Search results for: higher order statistics

Authors: Z. Gholami, M. Torabi Angaji, F. Gholami, S. A. Razavi Alavi

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Many commercial processes are available for the removal of H2S from gaseous streams. The desulfurization of gas streams using aqueous ferric sulfate solution as washing liquor is studied. Apart from sulfur, only H2O is generated in the process, and consequently, no waste treatment facilities are required. A distinct advantage of the process is that the reaction of H2S with is so rapid and complete that there remains no danger of discharging toxic waste gas. In this study, the reactive absorption of hydrogen sulfide into aqueous ferric sulfate solution has been studied and design calculations for equipments have been done and effective operation parameters on this process considered. Results show that high temperature and low pressure are suitable for absorption reaction. Variation of hydrogen sulfide concentration and Fe3+ concentration with time in absorption reaction shown that the reaction of ferric sulfate and hydrogen sulfide is first order with respect to the both reactant. At low Fe2(SO4)3 concentration the absorption rate of H2S increase with increasing the Fe2(SO4)3 concentration. At higher concentration a decrease in the absorption rate was found. At higher concentration of Fe2(SO4)3, the ionic strength and viscosity of solution increase remarkably resulting in a decrease of solubility, diffusivity and hence absorption rate.

Keywords: Absorption, Fe2(SO4)3, H2S, Reactive Absorption.

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Authors: Javadi Alimohammad, Javadi Maryam, Feizi Fereidoon

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A review of the literature found that Domestic violence and child maltreatment co-occur in many families, the purpose of this study attempts to emphasize the factors relating to intra-family relationships (order point of view) on violence against the children, For this purpose a survey technique on the sample size amounted 200 students of governmental guidance schools of city of Gilanegharb in country of Iran were considered. For measurement of violence against the children (VAC) the CTS scaled has been used .The results showed that children have experienced the violence more than once during the last year. degree of order in family is high. Explanation result indicated that the order variables in family including collective thinking, empathy, communal co-circumstance have significant effects on VAC.

Keywords: Violence, domestic violence, violence against children, order, guidance school, family, children.

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Authors: Ferial M. Abu-Salem, Marwa H. Mahmoud, M. H. El-Kalyoub, A. Y. Gibriel, Azza Abou-Arab

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In order to characterize the soy protein hydrolysate obtained in this study, gel chromatography on Sephadex G-25 was used to perform the separation of the peptide mixture and electrophoresis in SDS-polyacrylamide gel has been employed. Protein hydrolysate gave high antioxidant activities, but didn't give any antimicrobial activities. The antioxidant activities of protein hydrolysate was in the same trend of peptide content which gave high antioxidant activities and high peptide content between fractions 15 to 50. With increasing peptide concentrations, the scavenging effect on DPPH radical increased until about 70%, thereafter reaching a plateau. In compare to different concentrations of BHA, which exhibited higher activity (90%), soybean protein hydrolysate exhibited high antioxidant activities (70%) at a concentration of 1.45 mg/ml at fraction 25. Electrophoresis analysis indicated that, low- MW hydrolysate fractions (F1) appeared, on average, to have higher DPPH scavenging activities than high-MW fractions. These results revealed that soybean peptides probably contain substances that were proton donors and could react with free radicals to convert them to stable diamagnetic molecules. 

Keywords: Antioxidant peptides, hydrolysis, protein hydrolysate, peptide fractions.

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Authors: Kamil Ďurana, Robert Černý

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An electrical apparatus for measuring moisture content was developed by our laboratory and uses dependence of electrical properties on water content in studied material. Error analysis of the apparatus was run by measuring different volumes of water in a simplified specimen, i.e. hollow plexiglass block, in order to avoid as many side-effects as possible. Obtained data were processed using both basic and advanced statistics and results were compared with each other. The influence of water content on accuracy of measured data was studied as well as the influence of variation of apparatus' proper arrangement or factual methodics of its usage. The overall coefficient of variation was 4%. There was no trend found in results of error dependence on water content. Comparison with current surveys led to a conclusion, that the studied apparatus can be used for indirect measurement of water content in porous materials, with expectable error and under known conditions. Factual experiments with porous materials are not involved, but are currently under investigation.

Keywords: device, capacitance method, error analysis, moisture meter

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Authors: Theologos Athanaselis, Stelios Bakamidis, Ioannis Dologlou

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There are multiple reasons to expect that detecting the word order errors in a text will be a difficult problem, and detection rates reported in the literature are in fact low. Although grammatical rules constructed by computer linguists improve the performance of grammar checker in word order diagnosis, the repairing task is still very difficult. This paper presents an approach for repairing word order errors in English text by reordering words in a sentence and choosing the version that maximizes the number of trigram hits according to a language model. The novelty of this method concerns the use of an efficient confusion matrix technique for reordering the words. The comparative advantage of this method is that works with a large set of words, and avoids the laborious and costly process of collecting word order errors for creating error patterns.

Keywords: Permutations filtering, Statistical languagemodel N-grams, Word order errors

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Authors: Yah-Ling Hung

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eHealth is undoubtedly emerging as a promising vehicle to provide information for individual self-care management. However, the accessing ability, reading strategies and navigating behavior between higher literacy users and lower literacy users are significantly different. Yet, ways to tailor audiences’ health literacy and develop appropriate eHealth to feed their need become a big challenge. The purpose of this study is to compare the educational effectiveness of eHealth to deliver health knowledge between higher literacy users and lower literacy users, thus establishing useful design strategies of eHealth for users with different level of health literacy. The study was implemented in four stages, the first of which developed a website as the testing media to introduce health care knowledge relating to children’s allergy. Secondly, a reliability and validity test was conducted to make sure that all of the questions in the questionnaire were good indicators. Thirdly, a pre-post knowledge test was conducted with 66 participants, 33 users with higher literacy and 33 users with lower literacy respectively. Finally, a usability evaluation survey was undertaken to explore the criteria used by users with different levels of health literacy to evaluate eHealth. The results demonstrated that the eHealth Intervention in both groups had a positive outcome. There was no significant difference between the effectiveness of eHealth intervention between users with higher literacy and users with lower literacy. However, the average mean of lower literacy group was marginally higher than the average mean of higher literacy group. The findings also showed that the criteria used to evaluate eHealth could be analyzed in terms of the quality of information, appearance, appeal and interaction, but the users with lower literacy have different evaluation criteria from those with higher literacy. This is an interdisciplinary research which proposes the sequential key steps that incorporate the planning, developing and accessing issues that need to be considered when designing eHealth for patients with varying degrees of health literacy.

Keywords: eHealth, health intervention, health literacy, usability evaluation.

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Authors: A. A. James, A. O. Adesanya, M. R. Odekunle, D. G. Yakubu

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This paper examines the development of one step, five hybrid point method for the solution of first order initial value problems. We adopted the method of collocation and interpolation of power series approximate solution to generate a continuous linear multistep method. The continuous linear multistep method was evaluated at selected grid points to give the discrete linear multistep method. The method was implemented using a constant order predictor of order seven over an overlapping interval. The basic properties of the derived corrector was investigated and found to be zero stable, consistent and convergent. The region of absolute stability was also investigated. The method was tested on some numerical experiments and found to compete favorably with the existing methods.

Keywords: Interpolation, Approximate Solution, Collocation, Differential system, Half step, Converges, Block method, Efficiency.

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Authors: Hamid Abbasdokht , Mohammad Reza Edalatpishe, Ahmad Gholami

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In order to study of hydropriming and halopriming on germination and early growth stage of wheat (Triticum aestivum) an experiment was carried out in laboratory of the Department of Agronomy and Plant breeding, Shahrood University of Technology. Seed treatments consisted of T1: control (untreated seeds), T2: soaking in distilled water for 18 h (hydropriming). T3: soaking in - 1.2 MPa solution of CaSO4 for 36 h (halopriming). Germination and early seedling growth were studied using distilled water (control) and under osmotic potentials of -0.4, -0.8 and -1.2 MPa for NaCl and polyethylene glycol (PEG 6000), respectively. Results showed that Hydroprimed seeds achieved maximum germination seedling dry weight, especially during the higher osmotic potentials. Minimum germination was recorded at untreated seeds (control) followed by osmopriming. Under high osmotic potentials, hydroprimed seeds had higher GI (germination index) as compared to haloprimed or untreated seeds. Interaction effect of seed treatment and osmotic potential significantly affected the seedling vigour index (SVI).

Keywords: Wheat, hydropriming, halopriming, germination

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Authors: Mohammed Abaoli, Omer Kara

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The current research has investigated the soil quality status under dryland vegetation of Yabello district, Southern Ethiopia in which we should identify the nature and extent of salinity problem of the area for further research bases. About 48 soil samples were taken from 0-30, 31-60, 61-90 and 91-120 cm soil depths by opening 12 representative soil profile pits at 1.5 m depth. Soil color, texture, bulk density, Soil Organic Carbon (SOC), Cation Exchange Capacity (CEC), Na, K, Mg, Ca, CaCO₃, gypsum (CaSO₄), pH, Sodium Adsorption Ratio (SAR), Exchangeable Sodium Percentage (ESP) were analyzed. The dominant soil texture was silty-clay-loam.  Bulk density varied from 1.1 to 1.31 g/cm³. High SOC content was observed in 0-30 cm. The soil pH ranged from 7.1 to 8.6. The electrical conductivity shows indirect relationship with soil depth while CaCO₃ and CaSO₄ concentrations were observed in a direct relationship with depth. About 41% are non-saline, 38.31% saline, 15.23% saline-sodic and 5.46% sodic soils. Na concentration in saline soils was greater than Ca and Mg in all the soil depths. Ca and Mg contents were higher above 60 cm soil depth in non-saline soils. The concentrations of SO₂^-4 and HCO^-3 were observed to be higher at the most lower depth than upper. SAR value tends to be higher at lower depths in saline and saline-sodic soils, but decreases at lower depth of the non-saline soils. The distribution of ESP above 60 cm depth was in an increasing order in saline and saline-sodic soils. The result of the research has shown the direction to which extent of salinity we should consider for the Commiphora plant species we want to grow on the area. 

Keywords: Commiphora species, dryland vegetation, ecological significance, soil quality, salinity problem.

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Authors: Jo˜ao Paulo Coelho, Wojciech Giernacki, Jos´e Boaventura-Cunha

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The coefficient diagram method is primarily an algebraic control design method whose objective is to easily obtain a good controller with minimum user effort. As a matter of fact, if a system model, in the form of linear differential equations, is known, the user only need to define a time-constant and the controller order. The later can be established regarding the expected disturbance type via a lookup table first published by Koksal and Hamamci in 2004. However an inaccuracy in this table was detected and pointed-out in the present work. Moreover the above mentioned table was expanded in order to enclose any k order type disturbance.

Keywords: Coefficient diagram method, control system design, disturbance rejection.

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Authors: D. E. Gourgoulis, C. G. Yakinthos, M. G. Vassiliadou

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With high speed vessels getting ever more sophisti-cated, travelling at higher and higher speeds and operating in With high speed vessels getting ever more sophisticated, travelling at higher and higher speeds and operating in areas of high maritime traffic density, training becomes of the highest priority to ensure that safety levels are maintained, and risks are adequately mitigated. Training onboard the actual craft on the actual route still remains the most effective way for crews to gain experience. However, operational experience and incidents during the last 10 years demonstrate the need for supplementary training whether in the area of simulation or man to man, man/ machine interaction. Training and familiarisation of the crew is the most important aspect in preventing incidents. The use of simulator, computer and web based training systems in conjunction with onboard training focusing on critical situations will improve the man machine interaction and thereby reduce the risk of accidents. Today, both ship simulator and bridge teamwork courses are now becoming the norm in order to improve further emergency response and crisis management skills. One of the main causes of accidents is the human factor. An efficient way to reduce human errors is to provide high-quality training to the personnel and to select the navigators carefully.areas of high maritime traffic density, training becomes of the highest priority to ensure that safety levels are maintained, and risks are adequately mitigated. Training onboard the actual craft on the actual route still remains the most effective way for crews to gain experience. How-ever, operational experience and incidents during the last 10 years demonstrate the need for supplementary training whether in the area of simulation or man to man, man/ machine interaction. Training and familiarisation of the crew is the most important aspect in preventing incidents. The use of simulator, computer and web based training systems in conjunction with onboard training focusing on critical situations will improve the man machine interaction and thereby reduce the risk of accidents. Today, both ship simulator and bridge teamwork courses are now becoming the norm in order to improve further emergency response and crisis management skills. One of the main causes of accidents is the human factor. An efficient way to reduce human errors is to provide high-quality training to the person-nel and to select the navigators carefully. KeywordsCBT - WBT systems, Human factors.

Keywords: CBT - WBT systems, Human factors.

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Authors: Juha Kettunen

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This study analyzes collaborative and networked academic authorship in higher education. The literature review shows evidence that single authorship has made a gradual paradigm shift to joint authorship. The empirical evidence from the Turku University of Applied Sciences indicates that collaborative authorship has notably increased in the last few years. Co-authorship has extended outside the institution to other domestic and international academic organizations. Co-authorship not only increase the merits of academic scholars but builds and maintains networks of research and development. The results of this study help the authors, editors and partners of research and development projects to have a more concrete understanding of how co-authorship has developed and spread beyond higher education institutions.

Keywords: Co-authorship, social networking, higher education, research and development.

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Authors: Jia-Ru Li, Chih-Hung Wang, Ching-Wen Lin

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Internet addiction has become a critical problem on adolescents in Taiwan, and its negative effects on various dimensions of adolescent development caught the attention of educational and psychological experts. This study examined the correlation between cognitive (locus of control) and emotion (emotion venting strategies) factors on internet addiction of adolescents in Taiwan. Using the Compulsive Internet Use (CIU) and the Emotion Venting Strategy scales, a survey was conducted and 215 effective samples (students ranging from12 to14 years old) returned. Quantitative analysis methods such as descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson correlations and multiple regression were adopted. The results were as follows: 1. Severity of Internet addiction has significant gender differences; boys were at a higher risk than girls in becoming addicted to the Internet. 2. Emotion venting, locus of control and internet addiction have been shown to be positive correlated with one another. 3. Setting the locus of control as the control variable, emotion venting strategy has positive and significant contribution to internet addiction. The results of this study suggest that coaching deconstructive emotion strategies and cognitive believes are encouraged to integrate with actual field work.

Keywords: Emotion venting strategy, locus of control, adolescent internet addiction.

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Authors: Saranya Chularee, Tawa Chularee

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Successful intelligence (SI) is the integrated set of the ability needed to attain success in life, within individual-s sociocultural context. People are successfully intelligent by recognizing their strengths and weaknesses. They will find ways to strengthen their weakness and maintain their strength or even improve it. SI people can shape, select, and adapt to the environments by using balance of higher-ordered thinking abilities including; critical, creative, and applicative. Aims: The purposes of this study were to; 1) develop curriculum that promotes SI for nursing students, and 2) study the effectiveness of the curriculum development. Method: Research and Development was a method used for this study. The design was divided into two phases; 1) the curriculum development which composed of three steps (needs assessment, curriculum development and curriculum field trail), and 2) the curriculum implementation. In this phase, a pre-experimental research design (one group pretest-posttest design) was conducted. The sample composed of 49 sophomore nursing students of Boromarajonani College of Nursing, Surin, Thailand who enrolled in Nursing care of Health problem course I in 2011 academic year. Data were carefully collected using 4 instruments; 1) Modified essay questions test (MEQ) 2) Nursing Care Plan evaluation form 3) Group processing observation form (α = 0.74) and 4) Satisfied evaluation form of learning (α = 0.82). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. Results: The results revealed that the sample had post-test average score of SI higher than pre-test average score (mean difference was 5.03, S.D. = 2.84). Fifty seven percentages of the sample passed the MEQ posttest at the criteria of 60 percentages. Students demonstrated the strategies of how to develop nursing care plan. Overall, students- satisfaction on teaching performance was at high level (mean = 4.35, S.D. = 0.46). Conclusion: This curriculum can promote the attribute of characteristic of SI person and was highly required to be continued.

Keywords: Curriculum Development, Nursing Education, Successful Intelligence, Thinking ability.

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Authors: Nitai Biswas, Prasenjit Kapas, Arumay Jana, Asish Paul

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Introduction: Motivation is basic drive for all kinds of action. It has direct influence on academic achievement and sports performance that builds urge to incentive values of success. In other words, it can be defined as the need for success to attain excellence. Anxiety in pre competition especially in sports formulates positive inward settings in mind to overcome the challenge. There is a tendency to perceive competitive situations as some threatening issues and to respond them with feelings of apprehension and tension. Aim: Aim of the study was to compare the achievement motivation and competition anxiety among three different classes of students. Methods and Materials: To conduct the study the researcher has taken 131 male subjects from three different classes as Extra Department, Bachelor of Physical Education-I and Master of Physical EducationII, aged 19-28 years. Achievement motivation and sports competition anxiety were measured by the questionnaire. To analyze the data mean, standard deviation for each parameter as descriptive statistics and one way analysis of variance as inferential statistics were employed. Results: From the result of the study in achievement motivation (p ≥ 0.05) and competition anxiety (p ≥ 0.05) no significant differences were found among the said three groups. Conclusion: The study concluded that all three groups had almost the same state of achievement motivation and sports competition anxiety.

Keywords: Anxiety, sports psychology, sports competition anxiety, achievement motivation, academic hierarchy.

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Authors: M. M. Mashhadi, K. Mohajeri, M. D. Nayeri

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Positioning the organization in the strategic environment of its industry is one of the first and most important phases of the organizational strategic planning and in today knowledge-based economy has its importance been duplicated for higher education institutes as the centers of education, knowledge creation and knowledge worker training. Up to now, various models with diverse approaches have been applied to investigate organizations- strategic position in different industries. Regarding the essential importance and strategic role of quality in higher education institutes, in this study, a quality-oriented approach has been suggested to positioning them in their strategic environment. Then the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) model has been adopted to position the top Iranian business schools in their strategic environment. The result of this study can be used in strategic planning of these institutes as well as the other Iranian business schools.

Keywords: Strategic planning, Strategic positioning, Quality, EFQM model, Higher education institutions.

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Authors: H. Bouadi, M. Bouchoucha, M. Tadjine

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In this paper; we are interested principally in dynamic modelling of quadrotor while taking into account the high-order nonholonomic constraints in order to develop a new control scheme as well as the various physical phenomena, which can influence the dynamics of a flying structure. These permit us to introduce a new state-space representation. After, the use of Backstepping approach for the synthesis of tracking errors and Lyapunov functions, a sliding mode controller is developed in order to ensure Lyapunov stability, the handling of all system nonlinearities and desired tracking trajectories. Finally simulation results are also provided in order to illustrate the performances of the proposed controller.

Keywords: Dynamic modeling, nonholonomic constraints, Backstepping, sliding mode.

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Authors: R. Kandiah, K. Miyamoto

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In Sri Lanka, the Jaffna area is a high drought affected area and depends mainly on groundwater aquifers for water needs. Water for daily activities is extracted from wells. As households manually extract water from the wells, it is not drawn from mid evening to early morning. The water inflow at night provides the maximum water level that decreases during the daytime due to extraction. The storage volume of water in wells is limited or at its lowest level during the dry season. This study analyzes the domestic water budget during the dry season in the Jaffna area. In order to evaluate the water inflow rate into wells, storage volume and extraction volume from wells over time, water pressure is measured at the bottom of three wells, which are located in coastal area denoted as well A, in nonspecific area denoted as well B, and agricultural area denoted as well C. The water quality at the wells A, B, and C, are mostly fresh, modest fresh, and saline respectively. From the monitoring, we can find that the daily inflow amount of water into the wells and daily water extraction depend on each other, that is, higher extraction yields higher inflow. And, in the dry season, the daily inflow volume and the daily extraction volume of each well are almost in balance.

Keywords: Domestic water, water balance, water budget, ground water, shallow well.

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Authors: Natalia Marulanda Grisales

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The most significant changes in the characteristics of consumers have contributed to the development and adoption of methodologies and tools that enable organizations to be more competitive in the marketplace. One of these methodologies is the integration of Knowledge Management (KM) phases and Environmental Management Systems (EMS). This integration allows companies to manage and share the required knowledge for EMS adoption, from the place where it is generated to the place where it is going to be exploited. The aim of this paper is to identify the relationship between KM phases as a tool for the adoption of EMS in HEI. The methodology has a descriptive scope and a qualitative approach. It is based on a case study and a review of the literature about KM and EMS. We conducted 266 surveys to students, professors and staff at Minuto de Dios University (Colombia). Data derived from the study indicate that if a HEI wants to achieve an adequate knowledge acquisition and knowledge transfer, it must have clear goals for implementing an EMS. Also, HEI should create empowerment and training spaces for students, professors and staff. In the case study, HEI must generate alternatives that enhance spaces of knowledge appropriation. It was found that 85% of respondents have not received any training from HEI about EMS. 88% of respondents believe that the actions taken by the university are not efficient to knowledge transfer in order to develop an EMS.

Keywords: Environmental management systems, higher education institutions, knowledge management. training.

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Authors: A. M. Sagir

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This paper derived four newly schemes which are combined in order to form an accurate and efficient block method for parallel or sequential solution of third order ordinary differential equations of the form y''' = f(x, y, y', y''), y(α)=y₀, y'(α)=β, y''(α)=η with associated initial or boundary conditions. The implementation strategies of the derived method have shown that the block method is found to be consistent, zero stable and hence convergent. The derived schemes were tested on stiff and non – stiff ordinary differential equations, and the numerical results obtained compared favorably with the exact solution.

Keywords: Block Method, Hybrid, Linear Multistep, Self starting, Third Order Ordinary Differential Equations.

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Authors: Sanjay Kumar Srivastava, Anu Rani Sharma, Kamna Sachdeva

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Every year, fog formation over the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGPs) of Indian region during the winter months of December and January is believed to create numerous hazards, inconvenience, and economic loss to the inhabitants of this densely populated region of Indian subcontinent. The aim of the paper is to analyze the spatial and temporal variability of winter fog over IGPs. Long term ground observations of visibility and other meteorological parameters (1971-2010) have been analyzed to understand the formation of fog phenomena and its relevance during the peak winter months of January and December over IGP of India. In order to examine the temporal variability, time series and trend analysis were carried out by using the Mann-Kendall Statistical test. Trend analysis performed by using the Mann-Kendall test, accepts the alternate hypothesis with 95% confidence level indicating that there exists a trend. Kendall tau’s statistics showed that there exists a positive correlation between time series and fog frequency. Further, the Theil and Sen’s median slope estimate showed that the magnitude of trend is positive. Magnitude is higher during January compared to December for the entire IGP except in December when it is high over the western IGP. Decade wise time series analysis revealed that there has been continuous increase in fog days. The net overall increase of 99 % was observed over IGP in last four decades. Diurnal variability and average daily persistence were computed by using descriptive statistical techniques. Geo-statistical analysis of fog was carried out to understand the spatial variability of fog. Geo-statistical analysis of fog revealed that IGP is a high fog prone zone with fog occurrence frequency of more than 66% days during the study period. Diurnal variability indicates the peak occurrence of fog is between 06:00 and 10:00 local time and average daily fog persistence extends to 5 to 7 hours during the peak winter season. The results would offer a new perspective to take proactive measures in reducing the irreparable damage that could be caused due to changing trends of fog.

Keywords: Fog, climatology, Mann-Kendall test, trend analysis, spatial variability, temporal variability, visibility.

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Authors: Debojyoti Mitra

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Higher capacities of power plants together with increased awareness on environmental considerations have led to taller height of stacks. It is seen that strong wind can result in falling of stacks. So, aerodynamic consideration of stacks is very important in order to save the falling of stacks. One stack is not enough in industries and power sectors and two or three stacks are required for proper operation of the unit. It is very important to arrange the stacks in proper way to resist their downfall. The present experimental study concentrates on the mutual effect of three nearby stacks on each other at three different arrangements, viz. linear, side-by-side and triangular. The experiments find out the directions of resultant forces acting on the stacks in different configurations so that proper arrangement of supports can be made with respect to the wind directionality obtained from local meteorological data. One can also easily ascertain which stack is more vulnerable to wind in comparison to the others for a particular configuration. Thus, this study is important in studying the effect of wind force on three stacks in different arrangements and is very helpful in placing the supports in proper places in order to avoid failing of stack-like structures due to wind.

Keywords: Stacks, relative positioning, drag and lift forces, resultant forces and supports.

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Authors: Sharmila Karim, Haslinda Ibrahim, Zurni Omar

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In this paper, a new recursive strategy is proposed for determining $\frac{(n-1)!}{2}$ of $n$th order diagrams. The generalization of $n$th diagram for cross multiplication method were proposed by Pavlovic and Bankier but the specific rule of determining $\frac{(n-1)!}{2}$ of the $n$th order diagrams for square matrix is yet to be discovered. Thus using combinatorial approach, $\frac{(n-1)!}{2}$ of the $n$th order diagrams will be presented as $\frac{(n-1)!}{2}$ starter sets. These starter sets will be generated based on exchanging one element. The advantages of this new strategy are the discarding process was eliminated and the sign of starter set is alternated to each others.

Keywords: starter sets, permutation, exchanging one element, determinant

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Authors: James Moir

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Citizens are increasingly are provided with choice and customization in public services and this has now also become a key feature of higher education in terms of policy roll-outs on personal development planning (PDP) and more generally as part of the employability agenda. The goal here is to transform people, in this case graduates, into active, responsible citizen-workers. A key part of this rhetoric and logic is the inculcation of graduate attributes within students. However, there has also been a concern with the issue of student lack of engagement and perseverance with their studies. This paper sets out to explore some of these conceptions that link graduate attributes with citizenship as well as the notion of how identity is forged through the higher education process. Examples are drawn from a quality enhancement project that is being operated within the context of the Scottish higher education system. This is further framed within the wider context of competing and conflicting demands on higher education, exacerbated by the current worldwide economic climate. There are now pressures on students to develop their employability skills as well as their capacity to engage with global issues such as behavioural change in the light of environmental concerns. It is argued that these pressures, in effect, lead to a form of personalization that is concerned with how graduates develop their sense of identity as something that is engineered and re-engineered to meet these demands.

Keywords: students, higher education, employability, knowledge, personal development

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Authors: Nabil Sultan

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A great deal has been written on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) since 2012 (considered by some as the year of the MOOCs). The emergence of MOOCs caused a great deal of interest amongst academics and technology experts as well as ordinary people. Some of the authors who wrote on MOOCs perceived it as the next big thing that will disrupt education. Other authors saw it as another fad that will go away once it ran its course (as most fads often do). But MOOCs did not turn out to be a fad and it is still around. Most importantly, they evolved into something that is beginning to look like a viable business model. This paper explores this phenomenon within the theoretical frameworks of disruptive innovations and jobs to be done as developed by Clayton Christensen and his colleagues and its implications for the future of higher education (HE).

Keywords: MOOCs, disruptive innovations, higher education, jobs theory.

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Authors: L. Grinis, N. Lubashevsky, Y. Ostrovski

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In wastewater treatment processes, aeration introduces air into a liquid. In these systems, air is introduced by different devices submerged in the wastewater. Smaller bubbles result in more bubble surface area per unit of volume and higher oxygen transfer efficiency. Jet pumps are devices that use air bubbles and are widely used in wastewater treatment processes. The principle of jet pumps is their ability to transfer energy of one fluid, called primary or motive, into a secondary fluid or gas. These pumps have no moving parts and are able to work in remote areas under extreme conditions. The objective of this work is to study experimentally the characteristics of the jet pump and the size of air bubbles in the laboratory water tank. The effect of flow rate ratio on pump performance is investigated in order to have a better understanding about pump behavior under various conditions, in order to determine the efficiency of receiving air bubbles different sizes. The experiments show that we should take care when increasing the flow rate ratio while seeking to decrease bubble size in the outlet flow. This study will help improve and extend the use of the jet pump in many practical applications.

Keywords: Jet pump, air bubbles size, retention time.

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Authors: Ebregbe David, Deng Weibo

Abstract:

The traditional second order statistics approach of using only the hermitian covariance for non circular signals, does not take advantage of the information contained in the complementary covariance of these signals. Radar systems often use non circular signals such as Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK) signals. Their noncicular property can be exploited together with the dual centrosymmetry of the bistatic MIMO radar system to improve angle estimation performance. We construct an augmented matrix from the received data vectors using both the positive definite hermitian covariance matrix and the complementary covariance matrix. The Unitary ESPRIT technique is then applied to the signal subspace of the augmented covariance matrix for automatically paired Direction-of-arrival (DOA) and Direction-of-Departure (DOD) angle estimates. The number of targets that can be detected is twice that obtainable with the conventional ESPRIT approach. Simulation results show the effectiveness of this method in terms of increase in resolution and the number of targets that can be detected.

Keywords: Bistatic MIMO Radar, Unitary Esprit, Non circular signals.

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Authors: Liqiong Liu, Shouming Zhong

Abstract:

In this paper, the finite-time stabilization of a class of multi-state time delay of fractional-order system is proposed. First, we define finite-time stability with the fractional-order system. Second, by using Generalized Gronwall's approach and the methods of the inequality, we get some conditions of finite-time stability for the fractional system with multi-state delay. Finally, a numerical example is given to illustrate the result.

Keywords: Finite-time stabilization, fractional-order system, Gronwall inequality.

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Authors: F. Nejadebrahimi, M. ArdebiliPour

Abstract:

In this paper, we are going to determine the threshold levels of adaptive modulation in a burst by burst CDMA system by a suboptimum method so that the above method attempts to increase the average bit per symbol (BPS) rate of transceiver system by switching between the different modulation modes in variable channel condition. In this method, we choose the minimum values of average bit error rate (BER) and maximum values of average BPS on different values of average channel signal to noise ratio (SNR) and then calculate the relative threshold levels of them, so that when the instantaneous SNR increases, a higher order modulation be employed for increasing throughput and vise-versa when the instantaneous SNR decreases, a lower order modulation be employed for improvement of BER. In transmission step, by this adaptive modulation method, in according to comparison between obtained estimation of pilot symbols and a set of above suboptimum threshold levels, above system chooses one of states no transmission, BPSK, 4QAM and square 16QAM for modulation of data. The expected channel in this paper is a slow Rayleigh fading.

Keywords: AQAM, burst, BER, BPS, CDMA, threshold.

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Authors: Kasthurirangan Gopalakrishnan, Naga Shashidhar, Xiaoxiong Zhong

Abstract:

During the process of compaction in Hot-Mix Asphalt (HMA) mixtures, the distance between aggregate particles decreases as they come together and eliminate air-voids. By measuring the inter-particle distances in a cut-section of a HMA sample the degree of compaction can be estimated. For this, a calibration curve is generated by computer simulation technique when the gradation and asphalt content of the HMA mixture are known. A two-dimensional cross section of HMA specimen was simulated using the mixture design information (gradation, asphalt content and air-void content). Nearest neighbor distance methods such as Delaunay triangulation were used to study the changes in inter-particle distance and area distribution during the process of compaction in HMA. Such computer simulations would enable making several hundreds of repetitions in a short period of time without the necessity to compact and analyze laboratory specimens in order to obtain good statistics on the parameters defined. The distributions for the statistical parameters based on computer simulations showed similar trends as those of laboratory specimens.

Keywords: Computer simulations, Hot-Mix Asphalt (HMA), inter-particle distance, image analysis, nearest neighbor

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