Search results for: Performance Measurement Criteria

Authors: Subal Kar, Amitesh Kumar, A. Majumder, S. K. Ghosh, S. Saha, S. S. Sikdar, T. K. Saha

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CRLH (composite right/left-handed) based and SRR (split-ring resonator) based filters have been designed at microwave frequency which can provide better performance compared to conventional edge-coupled band-pass filter designed around the same frequency, 2.45 GHz. Both CRLH and SRR are unit cells used in metamaterial design. The primary aim of designing filters with such structures is to realize size reduction and also to realize novel filter performance. The CRLH based filter has been designed in microstrip transmission line, while the SRR based filter is designed with SRR loading in waveguide. The CRLH based filter designed at 2.45 GHz provides an insertion loss of 1.6 dB with harmonic suppression up to 10 GHz with 67 % size reduction when compared with a conventional edge-coupled band-pass filter designed around the same frequency. One dimensional (1-D) SRR matrix loaded in a waveguide shows the possibility of realizing a stop-band with sharp skirts in the pass-band while a stop-band in the pass-band of normal rectangular waveguide with tailoring of the dimensions of SRR unit cells. Such filters are expected to be very useful for communication systems at microwave frequency.

Keywords: BPF, CRLH, Harmonic, Metamaterial, SRR, Waveguide.

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Authors: Adriano Z. Zambom, Preethi Ravikumar

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One of the biggest challenges in nonparametric regression is the curse of dimensionality. Additive models are known to overcome this problem by estimating only the individual additive effects of each covariate. However, if the model is misspecified, the accuracy of the estimator compared to the fully nonparametric one is unknown. In this work the efficiency of completely nonparametric regression estimators such as the Loess is compared to the estimators that assume additivity in several situations, including additive and non-additive regression scenarios. The comparison is done by computing the oracle mean square error of the estimators with regards to the true nonparametric regression function. Then, a backward elimination selection procedure based on the Akaike Information Criteria is proposed, which is computed from either the additive or the nonparametric model. Simulations show that if the additive model is misspecified, the percentage of time it fails to select important variables can be higher than that of the fully nonparametric approach. A dimension reduction step is included when nonparametric estimator cannot be computed due to the curse of dimensionality. Finally, the Boston housing dataset is analyzed using the proposed backward elimination procedure and the selected variables are identified.

Keywords: Additive models, local polynomial regression, residuals, mean square error, variable selection.

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Authors: Suttipong Boonphadung, Thassanant Unnanantn

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This research focused on comparing the critical thinking of the teacher students before and after using Miller’s Model learning activities and investigating their opinions. The sampling groups were (1) fourth year 33 student teachers majoring in Early Childhood Education and enrolling in semester 1 of academic year 2013 (2) third year 28 student teachers majoring in English and enrolling in semester 2 of academic year 2013 and (3) third year 22 student teachers majoring in Thai and enrolling in semester 2 of academic year 2013. The research instruments were (1) lesson plans where the learning activities were settled based on Miller’s Model (2) critical thinking assessment criteria and (3) a questionnaire on opinions towards Miller’s Model based learning activities. The statistical treatment was mean, deviation, different scores and T-test. The result unfolded that (1) the critical thinking of the students after the assigned activities was better than before and (2) the students’ opinions towards the critical thinking improvement activities based on Miller’s Model ranged from the level of high to highest.

Keywords: Critical thinking, Miller’s model, Opinions.

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Authors: Tao Chen, ShiHua Liu, JiWei Zhang

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Assembly of the proton exchange membrane fuel cells (PEMFC) has a very important influence on its performance and efficiency. The various components of PEMFC stack are usually locked and fixed by bolts. Locking bolt will cause the deformation of the bipolar plate and the other components, which will affect directly the deformation degree of the integral parts of the PEMFC as well as the performance of PEMFC. This paper focuses on the object of three-cell stack of PEMFC. Finite element simulation is used to investigate the deformation of bipolar plate caused by quantity and layout of bolts, bolt locking pressure, and bolt locking sequence, etc. Finally, we made a conclusion that the optimal combination packaging scheme was adopted to assemble the fuel cell stack. The scheme was in use of 3.8 MPa locking pressure imposed on the fuel cell stack, type Ⅱ of four locking bolts and longitudinal locking method. The scheme was obtained by comparatively analyzing the overall displacement contour of PEMFC stack, absolute displacement curve of bipolar plate along the given three paths in the Z direction and the polarization curve of fuel cell. The research results are helpful for the fuel cell stack assembly.

Keywords: Bipolar plate, deformation, finite element simulation, fuel cell, locking bolt.

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Authors: M. Abdul-Rani, K. K. Chong, A. F. M. Hani, Y. B. Yap, A. Jamil

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Imaging is defined as the process of obtaining geometric images either two dimensional or three dimensional by scanning or digitizing the existing objects or products. In this research, it applied to retrieve 3D information of the human skin surface in medical application. This research focuses on analyzing and determining volume of leg ulcers using imaging devices. Volume determination is one of the important criteria in clinical assessment of leg ulcer. The volume and size of the leg ulcer wound will give the indication on responding to treatment whether healing or worsening. Different imaging techniques are expected to give different result (and accuracies) in generating data and images. Midpoint projection algorithm was used to reconstruct the cavity to solid model and compute the volume. Misinterpretation of the results can affect the treatment efficacy. The objectives of this paper is to compare the accuracy between two 3D data acquisition method, which is laser triangulation and structured light methods, It was shown that using models with known volume, that structured-light-based 3D technique produces better accuracy compared with laser triangulation data acquisition method for leg ulcer volume determination.

Keywords: Imaging, Laser Triangulation, Structured Light, Volume Determination.

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Authors: Sadegh Masoudi, Ali Asghar Yousefi, Somayeh Nourollahi, Fatemeh Noughani

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Two different testicular tissues have to be distinguished in regard to radiation damage: first the seminiferous tubules, corresponding to the sites of spermatogenesis, which are extremely radiosensitive. Second the testosterone secreting Leydig cells, which are considered to be less radiosensitive. This study aims to estimate testicular dose and the associated risks for infertility and hereditary effects from Abdominal and pelvic irradiation. Radiotherapy was simulated on a humanoid phantom using a 15 MV photon beam. Testicular dose was measured for various field sizes and tissue thicknesses along beam axis using an ionization chamber and TLD. For transmission Factor Also common method of measuring the absorbed dose distribution and electron contamination in the build-up region of high-energy beams for radiation therapy is by means of parallel-plate Ionisation chambers. Gonadal dose was reduced by placing lead cups around the testes supplemented by a field edge block. For a tumor dose of 100 cGy, testicular dose was 2.96-8.12 cGy depending upon the field size and the distance from the inferior field edge. The treatment at parameters, the presence of gonad shield and the somatometric characteristics determine whether testicular dose can exceed 1 Gy which allows a complete recovery of spermatogenesis.

Keywords: Absorbed Dose, Abdominal and pelvic, gonads men, Radiotherapy.

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Authors: Mahidin, Yanna Syamsuddin, Samsul Rizal

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In order to fulfill world energy demand, several efforts have been done to look for new and renewable energy candidates to substitute oil and gas. Biomass is one of new and renewable energy sources, which is abundant in Indonesia. Palm kernel shell is a kind of biomass discharge from palm oil industries as a waste. On the other hand, Jatropha curcas that is easy to grow in Indonesia is also a typical energy source either for bio-diesel or biomass. In this study, biomass was used as co-fuel in briquetting of low-rank coal to suppress the release of emission (such as CO, NO_x and SO_x) during coal combustion. Desulfurizer, CaO-base, was also added to ensure the SO_x capture is effectively occurred. Ratio of coal to palm kernel shell (w/w) in the bio-briquette were 50:50, 60:40, 70:30, 80:20 and 90:10, while ratio of calcium to sulfur (Ca/S) in mole/mole were 1:1; 1.25:1; 1.5:1; 1.75:1 and 2:1. The bio-briquette then subjected to physical characterization and combustion test. The results show that the maximum weight loss in the durability measurement was ±6%. In addition, the highest stove efficiency for each desulfurizer was observed at the coal/PKS ratio of 90:10 and Ca/S ratio of 1:1 (except for the scallop shell desulfurizer that appeared at two Ca/S ratios; 1.25:1 and 1.5:1, respectively), i.e. 13.8% for the lime; 15.86% for the oyster shell; 14.54% for the scallop shell and 15.84% for the green mussel shell desulfurizers.

Keywords: Biomass, low-rank coal, bio-briquette, new and renewable energy, palm kernel shell.

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Authors: Ji–Wook Mauk, Yu–Suk Kim, Hyung–Joon Kim

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This study carried out comparative seismic performance of reinforced concrete frames infilled by masonry walls with different heights. Partial and fully infilled reinforced concrete frames were modeled for the research objectives and the analysis model for a bare reinforced concrete frame was also established for comparison. Non–linear static analyses for the studied frames were performed to investigate their structural behavior under extreme seismic loads and to find out their collapse mechanism. It was observed from analysis results that the strengths of the partial infilled reinforced concrete frames are increased and their ductilities are reduced, as infilled masonry walls are higher. Especially, reinforced concrete frames with higher partial infilled masonry walls would experience shear failures. Non–linear dynamic analyses using 10 earthquake records show that the bare and fully infilled reinforced concrete frame present stable collapse mechanism while the reinforced concrete frames with partially infilled masonry walls collapse in more brittle manner due to short-column effects.

Keywords: Fully infilled RC frame, partially infilled RC frame, masonry wall, short–column effects.

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Authors: Omid Adibi, Nategheh Najafpour, Bijan Farhanieh, Hossein Afshin

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Energy transmission pipelines are one of the most vital parts of each country which several strict laws have been conducted to enhance the safety of these lines and their vicinity. One of these laws is the safety distance around high pressure gas pipelines. Safety distance refers to the minimum distance from the pipeline where people and equipment do not confront with serious damages. In the present study, safety distance around high pressure gas transmission pipelines were determined by using numerical methods. For this purpose, gas leakages from cracked pipeline and created jet fires were simulated as continuous ignition, three dimensional, unsteady and turbulent cases. Numerical simulations were based on finite volume method and turbulence of flow was considered using k-ω SST model. Also, the combustion of natural gas and air mixture was applied using the eddy dissipation method. The results show that, due to the high pressure difference between pipeline and environment, flow chocks in the cracked area and velocity of the exhausted gas reaches to sound speed. Also, analysis of the incident radiation results shows that safety distances around 42 inches high pressure natural gas pipeline based on 5 and 15 kW/m² criteria are 205 and 272 meters, respectively.

Keywords: Gas pipelines, incident radiation, numerical simulation, safety distance.

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Authors: Messaouda Annab

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The rapid development of technology has led to an important context in which different languages and structures are used in the same conversations. This paper investigates the practice of language borrowing within social media platform, namely, Facebook among Algerian Vernacular Arabic (AVA) students. In other words, this study will explore how Algerian students have incorporated lexical English borrowing in their online conversations. This paper will examine the relationships between language, culture and identity among a multilingual group. The main objective is to determine the cultural and linguistic functions that borrowing fulfills in social media and to explain the possible factors underlying English borrowing. The nature of the study entails the use of an online research method that includes ten online Facebook conversations in the form of private messages collected from Bachelor and Masters Algerian students recruited from the English department at the University of Oum El-Bouaghi. The analysis of data revealed that social media platform provided the users with opportunities to shift from one language to another. This practice was noticed in students’ online conversations. English borrowing was the most relevant language performance in accordance with Arabic which is the mother tongue of the chosen sample. The analysis has assumed that participants are skilled in more than one language.

Keywords: Borrowing, language performance, linguistic background, social media.

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Authors: S. Vijayakumar, R. Vinoth, K. Abilash, P. Praveen

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Effects of insertion of coiled wire in juxtaposition with twisted tapes on heat transfer rate and solar radiation without disturbing the flow inside the riser tubes in a solar flat plate collector is experimentally reconnoitered in this present work. The wire coil used as a turbulator is placed inside the riser tube while the twisted tape is inserted into the wire coil to create a continuous swirling flow along the tube wall. The results of the heat transfer have been compared well with the available results. The heat transfer rate in the collector has been found to be increased by 18% to 70%. Solar water heaters having inserts in the flow tubes perform better than the conventional plain ones. It has been observed that heat losses are reduced consequently increasing the thermal performance about 30% over the plain water heaters under the same operating conditions. The effect of twisted tape with wire coils, flow Reynolds number, and the intensity of solar radiation on the thermal performance of the solar water heater has been presented. Effects of insertion of coiled wire in juxtaposition with twisted tapes on heat transfer rate and solar radiation without disturbing the flow inside the riser tubes in a solar flat plate collector is experimentally reconnoitered in this present work. The wire coil used as a turbulator is placed inside the riser tube while the twisted tape is inserted into the wire coil to create a continuous swirling flow along the tube wall. The results of the heat transfer have been compared well with the available results. The heat transfer rate in the collector has been found to be increased by 18% to 70%. Solar water heaters having inserts in the flow tubes perform better than the conventional plain ones. It has been observed that heat losses are reduced consequently increasing the thermal performance about 30% over the plain water heaters under the same operating conditions. The effect of twisted tape with wire coils, flow Reynolds number, and the intensity of solar radiation on the thermal performance of the solar water heater has been presented.

Keywords: Solar Flat Plate Collector, Heat Transfer, Twisted tape, Wire coiled turbulators

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Authors: Bahram Esmaeili, Hamid Reza Imani Far, Hossein Hosseini, Mohammad Sharifi

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The present study investigated the relationship between personality characteristics of drivers and the number and amount of fines they have in a year .This study was carried out on 120 male taxi drivers that worked at least seven hours in a day in Lamerd - a city in the south of IRAN. Subjects were chosen voluntarily among those available. Predictive variables were the NEO –five great personality factors (1. conscientiousness 2. Openness to Experience 3.Neuroticism4 .Extraversion 5.Agreeableness ) thecriterion variables were the number and amount of fines the drivers have had the last three years. the result of regression analysis showed that conscientiousness factor was able to negatively predict the number and amount of financial fines the drivers had during the last three years. The openness factor positively predicted the number of fines they had in last 3 years and the amount of financial fines during the last year. The extraversion factor both meaningfully and positively could predict only the amount of financial fines they had during the last year. Increasing age was associated with decreasing driving offenses as well as financial loss.The findings can be useful in recognizing the high-risk drivers and leading them to counseling centers .They can also be used to inform the drivers about their personality and it’s relation with their accident rate. Such criteria would be of great importance in employing drivers in different places such as companies, offices etc…

Keywords: drivers, financial fines, neo five-factor personality

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Authors: Yuji Waizumi, Tohru Sato, Yoshiaki Nemoto

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Recently, Denial of Service(DoS) attacks and Distributed DoS(DDoS) attacks which are stronger form of DoS attacks from plural hosts have become security threats on the Internet. It is important to identify the attack source and to block attack traffic as one of the measures against these attacks. In general, it is difficult to identify them because information about the attack source is falsified. Therefore a method of identifying the attack source by tracing the route of the attack traffic is necessary. A traceback method which uses traffic patterns, using changes in the number of packets over time as criteria for the attack traceback has been proposed. The traceback method using the traffic patterns can trace the attack by matching the shapes of input traffic patterns and the shape of output traffic pattern observed at a network branch point such as a router. The traffic pattern is a shapes of traffic and unfalsifiable information. The proposed trace methods proposed till date cannot obtain enough tracing accuracy, because they directly use traffic patterns which are influenced by non-attack traffics. In this paper, a new traffic pattern matching method using Independent Component Analysis(ICA) is proposed.

Keywords: Distributed Denial of Service, Independent Component Analysis, Traffic pattern

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Authors: Kuo-Yang Cheng, Yi-Lun Pan, Chang-Hsing Wu, His-En Yu, Hui-Shan Chen, Weicheng Huang

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The main mission of Ezilla is to provide a friendly interface to access the virtual machine and quickly deploy the high performance computing environment. Ezilla has been developed by Pervasive Computing Team at National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC). Ezilla integrates the Cloud middleware, virtualization technology, and Web-based Operating System (WebOS) to form a virtual computer in distributed computing environment. In order to upgrade the dataset and speedup, we proposed the sensor observation system to deal with a huge amount of data in the Cassandra database. The sensor observation system is based on the Ezilla to store sensor raw data into distributed database. We adopt the Ezilla Cloud service to create virtual machines and login into virtual machine to deploy the sensor observation system. Integrating the sensor observation system with Ezilla is to quickly deploy experiment environment and access a huge amount of data with distributed database that support the replication mechanism to protect the data security.

Keywords: Cloud, Virtualization, Cassandra, WebOS

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Authors: A. Q. Sobia, M. S. Hamidah, I. Azmi, S. F. A. Rafeeqi

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Fibre-reinforced polymer (FRP) strengthened reinforced concrete (RC) structures are susceptible to intense deterioration when exposed to elevated temperatures, particularly in the incident of fire. FRP has the tendency to lose bond with the substrate due to the low glass transition temperature of epoxy; the key component of FRP matrix.  In the past few decades, various types of high performance cementitious composites (HPCC) were explored for the protection of RC structural members against elevated temperature. However, there is an inadequate information on the influence of elevated temperature on the ultra high performance fibre-reinforced cementitious composites (UHPFRCC) containing ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) as a replacement of high alumina cement (HAC) in conjunction with hybrid fibres (basalt and polypropylene fibres), which could be a prospective fire resisting material for the structural components. The influence of elevated temperatures on the compressive as well as flexural strength of UHPFRCC, made of HAC-GGBS and hybrid fibres, were examined in this study. Besides control sample (without fibres), three other samples, containing 0.5%, 1% and 1.5% of basalt fibres by total weight of mix and 1 kg/m³ of polypropylene fibres, were prepared and tested. Another mix was also prepared with only 1 kg/m³ of polypropylene fibres. Each of the samples were retained at ambient temperature as well as exposed to 400, 700 and 1000 °C followed by testing after 28 and 56 days of conventional curing. Investigation of results disclosed that the use of hybrid fibres significantly helped to improve the ambient temperature compressive and flexural strength of UHPFRCC, which was found to be 80 and 14.3 MPa respectively. However, the optimum residual compressive strength was marked by UHPFRCC-CP (with polypropylene fibres only), equally after both curing days (28 and 56 days), i.e. 41%. In addition, the utmost residual flexural strength, after 28 and 56 days of curing, was marked by UHPFRCC– CP and UHPFRCC– CB2 (1 kg/m³ of PP fibres + 1% of basalt fibres) i.e. 39% and 48.5% respectively.

Keywords: Fibre reinforced polymer materials, ground granulated blast furnace slag, high-alumina cement, hybrid fibres.

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Authors: S. Boorboor, S. A. H. Feghhi, H. Jafari

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The ionizing radiations cause different kinds of damages in electronic components. MOSFETs, most common transistors in today’s digital and analog circuits, are severely sensitive to TID damage. In this work, the threshold voltage shift of CD4007 device, which is an integrated circuit including P-channel and N-channel MOS transistors, was investigated for low dose gamma irradiation under different gate bias voltages. We used linear extrapolation method to extract threshold voltage from I_D-V_G characteristic curve. The results showed that the threshold voltage shift was approximately 27.5 mV/Gy for N-channel and 3.5 mV/Gy for P-channel transistors at the gate bias of |9 V| after irradiation by Co-60 gamma ray source. Although the sensitivity of the devices under test were strongly dependent to biasing condition and transistor type, the threshold voltage shifted linearly versus accumulated dose in all cases. The overall results show that the application of CD4007 as an electronic buffer in a radiation therapy system is limited by TID damage. However, this integrated circuit can be used as a cheap and sensitive radiation dosimeter for accumulated dose measurement in radiation therapy systems.

Keywords: Threshold voltage shift, MOS transistor, linear extrapolation, gamma irradiation.

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Authors: Eakong Atiptamvaree, Twittie Senivongse

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Process-oriented software development is a new software development paradigm in which software design is modeled by a business process which is in turn translated into a process execution language for execution. The building blocks of this paradigm are software units that are composed together to work according to the flow of the business process. This new paradigm still exhibits the characteristic of the applications built with the traditional software component technology. This paper discusses an approach to apply a traditional technique for software component fabrication to the design of process-oriented software units, called process components. These process components result from decomposing a business process of a particular application domain into subprocesses, and these process components can be reused to design the business processes of other application domains. The decomposition considers five managerial goals, namely cost effectiveness, ease of assembly, customization, reusability, and maintainability. The paper presents how to design or decompose process components from a business process model and measure some technical features of the design that would affect the managerial goals. A comparison between the measurement values from different designs can tell which process component design is more appropriate for the managerial goals that have been set. The proposed approach can be applied in Web Services environment which accommodates process-oriented software development.

Keywords: Business Process Model, Managerial Goals, ProcessComponent.

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Authors: Peter Jurči, Jana Ptačinová, Mária Hudáková, Mária Dománková, Martin Kusý, Martin Sahul

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The strength, hardness, and toughness (ductility) are in strong conflict for the metallic materials. The only possibility how to make their simultaneous improvement is to provide the microstructural refinement, by cold deformation, and subsequent recrystallization. However, application of this kind of treatment is impossible for high-carbon high-alloyed ledeburitic tool steels. Alternatively, it has been demonstrated over the last few years that sub-zero treatment induces some microstructural changes in these materials, which might favourably influence their complex of mechanical properties. Commercially available PM ledeburitic steel Vanadis 6 has been used for the current investigations. The paper demonstrates that sub-zero treatment induces clear refinement of the martensite, reduces the amount of retained austenite, enhances the population density of fine carbides, and makes alterations in microstructural development that take place during tempering. As a consequence, the steel manifests improved wear resistance at higher toughness and fracture toughness. Based on the obtained results, the key question “can the wear performance be improved by sub-zero treatment simultaneously with toughness” can be answered by “definitely yes”.

Keywords: Ledeburitic tool steels, microstructure, sub-zero treatment, mechanical properties.

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Authors: Nidal F. Shilbayeh, Remah W. Al-Khatib, Sameer A. Nooh

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Arabic offline handwriting recognition systems are considered as one of the most challenging topics. Arabic Handwritten Numeral Strings are used to automate systems that deal with numbers such as postal code, banking account numbers and numbers on car plates. Segmentation of connected numerals is the main bottleneck in the handwritten numeral recognition system.  This is in turn can increase the speed and efficiency of the recognition system. In this paper, we proposed algorithms for automatic segmentation and feature extraction of Arabic handwritten numeral strings based on Watershed approach. The algorithms have been designed and implemented to achieve the main goal of segmenting and extracting the string of numeral digits written by hand especially in a courtesy amount of bank checks. The segmentation algorithm partitions the string into multiple regions that can be associated with the properties of one or more criteria. The numeral extraction algorithm extracts the numeral string digits into separated individual digit. Both algorithms for segmentation and feature extraction have been tested successfully and efficiently for all types of numerals.

Keywords: Handwritten numerals, segmentation, courtesy amount, feature extraction, numeral recognition.

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Authors: Amit Kumar Jakhar, Kumar Rajnish

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Inherited complexity is one of the difficult tasks in software engineering field. Further, it is said that there is no physical laws or standard guidelines suit for designing different types of software. Hence, to make the software engineering as a matured engineering discipline like others, it is necessary that it has its own theoretical frameworks and laws. Software designing and development is a human effort which takes a lot of time and considers various parameters for successful completion of the software. The cognitive informatics plays an important role for understanding the essential characteristics of the software. The aim of this work is to consider the fundamental characteristics of the source code of Object-Oriented software i.e. complexity and understandability. The complexity of the programs is analyzed with the help of extracted important attributes of the source code, which is further utilized to evaluate the understandability factor. The aforementioned characteristics are analyzed on the basis of 16 C++ programs by distributing them to forty MCA students. They all tried to understand the source code of the given program and mean time is taken as the actual time needed to understand the program. For validation of this work, Briand’s framework is used and the presented metric is also evaluated comparatively with existing metric which proves its robustness.

Keywords: Software metrics, object-oriented, complexity, cognitive weight, understandability, basic control structures.

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Authors: Rampal Singh, S. Balasundaram

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In this paper, we study the application of Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) algorithm for single layered feedforward neural networks to non-linear chaotic time series problems. In this algorithm the input weights and the hidden layer bias are randomly chosen. The ELM formulation leads to solving a system of linear equations in terms of the unknown weights connecting the hidden layer to the output layer. The solution of this general system of linear equations will be obtained using Moore-Penrose generalized pseudo inverse. For the study of the application of the method we consider the time series generated by the Mackey Glass delay differential equation with different time delays, Santa Fe A and UCR heart beat rate ECG time series. For the choice of sigmoid, sin and hardlim activation functions the optimal values for the memory order and the number of hidden neurons which give the best prediction performance in terms of root mean square error are determined. It is observed that the results obtained are in close agreement with the exact solution of the problems considered which clearly shows that ELM is a very promising alternative method for time series prediction.

Keywords: Chaotic time series, Extreme learning machine, Generalization performance.

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Authors: W. A. Hamd Alla, E. M. Shalaby, R. A. Dawood, A. A. Zohry

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A field experiment was carried out at Arab El- Awammer Research Station, Agric. Res. Center. Assiut Governorate during summer seasons of 2013 and 2014. The present study assessed the effect of cowpea with maize intercropping on yield and its components. The experiment comprised of three treatments (sole cowpea, sole maize and cowpea-maize intercrop). The experimental design was a randomized complete block with four replications. Results indicated that intercropped maize plants with cowpea, exhibited greater potentiality and resulted in higher values of most of the studied criteria viz., plant height, number of ears/plant, number of rows/ear, number of grains/row, grains weight/ear, 100–grain weight and straw and grain yields. Fresh and dry forage yields of cowpea were lower in intercropping with maize than sole. Furthermore, the combined of the two seasons revealed that the total Land Equivalent Ratio (LER) between cowpea and maize was 1.65. The Aggressivity (A) maize was 0.45 and cowpea was -0.45. This showed that maize was the dominant crop, whereas cowpea was the dominated. The Competitive Ratio (CR) indicated that maize more competitive than cowpea, maize was 1.75 and cowpea was 0.57. The Actual Yield Loss (AYL) maize was 0.05 and cowpea was -0.40. The Monetary Advantage Index (MAI) was 2360.80.

Keywords: Intercropping, cowpea, maize, land equivalent ratio (LER).

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Authors: Tomoaki Hashimoto

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Recently, feedback control systems using random dither quantizers have been proposed for linear discrete-time systems. However, the constraints imposed on state and control variables have not yet been taken into account for the design of feedback control systems with random dither quantization. Model predictive control is a kind of optimal feedback control in which control performance over a finite future is optimized with a performance index that has a moving initial and terminal time. An important advantage of model predictive control is its ability to handle constraints imposed on state and control variables. Based on the model predictive control approach, the objective of this paper is to present a control method that satisfies probabilistic state constraints for linear discrete-time feedback control systems with random dither quantization. In other words, this paper provides a method for solving the optimal control problems subject to probabilistic state constraints for linear discrete-time feedback control systems with random dither quantization.

Keywords: Optimal control, stochastic systems, discrete-time systems, probabilistic constraints, random dither quantization.

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Authors: Gyo Woo Lee, Man Young Kim

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Emission regulations for diesel engines are being strengthened and it is impossible to meet the standards without exhaust after-treatment systems. Lack of the space in many diesel vehicles, however, make it difficult to design and install stand-alone catalytic converters such as DOC, DPF, and SCR in the vehicle exhaust systems. Accordingly, those have been installed inside the muffler to save the space, and referred to the catalytic muffler. However, that has complex internal structure with perforated plate and pipe for noise and monolithic catalyst for emission reduction. For this reason, flow uniformity and pressure drop, which affect efficiency of catalyst and engine performance, respectively, should be examined when the catalytic muffler is designed. In this work, therefore, the flow uniformity and pressure drop to improve the performance of the catalytic converter and the engine have been numerically investigated by changing various design parameters such as inlet shape, porosity, and outlet shape of the muffler using the three-dimensional turbulent flow of the incompressible, non-reacting, and steady state inside the catalytic muffler. Finally, it can be found that the shape, in which the muffler has perforated pipe inside the inlet part, has higher uniformity index and lower pressure drop than others considered in this work.

Keywords: Catalytic muffler, Perforated inlet cone, Catalysts, Perforated pipe, Flow uniformity, Pressure drop.

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Authors: Ahmed R. Z. Baghdadi, Mona H. Gamal Eldein

Abstract:

Background: With the perceived pain and poor function experienced following knee arthroplasty, patients usually feel un-satisfied. Yet, a controversy still persists on the appropriate operative technique that doesn’t affect proprioception much. Purpose: This study compared the effects of Cruciate Retaining (CR) and Posterior Stabilized (PS) total knee arthroplasty (TKA on dynamic balance, pain and functional performance following rehabilitation. Methods: Thirty patients with CRTKA (group I), thirty with PSTKA (group II) and fifteen indicated for arthroplasty but weren’t operated on yet (group III) participated in the study. The mean age was 54.53±3.44, 55.13±3.48 and 55.33±2.32 years and BMI 35.7±3.03, 35.7±1.99 and 35.73±1.03 kg/m2 for groups I, II and III respectively. The Berg Balance Scale (BBS), WOMAC pain subscale and Timed Up-and-Go (TUG) and Stair-Climbing (SC) tests were used for assessment. Assessments were conducted four weeks preand post-operatively, three, six and twelve months post-operatively with the control group being assessed at the same time intervals. The post-operative rehabilitation involved hospitalization (1st week), home-based (2nd-4th weeks), and outpatient clinic (5th-12th weeks) programs, follow-up to all groups for twelve months. Results: The Mixed design MANOVA revealed that group I had significantly lower pain scores and SC time compared with group II three, six and twelve months post-operatively. Moreover, the BBS scores increased significantly and the pain scores and TUG and SC time decreased significantly six months post-operatively compared with four weeks pre- and post-operatively and three months postoperatively in groups I and II with the opposite being true four weeks post-operatively. But no significant differences in BBS scores, pain scores and TUG and SC time between six and twelve months postoperatively in groups I and II. Interpretation/Conclusion: CRTKA is preferable to PSTKA, possibly due to the preserved human proprioceptors in the un-excised PCL.

Keywords: Dynamic Balance, Functional Performance, Knee Arthroplasty, Long-Term.

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Authors: Hamed Qazanfari, Hamid Hassanpour, Kazem Qazanfari

Abstract:

In this paper, a method is provided for content-based image retrieval. Content-based image retrieval system searches query an image based on its visual content in an image database to retrieve similar images. In this paper, with the aim of simulating the human visual system sensitivity to image's edges and color features, the concept of color difference histogram (CDH) is used. CDH includes the perceptually color difference between two neighboring pixels with regard to colors and edge orientations. Since the HSV color space is close to the human visual system, the CDH is calculated in this color space. In addition, to improve the color features, the color histogram in HSV color space is also used as a feature. Among the extracted features, efficient features are selected using entropy and correlation criteria. The final features extract the content of images most efficiently. The proposed method has been evaluated on three standard databases Corel 5k, Corel 10k and UKBench. Experimental results show that the accuracy of the proposed image retrieval method is significantly improved compared to the recently developed methods.

Keywords: Content-based image retrieval, color difference histogram, efficient features selection, entropy, correlation.

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Authors: H. Akhbari, M. Bidi, A. Bakhtiari, S. Eslami

Abstract:

The present paper aims to the techno-economic feasibility of enhancing low-cost parabolic trough collectors in the light of developing the use of solar energy in under-developed regions where expensive high-tech solar devices cannot be afforded. Moreover, the collector is aimed to produce steam so that its performance is based on heat which can be discovered. In this regard, the manufacturing process and the detailed design models in Solidworks software are elaborated. Furthermore, the colletor’s material is chosen in a way to minimize the costs. Finally, to assess the performance of the built collector, it is installed in the site of Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, and the values of the effective peripheral parameters, such as temperature, wind speed, and most importantly, solar irradiance, are recorded simultaneously in June. According to the results obtained, the manufactured collector with the aperture area of 2 m² (1×2 m) is capable of producing 350 ml.h^-1 steam. Also, the wind influence is comprehensively investigated in this paper. As a case in point, it was measured that as the wind speed maximized to 9.77 km/h, the amount of steam outlet is minimized to 580 ml.

Keywords: Direct steam production, design and fabrication parabolic trough collector, solar water heater, wind impact, experimental investigation.

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Authors: Joel V. Madison, Hans E. Kimmel

Abstract:

Saturated two-phase fluid flows are often subject to pressure induced oscillations. Due to compressibility the vapor bubbles act as a spring with an asymmetric non-linear characteristic. The volume of the vapor bubbles increases or decreases differently if the pressure fluctuations are compressing or expanding; consequently, compressing pressure fluctuations in a two-phase pipe flow cause less displacement in the direction of the pipe flow than expanding pressure fluctuations. The displacement depends on the ratio of liquid to vapor, the ratio of pressure fluctuations over average pressure and on the exciting frequency of the pressure fluctuations. In addition, pressure fluctuations in saturated vapor bubbles cause condensation and evaporation within the bubbles and change periodically the ratio between liquid to vapor, and influence the dynamical parameters for the oscillation. The oscillations are conforming to an isenthalpic process at constant enthalpy with no heat transfer and no exchange of work. The paper describes the governing non-linear equation for twophase fluid oscillations with condensation and evaporation, and presents steady state approximate solutions for free and for pressure induced oscillations. Resonance criteria and stability are discussed.

Keywords: condensation, evaporation, non-linear oscillations, pressure induced, two-phase flow

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Authors: Sura Al-Khafaji, Phil Purnell

Abstract:

Measurement of the ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) is an important tool in diagnostic examination of concrete. In this method piezoelectric transducers are normally held in direct contact with the concrete surface. The current study aims to test the hypothesis that a preferential coupling effect might exist i.e. that the speed of sound measured depends on the couplant used. In this study, different coupling media of varying acoustic impedance were placed between the transducers and concrete samples made with constant aggregate content but with different compressive strengths. The preliminary results show that using coupling materials (both solid and a range of liquid substances) has an effect on the pulse velocity measured in a given concrete. The effect varies depending on the material used. The UPV measurements with solid coupling were higher than these from the liquid coupling at all strength levels. The tests using couplants generally recorded lower UPV values than the conventional test, except when carbon fiber composite was used, which retuned higher values. Analysis of variances (ANOVA) was performed to confirm that there are statistically significant differences between the measurements recorded using a conventional system and a coupled system.

Keywords: Compressive strength, coupling effect, statistical analysis, ultrasonic.

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Authors: Amic G. Ho

Abstract:

Language usage and typography in Hong Kong are unique, as can be seen clearly on the streets of the city. In contrast to many other parts of the world, where there is only one language, in Hong Kong many signs and billboards display two languages: Chinese and English. The language usage on signage, fonts and types used, and the designs in magazines and advertisements all demonstrate the unique features of Hong Kong typographic design, which reflect the multicultural nature of Hong Kong society. This study is the first step in investigating the nature and development of Hong Kong typography. The preliminary research explored how the historical development of Hong Kong is reflected in its unique typography. Following a review of historical development, a quantitative study was designed: Local Hong Kong participants were invited to provide input on what makes the Hong Kong typographic style unique. Their input was collected and analyzed. This provided us with information about the characteristic criteria and features of Hong Kong typography, as recognized by the local people. The most significant typographic designs in Hong Kong were then investigated and the influence of Chinese and other cultures on Hong Kong typography was assessed. The research results provide an indication to local designers on how they can strengthen local design outcomes and promote the values and culture of their mother town.

Keywords: Typography, Hong Kong, historical developments, multiple cultures.

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