Search results for: local communities
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1697

Search results for: local communities

947 Non-Rigid Registration of Medical Images Using an Automated Method

Authors: Panos Kotsas

Abstract:

This paper presents the application of a signal intensity independent registration criterion for non-rigid body registration of medical images. The criterion is defined as the weighted ratio image of two images. The ratio is computed on a voxel per voxel basis and weighting is performed by setting the ratios between signal and background voxels to a standard high value. The mean squared value of the weighted ratio is computed over the union of the signal areas of the two images and it is minimized using the Chebyshev polynomial approximation. The geometric transformation model adopted is a local cubic B-splines based model.

Keywords: Medical image, non-rigid, registration.

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946 Management of Meskit (Prosopis juliflora) Tree in Oman: The Case of Using Meskit (Prosopis juliflora) Pods for Feeding Omani Sheep

Authors: S. Al-Khalasi, O. Mahgoub, H. Yaakub

Abstract:

This study evaluated the use of raw or processed Prosopis juliflora (Meskit) pods as a major ingredient in a formulated ration to provide an alternative non-conventional concentrate for livestock feeding in Oman. Dry Meskit pods were reduced to lengths of 0.5- 1.0 cm to ensure thorough mixing into three diets. Meskit pods were subjected to two types of treatments; roasting and soaking. They were roasted at 150оC for 30 minutes using a locally-made roasting device (40 kg barrel container rotated by electric motor and heated by flame gas cooker). Chopped pods were soaked in tap water for 24 hours and dried for 2 days under the sun with frequent turning. The Meskit-pod-based diets (MPBD) were formulated and pelleted from 500 g/kg ground Meskit pods, 240 g/kg wheat bran, 200 g/kg barley grain, 50 g/kg local dried sardines and 10 g/kg of salt. Twenty four 10 months-old intact Omani male lambs with average body weight of 27.3 kg (± 0.5 kg) were used in a feeding trial for 84 days. They were divided (on body weight basis) and allocated to four diet combination groups. These were: Rhodes grass hay (RGH) plus a general ruminant concentrate (GRC); RGH plus raw Meskit pods (RMP) based concentrate; RGH plus roasted Meskit pods (ROMP) based concentrate; RGH plus soaked Meskit pods (SMP) based concentrate Daily feed intakes and bi-weekly body weights were recorded. MPBD had higher contents of crude protein (CP), acid detergent fibre (ADF) and neutral detergent fibre (NDF) than the GRC. Animals fed various types of MPBD did not show signs of ill health. There was a significant effect of feeding ROMP on the performance of Omani sheep compared to RMP and SMP. The ROMP fed animals had similar performance to those fed the GRC in terms of feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio (FCR).This study indicated that roasted Meskit pods based diet may be used instead of the commercial concentrate for feeding Omani sheep without adverse effects on performance. It offers a cheap alternative source of protein and energy for feeding Omani sheep. Also, it might help in solving the spread impact of Meskit trees, maintain the ecosystem and helping in preserving the local tree species.

Keywords: Growth, Meskit, Omani sheep, Prosopis juliflora.

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945 Biological Data Integration using SOA

Authors: Noura Meshaan Al-Otaibi, Amin Yousef Noaman

Abstract:

Nowadays scientific data is inevitably digital and stored in a wide variety of formats in heterogeneous systems. Scientists need to access an integrated view of remote or local heterogeneous data sources with advanced data accessing, analyzing, and visualization tools. This research suggests the use of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) to integrate biological data from different data sources. This work shows SOA will solve the problems that facing integration process and if the biologist scientists can access the biological data in easier way. There are several methods to implement SOA but web service is the most popular method. The Microsoft .Net Framework used to implement proposed architecture.

Keywords: Bioinformatics, Biological data, Data Integration, SOA and Web Services.

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944 Analytical Analysis of Image Representation by Their Discrete Wavelet Transform

Authors: R. M. Farouk

Abstract:

In this paper, we present an analytical analysis of the representation of images as the magnitudes of their transform with the discrete wavelets. Such a representation plays as a model for complex cells in the early stage of visual processing and of high technical usefulness for image understanding, because it makes the representation insensitive to small local shifts. We found that if the signals are band limited and of zero mean, then reconstruction from the magnitudes is unique up to the sign for almost all signals. We also present an iterative reconstruction algorithm which yields very good reconstruction up to the sign minor numerical errors in the very low frequencies.

Keywords: Wavelets, Image processing signal processing, Image reconstruction

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943 Design and Implementation of Rule-based Expert System for Fault Management

Authors: Su Myat Marlar Soe, May Paing Paing Zaw

Abstract:

It has been defined that the “network is the system". This implies providing levels of service, reliability, predictability and availability that are commensurate with or better than those that individual computers provide today. To provide this requires integrated network management for interconnected networks of heterogeneous devices covering both the local campus. In this paper we are addressing a framework to effectively deal with this issue. It consists of components and interactions between them which are required to perform the service fault management. A real-world scenario is used to derive the requirements which have been applied to the component identification. An analysis of existing frameworks and approaches with respect to their applicability to the framework is also carried out.

Keywords: To diagnose the possible network faults by using thepredetermined rules.

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942 Computer Based Medicine: I - The Future

Authors: Essam Abd-Elrazek

Abstract:

With the rapid growth in business size, today-s businesses orient Throughout thirty years local, national and international experience in medicine as a medical student, junior doctor and eventually Consultant and Professor in Anaesthesia, Intensive Care and Pain Management, I note significant generalised dissatisfaction among medical students and doctors regarding their medical education and practice. We repeatedly hear complaints from patients about the dysfunctional health care system they are dealing with and subsequently the poor medical service that they are receiving. Medical students are bombarded with lectures, tutorials, clinical rounds and various exams. Clinicians are weighed down with a never-ending array of competing duties. Patients are extremely unhappy about the long waiting lists, loss of their records and the continuous deterioration of the health care service. This problem has been reported in different countries by several authors [1,2,3]. In a trial to solve this dilemma, a genuine idea has been suggested implementing computer technology in medicine [2,3]. Computers in medicine are a medium of international communication of the revolutionary advances being made in the application of the computer to the fields of bioscience and medicine [4,5]. The awareness about using computers in medicine has recently increased all over the world. In Misr University for Science & Technology (MUST), Egypt, medical students are now given hand-held computers (Laptop) with Internet facility making their medical education accessible, convenient and up to date. However, this trial still needs to be validated. Helping the readers to catch up with the on going fast development in this interesting field, the author has decided to continue reviewing the literature, exploring the state-of-art in computer based medicine and up dating the medical professionals especially the local trainee Doctors in Egypt. In part I of this review article we will give a general background discussing the potential use of computer technology in the various aspects of the medical field including education, research, clinical practice and the health care service given to patients. Hope this will help starting changing the culture, promoting the awareness about the importance of implementing information technology (IT) in medicine, which is a field in which such help is needed. An international collaboration is recommended supporting the emerging countries achieving this target.

Keywords: Medical Informatics, telemedicine, e-health systems.

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941 Managing the Baltic Sea Region Resilience: Prevention, Treatment Actions and Circular Economy

Authors: J. Burlakovs, Y. Jani, L. Grinberga, M. Kriipsalu, O. Anne, I. Grinfelde, W. Hogland

Abstract:

The worldwide future sustainable economies are oriented towards the sea: the maritime economy is becoming one of the strongest driving forces in many regions as population growth is the highest in coastal areas. For hundreds of years sea resources were depleted unsustainably by fishing, mining, transportation, tourism, and waste. European Sustainable Development Strategy is identifying and developing actions to enable the EU to achieve a continuous, long-term improvement of the quality of life through the creation of sustainable communities. The aim of this paper is to provide insight in Baltic Sea Region case studies on implemented actions on tourism industry waste and beach wrack management in coastal areas, hazardous contaminants and plastic flow treatment from waste, wastewaters and stormwaters. These projects mentioned in study promote successful prevention of contaminant flows to the sea environments and provide perspectives for creation of valuable new products from residuals for future circular economy are the step forward to green innovation winning streak.

Keywords: Resilience, hazardous waste, phytoremediation, water management, circular economy.

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940 Identification of an Mechanism Systems by Using the Modified PSO Method

Authors: Chih-Cheng Kao, Hsin- Hua Chu

Abstract:

This paper mainly proposes an efficient modified particle swarm optimization (MPSO) method, to identify a slidercrank mechanism driven by a field-oriented PM synchronous motor. In system identification, we adopt the MPSO method to find parameters of the slider-crank mechanism. This new algorithm is added with “distance" term in the traditional PSO-s fitness function to avoid converging to a local optimum. It is found that the comparisons of numerical simulations and experimental results prove that the MPSO identification method for the slider-crank mechanism is feasible.

Keywords: Slider-crank mechanism, distance, systemidentification, modified particle swarm optimization.

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939 Properties of Rhizophora Charcoal for Product Design

Authors: Tanutpong Phriwanrat

Abstract:

This research investigated the properties of Rhizophora charcoal for product design on 3 aspects: electrical conductor, impurity absorption, and fresh fruit shelf life. After the study, the properties of Rhizophora charcoal were applied to produce local product model at Ban Yisarn, Ampawa District, Samudsongkram Province which can add value to the Rhizophora charcoal as one of the OTOP (One-Tambon-One product). The results showed that the Rhizophora charcoal is not an electrical conductor but good liquid impurity absorber and it can extend fresh fruit shelf life.

Keywords: Design, Product design, Properties of Rhizophora, Rhizophora Charcoal.

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938 Pushing the Limits of Address Based Authentication: How to Avoid MAC Address Spoofing in Wireless LANs

Authors: Kemal Bicakci, Yusuf Uzunay

Abstract:

It is well-known that in wireless local area networks, authenticating nodes by their MAC addresses is not secure since it is very easy for an attacker to learn one of the authorized addresses and change his MAC address accordingly. In this paper, in order to prevent MAC address spoofing attacks, we propose to use dynamically changing MAC addresses and make each address usable for only one session. The scheme we propose does not require any change in 802.11 protocols and incurs only a small performance overhead. One of the nice features of our new scheme is that no third party can link different communication sessions of the same user by monitoring MAC addresses therefore our scheme is preferable also with respect to user privacy.

Keywords: Authentication, MAC address spoofing, security, wireless networks.

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937 Undecimated Wavelet Transform Based Contrast Enhancement

Authors: Numan Unaldi, Samil Temel, Süleyman Demirci

Abstract:

A novel undecimated wavelet transform based contrast enhancement algorithmis proposed to for both gray scale andcolor images. Contrast enhancement is realized by tuning the magnitude of approximation coefficients at each level with respect to the approximation coefficients of one higher level during the inverse transform phase in a center/surround  enhancement sense.The performance of the proposed algorithm is evaluated using a statistical visual contrast measure (VCM). Experimental results on the proposed algorithm show improvement in terms of the VCM.

Keywords: Image enhancement, local contrast enhancement, visual contrast measure.

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936 Fatigue Crack Initiation of Al-Alloys “Effect of Heat Treatment Condition”

Authors: M. Benachour, N. Benachour, M. Benguediab

Abstract:

In this investigation an empirical study was made on fatigue crack initiation on 7075 T6 and 7075 T71 Al-alloys under constant amplitude loading. In initiation stage, local strain approach at the notch was applied. Single Edge Notch Tensile specimen with semi circular notch is used. Based on experimental results, effect of mean stress, is highlights on fatigue initiation life. Results show that fatigue life initiation is affected by notch geometry and mean stress. 

Keywords: Fatigue crack initiation, Al-Alloy, mean stress, heat treatment state.

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935 Face Recognition using Features Combination and a New Non-linear Kernel

Authors: Essam Al Daoud

Abstract:

To improve the classification rate of the face recognition, features combination and a novel non-linear kernel are proposed. The feature vector concatenates three different radius of local binary patterns and Gabor wavelet features. Gabor features are the mean, standard deviation and the skew of each scaling and orientation parameter. The aim of the new kernel is to incorporate the power of the kernel methods with the optimal balance between the features. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, numerous methods are tested by using four datasets, which are consisting of various emotions, orientations, configuration, expressions and lighting conditions. Empirical results show the superiority of the proposed technique when compared to other methods.

Keywords: Face recognition, Gabor wavelet, LBP, Non-linearkerner

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934 Fuzzy C-Means Clustering for Biomedical Documents Using Ontology Based Indexing and Semantic Annotation

Authors: S. Logeswari, K. Premalatha

Abstract:

Search is the most obvious application of information retrieval. The variety of widely obtainable biomedical data is enormous and is expanding fast. This expansion makes the existing techniques are not enough to extract the most interesting patterns from the collection as per the user requirement. Recent researches are concentrating more on semantic based searching than the traditional term based searches. Algorithms for semantic searches are implemented based on the relations exist between the words of the documents. Ontologies are used as domain knowledge for identifying the semantic relations as well as to structure the data for effective information retrieval. Annotation of data with concepts of ontology is one of the wide-ranging practices for clustering the documents. In this paper, indexing based on concept and annotation are proposed for clustering the biomedical documents. Fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithm is used to cluster the documents. The performances of the proposed methods are analyzed with traditional term based clustering for PubMed articles in five different diseases communities. The experimental results show that the proposed methods outperform the term based fuzzy clustering.

Keywords: MeSH Ontology, Concept Indexing, Annotation, semantic relations, Fuzzy c-means.

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933 Recognition of Tifinagh Characters with Missing Parts Using Neural Network

Authors: El Mahdi Barrah, Said Safi, Abdessamad Malaoui

Abstract:

In this paper, we present an algorithm for reconstruction from incomplete 2D scans for tifinagh characters. This algorithm is based on using correlation between the lost block and its neighbors. This system proposed contains three main parts: pre-processing, features extraction and recognition. In the first step, we construct a database of tifinagh characters. In the second step, we will apply “shape analysis algorithm”. In classification part, we will use Neural Network. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method give good results.

Keywords: Tifinagh character recognition, Neural networks, Local cost computation.

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932 Free and Open Source Licences, Software Programmers, and the Social Norm of Reciprocity

Authors: Luke McDonagh

Abstract:

Over the past three decades, free and open source software (FOSS) programmers have developed new, innovative and legally binding licences that have in turn enabled the creation of innumerable pieces of everyday software, including Linux, Mozilla Firefox and Open Office. That FOSS has been highly successful in competing with 'closed source software' (e.g. Microsoft Office) is now undeniable, but in noting this success, it is important to examine in detail why this system of FOSS has been so successful. One key reason is the existence of networks or communities of programmers, who are bound together by a key shared social norm of 'reciprocity'. At the same time, these FOSS networks are not unitary – they are highly diverse and there are large divergences of opinion between members regarding which licences are generally preferable: some members favour the flexible ‘free’ or 'no copyleft' licences, such as BSD and MIT, while other members favour the ‘strong open’ or 'strong copyleft' licences such as GPL. This paper argues that without both the existence of the shared norm of reciprocity and the diversity of licences, it is unlikely that the innovative legal framework provided by FOSS would have succeeded to the extent that it has.

Keywords: Open source, software, licences, reciprocity, networks.

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931 Numerical Simulation of the Aerodynamic Loads acting on top of the SMART Centre for PV Applications

Authors: M. Raciti Castelli, S. Toniato, E. Benini

Abstract:

The flow filed around a flatted-roof compound has been investigated by means of 2D and 3D numerical simulations. A constant wind velocity profile, based both on the maximum reference wind speed in the building site (peak gust speed worked out for a 50- year return period) and on the local roughness coefficient, has been simulated in order to determine the wind-induced loads on top of the roof. After determining the influence of the incoming wind directions on the induced roof loads, a 2D analysis of the most severe load condition has been performed, achieving a numerical quantification of the expected wind-induced forces on the PV panels on top of the roof.

Keywords: CFD, wind-induced loads, flow around buildings, photovoltaic system

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930 Development of a RAM Simulation Model for Acid Gas Removal System

Authors: Ainul Akmar Mokhtar, Masdi Muhammad, Hilmi Hussin, Mohd Amin Abdul Majid

Abstract:

A reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) model has been built for acid gas removal plant for system analysis that will play an important role in any process modifications, if required, for achieving its optimum performance. Due to the complexity of the plant, the model was based on a Reliability Block Diagram (RBD) with a Monte Carlo simulation engine. The model has been validated against actual plant data as well as local expert opinions, resulting in an acceptable simulation model. The results from the model showed that the operation and maintenance can be further improved, resulting in reduction of the annual production loss.

Keywords: Acid gas removal plant, RAM model, Reliabilityblock diagram

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929 An Improved Genetic Algorithm to Solve the Traveling Salesman Problem

Authors: Omar M. Sallabi, Younis El-Haddad

Abstract:

The Genetic Algorithm (GA) is one of the most important methods used to solve many combinatorial optimization problems. Therefore, many researchers have tried to improve the GA by using different methods and operations in order to find the optimal solution within reasonable time. This paper proposes an improved GA (IGA), where the new crossover operation, population reformulates operation, multi mutation operation, partial local optimal mutation operation, and rearrangement operation are used to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem. The proposed IGA was then compared with three GAs, which use different crossover operations and mutations. The results of this comparison show that the IGA can achieve better results for the solutions in a faster time.

Keywords: AI, Genetic algorithms, TSP.

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928 The RK1GL2X3 Method for Initial Value Problems in Ordinary Differential Equations

Authors: J.S.C. Prentice

Abstract:

The RK1GL2X3 method is a numerical method for solving initial value problems in ordinary differential equations, and is based on the RK1GL2 method which, in turn, is a particular case of the general RKrGLm method. The RK1GL2X3 method is a fourth-order method, even though its underlying Runge-Kutta method RK1 is the first-order Euler method, and hence, RK1GL2X3 is considerably more efficient than RK1. This enhancement is achieved through an implementation involving triple-nested two-point Gauss- Legendre quadrature.

Keywords: RK1GL2X3, RK1GL2, RKrGLm, Runge-Kutta, Gauss-Legendre, initial value problem, local error, global error.

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927 Tool Path Generation and Manufacturing Process for Blades of a Compressor Rotor

Authors: C. Tung, P.-L. Tso

Abstract:

This paper presents a complete procedure for tool path planning and blade machining in 5-axis manufacturing. The actual cutting contact and cutter locations can be determined by lead and tilt angles. The tool path generation is implemented by piecewise curved approximation and chordal deviation detection. An application about drive surface method promotes flexibility of tool control and stability of machine motion. A real manufacturing process is proposed to separate the operation into three regions with five stages and to modify the local tool orientation with an interactive algorithm.

Keywords: 5-axis machining, tool orientation, lead and tilt angles, tool path generation.

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926 Lattice Boltzmann Simulation of the Carbonization of Wood Particle

Authors: Ahmed Mahmoudi, Imen Mejri, Mohamed A. Abbassi, Ahmed Omri

Abstract:

A numerical study based on the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) is proposed to solve one, two and three dimensional heat and mass transfer for isothermal carbonization of thick wood particles. To check the validity of the proposed model, computational results have been compared with the published data and a good agreement is obtained. Then, the model is used to study the effect of reactor temperature and thermal boundary conditions, on the evolution of the local temperature and the mass distributions of the wood particle during carbonization

Keywords: Lattice Boltzmann Method, pyrolysis conduction, carbonization, Heat and mass transfer.

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925 Effect of Prandtl Number on Natural Convection Heat Transfer from a Heated Semi-Circular Cylinder

Authors: Avinash Chandra, R. P. Chhabra

Abstract:

Natural convection heat transfer from a heated horizontal semi-circular cylinder (flat surface upward) has been investigated for the following ranges of conditions; Grashof number, and Prandtl number. The governing partial differential equations (continuity, Navier-Stokes and energy equations) have been solved numerically using a finite volume formulation. In addition, the role of the type of the thermal boundary condition imposed at cylinder surface, namely, constant wall temperature (CWT) and constant heat flux (CHF) are explored. Natural convection heat transfer from a heated horizontal semi-circular cylinder (flat surface upward) has been investigated for the following ranges of conditions; Grashof number, and Prandtl number, . The governing partial differential equations (continuity, Navier-Stokes and energy equations) have been solved numerically using a finite volume formulation. In addition, the role of the type of the thermal boundary condition imposed at cylinder surface, namely, constant wall temperature (CWT) and constant heat flux (CHF) are explored. The resulting flow and temperature fields are visualized in terms of the streamline and isotherm patterns in the proximity of the cylinder. The flow remains attached to the cylinder surface over the range of conditions spanned here except that for and ; at these conditions, a separated flow region is observed when the condition of the constant wall temperature is prescribed on the surface of the cylinder. The heat transfer characteristics are analyzed in terms of the local and average Nusselt numbers. The maximum value of the local Nusselt number always occurs at the corner points whereas it is found to be minimum at the rear stagnation point on the flat surface. Overall, the average Nusselt number increases with Grashof number and/ or Prandtl number in accordance with the scaling considerations. The numerical results are used to develop simple correlations as functions of Grashof and Prandtl number thereby enabling the interpolation of the present numerical results for the intermediate values of the Prandtl or Grashof numbers for both thermal boundary conditions.

Keywords: Constant heat flux, Constant surface temperature, Grashof number, natural convection, Prandtl number, Semi-circular cylinder

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924 Evaluating Portfolio Performance by Highlighting Network Property and the Sharpe Ratio in the Stock Market

Authors: Zahra Hatami, Hesham Ali, David Volkman

Abstract:

Selecting a portfolio for investing is a crucial decision for individuals and legal entities. In the last two decades, with economic globalization, a stream of financial innovations has rushed to the aid of financial institutions. The importance of selecting stocks for the portfolio is always a challenging task for investors. This study aims to create a financial network to identify optimal portfolios using network centralities metrics. This research presents a community detection technique of superior stocks that can be described as an optimal stock portfolio to be used by investors. By using the advantages of a network and its property in extracted communities, a group of stocks was selected for each of the various time periods. The performance of the optimal portfolios was compared to the famous index. Their Sharpe ratio was calculated in a timely manner to evaluate their profit for making decisions. The analysis shows that the selected potential portfolio from stocks with low centrality measurement can outperform the market; however, they have a lower Sharpe ratio than stocks with high centrality scores. In other words, stocks with low centralities could outperform the S&P500 yet have a lower Sharpe ratio than high central stocks.

Keywords: Portfolio management performance, network analysis, centrality measurements, Sharpe ratio.

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923 Numerical Study of Steel Structures Responses to External Explosions

Authors: Mohammad Abdallah

Abstract:

Due to the constant increase in terrorist attacks, the research and engineering communities have given significant attention to building performance under explosions. This paper presents a methodology for studying and simulating the dynamic responses of steel structures during external detonations, particularly for accurately investigating the impact of incrementing charge weight on the members total behavior, resistance and failure. Prediction damage method was introduced to evaluate the damage level of the steel members based on five scenarios of explosions. Johnson–Cook strength and failure model have been used as well as ABAQUS finite element code to simulate the explicit dynamic analysis, and antecedent field tests were used to verify the acceptance and accuracy of the proposed material strength and failure model. Based on the structural response, evaluation criteria such as deflection, vertical displacement, drift index, and damage level; the obtained results show the vulnerability of steel columns and un-braced steel frames which are designed and optimized to carry dead and live load to resist and endure blast loading.

Keywords: Steel structure, blast load, terrorist attacks, charge weight, damage level.

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922 A New Evolutionary Algorithm for Cluster Analysis

Authors: B.Bahmani Firouzi, T. Niknam, M. Nayeripour

Abstract:

Clustering is a very well known technique in data mining. One of the most widely used clustering techniques is the kmeans algorithm. Solutions obtained from this technique depend on the initialization of cluster centers and the final solution converges to local minima. In order to overcome K-means algorithm shortcomings, this paper proposes a hybrid evolutionary algorithm based on the combination of PSO, SA and K-means algorithms, called PSO-SA-K, which can find better cluster partition. The performance is evaluated through several benchmark data sets. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms previous approaches, such as PSO, SA and K-means for partitional clustering problem.

Keywords: Data clustering, Hybrid evolutionary optimization algorithm, K-means algorithm, Simulated Annealing (SA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO).

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921 The Investigations of Water-ethanol Mixture by Monte Carlo Method

Authors: Atamas N. A., Atamas A. A.

Abstract:

Energetic and structural results for ethanol-water mixtures as a function of the mole fraction were calculated using Monte Carlo methodology. Energy partitioning results obtained for equimolar water-ethanol mixture and ether organic liquids are compared. It has been shown that at xet=0.22 the RDFs for waterethanol and ethanol-ethanol interactions indicated strong hydrophobic interactions between ethanol molecules and the local structure of solution is less structured at this concentration as at ether ones. Results obtained for ethanol-water mixture as a function of concentration are in good agreement with the experimental data.

Keywords: Ethanol, molecular liquids, Monte Carlo, water, thermodynamics.

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920 Dynamical Analysis of a Harvesting Model of Phytoplankton-Zooplankton Interaction

Authors: Anuj K. Sharma, Amit Sharma, Kulbhushan Agnihotri

Abstract:

In this work, we propose and analyze a model of Phytoplankton-Zooplankton interaction with harvesting considering that some species are exploited commercially for food. Criteria for local stability, instability and global stability are derived and some threshold harvesting levels are explored to maintain the population at an appropriate equilibrium level even if the species are exploited continuously.Further,biological and bionomic equilibria of the system are obtained and an optimal harvesting policy is also analysed using the Pantryagin’s Maximum Principle.Finally analytical findings are also supported by some numerical simulations.

Keywords: Phytoplankton-Zooplankton, Global stability, Bionomic Equilibrium, Pontrying-Maximum Principal.

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919 Toward Full Public E-Service Environment in Developing Countries

Authors: H. S. Hassan, E. Shehab, J. Peppard

Abstract:

Changing technology and increased constituent demand for government services derive the need for governmental responsiveness. The government organisations in the developing countries will be under increased pressure to change their bureaucratic systems to be able to respond rapidly to changing and increasing requirements and rapid technology advancements. This paper aims to present a conceptual framework for explaining the main barriers and drivers of public e-service development. Therefore, the framework provides a basic context within which the process and practice of E-Service can be implemented successfully in the public sector organisations. The framework is flexible enough to be adopted by governments at different levels; national or local by developing countries around the world.

Keywords: Developing countries, E-service, Governmentservices, Public administration.

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918 The Marketing Mix in Small Sized Hotels: A Case of Pattaya, Thailand

Authors: Anyapak Prapannetivuth

Abstract:

The purpose of this research is to investigate the marketing mix that is perceived to be important for the small sized hotels in Pattaya. This research provides insights through a review of the marketing activities performed by the small sized hotels. Nine owners & marketing manager of small sized hotels and resorts, all local Chonburi people, were selected for an in-depth interview. The research suggests that seven marketing mixes (e.g. Product, Price, Place, Promotion, People, Physical Evidence and Process) were commonly used by these hotels, however, three types – People, Price and Physical Evidence were considered most important by the owners.

Keywords: Marketing Mix, Marketing Tools, and Small Sized Hotels.

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