Search results for: Normal weight concrete durability

Authors: Sarma. M.V.R.K, Saharan. K, Prakash. A, Bisaria. V. S, Sahai.V

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Vermiculite was used to develop inorganic carrier-based formulations of fluorescent pseudomonad strains R62 and R81. The effect of bio-inoculation of fluorescent pseudomonad strains R62 and R81 (plant growth promoting and biocontrol agent) on growth responses of Vigna-mungo under field condition was enumerated. The combined bioinoculation of these two organisms in a formuation increased the pods yield by 300% in comparison to the control crop. There was also significant increment in the other plant growth responses such as dry root weight, dry shoot weight, shoot length and number of branches per plant.

Keywords: Bio-inoculants formulation, Fluorescent pseudomonad, Plant growth promotion activity.

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Authors: Guray Arslan, Riza S. O. Keskin

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Numerical investigations were conducted to study the influence of flexural reinforcement ratio on the diagonal cracking strength and ultimate shear strength of reinforced concrete (RC) beams without stirrups. Three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analyses (FEAs) of the beams with flexural reinforcement ratios ranging from 0.58% to 2.20% subjected to a mid-span concentrated load were carried out. It is observed that the load-deflection and loadstrain curves obtained from the numerical analyses agree with those obtained from the experiments. It is concluded that flexural reinforcement ratio has a significant effect on the shear strength and deflection capacity of RC beams without stirrups. The predictions of diagonal cracking strength and ultimate shear strength of beams obtained by using the equations defined by a number of codes and researchers are compared with each other and with the experimental values.

Keywords: Finite element, flexural reinforcement, reinforced concrete beam, shear strength.

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Authors: Mohamed EL Boujnouni, Mohamed Jedra, Noureddine Zahid

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Support Vector Domain Description (SVDD) is one of the best-known one-class support vector learning methods, in which one tries the strategy of using balls defined on the feature space in order to distinguish a set of normal data from all other possible abnormal objects. As all kernel-based learning algorithms its performance depends heavily on the proper choice of the kernel parameter. This paper proposes a new approach to select kernel's parameter based on maximizing the distance between both gravity centers of normal and abnormal classes, and at the same time minimizing the variance within each class. The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated on several benchmarks. The experimental results demonstrate the feasibility and the effectiveness of the presented method.

Keywords: Gravity centers, Kernel’s parameter, Support Vector Domain Description, Variance.

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Authors: O. A. Anjola, M. A. Adejobi, L. A Tijani

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This study was conducted to investigate the effects of brewer spent grain (BSG) on growth performance and serum biochemistry characteristics of blood of broilers chickens. Three hundred and fifteen (4 weeks old) Oba – Marshall Broilers were used for the experiment. Five experimental diets were formulated with diet 1 (T1) containing 100% soya bean meal as the control, Diet 2, 3, 4 and 5 had BSG as replacement for soya bean meal at 0%, 36%, 57%, 76% and 100% respectively. The birds were allocated into each dietary group in a completely randomized design with 63 chicks in 3 replicates of 21 chicks each. The birds were offered these diets ad libitum from four weeks old to nine weeks old (35 days). Feed intake, body weight, weight gain, and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were assessed. Blood samples were also collected to examine the effect of BSG waste on hematology and serum biochemistry of broilers. Result indicated that BSG did not significantly (P>0.05) affect feed intake and weight gain. However, FCR and final weight of finishing broilers differs significantly (P<0.05) among treatments. The blood hematology and serum biochemistry indices did not follow a particular trend. Cholesterol concentration reduced with increasing level of BSG in the diet. Hb, RBC, WBC, neutrophils, lymphocytes, heterophiles and MCHC were significant (P<0.05) while MHC and MVC were not significantly (P>0.05) affected by BSG in diets. serum total protein, albumin, and cholesterol concentration also showed significance (P<0.05) difference. Thus, BSG can replace soya bean meal up to 14% in the broiler finisher diet without deleterious effect on the growth, hematology and the serum biochemistry of broiler chicken.

Keywords: Broilers, growth performance, hematology, serum biochemistry.

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Authors: I. Yakubu, D. Mireku-Gyimah, D. Asafo-Adjei

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The challenge for everyone involved in preserving the ecosystem is to find creative ways to protect and restore the remaining ecosystems while accommodating and enhancing the country social and economic well-being. Frequent fires of anthropogenic origin have been affecting the ecosystems in many countries adversely. Hence adopting ways of decision making such as Multicriteria Decision Making (MCDM) is appropriate since it will enhance the evaluation and analysis of fire risk and hazard of the ecosystem. In this paper, fire risk and hazard data from the West Gonja area of Ghana were used in some of the methods (Analytical Hierarchy Process, Compromise Programming, and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) for MCDM evaluation and analysis to determine the optimal weight method for fire risk and hazard. Ranking of the land cover types was carried out using; Fire Hazard, Fire Fighting Capacity and Response Risk Criteria. Pairwise comparison under Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to determine the weight of the various criteria. Weights for sub-criteria were also obtained by the pairwise comparison method. The results were optimised using GRA and Compromise Programming (CP). The results from each method, hybrid GRA and CP, were compared and it was established that all methods were satisfactory in terms of optimisation of weight. The most optimal method for spatial multicriteria evaluation was the hybrid GRA method. Thus, a hybrid AHP and GRA method is more effective method for ranking alternatives in MCDM than the hybrid AHP and CP method.

Keywords: Compromise programming, grey relational analysis, spatial multi-criteria, weight optimisation.

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Authors: S. Desouky, A. Al sabagh , M. Betiha, A. Badawi, A. Ghanem, S. Khalil

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Two Amphiphilic catalysts, iron (III) dodecylbenzene sulfonate and nickel (II) dodecylbenzene sulfonate, were synthesized and used in the catalytic aquathermolysis of heavy crude oil to reduce its viscosity. The prepared catalysts exhibited good performance in the aquathermolysis and the viscosity is reduced by ~ 78.9 % for Egyptian heavy crude oil. The chemical and physical properties of heavy oil both before and after reaction were investigated by FT-IR, dynamic viscosity, molecular weight and SARA analysis. The results indicated that the content of resin, asphaltene, average molecular weight and sulfur content of heavy oil is reduced after the catalytic aquathermolysis.

Keywords: Amphiphilic catalyst, Aquathermolysis, Heavy oil, Viscosity reduction.

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Authors: Orkide Donma, Mustafa M. Donma

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Chronologic age (CA) of individuals is closely related to obesity and generally affects the magnitude of obesity parameters. On the other hand, close association between basal metabolic rate (BMR) and metabolic age (MA) is also a matter of concern. It is suggested that MA higher than CA is the indicator of the need to improve the metabolic rate. In this study, the aim was to assess some commonly used obesity parameters, such as obesity degree, visceral adiposity, BMR, BMR-to-weight ratio, in several groups with varying differences between MA and CA values. The study comprises adults, whose ages vary between 18 and 79 years. Four groups were constituted. Group 1, 2, 3 and 4 were composed of 55, 33, 76 and 47 adults, respectively. The individuals exhibiting -1, 0 and +1 for their MA-CA values were involved in Group 1, which was considered as the control group. Those, whose MA-CA values varying between -5 and -10 participated in Group 2. Those, whose MAs above their real ages were divided into two groups [Group 3 (MA-CA; from +5 to + 10) and Group 4 (MA-CA; from +11 to + 12)]. Body mass index (BMI) values were calculated. TANITA body composition monitor using bioelectrical impedance analysis technology was used to obtain values for obesity degree, visceral adiposity, BMR and BMR-to-weight ratio. The compiled data were evaluated statistically using a statistical package program; SPSS. Mean ± SD values were determined. Correlation analyses were performed. The statistical significance degree was accepted as p < 0.05. The increase in BMR was positively correlated with obesity degree. MAs and CAs of the groups were 39.9 ± 16.8 vs 39.9 ± 16.7 years for Group 1, 45.0 ± 15.3 vs 51.4 ± 15.7 years for Group 2, 47.2 ± 12.7 vs 40.0 ± 12.7 years for Group 3, and 53.6 ± 14.8 vs 42 ± 14.8 years for Group 4. BMI values of the groups were 24.3 ± 3.6 kg/m², 23.2 ± 1.7 kg/m², 30.3 ± 3.8 kg/m², and 40.1 ± 5.1 kg/m² for Group 1, 2, 3 and 4, respectively. Values obtained for BMR were 1599 ± 328 kcal in Group 1, 1463 ± 198 kcal in Group 2, 1652 ± 350 kcal in Group 3, and 1890 ± 360 kcal in Group 4. A correlation was observed between BMR and MA-CA values in Group 1. No correlation was detected in other groups. On the other hand, statistically significant correlations between MA-CA values and obesity degree, BMI as well as BMR/weight were found in Group 3 and in Group 4. It was concluded that upon consideration of these findings in terms of MA-CA values, BMR-to-weight ratio was found to be much more useful indicator of the severe increase in obesity development than BMR. Also, the lack of associations between MA and BMR as well as BMR-to-weight ratio emphasize the importance of consideration of MA-CA values rather than MA.

Keywords: Basal metabolic rate, chronologic age, metabolic age, obesity degree.

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Authors: Eiko Takaoka, Yuji Osawa

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We have designed and implemented e-Learning materials for a JAVA programming course since 2004 and have found that “normal” students, meaning motivated and capable students, can successfully learn the course material taught in a fully online manner. However, for “weaker” students, meaning those lacking motivation, experience, and/or aptitude, the results have been unsatisfactory, and such students thus fall into the supplementary category. From 2007 to 2008, we offered a face-to-face class with small-group instruction for the weaker students, while we provided the fully online course for the normal students. Consequently, we succeeded in helping the weaker students to overcome their programming phobia and develop the ability to create basic programs.

Keywords: e-learning, JAVA Programming Course, Small-Group Instruction, Supplementary.

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Authors: Amal Kr Sarma, H Zeen Devi, N Nimai Singh

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The Constraints imposed by non-thermal leptogenesis on the survival of the neutrino mass models describing the presently available neutrino mass patterns, are studied numerically. We consider the Majorana CP violating phases coming from right-handed Majorana mass matrices to estimate the baryon asymmetry of the universe, for different neutrino mass models namely quasi-degenerate, inverted hierarchical and normal hierarchical models, with tribimaximal mixings. Considering two possible diagonal forms of Dirac neutrino mass matrix as either charged lepton or up-quark mass matrix, the heavy right-handed mass matrices are constructed from the light neutrino mass matrix. Only the normal hierarchical model leads to the best predictions of baryon asymmetry of the universe, consistent with observations in non-thermal leptogenesis scenario.

Keywords: Thermal leptogenesis, Non-thermal leptogenesis.

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Authors: A. Khalique, T. Naseem, N. Haque, Z. Rasool

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The objective of current study was to investigate the effect of Bacillus subtilis PB6 (CloSTAT) as a probiotic in broilers. The corn-soybean based diet was divided into four treatment groups; T1 (basal diet with no probiotic and no Clostridium perfringens); T2 (basal diet challenged with C. perfringens without probiotic); T3 (basal diet challenged with C. perfringens having 0.05% probiotic); T4 (basal diet challenged with C. perfringens having 0.1% probiotic). Every treatment group had four replicates with 24 birds each. Body weight and feed intake were measured on weekly basis, while ileal bacterial count was recorded on day-28 following Clostridium perfringens challenge. The 0.1% probiotic treatment showed 7.2% increase in average feed intake (P=0.05) and 8% increase in body weight compared to T2. In 0.1% treatment body weight was 5% higher than T3 (P=0.02). It was also observed that 0.1% treatment had improved feed conversion ratio (1.77) on 6^th week. No effect of treatment was observed on mortality and ileal bacterial count. The current study indicated that 0.1% use of probiotic had positive response in C. perfringens challenged broilers.

Keywords: Bacillus subtilis PB6, antibiotic growth promoters, Clostridium perfringens, CloSTAT, broilers.

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Authors: Majid Saaly, Shahriar Tavousi Tafreshi, Mehdi Nazari Afshar

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The sandwich composite walls (SCSSC) have more ductility and energy dissipation than conventional reinforced concrete shear walls. SCSSCs have acceptable compressive, shear, in-plane bending, and out-of-plane bending capacities. The use of sandwich-composite walls with J-hook connectors has a significant effect on energy dissipation and reduction of dynamic responses of mid-rise and high-rise structural models. In this paper, incremental dynamic analyses for 10- and 15-story steel structures were performed under seven far-faults by OpenSees. The demand values of 10- and 15-story models are reduced by up to 32% and 45%, respectively, while the structural system change from shear walls (SW) to SCSSC.

Keywords: Sandwich composite wall, SCSSC, fling step, fragility curve, IDA, inter story drift ratio.

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Authors: M. Al-Majidi, A. Lampropoulos, A. Cundy

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Geopolymer (cement-free) concrete is the most promising green alternative to ordinary Portland cement concrete and other cementitious materials. While a range of different geopolymer concretes have been produced, a common feature of these concretes is heat curing treatment which is essential in order to provide sufficient mechanical properties in the early age. However, there are several practical issues with the application of heat curing in large-scale structures. The purpose of this study is to develop cement-free concrete without heat curing treatment. Experimental investigations were carried out in two phases. In the first phase (Phase A), the optimum content of water, polycarboxylate based superplasticizer contents and potassium silicate activator in the mix was determined. In the second stage (Phase B), the effect of ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBFS) incorporation on the compressive strength of fly ash (FA) and Slag based geopolymer mixtures was evaluated. Setting time and workability were also conducted alongside with compressive tests. The results showed that as the slag content was increased the setting time was reduced while the compressive strength was improved. The obtained compressive strength was in the range of 40-50 MPa for 50% slag replacement mixtures. Furthermore, the results indicated that increment of water and superplasticizer content resulted to retarding of the setting time and slight reduction of the compressive strength. The compressive strength of the examined mixes was considerably increased as potassium silicate content was increased.

Keywords: Fly ash, geopolymer, potassium silicate, room temperature treatment, slag.

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Authors: Hocine Hammoum, Karima Bouzelha, Lounis Ziani, Lounis Hamitouche

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In this paper, we study a complex structure which is an apartment building surmounted by a reinforced concrete water tank. The tank located on the top floor of the building is a container with capacity of 1000 m³. The building is complex in its design, its calculation and by its behavior under earthquake effect. This structure located in Algiers and aged of 53 years has been subjected to several earthquakes, but the earthquake of May 21^st, 2003 with a magnitude of 6.7 on the Richter scale that struck Boumerdes region at 40 Kms East of Algiers was fatal for it. It was downgraded after an investigation study because the central core sustained serious damage. In this paper, to estimate the degree of its damages, the seismic performance of the structure will be evaluated taking into account the hydrodynamic effect, using a static equivalent nonlinear analysis called pushover.

Keywords: Performance analysis, building, reinforced concrete tank, seismic analysis, nonlinear analysis, hydrodynamic, pushover.

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Authors: Hasliza A. Rahim, Fareq Malek, Nur A. M. Affendi, Azuwa Ali, Norshafinash Saudin, Latifah Mohamed

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This paper presents the experimental investigation of on-body channel fading at 2.45 GHz considering two effects of the user body movement; stationary and mobile. A pair of body-worn antennas was utilized in this measurement campaign. A statistical analysis was performed by comparing the measured on-body path loss to five well-known distributions; lognormal, normal, Nakagami, Weibull and Rayleigh. The results showed that the average path loss of moving arm varied higher than the path loss in sitting position for upper-arm-to-left-chest link, up to 3.5 dB. The analysis also concluded that the Nakagami distribution provided the best fit for most of on-body static link path loss in standing still and sitting position, while the arm movement can be best described by log-normal distribution.

Keywords: On-Body channel communications, fading characteristics, statistical model.

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Authors: J. S. Bhullar, Manish Gupta

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Classical Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codes C that contain their dual codes can be used to construct quantum stabilizer codes this chapter studies the properties of such codes. It had been shown that a BCH code of length n which contains its dual code satisfies the bound on weight of any non-zero codeword in C and converse is also true. One impressive difficulty in quantum communication and computation is to protect informationcarrying quantum states against undesired interactions with the environment. To address this difficulty, many good quantum errorcorrecting codes have been derived as binary stabilizer codes. We were able to shed more light on the structure of dual containing BCH codes. These results make it possible to determine the parameters of quantum BCH codes in terms of weight of non-zero dual codeword.

Keywords: Quantum Codes, BCH Codes, Dual BCH Codes, Designed Distance.

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Authors: T. Atan, T. Ayyıldız, P. Akyol

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The purpose of this study was to examine and compare physical fitness values of students engaged in different team sport branches Totally 60 female, and 60 male athletes, that 20 athletes in each branch which are volleyball, basketball and football participated the study as a volunteer. The mean ages of female and male athletes were 21.20 ±1.87 and 21.61 ± 1.61 respectively. Age, height, body weight, body mass index, flexibility, body fat percentage, 30m sprint, maximum oxygen consumption capacity (MaxVO2) and drop jump values were measured. As a result of measurements, significant differences were found in height, weight, MaxVO2, shuttle run speed between different sports branches in female athletes. In male athletes, height, body weight, flexibility, 30m split speed and drop jump values were found significantly different between sports branches. As a conclusion and as a literature, it can be said that structure of body has to be appropriate with the engaged sports branch. Physical fitness values that required the sports branches can be expressed clearly by increasing the number of subjects.

Keywords: Volleyball, basketball, football, athletes, physical fitness.

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Authors: Wang liguo, Wang zongmin, Kong ying

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A novel interpolation scheme to extend usable spectrum and upconvert in high performance D/A converters is addressed in this paper. By adjusting the pulse width of cycle and the production circuit of code, the expansion code is a null code or complementary code that is interpolation process. What the times and codes of interpolation decide DAC works in one of a normal mode or multi-mixer mode so that convert the input digital data signal into normal signal or a mixed analog signal having a mixer frequency that is higher than the data frequency. Simulation results show that the novel scheme and apparatus most extend the usable frequency spectrum into fifth to sixth Nyquist zone beyond conventional DACs.

Keywords: interpolation, upconversion, modulation, switching function, duty cycle.

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Authors: Kozak K, M. Kozak, K. Stapor

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The k-nearest neighbors (knn) is a simple but effective method of classification. In this paper we present an extended version of this technique for chemical compounds used in High Throughput Screening, where the distances of the nearest neighbors can be taken into account. Our algorithm uses kernel weight functions as guidance for the process of defining activity in screening data. Proposed kernel weight function aims to combine properties of graphical structure and molecule descriptors of screening compounds. We apply the modified knn method on several experimental data from biological screens. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Keywords: biological screening, kernel methods, KNN, QSAR

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Authors: Hyunhee Ryu, Young Ju Jeon, Jaeuk U. Kim, Hae Jung Lee, Yu Jung Lee, Jong Yeol Kim

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The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of blood viscosity on the radial pulse wave. For this, we obtained the radial pulse wave of 15 males with abnormal high hematocrit level and 47 males with normal hematocrit level at the age of thirties and forties. Various variables of the radial pulse wave between two groups were analyzed and compared by Student's T test. There are significant differences in several variables about height, time and area of the pulse wave. The first peak of the radial pulse wave was higher in abnormal high hematocrit group, but the third peak was higher and longer in normal hematocrit group. Our results suggest that the radial pulse wave can be used for diagnosis of high blood viscosity and more clinical application.

Keywords: Radial pulse wave, Blood viscosity, Hematocrit.

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Authors: S. S. Sravanthi, Swati Ghosh Acharyya

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Automotive light weighting is of major prominence in the current times due to its contribution in improved fuel economy and reduced environmental pollution. Various arc welding technologies are being employed in the production of automobile components with reduced weight. The present study is of practical importance since it involves preferential substitution of Zinc coated mild steel with a light weight alloy such as 6061 Aluminium by means of Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) – Brazing technique at different processing parameters. However, the fabricated joints have shown the generation of Al – Fe layer at the interfacial regions which was confirmed by the Scanning Electron Microscope and Energy Dispersion Spectroscopy. These Al-Fe compounds not only affect the mechanical strength, but also predominantly deteriorate the corrosion resistance of the joints. Hence, it is essential to understand the phases formed in this layer and their crystal structure. Micro area X - ray diffraction technique has been exclusively used for this study. Moreover, the crevice corrosion analysis at the joint interfaces was done by exposing the joints to 5 wt.% FeCl₃ solution at regular time intervals as per ASTM G 48-03. The joints have shown a decreased crevice corrosion resistance with increased heat intensity. Inner surfaces of welds have shown severe oxide cracking and a remarkable weight loss when exposed to concentrated FeCl₃. The weight loss was enhanced with decreased filler wire feed rate and increased heat intensity. 

Keywords: Automobiles, welding, corrosion, lap joints, Micro XRD.

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Authors: Behzad Sani, Vida Jodaeian

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In order to determine the impact of thermo priming on germination of soybean seeds, an experiment was conducted as a completely randomized design with three replications. The factors of studied included different time thermo priming (control, 5 and 10 minutes) through the placing seeds were exposed to oven. The results showed that the effect of thermo priming was significant on germination percentage, seedling dry weight and seedling vigour in P ≤ 0.05. Mean comparison showed that the highest germination percentage (77%), seedling dry weight (1.39 g) and seedling vigour (107.03) were achieved by 10 minutes thermo priming. 

Keywords: Thermo priming, seedling, seedling production, seedling growth, soybean.

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Authors: Maria Hussin, Malik Zawwar Hussain, Mubashrah Saddiqa

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We present a trigonometric scheme to approximate a circular arc with its two end points and two end tangents/unit tangents. A rational cubic trigonometric Bézier curve is constructed whose end control points are defined by the end points of the circular arc. Weight functions and the remaining control points of the cubic trigonometric Bézier curve are estimated by variational approach to reproduce a circular arc. The radius error is calculated and found less than the existing techniques.

Keywords: Control points, rational trigonometric Bézier curves, radius error, shape measure, weight functions.

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Authors: Constantia Achilleos, Diofantos G. Hadjimitsis

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Road industry has challenged the prospect of ecoconstruction. Pavements may fit within the framework of sustainable development. Hence, research implements assessments of conventional pavements impacts on environment in use of life cycle approach. To meet global, and often national, targets on pollution control, newly introduced pavement designs are under study. This is the case of Cyprus demonstration, which occurred within EcoLanes project work. This alternative pavement differs on concrete layer reinforced with tire recycling product. Processing of post-consumer tires produces steel fibers improving strength capacity against cracking. Thus maintenance works are relevantly limited in comparison to flexible pavement. This enables to be more ecofriendly, referenced to current study outputs. More specific, proposed concrete pavement life cycle processes emits 15 % less air pollutants and consumes 28 % less embodied energy than those of the asphalt pavement. In addition there is also a reduction on costs by 0.06 %.

Keywords: Environmental impact assessment, life cycle, tirerecycling, transportation pavement.

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Authors: Zeinab Ghasemi, S. Amirhassan Monadjemi, Abbas Vafaei

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This paper presents a comparative analysis of a new unsupervised PCA-based technique for steel plates texture segmentation towards defect detection. The proposed scheme called Variance Based Component Analysis or VBCA employs PCA for feature extraction, applies a feature reduction algorithm based on variance of eigenpictures and classifies the pixels as defective and normal. While the classic PCA uses a clusterer like Kmeans for pixel clustering, VBCA employs thresholding and some post processing operations to label pixels as defective and normal. The experimental results show that proposed algorithm called VBCA is 12.46% more accurate and 78.85% faster than the classic PCA.

Keywords: Principal Component Analysis; Variance Based Component Analysis; Defect Detection; Texture Segmentation.

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Authors: Peng-Hui Maffee Wan, Klarissa Ting Ting Chang, Rax Suen Chun Lung

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Icons, or pictorial and graphical objects, are commonly used in human-computer interaction (HCI) fields as the mediator in order to communicate information to users. Yet there has been little studies focusing on a majority of the world’s population – semi-literate communities – in terms of the fundamental knowhow for designing icons for such population. In this study, two sets of icons belonging in different icon taxonomy – abstract and concrete – are designed for a mobile application for semi-literate agricultural communities. In this paper, we propose a triadic relationship of an icon, namely meaning, task and mental image, which inherits the triadic relationship of a sign. User testing with the application and a post-pilot questionnaire are conducted as the experimental approach in two rural villages in India. Icons belonging to concrete taxonomy perform better than abstract icons on the premise that the design of the icon fulfills the underlying rules of the proposed triadic relationship.

Keywords: Icon, GUI, mobile app, semi-literate.

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Authors: Carlos H. Cuadra

Abstract:

The present report describes the characteristics of damages and behavior of reinforced concrete buildings during the tsunami action. The discussion is based on the field damage survey in selected cities located on the coast of the zone affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. This earthquake is the most powerful know earthquake that has hit Japan with a magnitude 9.0 and with epicenter located at 129 km of Sendai city (off the coast). The earthquake triggered a destructive tsunami with run up height of up to 40 meters that mainly affect cities located on the Pacific Ocean coast of the Tohoku region (north-east region of Japan). Reinforced concrete buildings in general resist the tsunami without collapse however the non-structural elements like panels and ceilings were severely damaged. The analysis of damages has permitted to understand the behavior of RC buildings under tsunami attack, and has also permitted to establish recommendations for their use to take refuge from tsunami in places where natural topography makes impossible to reach hilltops or other safer places.

Keywords: tsunami, RC buildings, East Japan Earthquake, seismic damage

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Authors: Seong-wan Baik, Soo-young Ye, Byeong-cheol Choi, Gye-rok Jeon

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The measurement of anesthetic depth is necessary in anesthesiology. NN10 is very simple method among the RR intervals analysis methods. NN10 parameter means the numbers of above the 10 ms intervals of the normal to normal RR intervals. Bispectrum analysis is defined as 2D FFT. EEG signal reflected the non-linear peristalsis phenomena according to the change brain function. After analyzing the bispectrum of the 2 dimension, the most significant power spectrum density peaks appeared abundantly at the specific area in awakening and anesthesia state. These points are utilized to create the new index since many peaks appeared at the specific area in the frequency coordinate. The measured range of an index was 0-100. An index is 20-50 at an anesthesia, while the index is 90-60 at the awake. In this paper, the relation between NN10 parameter using ECG and bisepctrum index using EEG is observed to estimate the depth of anesthesia during anesthesia and then we estimated the utility of the anesthetic.

Keywords: Anesthesia, Bispectrum index, ECG, EEG

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Authors: Subha D. Puthankattil, Paul K. Joseph

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Analyzing brain signals of the patients suffering from the state of depression may lead to interesting observations in the signal parameters that is quite different from a normal control. The present study adopts two different methods: Time frequency domain and nonlinear method for the analysis of EEG signals acquired from depression patients and age and sex matched normal controls. The time frequency domain analysis is realized using wavelet entropy and approximate entropy is employed for the nonlinear method of analysis. The ability of the signal processing technique and the nonlinear method in differentiating the physiological aspects of the brain state are revealed using Wavelet entropy and Approximate entropy.

Keywords: EEG, Depression, Wavelet entropy, Approximate entropy, Relative Wavelet energy, Multiresolution decomposition.

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Authors: Marina Velikova, Hennie Daniels, Ad Feelders

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In many data mining applications, it is a priori known that the target function should satisfy certain constraints imposed by, for example, economic theory or a human-decision maker. In this paper we consider partially monotone prediction problems, where the target variable depends monotonically on some of the input variables but not on all. We propose a novel method to construct prediction models, where monotone dependences with respect to some of the input variables are preserved by virtue of construction. Our method belongs to the class of mixture models. The basic idea is to convolute monotone neural networks with weight (kernel) functions to make predictions. By using simulation and real case studies, we demonstrate the application of our method. To obtain sound assessment for the performance of our approach, we use standard neural networks with weight decay and partially monotone linear models as benchmark methods for comparison. The results show that our approach outperforms partially monotone linear models in terms of accuracy. Furthermore, the incorporation of partial monotonicity constraints not only leads to models that are in accordance with the decision maker's expertise, but also reduces considerably the model variance in comparison to standard neural networks with weight decay.

Keywords: mixture models, monotone neural networks, partially monotone models, partially monotone problems.

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Authors: Eqbal M. A. Dauqan, A. Aminah

Abstract:

The aim of the present study was to evaluate the blood lipid profile and liver lipid peroxidation in normal rat fed with different concentrations of Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal. Thirty six Sprague Dawley male rats each weighing between 180-200g were randomly divided into two groups. Each group contains eighteen rats and were divided into three groups of 6 rats per group. The rats were fed ad libitum with commercial rat’s feed and tap water containing different concentrations of Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal (3% and 6%) for 4 weeks. The results at 4 weeks showed that there was no significant difference (p≤0.05) in the total cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides (TG) between the control group and treated groups while the results for the high density lipoprotein (HDL-C) showed a significant decrease (P≥0.05) at the 3% and 6% of gum arabic treated groups compared to control group. There was a significant increase (P≥0.05) in low density lipoprotein (LDL-C) with 3% and 6% of gum Arabic (GA) groups compared to the control group. The study indicated that there was no significant (p≤0.05) effect on TC and TG but there was significant effect (P≥0.05) on HDL-C and LDL-C in blood lipid profile of normal rat. The results showed that after 4 weeks of treatment the malondialdehyde (MDA) value in rat fed with 6% of A. seyal group was significantly higher (P≥0.05) than control or other treated groups of A. seyal and A. senegal studied. Thus, the two species of gum arabic did not have beneficial effect on blood lipid profile and lipid peroxidation.

Keywords: Acacia senegal, Acacia seyal, lipid profile, lipid peroxidation, malondialdehyde (MDA).

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