Search results for: standard score.

Authors: Ehsan Mahdavi

Abstract:

In this paper, we apply the Exp-function method to Rosenau-Kawahara and Rosenau-KdV equations. Rosenau-Kawahara equation is the combination of the Rosenau and standard Kawahara equations and Rosenau-KdV equation is the combination of the Rosenau and standard KdV equations. These equations are nonlinear partial differential equations (NPDE) which play an important role in mathematical physics. Exp-function method is easy, succinct and powerful to implement to nonlinear partial differential equations arising in mathematical physics. We mainly try to present an application of Exp-function method and offer solutions for common errors wich occur during some of the recent works.

Keywords: Exp-function method, Rosenau Kawahara equation, Rosenau Korteweg-de Vries equation, nonlinear partial differential equation.

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Authors: Ayse Gecer, Nihal Erginel

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Quality control is the crucial step for ISO 9001 Quality System Management Standard for companies. While measuring the quality level of both raw material and semi product/product, the calibration of the measuring device is an essential requirement. Calibration suppliers are in the service sector and therefore the calibration supplier selection is becoming a worthy topic for improving service quality. This study presents the results of a questionnaire about the selection criteria of a calibration supplier. The questionnaire was applied to 103 companies and the results are discussed in this paper. The analysis was made with MINITAB 14.0 statistical programs. “Competence of documentations" and “technical capability" are defined as the prerequisites because of the ISO/IEC17025:2005 standard. Also “warranties and complaint policy", “communication", “service features", “quality" and “performance history" are defined as very important criteria for calibration supplier selection.

Keywords: Calibration, criteria of calibration supplier selection, calibration supplier selection, questionnaire

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Authors: C. Benjbara, A. Habbani

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Wireless networks are getting more and more used in every new technology or feature, especially those without infrastructure (Ad hoc mode) which provide a low cost alternative to the infrastructure mode wireless networks and a great flexibility for application domains such as environmental monitoring, smart cities, precision agriculture, and so on. These application domains present a common characteristic which is the need of coexistence and intercommunication between modules belonging to different types of ad hoc networks like wireless sensor networks, mesh networks, mobile ad hoc networks, vehicular ad hoc networks, etc. This vision to bring to life such heterogeneous networks will make humanity duties easier but its development path is full of challenges. One of these challenges is the communication complexity between its components due to the lack of common or compatible protocols standard. This article proposes a new patented routing protocol based on the OLSR standard in order to resolve the heterogeneous ad hoc networks communication issue. This new protocol is applied on a specific network architecture composed of MANET, VANET, and FANET.

Keywords: Ad hoc, heterogeneous, ID-Node, OLSR.

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Authors: M. Moeinaddini, Z. Asadi-Shekari, Z. Sultan, M. Zaly Shah

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Happiness can be related to everything that can provide a feeling of satisfaction or pleasure. This study tries to consider the relationship between land use factors and feeling of happiness at the neighbourhood level. Land use variables (beautiful and attractive neighbourhood design, availability and quality of shopping centres, sufficient recreational spaces and facilities, and sufficient daily service centres) are used as independent variables and the happiness score is used as the dependent variable in this study. In addition to the land use variables, socio-economic factors (gender, race, marital status, employment status, education, and income) are also considered as independent variables. This study uses the Oxford happiness questionnaire to estimate happiness score of more than 300 people living in six neighbourhoods. The neighbourhoods are selected randomly from Skudai neighbourhoods in Johor, Malaysia. The land use data were obtained by adding related questions to the Oxford happiness questionnaire. The strength of the relationship in this study is found using generalised linear modelling (GLM). The findings of this research indicate that increase in happiness feeling is correlated with an increasing income, more beautiful and attractive neighbourhood design, sufficient shopping centres, recreational spaces, and daily service centres. The results show that all land use factors in this study have significant relationship with happiness but only income, among socio-economic factors, can affect happiness significantly. Therefore, land use factors can affect happiness in Skudai more than socio-economic factors.

Keywords: Neighbourhood land use, neighbourhood design, happiness, socio-economic factors, generalised linear modelling.

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Authors: Othon Kamariotis

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This paper provides a flexible way of controlling Variable-Bit-Rate (VBR) of compressed digital video, applicable to the new H264 video compression standard. The entire video sequence is assessed in advance and the quantisation level is then set such that bit rate (and thus the frame rate) remains within predetermined limits compatible with the bandwidth of the transmission system and the capabilities of the remote end, while at the same time providing constant quality similar to VBR encoding. A process for avoiding buffer starvation by selectively eliminating frames from the encoded output at times when the frame rate is slow (large number of bits per frame) will be also described. Finally, the problem of buffer overflow will be solved by selectively eliminating frames from the received input to the decoder. The decoder detects the omission of the frames and resynchronizes the transmission by monitoring time stamps and repeating frames if necessary.

Keywords: H264, CBR, VBR, Video Streaming, Digital Video, Multimedia, Buffering, Encoding, Decoding, Compression, Video-On-Demand

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Authors: Ajay Joshi, Surya Ismail

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This paper will present the initial findings of a research into distributed computer rendering. The goal of the research is to create a distributed computer system capable of rendering a 3D model into an MPEG-4 stream. This paper outlines the initial design, software architecture and hardware setup for the system. Distributed computing means designing and implementing programs that run on two or more interconnected computing systems. Distributed computing is often used to speed up the rendering of graphical imaging. Distributed computing systems are used to generate images for movies, games and simulations. A topic of interest is the application of distributed computing to the MPEG-4 standard. During the course of the research, a distributed system will be created that can render a 3D model into an MPEG-4 stream. It is expected that applying distributed computing principals will speed up rendering, thus improving the usefulness and efficiency of the MPEG-4 standard

Keywords: Cluster, parallel architecture, rendering, MPEG-4.

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Authors: B. Lonla Moffo, J. Mbihi, L. Nneme Nneme

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In this paper, a low cost duty-cycle modulation scheme is studied in depth and compared to the standard pulse width modulation technique. Using a mix of analytical reasoning and electronics simulation tools, it is shown that under the same operating conditions, most characteristics of the proposed duty-cycle modulation scheme are better than those provided by a standard pulse width modulation technique. The simulation results obtained when testing both modulation control policies on prototyping systems, indicate that the proposed duty-cycle modulation approach, appears to be a high quality control policy in a wide variety of application areas, including A/D and D/A conversion, signal transmission and switching control in power electronics.

Keywords: Duty-cycle Modulation, Operational amplifiers, Pulse width modulation, Power electronics, Signal processing.

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Authors: Domenica Tambasco, Riina Bray

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Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, fatigue, and reduced function. Management of symptoms include medications, physical treatments and mindfulness therapies. Myofascial Release is a modality that has been successfully applied in various musculoskeletal conditions. However, to the author’s best knowledge, it is not yet recognized as a self-management therapy option in Fibromyalgia. In this study, we investigated whether Self-applied Myofascial Release (SMR) is associated with overall improved function and symptoms in Fibromyalgia. Eligible adult patients with a confirmed diagnosis of Fibromyalgia at Women’s College Hospital were recruited to SMR. Sessions ran for 1 hour once a week for 7 weeks, led by the same two physiotherapists knowledgeable in this physical treatment modality. The main outcome measure was an overall impact score for function and symptoms based on the validated assessment tool for fibromyalgia, the Revised Fibromyalgia Impact Questionnaire (FIQR), measured pre- and post-intervention. Both descriptive and analytical methods were applied and reported. We analyzed results using a paired t-test to determine if there was a statistically significant difference in mean FIQR scores between initial (pre-intervention) and final (post-intervention) scores. A clinically significant difference in FIQR was defined as a reduction in score by 10 or more points. Our pilot study showed that SMR appeared to be a safe and effective intervention for our fibromyalgia participants and the overall impact on function and symptoms occurred in only 7 weeks. Further studies with larger sample sizes comparing SMR to other physical treatment modalities (such as stretching) in an randomized control trial (RCT) are recommended.

Keywords: Fibromyalgia, myofascial release, fibromyalgia impact questionnaire, fibromyalgia assessment status.

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Authors: Tarek Aboueldahab

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In this paper, we propose a new hybrid learning model for stock market indices prediction by adding a passive congregation term to the standard hybrid model comprising Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) with Genetic Algorithm (GA) operators in training Neural Networks (NN). This new passive congregation term is based on the cooperation between different particles in determining new positions rather than depending on the particles selfish thinking without considering other particles positions, thus it enables PSO to perform both the local and global search instead of only doing the local search. Experiment study carried out on the most famous European stock market indices in both long term and short term prediction shows significantly the influence of the passive congregation term in improving the prediction accuracy compared to standard hybrid model.

Keywords: Global Search, Hybrid Model, Passive Congregation, Stock Market Prediction.

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Authors: Sittichai Kaewkuekool, Vanchai Laemlaksakul

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At the present, auto part industries have become higher challenge in strategy market. As this consequence, manufacturers need to have better response to customers in terms of quality, cost, and delivery time. Moreover, they need to have a good management in factory to comply with international standard maximum capacity and lower cost. This would lead companies to have to order standard part from aboard and become the major cost of inventory. The development of auto part research by recycling materials experiment is to compare the auto parts from recycle materials to international auto parts (CKD). Factors studied in this research were the recycle material ratios of PU-foam, felt, and fabric. Results of recycling materials were considered in terms of qualities and properties on the parameters such as weight, sound absorption, water absorption, tensile strength, elongation, and heat resistance with the CKD. The results were showed that recycling materials would be used to replace for the CKD.

Keywords: International auto parts, recycling materials.

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Authors: B. Tiseo, V. Quaranta, G. Bruno, G. Sisinni

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There is an increasing demand of nano-satellite development among universities, small companies, and emerging countries. Low-cost and fast-delivery are the main advantages of such class of satellites achieved by the extensive use of commercial-off-the-shelf components. On the other side, the loss of reliability and the poor success rate are limiting the use of nano-satellite to educational and technology demonstration and not to the commercial purpose. Standardization of nano-satellite environmental testing by tailoring the existing test standard for medium/large satellites is then a crucial step for their market growth. Thus, it is fundamental to find the right trade-off between the improvement of reliability and the need to keep their low-cost/fast-delivery advantages. This is particularly even more essential for satellites of CubeSat family. Such miniaturized and standardized satellites have 10 cm cubic form and mass no more than 1.33 kilograms per 1 unit (1U). For this class of nano-satellites, the qualification process is mandatory to reduce the risk of failure during a space mission. This paper reports the description and results of the space qualification test campaign performed on Endurosat’s CubeSat nano-satellite and modules. Mechanical and environmental tests have been carried out step by step: from the testing of the single subsystem up to the assembled CubeSat nano-satellite. Functional tests have been performed during all the test campaign to verify the functionalities of the systems. The test duration and levels have been selected by tailoring the European Space Agency standard ECSS-E-ST-10-03C and GEVS: GSFC-STD-7000A.

Keywords: CubeSat, Nano-satellite, shock, testing, vibration.

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Authors: M. M. Sadeghi, S. Vahdani

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Masonry dome structures had been widely used for covering large spans in the past. The seismic assessment of these historical structures is very complicated due to the nonlinear behavior of the material, their rigidness, and special stability configuration. The assessment method based on energy balance concept, as well as the standard pushover analysis, is used to evaluate the effectiveness of these methods in the case of masonry dome structures. The Soltanieh dome building is used as an example to which two methods are applied. The performance points are given from superimposing the capacity, and demand curves in Acceleration Displacement Response Spectra (ADRS) and energy coordination are compared with the nonlinear time history analysis as the exact result. The results show a good agreement between the dynamic analysis and the energy balance method, but standard pushover method does not provide an acceptable estimation.

Keywords: Energy balance method, pushover analysis, time history analysis, masonry dome.

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Authors: Francis Chinweuba Eboh, Peter Ahlström, Tobias Richards

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Entropy, as an outcome of the second law of thermodynamics, measures the level of irreversibility associated with any process. The identification and reduction of irreversibility in the energy conversion process helps to improve the efficiency of the system. The entropy of pure substances known as absolute entropy is determined at an absolute reference point and is useful in the thermodynamic analysis of chemical reactions; however, municipal solid waste (MSW) is a structurally complicated material with unknown absolute entropy. In this work, an empirical model to calculate the absolute entropy of MSW based on the content of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and chlorine on a dry ash free basis (daf) is presented. The proposed model was derived from 117 relevant organic substances which represent the main constituents in MSW with known standard entropies using statistical analysis. The substances were divided into different waste fractions; namely, food, wood/paper, textiles/rubber and plastics waste and the standard entropies of each waste fraction and for the complete mixture were calculated. The correlation of the standard entropy of the complete waste mixture derived was found to be s^o_msw= 0.0101C + 0.0630H + 0.0106O + 0.0108N + 0.0155S + 0.0084Cl (kJ.K^-1.kg) and the present correlation can be used for estimating the absolute entropy of MSW by using the elemental compositions of the fuel within the range of 10.3% ≤ C ≤ 95.1%, 0.0% ≤ H ≤ 14.3%, 0.0% ≤ O ≤ 71.1%, 0.0 ≤ N ≤ 66.7%, 0.0% ≤ S ≤ 42.1%, 0.0% ≤ Cl ≤ 89.7%. The model is also applicable for the efficient modelling of a combustion system in a waste-to-energy plant.

Keywords: Absolute entropy, irreversibility, municipal solid waste, waste-to-energy.

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Authors: Fazeera Ujin, Kamran Shavarebi Ali, Zarina Yasmin Hanur Harith

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This research paper reports on the feasibility and viability of eggshells ash and its effects on the water content and setting time of cement. An experiment was carried out to determine the quantity of water required in order to follow standard cement paste of normal consistency in accordance with MS EN 196-3:2007. The eggshells ash passing the 90µm sieve was used in the investigation. Eggshells ash with percentage of 0%, 0.1%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.0% were constituted to replace the cement. Chemical properties of both eggshells ash and cement are compared. From the results obtained, both eggshells ash and cement have the same chemical composition and primary composition which is the calcium compounds. Results from the setting time show that by adding the eggshells ash to the cement, the setting time of the cement decreases. In short, the higher amount of eggshells ash, the faster the rate of setting and apply to all percentage of eggshells ash that were used in this investigation. Both initial and final setting times fulfill the setting time requirements by Malaysian Standard. Hence, it is suggested that eggshells ash can be used as an admixture in concrete mix.

Keywords: Construction Materials, Eggshells Ash, Solid Waste, Setting Time.

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Authors: A. Pensiri, K. Nantaporn, P. Parichut

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Tourism is very important to the economy of many countries due to the large contribution in the areas of employment and income generation. However, the rapid growth of tourism can also be considered as one of the major uses of water user, and therefore also have a significant and detrimental impact on the environment. Guest behavior in water usage can be used to manage water in hotels for sustainable water resources management. This research presents a study of hotel guest water usage behavior at two hotels, namely Hotel A (located in Kathu district) and Hotel B (located in Muang district) in Phuket Province, Thailand, as case studies. Primary and secondary data were collected from the hotel manager through interview and questionnaires. The water flow rate was measured in-situ from each water supply device in the standard room type at each hotel, including hand washing faucets, bathroom faucets, shower and toilet flush. For the interview, the majority of respondents (n = 204 for Hotel A and n = 244 for Hotel B) were aged between 21 years and 30 years (53% for Hotel A and 65% for Hotel B) and the majority were foreign (78% in Hotel A, and 92% in Hotel B) from American, France and Austria for purposes of tourism (63% in Hotel A, and 55% in Hotel B). The data showed that water consumption ranged from 188 litres to 507 liters, and 383 litres to 415 litres per overnight guest in Hotel A and Hotel B (n = 244), respectively. These figures exceed the water efficiency benchmark set for Tropical regions by the International Tourism Partnership (ITP). It is recommended that guest water saving initiatives should be implemented at hotels. Moreover, the results showed that guests have high satisfaction for the hotels, the front office service reveal the top rates of average score of 4.35 in Hotel A and 4.20 in Hotel B, respectively, while the luxury decoration and room cleanliness exhibited the second satisfaction scored by the guests in Hotel A and B, respectively. On the basis of this information, the findings can be very useful to improve customer service satisfaction and pay attention to this particular aspect for better hotel management.

Keywords: Hotel, tourism, Phuket, water usage.

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Authors: Vladimir Simovic, Matija Varga, Predrag Oreski

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XHTML and XBRL are the standard languages for creating a database for the purpose of displaying financial statements on web applications. Today, XBRL is one of the most popular languages for business reporting. A large number of countries in the world recognize the role of XBRL language for financial reporting and the benefits that the reporting format provides in the collection, analysis, preparation, publication and the exchange of data (information) which is the positive side of this language. Here we present all advantages and opportunities that a company may have by using the XBRL format for business reporting. Also, this paper presents XBRL and other languages that are used for creating the database, such XML, XHTML, etc. The role of the AJAX complex model and technology will be explained in detail, and during the exchange of financial data between the web client and web server. Here will be mentioned basic layers of the network for data exchange via the web.

Keywords: XHTML, XBRL, XML, JavaScript, AJAX technology, data exchange.

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Authors: Ahmad Z., Othman S. Z., Md Yunus B., Mohamed A.

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According to the masonry standard the compressive strength is basically dependent on factors such as the mortar strength and the relative values of unit and mortar strength. However interlocking brick has none or less use of mortar. Therefore there is a need to investigate the behavior of masonry walls using interlocking bricks. In this study a series of tests have been conducted; physical properties and compressive strength of brick units and masonry walls were constructed from interlocking bricks and tested under constant vertical load at different eccentricities. The purpose of the experimental investigations is to obtain the force displacement curves, analyze the behavior of masonry walls. The results showed that the brick is categorized as common brick (BS 3921:1985) and severe weathering grade (ASTM C62). The maximum compressive stress of interlocking brick wall is 3.6 N/mm2 and fulfilled the requirement of standard for residential building.

Keywords: Interlocking brick, soil-cement brick, masonry wall, compressive strength, eccentricities

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Authors: Chua Bee Seok, Getrude Cosmas, Jasmine Adela Mutang, Shazia Iqbal Hashmi

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The aim of this study was to determine the factor structure and psychometric properties (i.e., reliability and convergent validity) of the Employee Trust Scale, a newly created instrument by the researchers. The Employee Trust Scale initially contained 82 items to measure employees’ trust toward their supervisors. A sample of 818 (343 females, 449 males) employees were selected randomly from public and private organization sectors in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Their ages ranged from 19 to 67 years old with a mean of 34.55 years old. Their average tenure with their current employer was 11.2 years (s.d. = 7.5 years). The respondents were asked to complete the Employee Trust Scale, as well as a managerial trust questionnaire from Mishra. The exploratory factor analysis on employees’ trust toward their supervisor’s extracted three factors, labeled ‘trustworthiness’ (32 items), ‘position status’ (11 items) and ‘relationship’ (6 items) which accounted for 62.49% of the total variance. Trustworthiness factors were re-categorized into three sub factors: competency (11 items), benevolence (8 items) and integrity (13 items). All factors and sub factors of the scales demonstrated clear reliability with internal consistency of Cronbach’s Alpha above .85. The convergent validity of the Scale was supported by an expected pattern of correlations (positive and significant correlation) between the score of all factors and sub factors of the scale and the score on the managerial trust questionnaire, which measured the same construct. The convergent validity of Employee Trust Scale was further supported by the significant and positive inter-correlation between the factors and sub factors of the scale. The results suggest that the Employee Trust Scale is a reliable and valid measure. However, further studies need to be carried out in other groups of sample as to further validate the Scale.

Keywords: Employees trust scale, position status, psychometric properties, relationship, trustworthiness.

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Authors: Q.Y. Lee, Y.M. Lim

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Building conservation work generally involves complex and non-standard work different from new building construction processes. In preparing tenders for building conservation projects, therefore, the quantity surveyor must carefully consider the specificity of non-standard items and demarcate the scope of unique conservation work. While the quantity surveyor must appreciate the full range of works to prepare a good tender document, he typically manages many unfamiliar elements, including practical construction methods, restoration techniques and work sequences. Only by fulfilling the demanding requirements of building conservation work can the quantity surveyor enhance his professionalism an area of growing cultural value and economic importance. By discussing several issues crucial to tender preparations for building conservation projects in Malaysia, this paper seeks a deeper understanding of how quantity surveying can better standardize tender preparation work and more successfully manage building conservation processes.

Keywords: Conservation Works, Quantity Surveying Practice, Tender Preparation, Malaysia

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Authors: Marzieh. Savoj, S. Amirhassan. Monadjemi

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Iris localization is a very important approach in biometric identification systems. Identification process usually is implemented in three levels: iris localization, feature extraction, and pattern matching finally. Accuracy of iris localization as the first step affects all other levels and this shows the importance of iris localization in an iris based biometric system. In this paper, we consider Daugman iris localization method as a standard method, propose a new method in this field and then analyze and compare the results of them on a standard set of iris images. The proposed method is based on the detection of circular edge of iris, and improved by fuzzy circles and surface energy difference contexts. Implementation of this method is so easy and compared to the other methods, have a rather high accuracy and speed. Test results show that the accuracy of our proposed method is about Daugman method and computation speed of it is 10 times faster.

Keywords: Convolution, Edge detector filter, Fuzzy circle, Identification

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Authors: S. Douss, F. Touati, M. Loulou

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A design flow of multi-standard down-conversion CMOS mixers for three modern standards: Global System Mobile, Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephone and Universal Mobile Telecommunication Systems is presented. Three active mixer-s structures are studied. The first is based on the Gilbert cell which gives a tolerable noise figure and linearity with a low conversion gain. The second and third structures use the current bleeding and charge injection techniques in order to increase the conversion gain. An improvement of about 2 dB of the conversion gain is achieved without a considerable degradation of the other characteristics. The models used for noise figure, conversion gain and IIP3 used are studied. This study describes the nature of trade-offs inherent in such structures and gives insights that help in identifying which structure is better for given conditions.

Keywords: Active mixer, Radio-frequency transceiver, Multistandardfront end, Gilbert cell, current bleeding, charge injection.

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Authors: F. Husem, M. E. Turan, Y. Sun, H. Ahlatci, I. Tozlu

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Residual stress and fatigue crack growth rates are important to determine mechanical behavior of rails. This study aims to make relationship between residual stress and fatigue crack growth values in rails. For this purpose, three R260 quality rails (0.6-0.8% C, 0.6-1.25 Mn) were chosen. Residual stress of samples was measured by cutting method that is related in railway standard. Then samples were machined for fatigue crack growth test and analyze was completed according to the ASTM E647 standard which gives information about parameters of rails for this test. Microstructure characterizations were examined by Light Optic Microscope (LOM). The results showed that residual stress change with fatigue crack growth rate. The sample has highest residual stress exhibits highest crack growth rate and pearlitic structure can be seen clearly for all samples by microstructure analyze.

Keywords: Residual stress, fatigue crack growth, R260, LOM, ASTM E647.

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Authors: Jung-Chuan Chou, Cheng-Wei Chen

Abstract:

The hard clam (meretrix lusoria) cultivated industry has been developed vigorously for recent years in Taiwan, and seawater quality determines the cultivated environment. The pH concentration variation affects survival rate of meretrix lusoria immediately. In order to monitor seawater quality, solid-state sensing electrode of ruthenium-doped titanium dioxide (TiO2:Ru) is developed to measure hydrogen ion concentration in different cultivated solutions. Because the TiO2:Ru sensing electrode has high chemical stability and superior sensing characteristics, thus it is applied as a pH sensor. Response voltages of TiO2:Ru sensing electrode are readout by instrument amplifier in different sample solutions. Mean sensitivity and linearity of TiO2:Ru sensing electrode are 55.20 mV/pH and 0.999 from pH1 to pH13, respectively. We expect that the TiO2:Ru sensing electrode can be applied to real environment measurement, therefore we collect two sample solutions by different meretrix lusoria cultivated ponds in the Yunlin, Taiwan. The two sample solutions are both measured for 200 seconds after calibration of standard pH buffer solutions (pH7, pH8 and pH 9). Mean response voltages of sample 1 and sample 2 are -178.758 mV (Standard deviation=0.427 mV) and -180.206 mV (Standard deviation =0.399 mV), respectively. Response voltages of the two sample solutions are between pH 8 and pH 9 which conform to weak alkali range and suitable meretrix lusoria growth. For long-term monitoring, drift of cultivated solutions (sample 1 and sample 2) are 1.16 mV/hour and 1.03 mV/hour, respectively.

Keywords: Co-sputtering system, Hard clam (meretrix lusoria), Ruthenium-doped titanium dioxide, Solid-state sensing electrode.

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Authors: Amirali Shirazibeheshti, Tarik Radwan, Alireza Ettefaghian, Farbod Khanizadeh, George Wilson, Cristina Luca

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Anticholinergic medication has been associated with events such as falls, delirium, and cognitive impairment in older patients. To further assess this, anticholinergic burden scores have been developed to quantify risk. A risk model based on clustering was deployed in a healthcare management system to cluster patients into multiple risk groups according to anticholinergic burden scores of multiple medicines prescribed to patients to facilitate clinical decision-making. To do so, anticholinergic burden scores of drugs were extracted from the literature which categorizes the risk on a scale of 1 to 3. Given the patients’ prescription data on the healthcare database, a weighted anticholinergic risk score was derived per patient based on the prescription of multiple anticholinergic drugs. This study was conducted on 300,000 records of patients currently registered with a major regional UK-based healthcare provider. The weighted risk scores were used as inputs to an unsupervised learning algorithm (mean-shift clustering) that groups patients into clusters that represent different levels of anticholinergic risk. This work evaluates the association between the average risk score and measures of socioeconomic status (index of multiple deprivation) and health (index of health and disability). The clustering identifies a group of 15 patients at the highest risk from multiple anticholinergic medication. Our findings show that this group of patients is located within more deprived areas of London compared to the population of other risk groups. Furthermore, the prescription of anticholinergic medicines is more skewed to female than male patients, suggesting that females are more at risk from this kind of multiple medication. The risk may be monitored and controlled in a healthcare management system that is well-equipped with tools implementing appropriate techniques of artificial intelligence.

Keywords: Anticholinergic medication, socioeconomic status, deprivation, clustering, risk analysis.

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Authors: Enas M. F. El Houby, Marwa S. Hassan

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Combined therapy using Interferon and Ribavirin is the standard treatment in patients with chronic hepatitis C. However, the number of responders to this treatment is low, whereas its cost and side effects are high. Therefore, there is a clear need to predict patient’s response to the treatment based on clinical information to protect the patients from the bad drawbacks, Intolerable side effects and waste of money. Different machine learning techniques have been developed to fulfill this purpose. From these techniques are Associative Classification (AC) and Decision Tree (DT). The aim of this research is to compare the performance of these two techniques in the prediction of virological response to the standard treatment of HCV from clinical information. 200 patients treated with Interferon and Ribavirin; were analyzed using AC and DT. 150 cases had been used to train the classifiers and 50 cases had been used to test the classifiers. The experiment results showed that the two techniques had given acceptable results however the best accuracy for the AC reached 92% whereas for DT reached 80%.

Keywords: Associative Classification, Data mining, Decision tree, HCV, interferon.

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Authors: Huda Algharib, Amal Algharib, Hanan Algharib, Ali Mohammad Alqudah

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Image registration is an important topic for many imaging systems and computer vision applications. The standard image registration techniques such as Mutual information/ Normalized mutual information -based methods have a limited performance because they do not consider the spatial information or the relationships between the neighbouring pixels or voxels. In addition, the amount of image noise may significantly affect the registration accuracy. Therefore, this paper proposes an efficient method that explicitly considers the relationships between the adjacent pixels, where the gradient information of the reference and scene images is extracted first, and then the cosine similarity of the extracted gradient information is computed and used to improve the accuracy of the standard normalized mutual information measure. Our experimental results on different data types (i.e. CT, MRI and thermal images) show that the proposed method outperforms a number of image registration techniques in terms of the accuracy.

Keywords: Image registration, mutual information, image gradients, Image transformations.

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Authors: T. C. B. N. Assunção, J. L. Silvino, P. Resende

Abstract:

The winding hot-spot temperature is one of the most critical parameters that affect the useful life of the power transformers. The winding hot-spot temperature can be calculated as function of the top-oil temperature that can estimated by using the ambient temperature and transformer loading measured data. This paper proposes the estimation of the top-oil temperature by using a method based on Least Squares Support Vector Machines approach. The estimated top-oil temperature is compared with measured data of a power transformer in operation. The results are also compared with methods based on the IEEE Standard C57.91-1995/2000 and Artificial Neural Networks. It is shown that the Least Squares Support Vector Machines approach presents better performance than the methods based in the IEEE Standard C57.91-1995/2000 and artificial neural networks.

Keywords: Artificial Neural Networks, Hot-spot Temperature, Least Squares Support Vector, Top-oil Temperature.

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Authors: Rohaya Abdul Wahab, Raja Mohd Fuad Tengku Aziz, Nazaliza Othman, Sharifah Saleh, Nabihah Razali, Rozaimah Baharim, Md Hanif Md Nasir

Abstract:

This paper will discuss flip chip methodology, in which I/O pads, standard cells, macros and bump cells array are placed in the floorplan, then routed using Astro place and route tool. Final DRC and LVS checking is done using Calibre verification tool. The design vehicle to run this methodology is an OpenRISC design targeted to Silterra 0.18 micrometer technology with 6 metal layers for routing. Astro has extensive support for flip chip placement and routing. Astro tool commands for flip chip are straightforward approach like the conventional standard wire bond packaging. However since we do not have flip chip commands in our Astro tool, no LEF file for bump cell and no LEF file for flip chip I/O pad, we create our own methodology to prepare for future flip chip tapeout. 

Keywords: Astro, bump cell, Calibre, flip chip, LEF, methodology, SCHEME, TCL.

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Authors: Chandrakala Varatharajoo, Adelina Binti Asmawi, Nabeel Abdallah Mohammad Abedalaziz

Abstract:

This study investigated the impact of inflectional and derivational morphemic analysis awareness on ESL secondary school students’ vocabulary learning strategy. The quasi-experimental study was conducted with 106 low proficiency secondary school students in two experimental groups (inflectional and derivational) and one control group. The students’ vocabulary acquisition was assessed through two measures: Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary- Morphemic Test in the pretest and posttest before and after an intervention programme. Results of ANCOVA revealed that both the experimental groups achieved a significant score in Morphemic Analysis Test and Vocabulary-Morphemic Test. However, the inflectional group obtained a fairly higher score than the derivational group. Thus, the results indicated that ESL low proficiency secondary school students performed better on inflectional morphemic awareness as compared to derivatives. The results also showed that the awareness of inflectional morphology contributed more on the vocabulary acquisition. Importantly, learning inflectional morphology can help ESL low proficiency secondary school students to develop both morphemic awareness and vocabulary gain. Theoretically, these findings show that not all morphemes are equally useful to students for their language development. Practically, these findings indicate that morphological instruction should at least be included in remediation and instructional efforts with struggling learners across all grade levels, allowing them to focus on meaning within the word before they attempt the text in large for better comprehension. Also, by methodologically, by conducting individualized intervention and assessment this study provided fresh empirical evidence to support the existing literature on morphemic analysis awareness and vocabulary learning strategy. Thus, a major pedagogical implication of the study is that morphemic analysis awareness strategy is a definite boon for ESL secondary school students in learning English vocabulary.

Keywords: ESL, instruction, morphemic analysis, vocabulary.

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Authors: T. Utarasakul, W. Chomsopha, W. Panrod

Abstract:

This study aims to initiate sustainable water management for tourist accommodations in Amphawa, Samut Songkram Province, Thailand. Wastewater generated by tourist accommodation was conducted in 10 homestays and resorts in Amphawa during August – October, 2011. The prominent parameters which are of pH, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Fat Oil and Grease (FOG), Nitrate (No3-), and Phosphate (PO43-) were conducted monthly. The results revealed that some parameters were over national water quality standard (Class II). Especially, 90% of tourist accommodations have been recorded that FOG was over the standard of wastewater quality from accommodation (group I: total room of accommodation less than 200 rooms). Therefore, grease trap and natural treatment should be utilized in tourist accommodations in order to reduce the discharged of fat, oil, and grease from tourism activities. In addition, number of tourists also relate statistically with BOD and Nitrate at 0.05 level of significance.

Keywords: Sustainable Water Management, Tourist Accommodations, Environmental Protection, Samut Songkram

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