Search results for: soil structural characteristics

Authors: Thomas Bryan, Veton Kepuska, Ivica Kostanic

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A simple adaptive voice activity detector (VAD) is implemented using Gabor and gammatone atomic decomposition of speech for high Gaussian noise environments. Matching pursuit is used for atomic decomposition, and is shown to achieve optimal speech detection capability at high data compression rates for low signal to noise ratios. The most active dictionary elements found by matching pursuit are used for the signal reconstruction so that the algorithm adapts to the individual speakers dominant time-frequency characteristics. Speech has a high peak to average ratio enabling matching pursuit greedy heuristic of highest inner products to isolate high energy speech components in high noise environments. Gabor and gammatone atoms are both investigated with identical logarithmically spaced center frequencies, and similar bandwidths. The algorithm performs equally well for both Gabor and gammatone atoms with no significant statistical differences. The algorithm achieves 70% accuracy at a 0 dB SNR, 90% accuracy at a 5 dB SNR and 98% accuracy at a 20dB SNR using 30d B SNR as a reference for voice activity.

Keywords: Atomic Decomposition, Gabor, Gammatone, Matching Pursuit, Voice Activity Detection.

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Authors: H. Feza Carlak, N. G. Gencer

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To increase the temperature contrast in thermal images, the characteristics of the electrical conductivity and thermal imaging modalities can be combined. In this experimental study, it is objected to observe whether the temperature contrast created by the tumor tissue can be improved just due to the current application within medical safety limits. Various thermal breast phantoms are developed to simulate the female breast tissue. In vitro experiments are implemented using a thermal infrared camera in a controlled manner. Since experiments are implemented in vitro, there is no metabolic heat generation and blood perfusion. Only the effects and results of the electrical stimulation are investigated. Experimental study is implemented with two-dimensional models. Temperature contrasts due to the tumor tissues are obtained. Cancerous tissue is determined using the difference and ratio of healthy and tumor images. 1 cm diameter single tumor tissue causes almost 40 °mC temperature contrast on the thermal-breast phantom. Electrode artifacts are reduced by taking the difference and ratio of background (healthy) and tumor images. Ratio of healthy and tumor images show that temperature contrast is increased by the current application.

Keywords: Medical diagnostic imaging, breast phantom, active thermography, breast cancer detection.

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Authors: Zoe Chang, Max Williams, Gautham Das

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The purpose of this study is to evaluate the incorporation of hemp fibers (HF) in concrete. Hemp fiber reinforced concrete (HFRC) is becoming more popular as an alternative for regular mix designs. This study was done to evaluate the compressive strength of HFRC regarding mix procedure. HF were obtained from the manufacturer and hand processed to ensure uniformity in width and length. The fibers were added to concrete as both wet and dry mix to investigate and optimize the mix design process. Results indicated that the dry mix had a compressive strength of 1157 psi compared to the wet mix of 985 psi. This dry mix compressive strength was within range of the standard mix compressive strength of 1533 psi. The statistical analysis revealed that the mix design process needs further optimization and uniformity concerning the addition of HF. Regression analysis revealed that the standard mix design had a coefficient of 0.9 as compared to the dry mix of 0.375 indicating a variation in the mixing process. While completing the dry mix, the addition of plain HF caused them to intertwine creating lumps and inconsistency. However, during the wet mixing process, combining water and HF before incorporation allows the fibers to uniformly disperse within the mix hence the regression analysis indicated a better coefficient of 0.55. This study concludes that HRFC is a viable alternative to regular mixes however more research surrounding its characteristics needs to be conducted.

Keywords: hemp fibers, hemp reinforced concrete, wet and dry, freeze thaw testing, compressive strength

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Authors: Igor Miňo, Lenka Lešková

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Over the past 80 years, open-field method has evolved as a commonly used tool for the analysis of animal behaviour. The study was carried out using 50 kennel-reared purebred puppies of the German Shepherd dog breed. All dogs were tested in 5^th, 7^th, and 9^th week of age. For the purpose of behavioural analysis, an open-field evaluation report was designed prior to testing to ensure the most convenient, rapid, and suitable way to assess selected behavioural patterns in field conditions. Onset of vocalisation, intensity of vocalisation, level of physical activity, response to sound, and overall behaviour was monitored in the study. Correlations between measures of height, weight and chest circumference, and behavioural characteristics in the 5^th, 7^th, and 9^th week of age were not statistically significant. Onset of vocalisation, intensity of vocalisation, level of physical activity and response to sound differed on statistically significant level between 5^th, 7^th, and 9^th week of age. Results suggest that our practical assessment report may be used as an applicable method to evaluate the suitability of service dog puppies for future working roles.

Keywords: Dog, behaviour, open-field, testing.

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Authors: Rahman Davtalab, Saba Ghotbi

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Florida is one of the most vulnerable states to natural disasters among the 50 states of the USA. The state exposed by tropical storms, hurricanes, storm surge, landslide, etc. Besides the mentioned natural phenomena, global warming, sea-level rise, and other anthropogenic environmental changes make a very complicated and unpredictable system for decision-makers. In this study, we tried to highlight the effects of climate change and sea-level rise on surface water and groundwater systems for three different geographical locations in Florida; Main Canal of Jacksonville Beach in the northeast of Florida adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean, Grace Lake in central Florida, far away from surrounded coastal line, and Mc Dill in Florida and adjacent to Tampa Bay and Mexican Gulf. An integrated hydrologic and hydraulic model was developed and simulated for all three cases, including surface water, groundwater, or a combination of both. For the case study of Main Canal-Jacksonville Beach, the investigation showed that a 76 cm sea-level rise in time horizon 2060 could increase the flow velocity of the tide cycle for the main canal's outlet and headwater. This case also revealed how the sea level rise could change the tide duration, potentially affecting the coastal ecosystem. As expected, sea-level rise can raise the groundwater level. Therefore, for the Mc Dill case, the effect of groundwater rise on soil storage and the performance of stormwater retention ponds is investigated. The study showed that sea-level rise increased the pond’s seasonal high water up to 40 cm by time horizon 2060. The reliability of the retention pond is dropped from 99% for the current condition to 54% for the future. The results also proved that the retention pond could not retain and infiltrate the designed treatment volume within 72 hours, which is a significant indication of increasing pollutants in the future. Grace Lake case study investigates the effects of climate change on groundwater recharge. This study showed that using the dynamically downscaled data of the groundwater recharge can decline up to 24 % by the mid-21st century. 

Keywords: groundwater, surface water, Florida, retention pond, tide, sea-level rise

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Authors: Hanifah Jambari, Naziha A. Azli, M. Afendi M. Piah

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This paper presents the generation of bipolar square wave pulses with characteristics that are suitable for liquid food sterilization using a Cascaded H-bridge Multilevel Inverter (CHMI). Bipolar square waves pulses have been reported as stable for a longer time during the sterilization process with minimum heat emission and increased efficiency. The CHMI allows the system to produce bipolar square wave pulses and yielding high output voltage without using a transformer while fulfilling the pulse requirements for effective liquid food sterilization. This in turn can reduce power consumption and cost of the overall liquid food sterilization system. The simulation results have shown that pulses with peak output voltage of 2.4 kV, pulse width of between 1 2s and 1 ms at frequencies of 50 Hz and 100 Hz can be generated by a 7-level CHMI. Results from the experimental set-up based on a 5-level CHMI has indicated the potential of the proposed circuit in producing bipolar square wave output pulses with peak values that depends on the DC source level supplied to the CHMI modules, pulse width of between 12.5 2s and 1 ms at frequencies of 50 Hz and 100 Hz.

Keywords: pulsed electric field, multilevel inverter, bipolarsquare wave, food sterilization

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Authors: R. Keerativittatayut, B. Kaewkamnerdpong, J. Laothamatas, W. Sungkarat

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Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM) functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is a promising technique to study the connectivity among brain regions and effects of stimuli through modeling neuronal interactions from time-series neuroimaging. The aim of this study is to study characteristics of a mirror neuron system (MNS) in elderly group (age: 60-70 years old). Twenty volunteers were MRI scanned with visual stimuli to study a functional brain network. DCM was employed to determine the mechanism of mirror neuron effects. The results revealed major activated areas including precentral gyrus, inferior parietal lobule, inferior occipital gyrus, and supplementary motor area. When visual stimuli were presented, the feed-forward connectivity from visual area to conjunction area was increased and forwarded to motor area. Moreover, the connectivity from the conjunction areas to premotor area was also increased. Such findings can be useful for future diagnostic process for elderly with diseases such as Parkinson-s and Alzheimer-s.

Keywords: Mirror Neuron System (MNS), Dynamic Causal Modeling (DCM), Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)

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Authors: Pardeep Singh, Sanjay Sharma

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Content-Based Image Retrieval (CBIR) has been one on the most vivid research areas in the field of computer vision over the last 10 years. Many programs and tools have been developed to formulate and execute queries based on the visual or audio content and to help browsing large multimedia repositories. Still, no general breakthrough has been achieved with respect to large varied databases with documents of difering sorts and with varying characteristics. Answers to many questions with respect to speed, semantic descriptors or objective image interpretations are still unanswered. In the medical field, images, and especially digital images, are produced in ever increasing quantities and used for diagnostics and therapy. In several articles, content based access to medical images for supporting clinical decision making has been proposed that would ease the management of clinical data and scenarios for the integration of content-based access methods into Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS) have been created. This paper gives an overview of soft computing techniques. New research directions are being defined that can prove to be useful. Still, there are very few systems that seem to be used in clinical practice. It needs to be stated as well that the goal is not, in general, to replace text based retrieval methods as they exist at the moment.

Keywords: CBIR, GA, Rough sets, CBMIR

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Authors: C. C. Liang

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MSN used to be the most popular application for communicating among social networks, but Facebook chat is now the most popular. Facebook and MSN have similar characteristics, including usefulness, ease-of-use, and a similar function, which is the exchanging of information with friends. Facebook outperforms MSN in both of these areas. However, the adoption of Facebook and abandonment of MSN have occurred for other reasons. Functions can be improved, but users’ willingness to use does not just depend on functionality. Flow status has been established to be crucial to users’ adoption of cyber applications and to affects users’ adoption of software applications. If users experience flow in using software application, they will enjoy using it frequently, and even change their preferred application from an old to this new one. However, no investigation has examined choice behavior related to switching from Facebook to MSN based on a consideration of flow experiences and functions. This investigation discusses the flow experiences and functions of social-networking applications. Flow experience is found to affect perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness; perceived ease of use influences information ex-change with friends, and perceived usefulness; information exchange influences perceived usefulness, but information exchange has no effect on flow experience.

Keywords: Consumer behavior, social media, technology acceptance model.

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Authors: Necati Içer

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Crop-hail insurance plays a vital role in managing risks and reducing the financial consequences of hail damage on crop production. Predicting insurance premium rates with short-term data is a major challenge in numerous nations because of the unique characteristics of hailstorms. This study aims to suggest a feasible approach for establishing equitable premium rates in crop-hail insurance for nations with short-term insurance data. The primary goal of the rate-making process is to determine premium rates for high and zero loss costs of villages and enhance their credibility. To do this, a technique was created using the author's practical knowledge of crop-hail insurance. With this approach, the rate-making method was developed using a range of temporal and spatial factor combinations with both hypothetical and real data, including extreme cases. This article aims to show how to incorporate the temporal and spatial elements into determining fair premium rates using short-term insurance data. The article ends with a suggestion on the ultimate premium rates for insurance contracts.

Keywords: Crop-hail insurance, premium rate, short-term insurance data, spatial and temporal parameters.

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Authors: Diako Azizi, Ahmad Gholami, Vahid Abbasi

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Optimal selection of electrical insulations in electrical machinery insures reliability during operation. From the insulation studies of view for electrical machines, stator is the most important part. This fact reveals the requirement for inspection of the electrical machine insulation along with the electro-thermal stresses. In the first step of the study, a part of the whole structure of machine in which covers the general characteristics of the machine is chosen, then based on the electromagnetic analysis (finite element method), the machine operation is simulated. In the simulation results, the temperature distribution of the total structure is presented simultaneously by using electro-thermal analysis. The results of electro-thermal analysis can be used for designing an optimal cooling system. In order to design, review and comparing the cooling systems, four wiring structures in the slots of Stator are presented. The structures are compared to each other in terms of electrical, thermal distribution and remaining life of insulation by using Finite Element analysis. According to the steps of the study, an optimization algorithm has been presented for selection of appropriate structure.

Keywords: Electrical field, field distribution, insulation, winding, finite element method, electro thermal

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Authors: Ahmed A.D. Sarhan, Lim Siew Fen, Mum Wai Yip, M. Sayuti

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Ti6Al4V alloy is highly used in the automotive and aerospace industry due to its good machining characteristics. Micro EDM drilling is commonly used to drill micro hole on extremely hard material with very high depth to diameter ratio. In this study, the parameters of micro-electrical discharge machining (EDM) in drilling of Ti6Al4V alloy is optimized for higher machining accuracy with less hole-dilation and hole taper ratio. The micro-EDM machining parameters includes, peak current and pulse on time. Fuzzy analysis was developed to evaluate the machining accuracy. The analysis shows that hole-dilation and hole-taper ratio are increased with the increasing of peak current and pulse on time. However, the surface quality deteriorates as the peak current and pulse on time increase. The combination that gives the optimum result for hole dilation is medium peak current and short pulse on time. Meanwhile, the optimum result for hole taper ratio is low peak current and short pulse on time.

Keywords: Micro EDM, Ti-6Al-4V alloy, fuzzy logic based analysis, optimization, machining accuracy.

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Authors: Mehran Jamshidi, Naghmeh Yazdanfar, Masoud Nasri

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In general architecture means the art of creating the space. Comprehensive and complete body which is created by a creative and purposeful thought to respond the human needs. Professionally, architecture is the are of designing and comprehensive planning of physical spaces that is created for human-s productivity. The purpose of architectural design is to respond the human needs which is appeared in physical frame. Human in response to his needs is always looking to achieve comfort. Throughout history of human civilization this relative comfort has been inspired by nature and assimilating the facility and natural achievement in the format of artifact patterns base on the nature, so that it is achieved in this comfort level and invention of these factors. All physical factors like regional, social and economical factors are made available to human in order to achieve a specific goal and are made to gain an ideal architecture to respond the functional needs and consider the aesthetics and elemental principles and pay attention to residents- comfort. In this study the Persian architecture with exploiting and transforming the energies into the requisite energies of architecture spaces and importing fuel products, utilities, etc, in order to achieve a relative comfort level will be investigated. In this paper the study of structural and physical specialties of traditional houses in desert regions and Central Plateau of Iran gave us this opportunity to being more familiar with important specialties of energy productivity in architecture body of traditional houses in these regions specially traditional houses of Kashan and in order to use these principles to create modern architectures in these regions.

Keywords: architecture principles, stable architecture, management, energy productivity, body, energy

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Authors: Sanjib Kr Pal, S. Bhattacharyya

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Mixed convection of Cu-water nanofluid in an enclosure with thick wavy bottom wall has been investigated numerically. A co-ordinate transformation method is used to transform the computational domain into an orthogonal co-ordinate system. The governing equations in the computational domain are solved through a pressure correction based iterative algorithm. The fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics are analyzed for a wide range of Richardson number (0.1 ≤ Ri ≤ 5), nanoparticle volume concentration (0.0 ≤ ϕ ≤ 0.2), amplitude (0.0 ≤ α ≤ 0.1) of the wavy thick- bottom wall and the wave number (ω) at a fixed Reynolds number. Obtained results showed that heat transfer rate increases remarkably by adding the nanoparticles. Heat transfer rate is dependent on the wavy wall amplitude and wave number and decreases with increasing Richardson number for fixed amplitude and wave number. The Bejan number and the entropy generation are determined to analyze the thermodynamic optimization of the mixed convection.

Keywords: Entropy generation, mixed convection, conjugate heat transfer, numerical, nanofluid, wall waviness.

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Authors: Awad A. Younis, Elise Stronberg, Shifa Noor

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Users’ susceptibility to malware attacks have been noticed in the past few years. Investigating the factors that make a user vulnerable to those attacks is critical because they can be utilized to set up proactive strategies such as awareness and education to mitigate the impacts of those attacks. Demographic, behavioral, and cultural vulnerabilities are the main factors that make users susceptible to malware attacks. It is challenging, however, to draw more general conclusions based on those factors due to the varieties in the type of users and different types of malware. Therefore, we conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of the existing research for user susceptibility factors to malware attacks. The results showed that all demographic factors are consistently associated with malware infection regardless of the users' type except for age and gender. Besides, the association of culture and personality factors with malware infection is consistent in most of the selected studies and for all types of users. Moreover, malware infection varies based on age, geographic location, and host types. We propose that future studies should carefully take into consideration the type of users because different users may be exposed to different threats or targeted based on their user domains’ characteristics. Additionally, as different types of malware use different tactics to trick users, taking the malware types into consideration is important.

Keywords: cybersecurity, malware, users, demographics, personality, culture, systematic literature review

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Authors: Vahid Nademi

Abstract:

In response to widely used wearable medical devices equipped with a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and insulin pump, the advanced control methods are still demanding to get the full benefit of these devices. Unlike costly clinical trials, implementing effective insulin-glucose control strategies can provide significant contributions to the patients suffering from chronic diseases such as diabetes. This study deals with a key role of two-layer insulin-glucose regulator based on model-predictive-control (MPC) scheme so that the patient’s predicted glucose profile is in compliance with the insulin level injected through insulin pump automatically. It is achieved by iterative optimization algorithm which is called an integrated perturbation analysis and sequential quadratic programming (IPA-SQP) solver for handling uncertainties due to unexpected variations in glucose-insulin values and body’s characteristics. The feasibility evaluation of the discussed control approach is also studied by means of numerical simulations of two case scenarios via measured data. The obtained results are presented to verify the superior and reliable performance of the proposed control scheme with no negative impact on patient safety.

Keywords: Blood glucose monitoring, insulin pump, optimization, predictive control, diabetes disease.

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Authors: Behrooz Movahedi

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Fe-based amorphous feedstock powders are used as the matrix into which various ratios of hard B4C nanoparticles (0, 5, 10, 15, 20 vol.%) as reinforcing agents were prepared using a planetary high-energy mechanical milling. The ball-milled nanocomposite feedstock powders were also sprayed by means of high-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) technique. The characteristics of the powder particles and the prepared coating depending on their microstructures and nanohardness were examined in detail using nanoindentation tester. The results showed that the formation of the Fe-based amorphous phase was noticed over the course of high-energy ball milling. It is interesting to note that the nanocomposite coating is divided into two regions, namely, a full amorphous phase region and homogeneous dispersion of B4C nanoparticles with a scale of 10–50 nm in a residual amorphous matrix. As the B4C content increases, the nanohardness of the composite coatings increases, but the fracture toughness begins to decrease at the B4C content higher than 20 vol.%. The optimal mechanical properties are obtained with 15 vol.% B4C due to the suitable content and uniform distribution of nanoparticles. Consequently, the changes in mechanical properties of the coatings were attributed to the changes in the brittle to ductile transition by adding B4C nanoparticles.

Keywords: Fe-based amorphous, B4C nanoparticles, nanocomposite coating, HVOF.

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Authors: Amer A. Hasan, Mehri Igci, Ersin Borazan, Rozhgar A. Khailany, Emine Bayraktar, Ahmet Arslan

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Gastric Cancer (GC) has high morbidity and fatality rate in various countries. It is still one of the most frequent and deadly diseases. Gastrokine1 (GKN1) and gastrokine2 (GKN2) genes are highly expressed in the normal stomach epithelium and play important roles in maintaining the integrity and homeostasis of stomach mucosal epithelial cells. In this study, 47 paired samples that were grouped according to the types of gastric cancer and the clinical characteristics of the patients, including gender and average of age. They were investigated with gene expression analysis and mutation screening by monitoring RT-PCR, SSCP and nucleotide sequencing techniques. Both GKN1 and GKN2 genes were observed significantly reduced found by (Wilcoxon signed rank test; p<0.05). As a result of gene screening, no mutation (no different genotype) was detected. It is considered that gene mutations are not the cause of gastrokines inactivation. In conclusion, the mRNA expression level of GKN1 and GKN2 genes statistically was decreased regardless the gender, age, or cancer type of patients. Reduced of gastrokine genes seem to occur at the initial steps of gastric cancer development.

Keywords: Diagnostic biomarker, gastric cancer, nucleotide sequencing, semi-quantitative RT-PCR.

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Authors: Marco Soares dos Santos, Camila Nicola Boeri, Jorge Augusto Ferreira, Fernando Neto da Silva

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The highly nonlinear characteristics of drying processes have prompted researchers to seek new nonlinear control solutions. However, the relation between the implementation complexity, on-line processing complexity, reliability control structure and controller-s performance is not well established. The present paper proposes high performance nonlinear fuzzy controllers for a real-time operation of a drying machine, being developed under a consistent match between those issues. A PCI-6025E data acquisition device from National Instruments® was used, and the control system was fully designed with MATLAB® / SIMULINK language. Drying parameters, namely relative humidity and temperature, were controlled through MIMOs Hybrid Bang-bang+PI (BPI) and Four-dimensional Fuzzy Logic (FLC) real-time-based controllers to perform drying tests on biological materials. The performance of the drying strategies was compared through several criteria, which are reported without controllers- retuning. Controllers- performance analysis has showed much better performance of FLC than BPI controller. The absolute errors were lower than 8,85 % for Fuzzy Logic Controller, about three times lower than the experimental results with BPI control.

Keywords: Drying control, Fuzzy logic control, Intelligent temperature-humidity control.

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Authors: Carlos Vera, Tetyana Baydyk, Ernst Kussul, Graciela Velasco, Miguel Aparicio

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This article describes the Random Subspace Neural Classifier (RSC) for the recognition of meteors in the night sky. We used images of meteors entering the atmosphere at night between 8:00 p.m.-5: 00 a.m. The objective of this project is to classify meteor and star images (with stars as the image background). The monitoring of the sky and the classification of meteors are made for future applications by scientists. The image database was collected from different websites. We worked with RGB-type images with dimensions of 220x220 pixels stored in the BitMap Protocol (BMP) format. Subsequent window scanning and processing were carried out for each image. The scan window where the characteristics were extracted had the size of 20x20 pixels with a scanning step size of 10 pixels. Brightness, contrast and contour orientation histograms were used as inputs for the RSC. The RSC worked with two classes and classified into: 1) with meteors and 2) without meteors. Different tests were carried out by varying the number of training cycles and the number of images for training and recognition. The percentage error for the neural classifier was calculated. The results show a good RSC classifier response with 89% correct recognition. The results of these experiments are presented and discussed.

Keywords: Contour orientation histogram, meteors, night sky, RSC neural classifier, stars.

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Authors: K. M. Mohamed Muneer, Raghu V. Prakash, Krishnan Balasubramaniam

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This paper presents the results of thermo-mechanical characterization of Glass/Epoxy composite specimens using Infrared Thermography technique. The specimens used for the study were fabricated in-house with three different lay-up sequences and tested on a servo hydraulic machine under uni-axial loading. Infrared Camera was used for on-line monitoring surface temperature changes of composite specimens during tensile deformation. Experimental results showed that thermomechanical characteristics of each type of specimens were distinct. Temperature was found to be decreasing linearly with increasing tensile stress in the elastic region due to thermo-elastic effect. Yield point could be observed by monitoring the change in temperature profile during tensile testing and this value could be correlated with the results obtained from stress-strain response. The extent of prior plastic deformation in the post-yield region influenced the slopes of temperature response during tensile loading. Partial unloading and reloading of specimens post-yield results in change in slope in elastic and plastic regions of composite specimens.

Keywords: Glass/Epoxy composites, Thermomechanical behavior, Infrared Thermography, Thermoelastic slope, Thermoplastic slope.

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Authors: R.Abbaszadeh, A.Rajabipour, M.Delshad, M.J.Mahjub, H.Ahmadi

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It is difficult to judge ripeness by outward characteristics such as size or external color. In this paper a nondestructive method was studied to determine watermelon (Crimson Sweet) quality. Responses of samples to excitation vibrations were detected using laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) technology. Phase shift between input and output vibrations were extracted overall frequency range. First and second were derived using frequency response spectrums. After nondestructive tests, watermelons were sensory evaluated. So the samples were graded in a range of ripeness based on overall acceptability (total desired traits consumers). Regression models were developed to predict quality using obtained results and sample mass. The determination coefficients of the calibration and cross validation models were 0.89 and 0.71 respectively. This study demonstrated feasibility of information which is derived vibration response curves for predicting fruit quality. The vibration response of watermelon using the LDV method is measured without direct contact; it is accurate and timely, which could result in significant advantage for classifying watermelons based on consumer opinions.

Keywords: Laser Doppler vibrometry, Phase shift, Overallacceptability, Regression model , Resonance frequency, Watermelon

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Authors: N. Patten, T. M. Young, P. Griffin

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Preliminary results for a new flat plate test facility are presented here in the form of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), flow visualisation, pressure measurements and thermal anemometry. The results from the CFD and flow visualisation show the effectiveness of the plate design, with the trailing edge flap anchoring the stagnation point on the working surface and reducing the extent of the leading edge separation. The flow visualization technique demonstrates the two-dimensionality of the flow in the location where the thermal anemometry measurements are obtained. Measurements of the boundary layer mean velocity profiles compare favourably with the Blasius solution, thereby allowing for comparison of future measurements with the wealth of data available on zero pressure gradient Blasius flows. Results for the skin friction, boundary layer thickness, frictional velocity and wall shear stress are shown to agree well with the Blasius theory, with a maximum experimental deviation from theory of 5%. Two turbulence generating grids have been designed and characterized and it is shown that the turbulence decay downstream of both grids agrees with established correlations. It is also demonstrated that there is little dependence of turbulence on the freestream velocity.

Keywords: CFD, Flow Visualisation, Thermal Anemometry, Turbulence Grids.

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Authors: Nik Kamariah Nik-Mat, Noor Hasmini Abd-Ghani, Jamal Mohammed Esmail Al-Ekam

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The Malaysian government had consistently revived its campaign for “Buy Malaysian Goods” from time to time. The purpose of the campaign is to remind consumers to be ethnocentric and patriotic when purchasing product and services. This is necessary to ensure high demand for local products and services compared to foreign products. However, the decline of domestic investment in 2012 has triggered concern for the Malaysian economy. Hence, this study attempts to determine the drivers of actual purchasing behavior, intention to purchase domestic products and ethnocentrism. The study employs the cross-sectional primary data, self-administered on household, selected using stratified random sampling in four Malaysian regions. A nine factor driver of actual domestic purchasing behavior (culture openness, conservatism, collectivism, patriotism, control belief, interest in foreign travel, attitude, ethnocentrism and intention) were measured utilizing 60 items, using 7-point Likertscale. From 1000 questionnaires distributed, a sample of 486 were returned representing 48.6 percent response rate. From the fit generated structural model (SEM analysis), it was found that the drivers of actual purchase behavior are collectivism, cultural openness and patriotism; the drivers of intention to purchase domestic product are attitude, control belief, collectivism and conservatism; and drivers of ethnocentrism are cultural openness, control belief, foreign travel and patriotism. It also shows that Malaysian consumers scored high in ethnocentrism and patriotism. The findings are discussed in the perspective of its implication to Malaysian National Agenda.

Keywords: Actual purchase, ethnocentrism, culture openness, conservatism, collectivism, patriotism.

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Authors: M. A. Hassan, M. H. Sakinah, K. Kadirgama, D. Ramasamy, M. M. Noor, M. M. Rahman

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Tribological properties that include nanoparticles are an alternative to improve the tribological behaviour of lubricating oil, which has been investigated by many researchers for the past few decades. Various nanostructures can be used as additives for tribological improvement. However, this also depends on the characteristics of the nanoparticles. In this study, tribological investigation was performed to examine the effect of CuO nanoparticles on the tribological behaviour of Syntium 800 SL 10W−30. Three parameters used in the analysis using the wear tester (piston ring) were load, revolutions per minute (rpm), and concentration. The specifications of the nanoparticles, such as size, concentration, hardness, and shape, can affect the tribological behaviour of the lubricant. The friction and wear experiment was conducted using a tribo-tester and the Response Surface Methodology method was used to analyse any improvement of the performance. Therefore, two concentrations of 40 nm nanoparticles were used to conduct the experiments, namely, 0.005 wt % and 0.01 wt % and compared with base oil 0 wt % (control). A water bath sonicator was used to disperse the nanoparticles in base oil, while a tribo-tester was used to measure the coefficient of friction and wear rate. In addition, the thermal properties of the nanolubricant were also measured. The results have shown that the thermal conductivity of the nanolubricant was increased when compared with the base oil. Therefore, the results indicated that CuO nanoparticles had improved the tribological behaviour as well as the thermal properties of the nanolubricant oil.

Keywords: Concentration, improvement, tribological, Copper (II) oxide, nanolubricant.

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Authors: Marek Halenár, Eva Tvrdá, Simona Baldovská, Ľubomír Ondruška, Peter Massányi, Adriana Kolesárová

Abstract:

This study aimed to assess the in vitro effects of different concentrations of the Viscum album extract on the motility, viability, and reactive oxygen species (ROS) production by rabbit spermatozoa during different time periods (0, 2, and 8h). Spermatozoa motility was assessed by using the CASA (Computer aided sperm analysis) system. Cell viability was evaluated by using the metabolic activity MTT assay, and the luminol-based luminometry was applied to quantify the ROS formation. The CASA analysis revealed that low Viscum concentrations were able to prevent a rapid decline of spermatozoa motility, especially in the case of concentrations ranging between 1 and 5 µg/mL (P<0.05 with respect to time 8h). At the same time, concentrations ranging between 1 and 100 µg/mL of the extract led to a significant preservation of the cell viability (P<0.05 in case of 5, 50 and 100 µg/mL; P<0.01 with respect to 1 and 10 µg/mL, time 8h). 1 and 5 µg/mL of the extract exhibited antioxidant characteristics, translated into a significant reduction of the ROS production, particularly notable at time 8h (P<0.01). The results indicate that the Viscum extract is capable of delaying the damage inflicted to the spermatozoon by the in vitro environment.

Keywords: CASA, mistletoe, mitochondrial activity, motility, reactive oxygen species, rabbits, spermatozoa, Viscum album.

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Authors: Deniz T. Sodiri, Venkat V S S Sastry

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The paper presents an on-line recognition machine (RM) for continuous/isolated, dynamic and static gestures that arise in Flight Deck Officer (FDO) training. RM is based on generic pattern recognition framework. Gestures are represented as templates using summary statistics. The proposed recognition algorithm exploits temporal and spatial characteristics of gestures via dynamic programming and Markovian process. The algorithm predicts corresponding index of incremental input data in the templates in an on-line mode. Accumulated consistency in the sequence of prediction provides a similarity measurement (Score) between input data and the templates. The algorithm provides an intuitive mechanism for automatic detection of start/end frames of continuous gestures. In the present paper, we consider isolated gestures. The performance of RM is evaluated using four datasets - artificial (W TTest), hand motion (Yang) and FDO (tracker, vision-based ). RM achieves comparable results which are in agreement with other on-line and off-line algorithms such as hidden Markov model (HMM) and dynamic time warping (DTW). The proposed algorithm has the additional advantage of providing timely feedback for training purposes.

Keywords: On-line Recognition Algorithm, IsolatedDynamic/Static Gesture Recognition, On-line Markovian/DynamicProgramming, Training in Virtual Environments.

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Authors: Marie Pavelková, Hana Lukášová

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Pupils´ inquisitiveness at the beginning of their school attendance is reflected by characteristics of the questions they ask. Clearly most of the classroom communication sequences are initiated by the teacher. But the teaching process also includes questions initiated by pupils in the need to satisfy their need for knowledge. The purpose of our research is to present the results of our pre-research strategy of occurrence of pupil-initiated questions in math lessons at the lower elementary school level, and to reveal the extent to which they are influenced by the teacher´s teaching strategy. We used the research methods of direct and indirect observations of fifth year classes in primary school. We focused on questions asked by the pupils in their math lessons. Our research sample for the pre-research observation method was a collection of video recordings available online. We used them for analysing the nature of pupils´ questions identified there. On the basis of the analysis, we hereby present the results concerning the nature of pupils´ questions asked in math lessons on the lower elementary school level. The interpretation of the collected results will be the starting point for the selection of research strategies in the next research stages concerning pupils’ questions in the future.

Keywords: Alternative strategies, 1ower elementary school level, pupil´s question, teaching strategies.

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Authors: Jin-Hong Kim

Abstract:

Roles of the vegetation to mitigate the erosion of the stream bed or to facilitate the deposition of the fine sediments by the species of the aquatic plants were presented. Field investigation on the estimation of the change of the bed level and the estimation of the flow characteristics were performed. The results showed that Phragmites japonica has the mitigation function of 0.3m-0.4m of the erosion in the range of higher than 1.0m/s of flow velocity at the vegetated region. Phragmites communis has the mitigation function of 0.2m-0.3m of the erosion in the range of higher than 0.7m/s of flow velocity at the vegetated region. Salix gracilistyla has greater role than Phragmites japonica and Phragmites communis to sustain the stable channel. It has the mitigation function of 0.4m-0.5m of the erosion in the range of higher than 1.4m/s of flow velocity. Miscanthus sacchariflorus has a weak role compared with that of Phragmites japonica and Salix gracilistyla, but it has still function for sustaining the stable bed. From these results, the vegetation has effective roles to mitigate the erosion or to facilitate the deposition of the stream bed.

Keywords: Aquatic plants, Phragmites japonica, Phragmites communis, Miscanthus sacchariflorus, Salix gracilistyla.

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Authors: Masami Usui

Abstract:

The 21th century has already witnessed the rapid globalization of catastrophes caused by layered political, social, religious, cultural, and environmental conflicts. The post 9/11 literature that reflects these characteristics retells the experiences of those who are, whether directly or indirectly, involved in the globalized catastrophes of enlarging and endangering their boundaries and consequences. With an Irish-Turkish origin, a Dutch and British educational background, and as an American green-card holder, Joseph O’Neill challenges this changing circumstances of the expanding crisis. In his controversial novel, Netherland (2008), O’Neill embodies the deeply-rooted compromises, the transplanted conflicts, and human internalized crisis in post 9/11 New York City. O’Neill presents to us the transition between Netherland to New York with a post-colonial perspective. This internalized conflicts are revised in The Dog (2014) in which a newly-constructing and expanding global city of gold, Dubai, represents the transitional location from New York City. Through these two novels, words and voices are migrating beyond cultural and political boundaries and discussing what a collective mind embodies in this globalized society.  

Keywords: American literature, global literature, cultural studies, political science.

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