Search results for: average symbol error rate

Authors: Ho-Hyun Park, Woosik Kim, Miae Woo

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It is expected that ubiquitous era will come soon. A ubiquitous environment has features like peer-to-peer and nomadic environments. Such features can be represented by peer-to-peer systems and mobile ad-hoc networks (MANETs). The features of P2P systems and MANETs are similar, appealing for implementing P2P systems in MANET environment. It has been shown that, however, the performance of the P2P systems designed for wired networks do not perform satisfactorily in mobile ad-hoc environment. Subsequently, this paper proposes a method to improve P2P performance using cross-layer design and the goodness of a node as a peer. The proposed method uses routing metric as well as P2P metric to choose favorable peers to connect. It also utilizes proactive approach for distributing peer information. According to the simulation results, the proposed method provides higher query success rate, shorter query response time and less energy consumption by constructing an efficient overlay network.

Keywords: Ad-hoc Networks, Cross-layer, Peer-to-Peer, Performance Analysis.

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Authors: N. Arulanand, K. Premalatha

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Bloom filter is a probabilistic and memory efficient data structure designed to answer rapidly whether an element is present in a set. It tells that the element is definitely not in the set but its presence is with certain probability. The trade-off to use Bloom filter is a certain configurable risk of false positives. The odds of a false positive can be made very low if the number of hash function is sufficiently large. For spam detection, weight is attached to each set of elements. The spam weight for a word is a measure used to rate the e-mail. Each word is assigned to a Bloom filter based on its weight. The proposed work introduces an enhanced concept in Bloom filter called Bin Bloom Filter (BBF). The performance of BBF over conventional Bloom filter is evaluated under various optimization techniques. Real time data set and synthetic data sets are used for experimental analysis and the results are demonstrated for bin sizes 4, 5, 6 and 7. Finally analyzing the results, it is found that the BBF which uses heuristic techniques performs better than the traditional Bloom filter in spam detection.

Keywords: Cuckoo search algorithm, levy’s flight, metaheuristic, optimal weight.

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Authors: Saeed Mian Qaisar, Laurent Fesquet, Marc Renaudin

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The mobile systems are powered by batteries. Reducing the system power consumption is a key to increase its autonomy. It is known that mostly the systems are dealing with time varying signals. Thus, we aim to achieve power efficiency by smartly adapting the system processing activity in accordance with the input signal local characteristics. It is done by completely rethinking the processing chain, by adopting signal driven sampling and processing. In this context, a signal driven filtering technique, based on the level crossing sampling is devised. It adapts the sampling frequency and the filter order by analysing the input signal local variations. Thus, it correlates the processing activity with the signal variations. It leads towards a drastic computational gain of the proposed technique compared to the classical one.

Keywords: Level Crossing Sampling, Activity Selection, Adaptive Rate Filtering, Computational Complexity.

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Authors: D. Salari, A. Niaei, P. Chitsaz Yazdi, M. Derakhshani, S. R. Nabavi

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This work aims to test the application of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling to fixed bed catalytic cracking reactors. Studies of CFD with a fixed bed design commonly use a regular packing with N=2 to define bed geometry. CFD allows us to obtain a more accurate view of the fluid flow and heat transfer mechanisms present in fixed bed equipment. Naphtha was used as feedstock and the reactor length was 80cm. It is divided in three sections that catalyst bed packed in the middle section of the reactor. The reaction scheme was involved one primary reaction and 24 secondary reactions. Because of high CPU times in these simulations, parallel processing have been used. In this study the coke formation process in fixed bed and empty tube reactor was simulated and coke in these reactors are compared. In addition, the effect of steam ratio and feed flow rate on coke formation was investigated.

Keywords: Coke Formation, CFD Simulation, Fixed Bed, Catalyitic Cracking.

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Authors: Mohamed .S .Alazhari, Milad. M. Al Shebani

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Numerous concrete structures projects are currently running in Libya as part of a US$50 billion government funding. The quality of concrete used in 20 different construction projects were assessed based mainly on the concrete compressive strength achieved. The projects are scattered all over the country and are at various levels of completeness. For most of these projects, the concrete compressive strength was obtained from test results of a 150mm standard cube mold. Statistical analysis of collected concrete compressive strengths reveals that the data in general followed a normal distribution pattern. The study covers comparison and assessment of concrete quality aspects such as: quality control, strength range, data standard deviation, data scatter, and ratio of minimum strength to design strength. Site quality control for these projects ranged from very good to poor according to ACI214 criteria [1]. The ranges (Rg) of the strength (max. strength – min. strength) divided by average strength are from (34% to 160%). Data scatter is measured as the range (Rg) divided by standard deviation (
) and is found to be (1.82 to 11.04), indicating that the range is ±3σ. International construction companies working in Libya follow different assessment criteria for concrete compressive strength in lieu of national unified procedure. The study reveals that assessments of concrete quality conducted by these construction companies usually meet their adopted (internal) standards, but sometimes fail to meet internationally known standard requirements. The assessment of concrete presented in this paper is based on ACI, British standards and proposed Libyan concrete strength assessment criteria.

Keywords: Acceptance criteria, Concrete, Compressive strength, quality control

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Authors: T. Motsima

Abstract:

The under-5 mortality rate is high in sub-Saharan Africa with Lesotho being amongst the highest under-5 mortality rates in the world. The objective of the study is to determine the factors associated with under-5 mortality in Lesotho. The data used for this analysis come from the nationally representative household survey called the 2009 Lesotho Demographic and Health Survey. Odds ratios produced by the logistic regression models were used to measure the effect of each independent variable on the dependent variable. Female children were significantly 38% less likely to die than male children. Children who were breastfed for 13 to 18 months and those who were breastfed for more than 19 months were significantly less likely to die than those who were breastfed for 12 months or less. Furthermore, children of mothers who stayed in Quthing, Qacha’s Nek and Thaba Tseka ran the greatest risk of dying. The results suggested that: sex of child, type of birth, breastfeeding duration, district, source of energy and marital status were significant predictors of under-5 mortality, after correcting for all variables.

Keywords: Under-5 mortality, risk factors, millennium development goals, breastfeeding, logistic regression.

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Authors: Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc, Chi-Hyeon Lee, Byeong-Kyu Lee, Srinivasa Reddy Mallampati

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This study evaluated to facilitate separation of ABS plastics from other waste plastics by froth flotation after surface hydrophilization of ABS with heat treatment. The mild heat treatment at 100oC for 60s could selectively increase the hydrophilicity of the ABS plastics surface (i.e., ABS contact angle decreased from 79o to 65.8o) among other plastics mixture. The SEM and XPS results of plastic samples sufficiently supported the increase in hydrophilic functional groups and decrease contact angle on ABS surface, after heat treatment. As a result of the froth flotation (at mixing speed 150 rpm and airflow rate 0.3 L/min) after heat treatment, about 85% of ABS was selectively separated from other heavy plastics with 100% of purity. The effect of optimum treatment condition and detailed mechanism onto separation efficiency in the froth floatation was also investigated. This research is successful in giving a simple, effective, and inexpensive method for ABS separation from waste plastics.

Keywords: ABS, hydrophilic, heat treatment, froth flotation, contact angle.

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Authors: Hassan Jassim Motlak

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A novel design technique employing CMOS Current Feedback Operational Amplifier (CFOA) is presented. The feature of consumption very low power in designing pseudo-OTA is used to decreasing the total power consumption of the proposed CFOA. This design approach applies pseudo-OTA as input stage cascaded with buffer stage. Moreover, the DC input offset voltage and harmonic distortion (HD) of the proposed CFOA are very low values compared with the conventional CMOS CFOA due to the symmetrical input stage. P-Spice simulation results are obtained using 0.18μm MIETEC CMOS process parameters and supply voltage of ±1.2V, 50μA biasing current. The p-spice simulation shows excellent improvement of the proposed CFOA over existing CMOS CFOA. Some of these performance parameters, for example, are DC gain of 62. dB, openloop gain bandwidth product of 108 MHz, slew rate (SR+) of +71.2V/μS, THD of -63dB and DC consumption power (PC) of 2mW.

Keywords: Pseudo-OTA used CMOS CFOA, low power CFOA, high-performance CFOA, novel CFOA.

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Authors: Kasra Afsahi, Maryam Soheilifar

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Cerebrovascular accident (CVA) is a neurological side effect of COVID-19 disease wit high rate in pandemics. Effect of COVID-19 disease on disorder is unclear. In this cohort, patients with COVID-19 disease were assessed. 60 CVA cases were assessed in a referral hospital in 2020. The major factor was mortality and the cases were those with and without death. The groups were compared for all features about mortality in the patients with COVID-19 and CVA. Totally 23 out of 60 cases (38.3%) were expired. In univariate analysis there was significant association for death by ischemic heart disease (P = 0.015), high-severity stroke (P = 0.012), high C-reactive protein (CRP) (P = 0.001), high ESR (P = 0.009), pleural effusion (P = 0.005), pericardial effusion (P = 0.027), cardiomegaly (P = 0.005), ground glass opacity (P = 0.001), and consolidation (P = 0.001). Among these factors, there was significant association only for CRP (P = 0.001) and consolidation (P = 0.003) in multivariate analysis. Mortality in the cases with COVID-19-related CVA is one-third and it has relationship to elevated CRP and finding the consolidation in the computerized tomography scan of the lungs.

Keywords: COVID-19, stroke, prognosis, C-reactive protein, CRP.

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Authors: Naruemon Prapasuwannakul, Supitcha Boonchai, Nawapat Pengpengpit

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The aim of this study was to determine physicochemical and sensory properties of germinated brown rice ice cream as affected by replacement of cream, milk, stabilizer, and emulsifier with green coconut pulp. Five different formulations of ice cream were performed. Regular formulation of ice cream consisted of GBR juice, milk cream, milk powder, stabilizer, emulsifier, sucrose and salt. Replacing of cream, milk, stabilizer, and emulsifier with coconut pulp resulted in an increase in viscosity and overrun, but a decrease in hardness, melting rate, lightness (l*) and redness (a*). However, there was no significant difference among all formulations on any sensory attributes. The results also showed that the ice cream with replacement of coconut pulp contained less fat and protein than those of the regular ice cream. The findings suggested that green coconut pulp can be used as alternative ingredient to replace fat, milk stabilizer and emulsifier even in a high carbohydrate ice cream formulation.

Keywords: Ice cream, germinated brown rice, coconut pulp, milk, cream.

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Authors: Leandro X. Cardoso, Susana O. Souza, Fernanda C. L. Ferreira, Orlando C. Ferreira, Elenilson Barboza, Carlos E. Alhanati

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Measurements of radioactivity in the environment is of great importance to monitor and control the levels of radiation to which man is exposed directly or indirectly. It is necessary to show that regardless of working or being close to nuclear power plants, people are daily in contact with some amount of radiation from the actual environment and food that are ingested, contradicting the view of most of them. The aim of this study was to analyze the rate of natural and artificial radiation from radionuclides present in cement, soil and fertilizers used in Sergipe State – Brazil. The radionuclide activitiesmeasured all samples arebelow the Brazilian limit of the exclusion and exemption criteria from the requirement of radiation protection.It was detected Be-7 in organic fertilizers that means a short interval between the brewing processes for use in agriculture. It was also detected an unexpected Cs-137 in some samples; however its activities does not represent risk for the population. Th-231 was also found in samples of soil and cement in the state of Sergipe that is an unprecedented result.

Keywords: Cs-137, Be-7, Th-231 radiation dose, radio isotopes.

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Authors: Intan Maisarah Abd Rahim, Herlina Abdul Rahim, Rashidah Ghazali

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Diabetes is a medical condition that can lead to various diseases such as stroke, heart disease, blindness and obesity. In clinical practice, the concern of the diabetic patients towards the blood glucose examination is rather alarming as some of the individual describing it as something painful with pinprick and pinch. As for some patient with high level of glucose level, pricking the fingers multiple times a day with the conventional glucose meter for close monitoring can be tiresome, time consuming and painful. With these concerns, several non-invasive techniques were used by researchers in measuring the glucose level in blood, including ultrasonic sensor implementation, multisensory systems, absorbance of transmittance, bio-impedance, voltage intensity, and thermography. This paper is discussing the application of the near-infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a non-invasive method in measuring the glucose level and the implementation of the linear system identification model in predicting the output data for the NIR measurement. In this study, the wavelengths considered are at the 1450 nm and 1950 nm. Both of these wavelengths showed the most reliable information on the glucose presence in blood. Then, the linear Autoregressive Moving Average Exogenous model (ARMAX) model with both un-regularized and regularized methods was implemented in predicting the output result for the NIR measurement in order to investigate the practicality of the linear system in this study. However, the result showed only 50.11% accuracy obtained from the system which is far from the satisfying results that should be obtained.

Keywords: Diabetes, glucose level, linear, near-infrared (NIR), non-invasive, prediction system.

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Authors: S. Kulsri, M. Jaroensutasinee, K. Jaroensutasinee

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We developed a new method based on quasimolecular modeling to simulate the cavity flow in three cavity shapes: rectangular, half-circular and bucket beer in cgs units. Each quasi-molecule was a group of particles that interacted in a fashion entirely analogous to classical Newtonian molecular interactions. When a cavity flow was simulated, the instantaneous velocity vector fields were obtained by using an inverse distance weighted interpolation method. In all three cavity shapes, fluid motion was rotated counter-clockwise. The velocity vector fields of the three cavity shapes showed a primary vortex located near the upstream corners at time t ~ 0.500 s, t ~ 0.450 s and t ~ 0.350 s, respectively. The configurational kinetic energy of the cavities increased as time increased until the kinetic energy reached a maximum at time t ~ 0.02 s and, then, the kinetic energy decreased as time increased. The rectangular cavity system showed the lowest kinetic energy, while the half-circular cavity system showed the highest kinetic energy. The kinetic energy of rectangular, beer bucket and half-circular cavities fluctuated about stable average values 35.62 x 103, 38.04 x 103 and 40.80 x 103 ergs/particle, respectively. This indicated that the half-circular shapes were the most suitable shape for a shrimp pond because the water in shrimp pond flows best when we compared with rectangular and beer bucket shape.

Keywords: Quasi-molecular modelling, particle modelling, lid driven cavity flow.

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Authors: Ben Richard Hughes, Ng Ping Sze Cherisa, Osman Beg

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Various solar energy technologies exist and they have different application techniques in the generation of electrical power. The widespread use of photovoltaic (PV) modules in such technologies has been limited by relatively high costs and low efficiencies. The efficiency of PV panels decreases as the operating temperatures increase. This is due to the affect of solar intensity and ambient temperature. In this work, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) was used to model the heat transfer from a standard PV panel and thus determine the rate of dissipation of heat. To accurately model the specific climatic conditions of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a case study of a new build green building in Dubai was used. A finned heat pipe arrangement is proposed and analyzed to determine the improved heat dissipation and thus improved performance efficiency of the PV panel. A prototype of the arrangement is built for experimental testing to validate the CFD modeling and proof of concept.

Keywords: Computational Fluid Dynamics, Improving Efficiency, Photovoltaic (PV) Panels, Heat-pipe

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Authors: Aaron J. Small, Craig A. Fletcher

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This study investigates the effect of closed circuit television (CCTV) image patch layout on performance of a simulated train-platform departure task. The within-subjects experimental design measures target detection rate and response latency during a CCTV visual search task conducted as part of the procedure for safe train dispatch. Three interface designs were developed by manipulating CCTV image patch layout. Eye movements, perceived workload and system usability were measured across experimental conditions. Task performance was compared to identify significant differences between conditions. The results of this study have not been determined.

Keywords: Rail human factors, workload, closed circuit television, platform departure, attention, information processing, interface design.

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Authors: Peter W. Olupot, Stefan Jonsson, Joseph K. Byaruhanga

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Porcelain specimens were fired at 6C/min to 1250C (dwell time 0.5-3h) and cooled at 6C/min to room temperature. Additionally, three different slower firing/cooling cycles were tried. Sintering profile and effects on MOR, crystalline phase content and morphology were investigated using dilatometry, 4-point bending strength, XRD and FEG-SEM respectively. Industrial-sized specimens prepared using the promising cycle were tested basing on the ANSI standards. Increasing dwell time from 1h to 3h at peak temperature of 1250C resulted in neither a significant effect on the quartz and mullite content nor MOR. Reducing the firing/cooling rate to below 6C/min, for peak temperature of 1250C (dwell time of 1h) does not result in improvement of strength of porcelain. The industrial sized specimen exhibited flashover voltages of 20.3kV (dry) and 9.3kV (wet) respectively, transverse strength of 12.5kN and bulk density of 2.27g/cm3, which are satisfactory. There was however dye penetration during porosity test. KeywordsDwell time, Microstructure, Porcelain, Strength.

Keywords: Dwell time, Microstructure, Porcelain, Strength.

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Authors: Md. Z. Alam, Devi R. Asih, Md. N. Salleh

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Immobilization of lipase enzyme produced from palm oil mill effluent (POME) by the activated carbon (AC) among the low cost support materials was optimized. The results indicated that immobilization of 94% was achieved by AC as the most suitable support material. A sequential optimization strategy based on a statistical experimental design, including one-factor-at-a-time (OFAT) method was used to determine the equilibrium time. Three components influencing lipase immobilization were optimized by the response surface methodology (RSM) based on the face-centered central composite design (FCCCD). On the statistical analysis of the results, the optimum enzyme concentration loading, agitation rate and carbon active dosage were found to be 30 U/ml, 300 rpm and 8 g/L respectively, with a maximum immobilization activity of 3732.9 U/g-AC after 2 hrs of immobilization. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed a high regression coefficient (R²) of 0.999, which indicated a satisfactory fit of the model with the experimental data. The parameters were statistically significant at p<0.05.

Keywords: Activated carbon, adsorption, immobilization, POME based lipase.

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Authors: Moustafa Ahmed, Ahmed Bakry, Fumio Koyama

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We report on the use of strong external optical feedback to enhance the modulation response of semiconductor lasers over a frequency passband around modulation frequencies higher than 60 GHz. We show that this modulation enhancement is a type of photon-photon resonance (PPR) of oscillating modes in the external cavity formed between the laser and the external reflector. The study is based on a time-delay rate equation model that takes into account both the strong feedback and multiple reflections in the external cavity. We examine the harmonic and intermodulation distortions associated with single and two-tone modulations in the mm-wave band of the resonant modulation. We show that compared with solitary lasers modulated around the carrier-photon resonance frequency, the present mm-wave modulated signal has lower distortions.

Keywords: Distortion, intensity modulation, optical feedback, semiconductor laser.

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Authors: Wendong Tao

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Stormwater wetlands have been mainly designed in an empirical approach for water quality improvement, with little quantitative understanding of the internal microbial processes. This study investigated into heterotrophic bacterial production rate, heterotrophic bacterial mineralization percentage, and algal biomass in hypertrophic and eutrophic surface flow stormwater wetlands. Compared to a nearby wood leachate treatment wetland, the stormwater wetlands had much higher chlorophyll-a concentrations. The eutrophic stormwater wetland had improved water quality, whereas the hypertrophic stormwater wetland had degraded water quality. Heterotrophic bacterial activities in water were limited in the stormwater wetlands due to competition of algal growth for nutrients. The relative contribution of biofilms to the overall heterotrophic activities was higher in the stormwater wetlands than that in the wood leachate treatment wetland.

Keywords: chlorophyll-a, constructed wetland, heterotrophicproduction, mineralization, stormwater

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Authors: A. Farsiani, M. E. Ghobadi

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To study on effect of PEG and NaCl stress on germination and early seedling stages on two cultivar of corn, two separated experiment were laid out at physiology laboratory, faculty of Agriculture, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran in 2009. This investigation was performed as factorial experiment under Complete Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. Cultivar factor contains of two varieties (sweet corn SC403 and Flint corn SC704) and five levels of stress (0, -2, -4, -6 and -8 bar). The principal aim of current study was to compare the two varieties of maize in relative to the stress conditions. Results indicated that significant decrease was observed in percentage of germination, germination rate, length of radicle and plumule and radicle and plumule dry matter. On the basis of the results, NaCl as compared with PEG had more effect on germination and early seedling stage and sweet corn had more resistant than flint corn in both stress conditions.

Keywords: Corn, Early Seedling Stage, Germination, PEG andNaCl Stress.

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Authors: D. M. S. Bandara, Yunqi Lei, Ye Luo

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Fingerprints are suitable as long-term markers of human identity since they provide detailed and unique individual features which are difficult to alter and durable over life time. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to encrypt and decrypt fingerprint images by using a specially designed Elliptic Curve Cryptography (ECC) procedure based on block ciphers. In addition, to increase the confusing effect of fingerprint encryption, we also utilize a chaotic-behaved method called Arnold Cat Map (ACM) for a 2D scrambling of pixel locations in our method. Experimental results are carried out with various types of efficiency and security analyses. As a result, we demonstrate that the proposed fingerprint encryption/decryption algorithm is advantageous in several different aspects including efficiency, security and flexibility. In particular, using this algorithm, we achieve a margin of about 0.1% in the test of Number of Pixel Changing Rate (NPCR) values comparing to the-state-of-the-art performances.

Keywords: Arnold cat map, biometric encryption, block cipher, elliptic curve cryptography, fingerprint encryption, Koblitz’s Encoding.

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Authors: Nahid-Al-Masood, Jubaer Ahmed, Amina Hasan Abedin, S. R. Deeba, Faeza Hafiz, Mahmuda Begum

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An electric utility-s main concern is to plan, design, operate and maintain its power supply to provide an acceptable level of reliability to its users. This clearly requires that standards of reliability be specified and used in all three sectors of the power system, i.e., generation, transmission and distribution. That is why reliability of a power system is always a major concern to power system planners. This paper presents the reliability analysis of Bangladesh Power System (BPS). Reliability index, loss of load probability (LOLP) of BPS is evaluated using recursive algorithm and considering no de-rated states of generators. BPS has sixty one generators and a total installed capacity of 5275 MW. The maximum demand of BPS is about 5000 MW. The relevant data of the generators and hourly load profiles are collected from the National Load Dispatch Center (NLDC) of Bangladesh and reliability index 'LOLP' is assessed for the period of last ten years.

Keywords: Recursive algorithm, LOLP, forced outage rate, cumulative probability.

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Authors: Hoyoung Lee, Dong-Kyu Kim, Seung-Young Kho, R. Eddie Wilson

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This study quantifies a decrement in freeway capacity during rainfall. Traffic and rainfall data were gathered from Highway Agencies and Wunderground weather service. Three inter-urban freeway sections and its nearest weather stations were selected as experimental sites. Capacity analysis found reductions of maximum and mean pre-breakdown flow rates due to rainfall. The Kruskal-Wallis test also provided some evidence to suggest that the variance in the pre-breakdown flow rate is statistically insignificant. Potential application of this study lies in the operation of real time traffic management schemes such as Variable Speed Limits (VSL), Hard Shoulder Running (HSR), and Ramp Metering System (RMS), where speed or flow limits could be set based on a number of factors, including rainfall events and their intensities.

Keywords: Capacity randomness, flow breakdown, freeway capacity, rainfall.

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Authors: Lorena Antonovici, Maria Nicoleta Turliuc

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The process of becoming a vegetarian involves changes in several life aspects, including health. Despite its relevance, however, little research has been carried out to analyze vegetarians' self-perceived health, and even less empirical attention has received in the Romanian population. This study aimed to assess health-related beliefs and practices among vegetarian adults in a Romanian sample. We have undertaken 20 semi-structured interviews (10 males, 10 females) based on a snowball sample with a mean age of 31 years. The interview guide was divided into three sections: causes of adopting the diet, general aspects (beliefs, practices, tensions, and conflicts) and consequences of adopting the diet (significant changes, positive aspects, and difficulties, physical and mental health). Additional anamnestic data were reported by means of a questionnaire. Data analyses were performed using Tropes text analysis software (v. 8.2) and SPSS software (v. 24.0.) Findings showed that most of the participants considered a vegetarian diet as a natural and healthy choice as opposed to meat-eating, which is not healthy, and its consumption should be moderated among omnivores. A higher proportion of participants (65%) had an average body mass index (BMI), and several women even assumed having certain affections that no longer occur after following a vegetarian diet. Moreover, participants admitted having better moods and mental health status, given their self-contentment with the dietary choice. Relatives were perceived as more skeptical about their practices than others, and especially women had this view. This study provides a valuable insight into health-related beliefs and practices and how a vegetarian diet might interact.

Keywords: Health-related beliefs, health, practices, vegetarians.

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Authors: Jelena S. Kiurski, Vesna S. Kecić, Snežana M. Aksentijević

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The identification and evaluation of organic and inorganic pollutants were performed in a flexographic facility in Novi Sad, Serbia. Air samples were collected and analyzed in situ, during 4-hours working time at five sampling points by the mobile gas chromatograph and ozonometer at the printing of collagen casing. Experimental results showed that the concentrations of isopropyl alcohol, acetone, total volatile organic compounds and ozone varied during the sampling times. The highest average concentrations of 94.80 ppm and 102.57 ppm were achieved at 200 minutes from starting the production for isopropyl alcohol and total volatile organic compounds, respectively. The mutual dependences between target hazardous and microclimate parameters were confirmed using a multiple linear regression model with software package STATISTICA 10. Obtained multiple coefficients of determination in the case of ozone and acetone (0.507 and 0.589) with microclimate parameters indicated a moderate correlation between the observed variables. However, a strong positive correlation was obtained for isopropyl alcohol and total volatile organic compounds (0.760 and 0.852) with microclimate parameters. Higher values of parameter F than F_critical for all examined dependences indicated the existence of statistically significant difference between the concentration levels of target pollutants and microclimates parameters. Given that, the microclimate parameters significantly affect the emission of investigated gases and the application of eco-friendly materials in production process present a necessity.

Keywords: Flexographic printing, indoor air, multiple regression analysis, pollution emission.

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Authors: Huihai Wu, Xiaohui Liu

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Using Dynamic Bayesian Networks (DBN) to model genetic regulatory networks from gene expression data is one of the major paradigms for inferring the interactions among genes. Averaging a collection of models for predicting network is desired, rather than relying on a single high scoring model. In this paper, two kinds of model searching approaches are compared, which are Greedy hill-climbing Search with Restarts (GSR) and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods. The GSR is preferred in many papers, but there is no such comparison study about which one is better for DBN models. Different types of experiments have been carried out to try to give a benchmark test to these approaches. Our experimental results demonstrated that on average the MCMC methods outperform the GSR in accuracy of predicted network, and having the comparable performance in time efficiency. By proposing the different variations of MCMC and employing simulated annealing strategy, the MCMC methods become more efficient and stable. Apart from comparisons between these approaches, another objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using DBN modeling approaches for inferring gene networks from few snapshots of high dimensional gene profiles. Through synthetic data experiments as well as systematic data experiments, the experimental results revealed how the performances of these approaches can be influenced as the target gene network varies in the network size, data size, as well as system complexity.

Keywords: Genetic regulatory network, Dynamic Bayesian network, GSR, MCMC.

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Authors: S. Zouari, H. Daoud, M. Loulou, P. Loumeau, N. Masmoudi

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A wideband 2-1-1 cascaded ΣΔ modulator with a single-bit quantizer in the two first stages and a 4-bit quantizer in the final stage is developed. To reduce sensitivity of digital-to-analog converter (DAC) nonlinearities in the feedback of the last stage, dynamic element matching (DEM) is introduced. This paper presents two modelling approaches: The first is MATLAB description and the second is VHDL-AMS modelling of the proposed architecture and exposes some high-level-simulation results allowing a behavioural study. The detail of both ideal and non-ideal behaviour modelling are presented. Then, the study of the effect of building blocks nonidealities is presented; especially the influences of nonlinearity, finite operational amplifier gain, amplifier slew rate limitation and capacitor mismatch. A VHDL-AMS description presents a good solution to predict system-s performances and can provide sensitivity curves giving the impact of nonidealities on the system performance.

Keywords: behavioural study, DAC nonlinearity, DEM, ΣΔ modulator, VHDL-AMS modelling.

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Authors: Chih-I. Tsai, Yu-Chien. Lin

Abstract:

Through experiences of clinical practices, it is discovered that locations on the body at a level of four fingerbreadth above and below the joints are the points at which muscles connect to tendons, and since the muscles and tendons possess opposite characteristics, muscles are full of blood but lack qi, while tendons are full of qi but lack blood, these points on our body become easily blocked. It is proposed that through doing acupuncture or creating localized pressure to the areas four fingerbreadths above and below our joints, with an elastic bandage, we could help the energy, also known as qi, to flow smoothly in our body and further improve our health. Based on the Four Fingers Theory, we understand that human height is 22 four fingerbreadths. In addition, qi and blood travel through 24 meridians, 50 times each day, and they flow through 6 cun with every human breath. We can also understand the average number of human heartbeats is 75 times per minute. And the function of qi-blood circulation system in Traditional Chinese Medicine is the same as the blood circulation in Western Medical Science. Informed by Four Fingers Theory, this study further examined its applications in acupuncture practices. The research question is how Four Fingers Theory proves what has been mentioned in Nei Jing that there are 66 acupoints under a human’s elbow and knee. In responding to the research question, there are 66 acupoints under a human’s elbow and knee. Four Fingers Theory facilitated the creation of the acupuncture naming and teaching system. It is expected to serve as an approachable and effective way to deliver knowledge of acupuncture to the public worldwide.

Keywords: Four Fingers theory, Meridians circulation, 66 Acupoints under a human’s elbow and knee, acupuncture.

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Authors: Jing Jia, Shanqing Huang, Fang Liu, Qiang Ren, Gui Li, Mengyun Cheng, Chufeng Jin, Yican Wu

Abstract:

Medical image registration is the key technology in image guided radiation therapy (IGRT) systems. On the basis of the previous work on our IGRT prototype with a biorthogonal x-ray imaging system, we described a method focused on the 2D/2D rigid-body registration using multiresolution pyramid based mutual information in this paper. Three key steps were involved in the method ： firstly, four 2D images were obtained including two x-ray projection images and two digital reconstructed radiographies（DRRs ） as the input for the registration ； Secondly, each pair of the corresponding x-ray image and DRR image were matched using multiresolution pyramid based mutual information under the ITK registration framework ； Thirdly, we got the final couch offset through a coordinate transformation by calculating the translations acquired from the two pairs of the images. A simulation example of a parotid gland tumor case and a clinical example of an anthropomorphic head phantom were employed in the verification tests. In addition, the influence of different CT slice thickness were tested. The simulation results showed that the positioning errors were 0.068±0.070, 0.072±0.098, 0.154±0.176mm along three axes which were lateral, longitudinal and vertical. The clinical test indicated that the positioning errors of the planned isocenter were 0.066, 0.07, 2.06mm on average with a CT slice thickness of 2.5mm. It can be concluded that our method with its verified accuracy and robustness can be effectively used in IGRT systems for patient setup.

Keywords: 2D/2D registration, image guided radiation therapy, multi resolution pyramid, mutual information.

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Authors: A. Al-Mosawe, R. Al-Mahaidi

Abstract:

Carbon fiber reinforced polymersarewidely used to strengthen steel structural elements. These structural elements are normally subjected to static, dynamic and fatigue loadings during their life-time. CFRP laminate is commonly used to strengthen these structures under the subjected loads. A number of studies have focused on the characteristics of CFRP sheets bonded to steel members under static, dynamic and fatigue loadings. However, there is a gap in understanding the bonding behavior between CFRP laminates and steel members under impact loading. This paper shows the effect of high load rates on this bond. CFRP laminate CFK 150/2000 was used to strengthen steel joints using Araldite 420 epoxy. The results show that applying a high load rate significantly affects the bond strength but has little influence on the effective bond length.

Keywords: Adhesively-bonded joints, Bond strength, CFRP laminate, Impact tensile loading.

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