussian mixture model (GMM) is used to determine moving persons in image sequences. It reacts to changes that take place in the scene like different illumination; moving objects start and stop often, etc. Background noise in the scene is eliminated through applying morphological operations and the motions of tracked people which is determined by using the Kalman filter. The Kalman filter is applied to predict the tracked location in each frame and to determine the likelihood of each detection. We used a benchmark data set for the evaluation based on a side wall stationary camera. The actual scenes from the data set are taken on a street including up to eight people in front of the camera in different two scenes, the duration is 53 and 35 seconds, respectively. In the case of walking pedestrians in close proximity, the proposed method has achieved the detection ratio of 87%, and the tracking ratio is 77 % successfully. When they are deferred from each other, the detection ratio is increased to 90% and the tracking ratio is also increased to 79%.Keywords: automatic detection, tracking, pedestrians, counting
Procedia PDF Downloads 2571906 A Comparative Analysis of Lexical Bundles in Academic Writing: Insights from Persian and Native English Writers in Applied Linguistics
Authors: Elham Shahrjooi Haghighi
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This research explores how lexical bundles are utilized in writing in the field of linguistics by comparing professional Persian writers with native English writers using corpus-based studies and advanced computational techniques to examine the occurrence and characteristics of lexical bundles in academic writings. The review of literature emphasizes how important lexical bundles are, in organizing discussions and conveying opinions in both spoken and written language contexts across genres and proficiency levels in fields of study. Previous research has indicated that native English writers tend to employ an array and diversity of bundles than non-native writers do; these bundles are essential elements in academic writing. In this study’s methodology section, the research utilizes a corpus-based method to analyze a collection of writings such as research papers and advanced theses at the doctoral and masters’ levels. The examination uncovers variances in the utilization of groupings between writers who are native speakers of Persian and those who are native English speakers with the latter group displaying a greater occurrence and variety, in types of groupings. Furthermore, the research delves into how these groupings contribute to aspects classifying them into categories based on their relevance to research text structure and individuals as outlined in Hyland’s framework. The results show that Persian authors employ phrases and demonstrate distinct structural and functional tendencies in comparison to native English writers. This variation is linked to differing language skills, levels, disciplinary norms and cultural factors. The study also highlights the pedagogical implications of these findings, suggesting that targeted instruction on the use of lexical bundles could enhance the academic writing skills of non-native speakers. In conclusion, this research contributes to the understanding of lexical bundles in academic writing by providing a detailed comparative analysis of their use by Persian and native English writers. The insights from this study have important implications for language education and the development of effective writing strategies for non-native English speakers in academic contexts.Keywords: lexical bundles, academic writing, comparative analysis, computational techniques
Procedia PDF Downloads 211905 End-to-End Pyramid Based Method for Magnetic Resonance Imaging Reconstruction
Authors: Omer Cahana, Ofer Levi, Maya Herman
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Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) is a lengthy medical scan that stems from a long acquisition time. Its length is mainly due to the traditional sampling theorem, which defines a lower boundary for sampling. However, it is still possible to accelerate the scan by using a different approach such as Compress Sensing (CS) or Parallel Imaging (PI). These two complementary methods can be combined to achieve a faster scan with high-fidelity imaging. To achieve that, two conditions must be satisfied: i) the signal must be sparse under a known transform domain, and ii) the sampling method must be incoherent. In addition, a nonlinear reconstruction algorithm must be applied to recover the signal. While the rapid advances in Deep Learning (DL) have had tremendous successes in various computer vision tasks, the field of MRI reconstruction is still in its early stages. In this paper, we present an end-to-end method for MRI reconstruction from k-space to image. Our method contains two parts. The first is sensitivity map estimation (SME), which is a small yet effective network that can easily be extended to a variable number of coils. The second is reconstruction, which is a top-down architecture with lateral connections developed for building high-level refinement at all scales. Our method holds the state-of-art fastMRI benchmark, which is the largest, most diverse benchmark for MRI reconstruction.Keywords: magnetic resonance imaging, image reconstruction, pyramid network, deep learning
Procedia PDF Downloads 911904 Edward Bond's Questioning of Existence in His Play 'Have I None?'
Authors: Aycan Gurluyer
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21st-century theatre has been shaped by lots of world-changing forces devastating human psychology and existence. Accepted as the greatest living English playwright, it is post-war British dramatist Edward Bond who uses a late-21st-century apocalyptic landscape as a weapon to question the human existence in his play 'Have I None?'. In this play, he tries to underline the degenerating and destructive effects of the society and environment on a couple whose lives are changed by an unexpected and annoying stranger. As victim of the society and the cultural corruption, the three vulnerable Bondian characters struggle for their expectations to find a place in this fictional world by sacrificing their own lives. Set in the 2077’s world, the play depicts that rigidly formed rules of the system/authority eliminates the existence of humans. According to Bond, the fascist practices of the governments/systems make people paralyzed in any way, so they choose to deny all realities by becoming biological beings or they gather to commit to suicide as troops. Our main aim is to underscore the questioning of the human existence by drawing the socio-political framework of the era, the capitalist system’s dehumanized individuals and their defence to survive, and what reality is in the 21st century, by focusing on Bond’s hallucinatory and tragic vision of the future in 'Have I None?'.Keywords: Edward Bond, apocalyptic, existence, Have I None?
Procedia PDF Downloads 1431903 A Review: Carotenoids a Biologically Important Bioactive Compound
Authors: Aarti Singh, Anees Ahmad
Abstract:
Carotenoids comprise a group of isoprenoid pigments. Carotenes, xanthophylls and their derivatives have been found to play an important role in all living beings through foods, neutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals. α-carotene, β-carotene and β-cryptoxanthin play a vital role in humans to provide vitamin A source for the growth, development and proper functioning of immune system and vision. They are very crucial for plants and humans as they protect from photooxidative damage and are excellent antioxidants quenching singlet molecular oxygen and peroxyl radicals. Diet including more intake of carotenoids results in reduced threat of various chronic diseases such as cancer (lung, breast, prostate, colorectal and ovarian cancers) and coronary heart diseases. The blue light filtering efficiency of the carotenoids in liposomes have been reported to be maximum in lutein followed by zeaxanthin, β-carotene and lycopene. Lycopene play a vital role for the protection from CVD. Lycopene in serum is directly related to reduced risk of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women. Carotenoids have the major role in the treatment of skin disorders. There is a need to identify and isolate novel carotenoids from diverse natural sources for human health benefits.Keywords: antioxidants, carotenoids, neutraceuticals, osteoporosis, pharmaceuticals
Procedia PDF Downloads 3611902 Speeding Up Lenia: A Comparative Study Between Existing Implementations and CUDA C++ with OpenGL Interop
Authors: L. Diogo, A. Legrand, J. Nguyen-Cao, J. Rogeau, S. Bornhofen
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Lenia is a system of cellular automata with continuous states, space and time, which surprises not only with the emergence of interesting life-like structures but also with its beauty. This paper reports ongoing research on a GPU implementation of Lenia using CUDA C++ and OpenGL Interoperability. We demonstrate how CUDA as a low-level GPU programming paradigm allows optimizing performance and memory usage of the Lenia algorithm. A comparative analysis through experimental runs with existing implementations shows that the CUDA implementation outperforms the others by one order of magnitude or more. Cellular automata hold significant interest due to their ability to model complex phenomena in systems with simple rules and structures. They allow exploring emergent behavior such as self-organization and adaptation, and find applications in various fields, including computer science, physics, biology, and sociology. Unlike classic cellular automata which rely on discrete cells and values, Lenia generalizes the concept of cellular automata to continuous space, time and states, thus providing additional fluidity and richness in emerging phenomena. In the current literature, there are many implementations of Lenia utilizing various programming languages and visualization libraries. However, each implementation also presents certain drawbacks, which serve as motivation for further research and development. In particular, speed is a critical factor when studying Lenia, for several reasons. Rapid simulation allows researchers to observe the emergence of patterns and behaviors in more configurations, on bigger grids and over longer periods without annoying waiting times. Thereby, they enable the exploration and discovery of new species within the Lenia ecosystem more efficiently. Moreover, faster simulations are beneficial when we include additional time-consuming algorithms such as computer vision or machine learning to evolve and optimize specific Lenia configurations. We developed a Lenia implementation for GPU using the C++ and CUDA programming languages, and CUDA/OpenGL Interoperability for immediate rendering. The goal of our experiment is to benchmark this implementation compared to the existing ones in terms of speed, memory usage, configurability and scalability. In our comparison we focus on the most important Lenia implementations, selected for their prominence, accessibility and widespread use in the scientific community. The implementations include MATLAB, JavaScript, ShaderToy GLSL, Jupyter, Rust and R. The list is not exhaustive but provides a broad view of the principal current approaches and their respective strengths and weaknesses. Our comparison primarily considers computational performance and memory efficiency, as these factors are critical for large-scale simulations, but we also investigate the ease of use and configurability. The experimental runs conducted so far demonstrate that the CUDA C++ implementation outperforms the other implementations by one order of magnitude or more. The benefits of using the GPU become apparent especially with larger grids and convolution kernels. However, our research is still ongoing. We are currently exploring the impact of several software design choices and optimization techniques, such as convolution with Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT), various GPU memory management scenarios, and the trade-off between speed and accuracy using single versus double precision floating point arithmetic. The results will give valuable insights into the practice of parallel programming of the Lenia algorithm, and all conclusions will be thoroughly presented in the conference paper. The final version of our CUDA C++ implementation will be published on github and made freely accessible to the Alife community for further development.Keywords: artificial life, cellular automaton, GPU optimization, Lenia, comparative analysis.
Procedia PDF Downloads 411901 Comparison of Existing Predictor and Development of Computational Method for S- Palmitoylation Site Identification in Arabidopsis Thaliana
Authors: Ayesha Sanjana Kawser Parsha
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S-acylation is an irreversible bond in which cysteine residues are linked to fatty acids palmitate (74%) or stearate (22%), either at the COOH or NH2 terminal, via a thioester linkage. There are several experimental methods that can be used to identify the S-palmitoylation site; however, since they require a lot of time, computational methods are becoming increasingly necessary. There aren't many predictors, however, that can locate S- palmitoylation sites in Arabidopsis Thaliana with sufficient accuracy. This research is based on the importance of building a better prediction tool. To identify the type of machine learning algorithm that predicts this site more accurately for the experimental dataset, several prediction tools were examined in this research, including the GPS PALM 6.0, pCysMod, GPS LIPID 1.0, CSS PALM 4.0, and NBA PALM. These analyses were conducted by constructing the receiver operating characteristics plot and the area under the curve score. An AI-driven deep learning-based prediction tool has been developed utilizing the analysis and three sequence-based input data, such as the amino acid composition, binary encoding profile, and autocorrelation features. The model was developed using five layers, two activation functions, associated parameters, and hyperparameters. The model was built using various combinations of features, and after training and validation, it performed better when all the features were present while using the experimental dataset for 8 and 10-fold cross-validations. While testing the model with unseen and new data, such as the GPS PALM 6.0 plant and pCysMod mouse, the model performed better, and the area under the curve score was near 1. It can be demonstrated that this model outperforms the prior tools in predicting the S- palmitoylation site in the experimental data set by comparing the area under curve score of 10-fold cross-validation of the new model with the established tools' area under curve score with their respective training sets. The objective of this study is to develop a prediction tool for Arabidopsis Thaliana that is more accurate than current tools, as measured by the area under the curve score. Plant food production and immunological treatment targets can both be managed by utilizing this method to forecast S- palmitoylation sites.Keywords: S- palmitoylation, ROC PLOT, area under the curve, cross- validation score
Procedia PDF Downloads 761900 Design and Implementation of Wireless Syncronized AI System for Security
Authors: Saradha Priya
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Developing virtual human is very important to meet the challenges occurred in many applications where human find difficult or risky to perform the task. A robot is a machine that can perform a task automatically or with guidance. Robotics is generally a combination of artificial intelligence and physical machines (motors). Computational intelligence involves the programmed instructions. This project proposes a robotic vehicle that has a camera, PIR sensor and text command based movement. It is specially designed to perform surveillance and other few tasks in the most efficient way. Serial communication has been occurred between a remote Base Station, GUI Application, and PC.Keywords: Zigbee, camera, pirsensor, wireless transmission, DC motor
Procedia PDF Downloads 3481899 LTE Modelling of a DC Arc Ignition on Cold Electrodes
Authors: O. Ojeda Mena, Y. Cressault, P. Teulet, J. P. Gonnet, D. F. N. Santos, MD. Cunha, M. S. Benilov
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The assumption of plasma in local thermal equilibrium (LTE) is commonly used to perform electric arc simulations for industrial applications. This assumption allows to model the arc using a set of magneto-hydromagnetic equations that can be solved with a computational fluid dynamic code. However, the LTE description is only valid in the arc column, whereas in the regions close to the electrodes the plasma deviates from the LTE state. The importance of these near-electrode regions is non-trivial since they define the energy and current transfer between the arc and the electrodes. Therefore, any accurate modelling of the arc must include a good description of the arc-electrode phenomena. Due to the modelling complexity and computational cost of solving the near-electrode layers, a simplified description of the arc-electrode interaction was developed in a previous work to study a steady high-pressure arc discharge, where the near-electrode regions are introduced at the interface between arc and electrode as boundary conditions. The present work proposes a similar approach to simulate the arc ignition in a free-burning arc configuration following an LTE description of the plasma. To obtain the transient evolution of the arc characteristics, appropriate boundary conditions for both the near-cathode and the near-anode regions are used based on recent publications. The arc-cathode interaction is modeled using a non-linear surface heating approach considering the secondary electron emission. On the other hand, the interaction between the arc and the anode is taken into account by means of the heating voltage approach. From the numerical modelling, three main stages can be identified during the arc ignition. Initially, a glow discharge is observed, where the cold non-thermionic cathode is uniformly heated at its surface and the near-cathode voltage drop is in the order of a few hundred volts. Next, a spot with high temperature is formed at the cathode tip followed by a sudden decrease of the near-cathode voltage drop, marking the glow-to-arc discharge transition. During this stage, the LTE plasma also presents an important increase of the temperature in the region adjacent to the hot spot. Finally, the near-cathode voltage drop stabilizes at a few volts and both the electrode and plasma temperatures reach the steady solution. The results after some seconds are similar to those presented for thermionic cathodes.Keywords: arc-electrode interaction, thermal plasmas, electric arc simulation, cold electrodes
Procedia PDF Downloads 1221898 Series Solutions to Boundary Value Differential Equations
Authors: Armin Ardekani, Mohammad Akbari
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We present a method of generating series solutions to large classes of nonlinear differential equations. The method is well suited to be adapted in mathematical software and unlike the available commercial solvers, we are capable of generating solutions to boundary value ODEs and PDEs. Many of the generated solutions converge to closed form solutions. Our method can also be applied to systems of ODEs or PDEs, providing all the solutions efficiently. As examples, we present results to many difficult differential equations in engineering fields.Keywords: computational mathematics, differential equations, engineering, series
Procedia PDF Downloads 3361897 Prediction of Finned Projectile Aerodynamics Using a Lattice-Boltzmann Method CFD Solution
Authors: Zaki Abiza, Miguel Chavez, David M. Holman, Ruddy Brionnaud
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In this paper, the prediction of the aerodynamic behavior of the flow around a Finned Projectile will be validated using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) solution, XFlow, based on the Lattice-Boltzmann Method (LBM). XFlow is an innovative CFD software developed by Next Limit Dynamics. It is based on a state-of-the-art Lattice-Boltzmann Method which uses a proprietary particle-based kinetic solver and a LES turbulent model coupled with the generalized law of the wall (WMLES). The Lattice-Boltzmann method discretizes the continuous Boltzmann equation, a transport equation for the particle probability distribution function. From the Boltzmann transport equation, and by means of the Chapman-Enskog expansion, the compressible Navier-Stokes equations can be recovered. However to simulate compressible flows, this method has a Mach number limitation because of the lattice discretization. Thanks to this flexible particle-based approach the traditional meshing process is avoided, the discretization stage is strongly accelerated reducing engineering costs, and computations on complex geometries are affordable in a straightforward way. The projectile that will be used in this work is the Army-Navy Basic Finned Missile (ANF) with a caliber of 0.03 m. The analysis will consist in varying the Mach number from M=0.5 comparing the axial force coefficient, normal force slope coefficient and the pitch moment slope coefficient of the Finned Projectile obtained by XFlow with the experimental data. The slope coefficients will be obtained using finite difference techniques in the linear range of the polar curve. The aim of such an analysis is to find out the limiting Mach number value starting from which the effects of high fluid compressibility (related to transonic flow regime) lead the XFlow simulations to differ from the experimental results. This will allow identifying the critical Mach number which limits the validity of the isothermal formulation of XFlow and beyond which a fully compressible solver implementing a coupled momentum-energy equations would be required.Keywords: CFD, computational fluid dynamics, drag, finned projectile, lattice-boltzmann method, LBM, lift, mach, pitch
Procedia PDF Downloads 4211896 The Challenges of Innovation Leadership in the Public Sector
Authors: Shaker A. Aladwan
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This paper aims to explore the Barriers to innovation leadership in Jordanian public sector organizations. Qualitative approach was adopted, and content analysis was used to analyze the 18 assessment reports which are extracted from the public innovation award in Jordan, then, 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with the key persons who are involved with innovation initiatives in the public sector organizations in Jordan. Several Barriersthat face the innovation leadership in the Jordanian public sector organizations. Managerially, the challenges include lack of innovation vision, implementation lack of innovation core values, lack of strategic planning for innovation, bad bureaucracy culture, and excessive centralization. Technically, the challenges include lack of task assignment for employees, lack of resources, lack of innovative training programs, lack of knowledge sharing, and the failure of governments to formulate policies and regulations. most of the studies focused on innovation in the non-public sector organizations, and most of them were conducted in the American and Western countries, which are different in terms of culture, kinds of innovation, barriers, and drivers. Thus, this paper provides new insights into barriers to innovation leadership in the public sector and in a new research context. This paper also provides a theoretical contribution by diagnosing the barriers facing innovation within the context of public administration in developing countries.Keywords: innovation, excellence award, challenges, public sector, jordan
Procedia PDF Downloads 1251895 The Robotic Factor in Left Atrial Myxoma
Authors: Abraham J. Rizkalla, Tristan D. Yan
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Atrial myxoma is the most common primary cardiac tumor, and can result in cardiac failure secondary to obstruction, or systemic embolism due to fragmentation. Traditionally, excision of atrial an myxoma has been performed through median sternotomy, however the robotic approach offers several advantages including less pain, improved cosmesis, and faster recovery. Here, we highlight the less well recognized advantages and technical aspects to robotic myxoma resection. This video-presentation demonstrates the resection of a papillary subtype left atrial myxoma using the DaVinci© Xi surgical robot. The 10x magnification and 3D vision allows for the interface between the tumor and the interatrial septum to be accurately dissected, without the need to patch the interatrial septum. Several techniques to avoid tumor fragmentation and embolization are demonstrated throughout the procedure. The tumor was completely excised with clear margins. There was no atrial septal defect or mitral valve injury on post operative transesophageal echocardiography. The patient was discharged home on the fourth post-operative day. This video-presentation highlights the advantages of the robotic approach in atrial myxoma resection compared with sternotomy, as well as emphasizing several technical considerations to avoid potential complications.Keywords: cardiac surgery, left atrial myxoma, cardiac tumour, robotic resection
Procedia PDF Downloads 721894 Men's Relationships in D. H. Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers'
Authors: Chaich Hamza Walid
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The primary goal of this paper is to question the situation of men’s place in D.H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. Our question is what is the role of each man in the novel? And how a mother’s possessiveness had changed the life of all men in the family? David Herbert Lawrence was an important and controversial English writer of the 20th century. He wrote many great works, one of his most popular novels, Sons and Loves, is an autobiographical account of his youth. This novel is about the life of the Morels. The author develops the story by portraying the relationships between many characters, especially the male ones we focus on. ‘Sons and Lovers’ seems to be written especially to women, all what Lawrence wrote is about women but when we go deeper, we see that Lawrence was also interested in men. This work will approach the question in two ways. The first chapter will deal with men’s place in D.H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers, more exactly with Paul and his father Walter Morel, and with Baxter Dawes. We will focus on each man’s behavior with one another. In the second chapter, we will analyze possessiveness, that is to say, the desire of holding or having someone as one’s own or under one’s control. We will try to prove this view from the spiritual and symbolic possession of different relationships. Our study will be through an intensive psychological analysis of a wife’s possessiveness to her husband, and a mother’s possessiveness to her son’s; William and Paul. The conclusion will review all the important aspects of this analysis. It is very important to know about men’s relationships in D.H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers this will give us another vision of the novel, and where we can situate Paul’s true relationships, that is to say, his relationships with his father and the other men in the novel.Keywords: language, literature, English, civilisation
Procedia PDF Downloads 4611893 The Governance of Islamic Banks in Morocco: Meaning, Strategic Vision and Purposes Attributed to the Governance System
Authors: Lalla Nezha Lakmiti, Abdelkahar Zahid
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Due to the setbacks on the international scene and the wave of cacophonic financial scandals affecting large international groups, the new Islamic finance industry is not immune despite its initial resistance. The purpose of this paper is to understand and analyze the meaning of the Corporate Governance (CG) concept in Moroccan Islamic banking systems with specific reference to their institutions. The research objective is to identify also the path taken and adopted by these banks recently set up in Morocco. The foundation is rooted in shari'a, in particular, no stakeholder (the shareholding approach) must be harmed, and the ethical value is reflected into these parties’ behavior. We chose a qualitative method, semi-structured interviews where six managers provided answers about their banking systems. Since these respondents held a senior position (directors) within their organizations, it is felt that they are well placed and have the necessary knowledge to provide us with information to answer the questions asked. The results identified the orientation of participating banks and assessing how governance works, while determining which party is fovoured: shareholders, stakeholders or both. This study discusses the favorable condition to the harmonization of the regulations and therefore a better integration between Islamic finance and conventional ones in the economic context of Morocco.Keywords: corporate governance, Islamic Banks, stakeholders, shareholders
Procedia PDF Downloads 1101892 The Roles, Strategic Coordination, and Alignment of CTOs: A Systematic Literature Review
Authors: Shailendra Natraj, Kristin Paetzold, B. R. Katzy
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The significant role of technology in strategic business decisions has created the need for executives who understand technology and recognize profitable applications to products, services and processes. The role of CTO’s is very complex within technology-based firms, which stretches from the technology aspects to the strategic goal and vision of the firm. Often the roles of CTOs scales from as functional leaders, strategic leaders or supera- functional leaders. In most of the companies the roles are unclear and fuzzy. We in our research are trying to explore each of the orientation and link between leadership types (functional, strategic and super functional) of CTOs, responsibilities, credibility and strategic and conceptual responsibilities. Approach: We conducted a comprehensive literature review with the available databank sources. Results: From the conducted literature review we could identify that most of the research work conducted so far were mainly distributed between roles and responsibilities of CTOs. The available sources pointed were limited to roles of CTOs as functional leaders. Contribution: In our findings based on the literature review, we could identify that apart from the conducted research what so far has not been focused yet are (a) The leadership types (mainly) strategic and super-functional leaders) of CTOs, (b) the responsibilities and credibility of CTOs and (c) the strategic and conceptual responsibilities of CTOs.Keywords: CTO, chief technology officer, strategy, technology leaders
Procedia PDF Downloads 5121891 A Numerical Study on the Influence of CO2 Dilution on Combustion Characteristics of a Turbulent Diffusion Flame
Authors: Yasaman Tohidi, Rouzbeh Riazi, Shidvash Vakilipour, Masoud Mohammadi
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The objective of the present study is to numerically investigate the effect of CO2 replacement of N2 in air stream on the flame characteristics of the CH4 turbulent diffusion flame. The Open source Field Operation and Manipulation (OpenFOAM) has been used as the computational tool. In this regard, laminar flamelet and modified k-ε models have been utilized as combustion and turbulence models, respectively. Results reveal that the presence of CO2 in air stream changes the flame shape and maximum flame temperature. Also, CO2 dilution causes an increment in CO mass fraction.Keywords: CH4 diffusion flame, CO2 dilution, OpenFOAM, turbulent flame
Procedia PDF Downloads 2761890 A Time-Reducible Approach to Compute Determinant |I-X|
Authors: Wang Xingbo
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Computation of determinant in the form |I-X| is primary and fundamental because it can help to compute many other determinants. This article puts forward a time-reducible approach to compute determinant |I-X|. The approach is derived from the Newton’s identity and its time complexity is no more than that to compute the eigenvalues of the square matrix X. Mathematical deductions and numerical example are presented in detail for the approach. By comparison with classical approaches the new approach is proved to be superior to the classical ones and it can naturally reduce the computational time with the improvement of efficiency to compute eigenvalues of the square matrix.Keywords: algorithm, determinant, computation, eigenvalue, time complexity
Procedia PDF Downloads 4151889 Molecular Profiling of an Oleaginous Trebouxiophycean Alga Parachlorella kessleri Subjected to Nutrient Deprivation
Authors: Pannaga Pavan Jutur
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Parachlorella kessleri, a marine unicellular green alga belonging to class Trebouxiophyceae, accumulates large amounts of oil, i.e., lipids under nutrient-deprived (-N, -P, and -S) conditions. Understanding their metabolic imprints is important for elucidating the physiological mechanisms of lipid accumulations in this microalga subjected to nutrient deprivation. Metabolic and lipidomic profiles were obtained respectively using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) of P. kessleri under nutrient starvation (-N, -P and -S) conditions. Relative quantities of more than 100 metabolites were systematically compared in all these three starvation conditions. Our results demonstrate that in lipid metabolism, the quantities of neutral lipids increased significantly followed by the decrease in other metabolites involved in photosynthesis, nitrogen assimilation, etc. In conclusion, the metabolomics and lipidomic profiles have identified a few common metabolites such as citric acid, valine, and trehalose to play a significant role in the overproduction of oil by this microalga subjected to nutrient deprivation. Understanding the entire system through untargeted metabolome profiling will lead to identifying relevant metabolites involved in the biosynthesis and degradation of precursor molecules that may have the potential for biofuel production, aiming towards the vision of tomorrow’s bioenergy needs.Keywords: algae, biofuels, nutrient stress, omics
Procedia PDF Downloads 2751888 Role of Facade in Sustainability Enhancement of Contemporary Iranian Buildings
Authors: H. Nejadriahi
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A growing demand for sustainability makes sustainability as one of the significant debates of nowadays. Energy saving is one of the main criteria to be considered in the context of sustainability. Reducing energy use in buildings is one of the most important ways to reduce humans’ overall environmental impact. Taking this into consideration, study of different design strategies, which can assist in reducing energy use and subsequently improving the sustainability level of today's buildings would be an essential task. The sustainability level of a building is highly affected by the sustainability performance of its components. One of the main building components, which can have a great impact on energy saving and sustainability level of the building, is its facade. The aim of this study is to investigate on the role of facade in sustainability enhancement of the contemporary buildings of Iran. In this study, the concept of sustainability in architecture, the building facades, and their relationship to sustainability are explained briefly. Following that, a number of contemporary Iranian buildings are discussed and analyzed in terms of different design strategies used in their facades in accordance to the sustainability concepts. The methods used in this study are descriptive and analytic. The results of this paper would assist in generating a wider vision and a source of inspiration for the current designers to design and create environmental and sustainable buildings for the future.Keywords: building facade, contemporary buildings, Iran, sustainability
Procedia PDF Downloads 3331887 Comparison of Urban Regeneration Strategies in Asia and the Development of Neighbourhood Regeneration in Malaysia
Authors: Wan Jiun Tin
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Neighborhood regeneration has gained its popularity despite market-led urban redevelopment is still the main strategy in most of the countries in Asia. Area-based approach of neighborhood regeneration with the focus on people, place and system which covers the main sustainable aspects shall be studied as part of the solution. Project implementation in small scale without fully depending on the financial support from the government and main stakeholders is the advantage of neighborhood regeneration. This enables the improving and upgrading of living conditions to be ongoing even during the economy downturn. In addition to that, there will be no specific selection on the development areas as the entire nation share the similar opportunity to upgrade and to improve their neighborhood. This is important to narrow the income disparities in urban. The objective of this paper is to review and to summarize the urban regeneration in developed countries with the focus on Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. The aim is to determine the direction of sustainable urban regeneration in Malaysia for post-Vision 2020 through the introduction of neighborhood regeneration. This paper is conducted via literature review and observations in those selected countries. In conclusion, neighborhood regeneration shall be one of the approach of sustainable urban regeneration in Malaysia. A few criteria have been identified and to be recommended for the adaptation in Malaysia.Keywords: area-based regeneration, public participation, sustainable urban regeneration, urban redevelopment
Procedia PDF Downloads 2751886 Speaker Identification by Atomic Decomposition of Learned Features Using Computational Auditory Scene Analysis Principals in Noisy Environments
Authors: Thomas Bryan, Veton Kepuska, Ivica Kostanic
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Speaker recognition is performed in high Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) environments using principals of Computational Auditory Scene Analysis (CASA). CASA methods often classify sounds from images in the time-frequency (T-F) plane using spectrograms or cochleargrams as the image. In this paper atomic decomposition implemented by matching pursuit performs a transform from time series speech signals to the T-F plane. The atomic decomposition creates a sparsely populated T-F vector in “weight space” where each populated T-F position contains an amplitude weight. The weight space vector along with the atomic dictionary represents a denoised, compressed version of the original signal. The arraignment or of the atomic indices in the T-F vector are used for classification. Unsupervised feature learning implemented by a sparse autoencoder learns a single dictionary of basis features from a collection of envelope samples from all speakers. The approach is demonstrated using pairs of speakers from the TIMIT data set. Pairs of speakers are selected randomly from a single district. Each speak has 10 sentences. Two are used for training and 8 for testing. Atomic index probabilities are created for each training sentence and also for each test sentence. Classification is performed by finding the lowest Euclidean distance between then probabilities from the training sentences and the test sentences. Training is done at a 30dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR). Testing is performed at SNR’s of 0 dB, 5 dB, 10 dB and 30dB. The algorithm has a baseline classification accuracy of ~93% averaged over 10 pairs of speakers from the TIMIT data set. The baseline accuracy is attributable to short sequences of training and test data as well as the overall simplicity of the classification algorithm. The accuracy is not affected by AWGN and produces ~93% accuracy at 0dB SNR.Keywords: time-frequency plane, atomic decomposition, envelope sampling, Gabor atoms, matching pursuit, sparse dictionary learning, sparse autoencoder
Procedia PDF Downloads 2891885 Pedagogical Effects of Using Workbooks in English Classes for the TOEIC Test: A Study on ESL Learners in Japanese Colleges
Authors: Mikako Nobuhara
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The Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) test, conducted by the Institute for International Business Communication (IIBC), has a huge impact on education in Japan. Almost all college students have to submit their TOEIC test scores when applying for entry-level jobs at companies. In addition, an increasing number of colleges are encouraging students to have a global vision. For this specific reason, studying for the TOEIC test is essential for English as a second language (ESL) learner to develop English communication skills. This study shows that studying by using some workbooks about the listening section of the TOEIC test clearly helps ESL learners to develop their listening skills. For this purpose, the listening test scores before and after classroom sessions were analyzed for each student. Students obtained higher scores in the listening section of the test and improved their English listening skills at the end of all the classroom sessions. In conclusion, it is important for English teachers to achieve the following objectives: (1) facilitate the learning of effective methods for correctly solving questions based on listening skills and (2) prepare listening tasks for reading aloud so as to keep up with the original speed, which is required for solving questions in the TOEIC test.Keywords: education, ESL, listening skills, TOEIC test
Procedia PDF Downloads 2601884 Multi-Omics Integrative Analysis Coupled to Control Theory and Computational Simulation of a Genome-Scale Metabolic Model Reveal Controlling Biological Switches in Human Astrocytes under Palmitic Acid-Induced Lipotoxicity
Authors: Janneth Gonzalez, Andrés Pinzon Velasco, Maria Angarita
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Astrocytes play an important role in various processes in the brain, including pathological conditions such as neurodegenerative diseases. Recent studies have shown that the increase in saturated fatty acids such as palmitic acid (PA) triggers pro-inflammatorypathways in the brain. The use of synthetic neurosteroids such as tibolone has demonstrated neuro-protective mechanisms. However, broad studies with a systemic point of view on the neurodegenerative role of PA and the neuro-protective mechanisms of tibolone are lacking. In this study, we performed the integration of multi-omic data (transcriptome and proteome) into a human astrocyte genomic scale metabolic model to study the astrocytic response during palmitate treatment. We evaluated metabolic fluxes in three scenarios (healthy, induced inflammation by PA, and tibolone treatment under PA inflammation). We also applied a control theory approach to identify those reactions that exert more control in the astrocytic system. Our results suggest that PA generates a modulation of central and secondary metabolism, showing a switch in energy source use through inhibition of folate cycle and fatty acid β‐oxidation and upregulation of ketone bodies formation. We found 25 metabolic switches under PA‐mediated cellular regulation, 9 of which were critical only in the inflammatory scenario but not in the protective tibolone one. Within these reactions, inhibitory, total, and directional coupling profiles were key findings, playing a fundamental role in the (de)regulation of metabolic pathways that may increase neurotoxicity and represent potential treatment targets. Finally, the overall framework of our approach facilitates the understanding of complex metabolic regulation, and it can be used for in silico exploration of the mechanisms of astrocytic cell regulation, directing a more complex future experimental work in neurodegenerative diseases.Keywords: astrocytes, data integration, palmitic acid, computational model, multi-omics
Procedia PDF Downloads 971883 Simulation of Flow Patterns in Vertical Slot Fishway with Cylindrical Obstacles
Authors: Mohsen Solimani Babarsad, Payam Taheri
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Numerical results of vertical slot fishways with and without cylinders study are presented. The simulated results and the measured data in the fishways are compared to validate the application of the model. This investigation is made using FLUENT V.6.3, a Computational Fluid Dynamics solver. Advantages of using these types of numerical tools are the possibility of avoiding the St.-Venant equations’ limitations, and turbulence can be modeled by means of different models such as the k-ε model. In general, the present study has demonstrated that the CFD model could be useful for analysis and design of vertical slot fishways with cylinders.Keywords: slot Fish-way, CFD, k-ε model, St.-Venant equations’
Procedia PDF Downloads 3631882 Data Collection Techniques for Robotics to Identify the Facial Expressions of Traumatic Brain Injured Patients
Authors: Chaudhary Muhammad Aqdus Ilyas, Matthias Rehm, Kamal Nasrollahi, Thomas B. Moeslund
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This paper presents the investigation of data collection procedures, associated with robots when placed with traumatic brain injured (TBI) patients for rehabilitation purposes through facial expression and mood analysis. Rehabilitation after TBI is very crucial due to nature of injury and variation in recovery time. It is advantageous to analyze these emotional signals in a contactless manner, due to the non-supportive behavior of patients, limited muscle movements and increase in negative emotional expressions. This work aims at the development of framework where robots can recognize TBI emotions through facial expressions to perform rehabilitation tasks by physical, cognitive or interactive activities. The result of these studies shows that with customized data collection strategies, proposed framework identify facial and emotional expressions more accurately that can be utilized in enhancing recovery treatment and social interaction in robotic context.Keywords: computer vision, convolution neural network- long short term memory network (CNN-LSTM), facial expression and mood recognition, multimodal (RGB-thermal) analysis, rehabilitation, robots, traumatic brain injured patients
Procedia PDF Downloads 1551881 The Permutation of Symmetric Triangular Equilateral Group in the Cryptography of Private and Public Key
Authors: Fola John Adeyeye
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In this paper, we propose a cryptosystem private and public key base on symmetric group Pn and validates its theoretical formulation. This proposed system benefits from the algebraic properties of Pn such as noncommutative high logical, computational speed and high flexibility in selecting key which makes the discrete permutation multiplier logic (DPML) resist to attack by any algorithm such as Pohlig-Hellman. One of the advantages of this scheme is that it explore all the possible triangular symmetries. Against these properties, the only disadvantage is that the law of permutation multiplicity only allow an operation from left to right. Many other cryptosystems can be transformed into their symmetric group.Keywords: cryptosystem, private and public key, DPML, symmetric group Pn
Procedia PDF Downloads 2021880 On the Implementation of The Pulse Coupled Neural Network (PCNN) in the Vision of Cognitive Systems
Authors: Hala Zaghloul, Taymoor Nazmy
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One of the great challenges of the 21st century is to build a robot that can perceive and act within its environment and communicate with people, while also exhibiting the cognitive capabilities that lead to performance like that of people. The Pulse Coupled Neural Network, PCNN, is a relative new ANN model that derived from a neural mammal model with a great potential in the area of image processing as well as target recognition, feature extraction, speech recognition, combinatorial optimization, compressed encoding. PCNN has unique feature among other types of neural network, which make it a candid to be an important approach for perceiving in cognitive systems. This work show and emphasis on the potentials of PCNN to perform different tasks related to image processing. The main drawback or the obstacle that prevent the direct implementation of such technique, is the need to find away to control the PCNN parameters toward perform a specific task. This paper will evaluate the performance of PCNN standard model for processing images with different properties, and select the important parameters that give a significant result, also, the approaches towards find a way for the adaptation of the PCNN parameters to perform a specific task.Keywords: cognitive system, image processing, segmentation, PCNN kernels
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