Search results for: statistical index
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 2150

Search results for: statistical index

1820 Causes of Construction Delays in Qatar Construction Projects

Authors: Murat Gunduz, Mohanad H. A. AbuHassan

Abstract:

Construction industry mainly focuses on the superstructure, infrastructure, and oil and gas industry. The development of infrastructure projects in developing countries attracted a lot of foreign construction contractors, consultants, suppliers and diversified workforce to interfere and to be evolved in such huge investment. Reducing worksite delays in such projects require knowledge and attention. Therefore, it is important to identify the influencing delay attributes affecting construction projects. The significant project factors affecting construction delays were investigated. Data collection was carried out through an online web survey system to capture significant factors. Significant factors were determined with importance index and relevant recommendations are made. The output of the data analysis would lead the industry experts better assess the impact of construction delays on construction projects.

Keywords: Construction industry, delays, importance index.

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1819 Combined Effect of Heat Stimulation and Delay Addition of Superplasticizer with Slag on Fresh and Hardened Property of Mortar

Authors: Antoni Wibowo, Harry Pujianto, Dewi Retno Sari Saputro

Abstract:

The stock market can provide huge profits in a relatively short time in financial sector; however, it also has a high risk for investors and traders if they are not careful to look the factors that affect the stock market. Therefore, they should give attention to the dynamic fluctuations and movements of the stock market to optimize profits from their investment. In this paper, we present a nonlinear autoregressive exogenous model (NARX) to predict the movements of stock market; especially, the movements of the closing price index. As case study, we consider to predict the movement of the closing price in Indonesia composite index (IHSG) and choose the best structures of NARX for IHSG’s prediction.

Keywords: NARX, prediction, stock market, time series.

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1818 The Impact of Rehabilitation Approaches in the Sustainability of the Management of Small Tanks in Sri Lanka

Authors: N.K.K. Welgama, W.A.D.P. Wanigasundera

Abstract:

Small tanks, the ancient man-made rain water storage systems, support the pheasant life and agriculture of the dry zone of Sri Lanka. Many small tanks were abandoned with time due to various reasons. Such tanks, rehabilitated in the recent past, were found to be less sustainable and most of these rehabilitation approaches have failed. The objective of this research is to assess the impact of the rehabilitation approaches in the management of small tanks in the Kurunegala District of Sri Lanka with respect to eight small tanks. A Sustainability index was developed using seven indicators representing the ability and commitment of the villagers to maintain these tanks. The sustainability index of the eight tanks varied between 79.2 and 47.2 out of a total score of 100. The conclusion is that, the approaches used for tank rehabilitation have a significant effect on the sustainability of the management of these small tanks.

Keywords: Minor irrigation schemes, Participatory, Small Tanks, Sustainable, Water resource management.

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1817 Wavelet-Based Classification of Myocardial Ischemia, Arrhythmia, Congestive Heart Failure and Sleep Apnea

Authors: Santanu Chattopadhyay, Gautam Sarkar, Arabinda Das

Abstract:

This paper presents wavelet based classification of various heart diseases. Electrocardiogram signals of different heart patients have been studied. Statistical natures of electrocardiogram signals for different heart diseases have been compared with the statistical nature of electrocardiograms for normal persons. Under this study four different heart diseases have been considered as follows: Myocardial Ischemia (MI), Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), Arrhythmia and Sleep Apnea. Statistical nature of electrocardiograms for each case has been considered in terms of kurtosis values of two types of wavelet coefficients: approximate and detail. Nine wavelet decomposition levels have been considered in each case. Kurtosis corresponding to both approximate and detail coefficients has been considered for decomposition level one to decomposition level nine. Based on significant difference, few decomposition levels have been chosen and then used for classification.

Keywords: Arrhythmia, congestive heart failure, discrete wavelet transform, electrocardiogram, myocardial ischemia, sleep apnea.

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1816 Variations of Body Mass Index with Age in Masters Athletes (World Masters Games)

Authors: Walsh Joe, Climstein Mike, Heazlewood Ian Timothy, Burke Stephen, Kettunen Jyrki, Adams Kent, DeBeliso Mark

Abstract:

Whilst there is growing evidence that activity across the lifespan is beneficial for improved health, there are also many changes involved with the aging process and subsequently the potential for reduced indices of health. The nexus between health, physical activity and aging is complex and has raised much interest in recent times due to the realization that a multifaceted approached is necessary in order to counteract a growing obesity epidemic. By investigating age based trends within a population adhering to competitive sport at older ages, further insight might be gleaned to assist in understanding one of many factors influencing this relationship. BMI was derived using data gathered on a total of 6,071 masters athletes (51.9% male, 48.1% female) aged 25 to 91 years ( =51.5, s =±9.7), competing at the Sydney World Masters Games (2009). Using linear and loess regression it was demonstrated that the usual tendency for prevalence of higher BMI increasing with age was reversed in the sample. This trend in reversal was repeated for both male and female only sub-sets of the sample participants, indicating the possibility of improved prevalence of BMI with increasing age for both the sample as a whole and these individual subgroups. This evidence of improved classification in one index of health (reduced BMI) for masters athletes (when compared to the general population) implies there are either improved levels of this index of health with aging due to adherence to sport or possibly the reduced BMI is advantageous and contributes to this cohort adhering (or being attracted) to masters sport at older ages. Demonstration of this proportionately under-investigated World Masters Games population having an improved relationship between BMI and increasing age over the general population is of particular interest in the context of the measures being taken globally to curb an obesity epidemic.

Keywords: Aging, masters athlete, Quetelet Index, sport.

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1815 Recursive Filter for Coastal Displacement Estimation

Authors: Efstratios Doukakis, Nikolaos Petrelis

Abstract:

All climate models agree that the temperature in Greece will increase in the range of 1° to 2°C by the year 2030 and mean sea level in Mediterranean is expected to rise at the rate of 5 cm/decade. The aim of the present paper is the estimation of the coastline displacement driven by the climate change and sea level rise. In order to achieve that, all known statistical and non-statistical computational methods are employed on some Greek coastal areas. Furthermore, Kalman filtering techniques are for the first time introduced, formulated and tested. Based on all the above, shoreline change signals and noises are computed and an inter-comparison between the different methods can be deduced to help evaluating which method is most promising as far as the retrieve of shoreline change rate is concerned.

Keywords: Climate Change, Coastal Displacement, KalmanFilter

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1814 An Intelligent Text Independent Speaker Identification Using VQ-GMM Model Based Multiple Classifier System

Authors: Cheima Ben Soltane, Ittansa Yonas Kelbesa

Abstract:

Speaker Identification (SI) is the task of establishing identity of an individual based on his/her voice characteristics. The SI task is typically achieved by two-stage signal processing: training and testing. The training process calculates speaker specific feature parameters from the speech and generates speaker models accordingly. In the testing phase, speech samples from unknown speakers are compared with the models and classified. Even though performance of speaker identification systems has improved due to recent advances in speech processing techniques, there is still need of improvement. In this paper, a Closed-Set Tex-Independent Speaker Identification System (CISI) based on a Multiple Classifier System (MCS) is proposed, using Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) as feature extraction and suitable combination of vector quantization (VQ) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) together with Expectation Maximization algorithm (EM) for speaker modeling. The use of Voice Activity Detector (VAD) with a hybrid approach based on Short Time Energy (STE) and Statistical Modeling of Background Noise in the pre-processing step of the feature extraction yields a better and more robust automatic speaker identification system. Also investigation of Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) clustering algorithm for initialization of GMM, for estimating the underlying parameters, in the EM step improved the convergence rate and systems performance. It also uses relative index as confidence measures in case of contradiction in identification process by GMM and VQ as well. Simulation results carried out on voxforge.org speech database using MATLAB highlight the efficacy of the proposed method compared to earlier work.

Keywords: Feature Extraction, Speaker Modeling, Feature Matching, Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC), Gaussian mixture model (GMM), Vector Quantization (VQ), Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG), Expectation Maximization (EM), pre-processing, Voice Activity Detection (VAD), Short Time Energy (STE), Background Noise Statistical Modeling, Closed-Set Tex-Independent Speaker Identification System (CISI).

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1813 Estimation of Fecundity and Gonadosomatic Index of Terapon jarbua from Pondicherry Coast, India

Authors: R. Nandikeswari, M. Sambasivam, V. Anandan

Abstract:

In the present study fecundity of Terapon jarbua was estimated for 41 matured females from the Bay of Bengal, Pondicherry. The fecundity (F) was found to range from 13,475 to 115,920 in fishes between 173-278mm Total length (TL) and 65- 298 gm weight respectively. The co-efficient of correlation for F/TL (log F = - 4.821 + 4.146 log TL), F/SL (log F = -3.936 + 3.867 log SL), F/WF (log F = 1.229 + 0.730 log TW) and F/GW (log F = 0.724 + 1.113 log GW) were obtained as 0.474, 0.537, 0.641 and 0.908 respectively. The regression line for the TL, SL, WF and GW of the fishes were found to be linear when they were plotted against their fecundity on logarithmic scales. Highly significant (P<0.01) relationship was obtained for all the variables. Hence Total Length, Standard Length, Weight of Fish and Gonad Weight were found to be the best indicators of the fecundity of Terapon jarbua. Gonadosomatic indices of Terapon jarbua showed that the spawning took place in February to July. The overall sex ratio of male to female is 1.28:1 with chi-square value 5.719, significant at 5% level.

Keywords: Fecundity, Gonadosomatic index, Reproductive biology, spawning, Terapon jarbua.

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1812 The Statistical Properties of Filtered Signals

Authors: Ephraim Gower, Thato Tsalaile, Monageng Kgwadi, Malcolm Hawksford.

Abstract:

In this paper, the statistical properties of filtered or convolved signals are considered by deriving the resulting density functions as well as the exact mean and variance expressions given a prior knowledge about the statistics of the individual signals in the filtering or convolution process. It is shown that the density function after linear convolution is a mixture density, where the number of density components is equal to the number of observations of the shortest signal. For circular convolution, the observed samples are characterized by a single density function, which is a sum of products.

Keywords: Circular Convolution, linear Convolution, mixture density function.

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1811 Review and Classification of the Indicators and Trends Used in Bridge Performance Modeling

Authors: S. Rezaei, Z. Mirzaei, M. Khalighi, J. Bahrami

Abstract:

Bridges, as an essential part of road infrastructures, are affected by various deterioration mechanisms over time due to the changes in their performance. As changes in performance can have many negative impacts on society, it is essential to be able to evaluate and measure the performance of bridges throughout their life. This evaluation includes the development or the choice of the appropriate performance indicators, which, in turn, are measured based on the selection of appropriate models for the existing deterioration mechanism. The purpose of this article is a statistical study of indicators and deterioration mechanisms of bridges in order to discover further research capacities in bridges performance assessment. For this purpose, some of the most common indicators of bridge performance, including reliability, risk, vulnerability, robustness, and resilience, were selected. The researches performed on each index based on the desired deterioration mechanisms and hazards were comprehensively reviewed. In addition, the formulation of the indicators and their relationship with each other were studied. The research conducted on the mentioned indicators were classified from the point of view of deterministic or probabilistic method, the level of study (element level, object level, etc.), and the type of hazard and the deterioration mechanism of interest. For each of the indicators, a number of challenges and recommendations were presented according to the review of previous studies.

Keywords: Bridge, deterioration mechanism, lifecycle, performance indicator.

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1810 Irrigation Water Quality Evaluation Based on Multivariate Statistical Analysis: A Case Study of Jiaokou Irrigation District

Authors: Panpan Xu, Qiying Zhang, Hui Qian

Abstract:

Groundwater is main source of water supply in the Guanzhong Basin, China. To investigate the quality of groundwater for agricultural purposes in Jiaokou Irrigation District located in the east of the Guanzhong Basin, 141 groundwater samples were collected for analysis of major ions (K+, Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+, SO42-, Cl-, HCO3-, and CO32-), pH, and total dissolved solids (TDS). Sodium percentage (Na%), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), magnesium hazard (MH), and potential salinity (PS) were applied for irrigation water quality assessment. In addition, multivariate statistical techniques were used to identify the underlying hydrogeochemical processes. Results show that the content of TDS mainly depends on Cl-, Na+, Mg2+, and SO42-, and the HCO3- content is generally high except for the eastern sand area. These are responsible for complex hydrogeochemical processes, such as dissolution of carbonate minerals (dolomite and calcite), gypsum, halite, and silicate minerals, the cation exchange, as well as evaporation and concentration. The average evaluation levels of Na%, RSC, MH, and PS for irrigation water quality are doubtful, good, unsuitable, and injurious to unsatisfactory, respectively. Therefore, it is necessary for decision makers to comprehensively consider the indicators and thus reasonably evaluate the irrigation water quality.

Keywords: Irrigation water quality, multivariate statistical analysis, groundwater, hydrogeochemical process.

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1809 Arabic Character Recognition using Artificial Neural Networks and Statistical Analysis

Authors: Ahmad M. Sarhan, Omar I. Al Helalat

Abstract:

In this paper, an Arabic letter recognition system based on Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) and statistical analysis for feature extraction is presented. The ANN is trained using the Least Mean Squares (LMS) algorithm. In the proposed system, each typed Arabic letter is represented by a matrix of binary numbers that are used as input to a simple feature extraction system whose output, in addition to the input matrix, are fed to an ANN. Simulation results are provided and show that the proposed system always produces a lower Mean Squared Error (MSE) and higher success rates than the current ANN solutions.

Keywords: ANN, Backpropagation, Gaussian, LMS, MSE, Neuron, standard deviation, Widrow-Hoff rule.

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1808 A Faunistic Comparative Study of Families Hesperiidae and Nymphalidae (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera) of Syrian Arab Republic and Republic of Armenia

Authors: N. Zarikian

Abstract:

Comparative analysis of the fauna of two families of butterflies (Lepidoptera: Rhopalocera) – Hesperiidae and Nymphalidae were carried out. In general, 122 species of the families are recorded. among these 33 species belong to Hesperiidae and 89 to Nymphalidae. The numbers by countries are as follows: 72 species are found in Syria (including 24 Hesperiidae and 48 Nymphalidae) and 97 in Armenia (26 and 71 species, respectively). Two species of Hesperiidae are reported for Syrian fauna for the first time and one species is newly recorded for Armenia. From the species above mentioned 38 are common both for Syria and Armenia. For estimation of the similarity of faunas studied were used the Jaccard index. By families the index is rather different, consisting for Hesperiidae 0.5151 and for Nymphalidae 0.337.

Keywords: Armenia, fauna, Hesperiidae, Nymphalidae, Rhopalocera: Lepidoptera, Syria.

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1807 Evaluation of Chlorophyll Content and Chlorophyll Fluorescence Parameters and Relationships between Chlorophyll a, b and Chlorophyll Content Index under Water Stress in Olea europaea cv. Dezful

Authors: E. Khaleghi, K. Arzani, N. Moallemi, M. Barzegar

Abstract:

This study was conducted to determine effect of water stress on chlorophyll content and chlorophyll fluorescence parameter in young `Dezful- olive trees. Three irrigation regimes (40% ETcrop, 65% ETcrop and 100% ETcrop) were used. After irrigation treatments were applied, some of biochemical parameters including chlorophyll a, b, total chlorophyll, chlorophyll fluorescence and also chlorophyll content index (C.C.I) were measured. Results of Analysis of variance showed that irrigation treatments had significant effect on chlorophylla, total chlorophyll (chl a+b), C.C.I and Fv/Fm ratio. The amount of decreased chlorophyll a and total chlorophyll in plants were received 40% ETcrop were 51.55% and 46.86%, respectively, compared with 100% ETcrop.

Keywords: Evatarnspiration (ETcrop), Chlorophyll Content, Chlorophyll Fluorescence, Water stress, Olive

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1806 Detection of Ultrasonic Images in the Presence of a Random Number of Scatterers: A Statistical Learning Approach

Authors: J. P. Dubois, O. M. Abdul-Latif

Abstract:

Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a statistical learning tool that was initially developed by Vapnik in 1979 and later developed to a more complex concept of structural risk minimization (SRM). SVM is playing an increasing role in applications to detection problems in various engineering problems, notably in statistical signal processing, pattern recognition, image analysis, and communication systems. In this paper, SVM was applied to the detection of medical ultrasound images in the presence of partially developed speckle noise. The simulation was done for single look and multi-look speckle models to give a complete overlook and insight to the new proposed model of the SVM-based detector. The structure of the SVM was derived and applied to clinical ultrasound images and its performance in terms of the mean square error (MSE) metric was calculated. We showed that the SVM-detected ultrasound images have a very low MSE and are of good quality. The quality of the processed speckled images improved for the multi-look model. Furthermore, the contrast of the SVM detected images was higher than that of the original non-noisy images, indicating that the SVM approach increased the distance between the pixel reflectivity levels (detection hypotheses) in the original images.

Keywords: LS-SVM, medical ultrasound imaging, partially developed speckle, multi-look model.

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1805 Strategic Investment in Infrastructure Development to Facilitate Economic Growth in the United States

Authors: Arkaprabha Bhattacharyya, Makarand Hastak

Abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented in terms of its global reach and economic impacts. Historically, investment in infrastructure development projects has been touted to boost the economic growth of a nation. The State and Local governments responsible for delivering infrastructure assets work under tight budgets. Therefore, it is important to understand which infrastructure projects have the highest potential of boosting economic growth in the post-pandemic era. This paper presents relationships between infrastructure projects and economic growth. Statistical relationships between investment in different types of infrastructure projects (transit, water and wastewater, highways, power, manufacturing etc.) and indicators of economic growth are presented using historic data between 2002 and 2020 from the U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA). The outcome of the paper is the comparison of statistical correlations between investment in different types of infrastructure projects and indicators of economic growth. The comparison of the statistical correlations is useful in ranking the types of infrastructure projects based on their ability to influence economic prosperity. Therefore, investment in the infrastructures with the higher rank will have a better chance of boosting the economic growth. Once, the ranks are derived, they can be used by the decision-makers in infrastructure investment related decision-making process.

Keywords: Economic growth, infrastructure development, infrastructure projects, strategic investment.

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1804 Statistical Analysis and Impact Forecasting of Connected and Autonomous Vehicles on the Environment: Case Study in the State of Maryland

Authors: Alireza Ansariyar, Safieh Laaly

Abstract:

Over the last decades, the vehicle industry has shown increased interest in integrating autonomous, connected, and electrical technologies in vehicle design with the primary hope of improving mobility and road safety while reducing transportation’s environmental impact. Using the State of Maryland (M.D.) in the United States as a pilot study, this research investigates Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) fuel consumption and air pollutants including Carbon Monoxide (CO), Particulate Matter (PM), and Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and utilizes meaningful linear regression models to predict CAV’s environmental effects. Maryland transportation network was simulated in VISUM software, and data on a set of variables were collected through a comprehensive survey. The number of pollutants and fuel consumption were obtained for the time interval 2010 to 2021 from the macro simulation. Eventually, four linear regression models were proposed to predict the amount of C.O., NOx, PM pollutants, and fuel consumption in the future. The results highlighted that CAVs’ pollutants and fuel consumption have a significant correlation with the income, age, and race of the CAV customers. Furthermore, the reliability of four statistical models was compared with the reliability of macro simulation model outputs in the year 2030. The error of three pollutants and fuel consumption was obtained at less than 9% by statistical models in SPSS. This study is expected to assist researchers and policymakers with planning decisions to reduce CAV environmental impacts in M.D.

Keywords: Connected and autonomous vehicles, statistical model, environmental effects, pollutants and fuel consumption, VISUM, linear regression models.

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1803 Annual and Seasonal Variations in Air Quality Index of the National Capital Region, India

Authors: Surinder Deswal, Vineet Verma

Abstract:

Air Quality Index (AQI) is used as a tool to indicate the level of severity and disseminate the information on air pollution to enable the public to understand the health and environmental impacts of air pollutant concentration levels. The annual and seasonal variation of criteria air pollutants concentration based on the National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme has been conducted for a period of nine years (2006-2014) using the AQI system. AQI was calculated using IND-AQI methodology and Maximum Operator Concept is applied. An attempt has been made to quantify the variations in AQI on an annual and seasonal basis over a period of nine years. Further, year-wise frequency of occurrence of AQI in each category for all the five stations is analysed, which presents in depth analysis of trends over the period of study. The best air quality was observed in the Noida residential area, followed by Noida industrial area during the study period; whereas, Bulandshahar industrial area and Faridabad residential area were observed to have the worst air quality. A shift in the worst air quality from winter to summer season has also been observed during the study period. Further, the level of Respirable Suspended Particulate Matter was found to be above permissible limit at all the stations. The present study helps in enhancing public awareness and calls for the need of immediate measures to be taken to counter-effect the cause of the increasing level of air pollution.

Keywords: Air quality index, annual trends, criteria pollutants, seasonal variation.

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1802 Reliability-Based Topology Optimization Based on Evolutionary Structural Optimization

Authors: Sang-Rak Kim, Jea-Yong Park, Won-Goo Lee, Jin-Shik Yu, Seog-Young Han

Abstract:

This paper presents a Reliability-Based Topology Optimization (RBTO) based on Evolutionary Structural Optimization (ESO). An actual design involves uncertain conditions such as material property, operational load and dimensional variation. Deterministic Topology Optimization (DTO) is obtained without considering of the uncertainties related to the uncertainty parameters. However, RBTO involves evaluation of probabilistic constraints, which can be done in two different ways, the reliability index approach (RIA) and the performance measure approach (PMA). Limit state function is approximated using Monte Carlo Simulation and Central Composite Design for reliability analysis. ESO, one of the topology optimization techniques, is adopted for topology optimization. Numerical examples are presented to compare the DTO with RBTO.

Keywords: Evolutionary Structural Optimization, PerformanceMeasure Approach, Reliability-Based Topology Optimization, Reliability Index Approach.

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1801 Statistical Distributions of the Lapped Transform Coefficients for Images

Authors: Vijay Kumar Nath, Deepika Hazarika, Anil Mahanta,

Abstract:

Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) based transform coding is very popular in image, video and speech compression due to its good energy compaction and decorrelating properties. However, at low bit rates, the reconstructed images generally suffer from visually annoying blocking artifacts as a result of coarse quantization. Lapped transform was proposed as an alternative to the DCT with reduced blocking artifacts and increased coding gain. Lapped transforms are popular for their good performance, robustness against oversmoothing and availability of fast implementation algorithms. However, there is no proper study reported in the literature regarding the statistical distributions of block Lapped Orthogonal Transform (LOT) and Lapped Biorthogonal Transform (LBT) coefficients. This study performs two goodness-of-fit tests, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test and the 2- test, to determine the distribution that best fits the LOT and LBT coefficients. The experimental results show that the distribution of a majority of the significant AC coefficients can be modeled by the Generalized Gaussian distribution. The knowledge of the statistical distribution of transform coefficients greatly helps in the design of optimal quantizers that may lead to minimum distortion and hence achieve optimal coding efficiency.

Keywords: Lapped orthogonal transform, Lapped biorthogonal transform, Image compression, KS test,

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1800 Non-Overlapping Hierarchical Index Structure for Similarity Search

Authors: Mounira Taileb, Sid Lamrous, Sami Touati

Abstract:

In order to accelerate the similarity search in highdimensional database, we propose a new hierarchical indexing method. It is composed of offline and online phases. Our contribution concerns both phases. In the offline phase, after gathering the whole of the data in clusters and constructing a hierarchical index, the main originality of our contribution consists to develop a method to construct bounding forms of clusters to avoid overlapping. For the online phase, our idea improves considerably performances of similarity search. However, for this second phase, we have also developed an adapted search algorithm. Our method baptized NOHIS (Non-Overlapping Hierarchical Index Structure) use the Principal Direction Divisive Partitioning (PDDP) as algorithm of clustering. The principle of the PDDP is to divide data recursively into two sub-clusters; division is done by using the hyper-plane orthogonal to the principal direction derived from the covariance matrix and passing through the centroid of the cluster to divide. Data of each two sub-clusters obtained are including by a minimum bounding rectangle (MBR). The two MBRs are directed according to the principal direction. Consequently, the nonoverlapping between the two forms is assured. Experiments use databases containing image descriptors. Results show that the proposed method outperforms sequential scan and SRtree in processing k-nearest neighbors.

Keywords: K-nearest neighbour search, multi-dimensional indexing, multimedia databases, similarity search.

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1799 A Heuristic Statistical Model for Lifetime Distribution Analysis of Complicated Systems in the Reliability Centered Maintenance

Authors: Mojtaba Mahdavi, Mohamad Mahdavi, Maryam Yazdani

Abstract:

A heuristic conceptual model for to develop the Reliability Centered Maintenance (RCM), especially in preventive strategy, has been explored during this paper. In most real cases which complicity of system obligates high degree of reliability, this model proposes a more appropriate reliability function between life time distribution based and another which is based on relevant Extreme Value (EV) distribution. A statistical and mathematical approach is used to estimate and verify these two distribution functions. Then best one is chosen just among them, whichever is more reliable. A numeric Industrial case study will be reviewed to represent the concepts of this paper, more clearly.

Keywords: Lifetime distribution, Reliability, Estimation, Extreme value, Improving model, Series, Parallel.

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1798 A Multi-Attribute Utility Model for Performance Evaluation of Sustainable Banking

Authors: Sonia Rebai, Mohamed Naceur Azaiez, Dhafer Saidane

Abstract:

In this study, we develop a performance evaluation model based on a multi-attribute utility approach aiming at reaching the sustainable banking (SB) status. This model is built accounting for various banks’ stakeholders in a win-win paradigm. In addition, it offers the opportunity for adopting a global measure of performance as an indication of a bank’s sustainability degree. This measure is referred to as banking sustainability performance index (BSPI). This index may constitute a basis for ranking banks. Moreover, it may constitute a bridge between the assessment types of financial and extra-financial rating agencies. A real application is performed on three French banks.

Keywords: Multi-attribute utility theory, Performance, Sustainable banking.

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1797 Novel Adaptive Channel Equalization Algorithms by Statistical Sampling

Authors: János Levendovszky, András Oláh

Abstract:

In this paper, novel statistical sampling based equalization techniques and CNN based detection are proposed to increase the spectral efficiency of multiuser communication systems over fading channels. Multiuser communication combined with selective fading can result in interferences which severely deteriorate the quality of service in wireless data transmission (e.g. CDMA in mobile communication). The paper introduces new equalization methods to combat interferences by minimizing the Bit Error Rate (BER) as a function of the equalizer coefficients. This provides higher performance than the traditional Minimum Mean Square Error equalization. Since the calculation of BER as a function of the equalizer coefficients is of exponential complexity, statistical sampling methods are proposed to approximate the gradient which yields fast equalization and superior performance to the traditional algorithms. Efficient estimation of the gradient is achieved by using stratified sampling and the Li-Silvester bounds. A simple mechanism is derived to identify the dominant samples in real-time, for the sake of efficient estimation. The equalizer weights are adapted recursively by minimizing the estimated BER. The near-optimal performance of the new algorithms is also demonstrated by extensive simulations. The paper has also developed a (Cellular Neural Network) CNN based approach to detection. In this case fast quadratic optimization has been carried out by t, whereas the task of equalizer is to ensure the required template structure (sparseness) for the CNN. The performance of the method has also been analyzed by simulations.

Keywords: Cellular Neural Network, channel equalization, communication over fading channels, multiuser communication, spectral efficiency, statistical sampling.

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1796 Taguchi-Based Six Sigma Approach to Optimize Surface Roughness for Milling Processes

Authors: Sky Chou, Joseph C. Chen

Abstract:

This paper focuses on using Six Sigma methodologies to improve the surface roughness of a manufactured part produced by the CNC milling machine. It presents a case study where the surface roughness of milled aluminum is required to reduce or eliminate defects and to improve the process capability index Cp and Cpk for a CNC milling process. The six sigma methodology, DMAIC (design, measure, analyze, improve, and control) approach, was applied in this study to improve the process, reduce defects, and ultimately reduce costs. The Taguchi-based six sigma approach was applied to identify the optimized processing parameters that led to the targeted surface roughness specified by our customer. A L9 orthogonal array was applied in the Taguchi experimental design, with four controllable factors and one non-controllable/noise factor. The four controllable factors identified consist of feed rate, depth of cut, spindle speed, and surface roughness. The noise factor is the difference between the old cutting tool and the new cutting tool. The confirmation run with the optimal parameters confirmed that the new parameter settings are correct. The new settings also improved the process capability index. The purpose of this study is that the Taguchi–based six sigma approach can be efficiently used to phase out defects and improve the process capability index of the CNC milling process.

Keywords: CNC machining, Six Sigma, Surface roughness, Taguchi methodology.

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1795 Automatic Extraction of Water Bodies Using Whole-R Method

Authors: Nikhat Nawaz, S. Srinivasulu, P. Kesava Rao

Abstract:

Feature extraction plays an important role in many remote sensing applications. Automatic extraction of water bodies is of great significance in many remote sensing applications like change detection, image retrieval etc. This paper presents a procedure for automatic extraction of water information from remote sensing images. The algorithm uses the relative location of R color component of the chromaticity diagram. This method is then integrated with the effectiveness of the spatial scale transformation of whole method. The whole method is based on water index fitted from spectral library. Experimental results demonstrate the improved accuracy and effectiveness of the integrated method for automatic extraction of water bodies.

Keywords: Chromaticity, Feature Extraction, Remote Sensing, Spectral library, Water Index.

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1794 Evaluation of Power Factor Corrected AC - DC Converters and Controllers to meet UPS Performance Index

Authors: A. Muthuramalingam, S. Himavathi

Abstract:

Harmonic pollution and low power factor in power systems caused by power converters have been of great concern. To overcome these problems several converter topologies using advanced semiconductor devices and control schemes have been proposed. This investigation is to identify a low cost, small size, efficient and reliable ac to dc converter to meet the input performance index of UPS. The performance of single phase and three phase ac to dc converter along with various control techniques are studied and compared. The half bridge converter topology with linear current control is identified as most suitable. It is simple, energy efficient because of single switch power loss and transformer-less operation of UPS. The results are validated practically using a prototype built using IGBT and analog controller. The performance for both single and three-phase system is verified. Digital implementation of closed loop control achieves higher reliability. Its cost largely depends on chosen bit precision. The minimal bit precision for optimum converter performance is identified as 16-bit with fixed-point operation. From the investigation and practical implementation it is concluded that half bridge ac – dc converter along with digital linear controller meets the performance index of UPS for single and three phase systems.

Keywords: PFC, energy efficient, half bridge, ac-dc converter, boost topology, linear current control, digital bit precision.

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1793 Evaluation of the Burden of Taxation Received by Households in Lithuania

Authors: V. Boguslauskas, G. Jakstonyte, L. Giriunas

Abstract:

Many foreign and Lithuanian scientists, analyzing the evaluation of the tax system in respect of the burden of taxation, agree that the latter, in principle, depends on how many individuals and what units of the residents constitute a household. Therefore, the aim of scientific research is to substantiate or to deny the significance of a household, but not a resident, as a statistical unit, during the evaluation of tax system, to be precise, determination of the value of the burden of taxation. A performed scientific research revealed that evaluation of the tax system in respect of a household, but not a resident, as a statistical unit, allows not only to evaluate the efficiency of the tax system more objectively, but also to forecast practicably existing poverty line, burden of taxation, and to capacitate the initiation of efficient decisions in social and tax fields creating the environment of existence.

Keywords: burden of taxation, household, tax systemevaluation.

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1792 Comparison Mechanical and Chemical Treatments on Properties of Low Yield Bagasse Pulp During Recycling

Authors: Parizad Sheikhi, Mohammad Talaeipour

Abstract:

the effects of refining and alkaline chemicals on potential of recycling bleached chemical pulp of bagasse were investigated in this study. Recycling was done until three times. Handsheet properties such as, apparent density, light scattering coefficient, tear index, burst index, breaking length, and fold number according to TAPPI standard were measured. Water retention value also was used to considering the treatments during recycling. Refining enhanced the strength of recycled pulp by increasing fiber flexibility and swelling ability, whereas by applying chemical treatment didn't observe any improvement. The morphology of recycled fiber was considered with scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

Keywords: Bagasse pulp, chemical treatment, recycling, refining, scanning electron microscopy, water retention value.

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1791 Recognition of Obstacles and Providing Different Guidelines and Promotion of Electronic Government in Iran

Authors: E. Asgharizadeh, M. Ajalli, S.R. Safavi.M.M, A. Medghalchi

Abstract:

Electronic Government is one of the special concepts which has been performed successfully within recent decades. Electronic government is a digital, wall-free government with a virtual organization for presenting of online governmental services and further cooperation in different political/social activities. In order to have a successful implementation of electronic government strategy and benefiting from its complete potential and benefits and generally for establishment and applying of electronic government, it is necessary to have different infrastructures as the basics of electronic government with lack of which it is impossible to benefit from mentioned services. For this purpose, in this paper we have managed to recognize relevant obstacles for establishment of electronic government in Iran. All required data for recognition of obstacles were collected from statistical society of involved specialists of Ministry of Communications & Information Technology of Iran and Information Technology Organization of Tehran Municipality through questionnaire. Then by considering of five-point Likert scope and μ =3 as the index of relevant factors of proposed model, we could specify current obstacles against electronic government in Iran along with some guidelines and proposal in this regard. According to the results, mentioned obstacles for applying of electronic government in Iran are as follows: Technical & technological problems, Legal, judicial & safety problems, Economic problems and Humanistic Problems.

Keywords: Government, Electronic Government, InformationTechnology, Obstacles, Iran.

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