Search results for: performance analysis

Authors: Ramón Cruzat, Sergio F. Ochoa, Ignacio Casas, Luis A. Guerrero, José Bravo

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Patients under health treatments that involve long  stays at a hospital or health center (e.g. cancer, organ transplants and  severe burns), tend to get bored or depressed because of the lack of  social interaction with family and friends. Such a situation also  affects the evolution and effectiveness of their treatments. In many  cases, the solution to this problem involves extra challenges, since  many patients need to rest quietly (or remain in bed) to their being  contagious. Considering the weak health condition in which usually  are these kinds, keeping them motivated and quiet represents an  important challenge for nurses and caregivers. This article presents a  mobile ubiquitous game called MagicRace, which allows hospitalized  kinds to interact socially with one another without putting to risk  their sensitive health conditions. The game does not require a  communication infrastructure at the hospital, but instead, it uses a  mobile ad hoc network composed of the handheld devices used by  the kids to play. The usability and performance of this application  was tested in two different sessions. The preliminary results show  that users experienced positive feelings from this experience.

 

Keywords: Ubiquitous game, children's emotional support, social isolation, mobile collaborative interactions.

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Authors: Mohsin T. Mohammed, Zahid A. Khan, Arshad N. Siddiquee

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The field of biomedical materials plays an imperative requisite and a critical role in manufacturing a variety of biological artificial replacements in a modern world. Recently, titanium (Ti) materials are being used as biomaterials because of their superior corrosion resistance and tremendous specific strength, free- allergic problems and the greatest biocompatibility compared to other competing biomaterials such as stainless steel, Co-Cr alloys, ceramics, polymers, and composite materials. However, regardless of these excellent performance properties, Implantable Ti materials have poor shear strength and wear resistance which limited their applications as biomaterials. Even though the wear properties of Ti alloys has revealed some improvements, the crucial effectiveness of biomedical Ti alloys as wear components requires a comprehensive deep understanding of the wear reasons, mechanisms, and techniques that can be used to improve wear behavior. This review examines current information on the effect of thermal and thermomechanical processing of implantable Ti materials on the long-term prosthetic requirement which related with wear behavior. This paper focuses mainly on the evolution, evaluation and development of effective microstructural features that can improve wear properties of bio grade Ti materials using thermal and thermomechanical treatments.

Keywords: Wear Resistance, Heat Treatment, Thermomechanical Processing, Biomedical Titanium Materials.

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Authors: Eftah Bte. Moh @ Hj Abdullah, Izazol Binti Idris, Abd Aziz Bin Abd Shukor

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This study aimed to identify the alignment of understanding and assessment practices among secondary school teachers. The study was carried out using quantitative descriptive study. The sample consisted of 164 teachers who taught Form 1 and 2 from 11 secondary schools in the district of North Kinta, Perak, Malaysia. Data were obtained from 164 respondents who answered Expectation Alignment Understanding and Practices of School Assessment (PEKDAPS) questionnaire. The data were analysed using SPSS 17.0+. The Cronbach’s alpha value obtained through PEKDAPS questionnaire pilot study was 0.86. The results showed that teachers' performance in PEKDAPS based on the mean value was less than 3, which means that perfect alignment does not occur between the understanding and practices of school assessment. Two major PEKDAPS sub-constructs of articulation across grade and age and usability of the system were higher than the moderate alignment of the understanding and practices of school assessment (Min=2.0). The content focused of PEKDAPs sub-constructs which showed lower than the moderate alignment of the understanding and practices of school assessment (Min=2.0). Another two PEKDAPS subconstructs of transparency and fairness and the pedagogical implications showed moderate alignment (2.0). The implications of the study is that teachers need to fully understand the importance of alignment among components of assessment, learning and teaching and learning objectives as strategies to achieve quality assessment process.

Keywords: Alignment, assessment practices, School Based Assessment, understanding.

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Authors: Fitria Rahmawati, Nuryani, Liviana Wijayanti

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This research study the application of the immobilized TiO2 layer and Cu-TiO2 layer on graphite substrate as a negative electrode or anode for Li-ion battery. The titania layer was produced through chemical bath deposition method, meanwhile Cu particles were deposited electrochemically. A material can be used as an electrode as it has capability to intercalates Li ions into its crystal structure. The Li intercalation into TiO2/Graphite and Cu- TiO2/Graphite were analyzed from the changes of its XRD pattern after it was used as electrode during discharging process. The XRD patterns were refined by Le Bail method in order to determine the crystal structure of the prepared materials. A specific capacity and the cycle ability measurement were carried out to study the performance of the prepared materials as negative electrode of the Li-ion battery. The specific capacity was measured during discharging process from fully charged until the cut off voltage. A 300 was used as a load. The result shows that the specific capacity of Li-ion battery with TiO2/Graphite as negative electrode is 230.87 ± 1.70mAh.g-1 which is higher than the specific capacity of Li-ion battery with pure graphite as negative electrode, i.e 140.75 ±0.46mAh.g-1. Meanwhile deposition of Cu onto TiO2 layer does not increase the specific capacity, and the value even lower than the battery with TiO2/Graphite as electrode. The cycle ability of the prepared battery is only two cycles, due to the Li ribbon which was used as cathode became fragile and easily broken.

Keywords: Cu-TiO2, electrode, graphite substrate, Li-ion battery, TiO2 layer.

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Authors: Amit Keshav, Alok Sharma, Bidyut Mazumdar

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Colocasia esculenta leaves and roots are widely used in Asian countries, such as, India, Srilanka and Pakistan, as food and feed material. The root is high in carbohydrates and rich in zinc. The leaves and stalks are often traditionally preserved to be eaten in dry season. Leaf juice is stimulant, expectorant, astringent, appetizer, and otalgia. Looking at the medicinal uses of the plant leaves; phytochemicals were extracted from the plant leaves and were characterized using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to find the functional groups. Phytochemical analysis of Colocasia esculenta (L.) leaf was studied using three solvents (methanol, chloroform, and ethanol) with soxhlet apparatus. Powder of the leaves was employed to obtain the extracts, which was qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed for phytochemical content using standard methods. Phytochemical constituents were abundant in the leave extract. Leaf was found to have various phytochemicals such as alkaloids, glycosides, flavonoids, terpenoids, saponins, oxalates and phenols etc., which could have lot of medicinal benefits such as reducing headache, treatment of congestive heart failure, prevent oxidative cell damage etc. These phytochemicals were identified using UV spectrophotometer and results were presented. In order to find the antioxidant activity of the extract, DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl) method was employed using ascorbic acid as standard. DPPH scavenging activity of ascorbic acid was found to be 84%, whereas for ethanol it was observed to be 78.92%, for methanol: 76.46% and for chloroform: 72.46%. Looking at the high antioxidant activity, Colocasia esculenta may be recommended for medicinal applications. The characterizations of functional groups were analyzed using FTIR spectroscopy.

Keywords: Antioxidant activity, Colocasia esculenta, leaves, characterization, FTIR.

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Authors: Kaveh Qaderi Bagajan, Osman Khanahmadi, Ziba Mamaghani Chaharborj, Majid Chenaparchi

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the efficacy of the solution-focused brief therapy on improving the psychological wellbeing of family supervisor woman. This study has been carried out by semi-experimental method and in the form of pre-test, post-test performance on two groups (experimental and control), so that one sample group of 30 individuals was randomly achieved and were randomly divided in two groups of experimental (n=15) and control (n=15). To collect data, Ryff scale psychological wellbeing was used. After conducting pre-test (RSPWB) for two experimental and control groups, Solution-focused brief therapy interference was conducted on the experimental group during five two-hour sessions. Finally, Ryff scale psychological wellbeing was reused for the two groups as post-test and achieved outcomes that were analyzed using covariance. The results indicated that the significant increase of average marks of the experimental group in psychological wellbeing had better function than that of the control group. Finally, solution-focused brief therapy for improving psychological well-being of family supervisor women has a suitable capability and could be used in this way.

Keywords: Solution-Focused Brief Therapy, Short-term Therapy, Family Supervisor Women, Psychological Wellbeing.

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Authors: B. Golchin, N. Riahi

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One of the most significant issues as attended a lot in recent years is that of recognizing the sentiments and emotions in social media texts. The analysis of sentiments and emotions is intended to recognize the conceptual information such as the opinions, feelings, attitudes and emotions of people towards the products, services, organizations, people, topics, events and features in the written text. These indicate the greatness of the problem space. In the real world, businesses and organizations are always looking for tools to gather ideas, emotions, and directions of people about their products, services, or events related to their own. This article uses the Twitter social network, one of the most popular social networks with about 420 million active users, to extract data. Using this social network, users can share their information and opinions about personal issues, policies, products, events, etc. It can be used with appropriate classification of emotional states due to the availability of its data. In this study, supervised learning and deep neural network algorithms are used to classify the emotional states of Twitter users. The use of deep learning methods to increase the learning capacity of the model is an advantage due to the large amount of available data. Tweets collected on various topics are classified into four classes using a combination of two Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory network and a Convolutional network. The results obtained from this study with an average accuracy of 93%, show good results extracted from the proposed framework and improved accuracy compared to previous work.

Keywords: emotion classification, sentiment analysis, social networks, deep neural networks

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Authors: Lowai Abed

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The differences in languages play a big role in cross-cultural communication. If meanings are not translated accurately, the risk can be crucial not only on an interpersonal level, but also on the international and political levels. The use of metaphorical language by politicians can cause great confusion, often leading to statements being misconstrued. In these situations, it is the translators who struggle to put forward the intended meaning with clarity and this makes translation an important field to study and analyze when it comes to cross-cultural communication. Owing to the growing importance of language and the power of translation in politics, this research analyzes part of President Bush’s speech in 2001 in which he used the word “Crusade” which caused his statement to be misconstrued. The research uses a discourse analysis of cross-cultural communication literature which provides answers supported by historical, linguistic, and communicative perspectives. The first finding indicates that the word ‘crusade’ carries different meaning and significance in the narratives of the Western world when compared to the Middle East. The second one is that, linguistically, maintaining cultural meanings through translation is quite difficult and challenging. Third, when it comes to the cross-cultural communication perspective, the common and frequent usage of literal translation is a sign of poor strategies being followed in translation training. Based on the example of Bush’s speech, this paper hopes to highlight the weak practices in translation in cross-cultural communication which are still commonly used across the world. Translation studies have to take issues such as this seriously and attempt to find a solution. In every language, there are words and phrases that have cultural, historical and social meanings that are woven into the language. Literal translation is not the solution for this problem because that strategy is unable to convey these meanings in the target language.

Keywords: Crusade, metaphor, mistranslation, war in terror.

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Authors: Chao. Huo, Roger. Barènes, Jérémie. Gressier, Gilles.Grondin

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The parametrical study of Shrouded Contra-rotating Rotor was done in this paper based on 2D axisymmetric simulations. The calculations were made with an actuator disk as double rotor model. It objects to explore and quantify the effects of different shroud geometry parameters mainly using the performance of power loading (PL), which could evaluate the whole propulsion system capability as 5 Newtontotal thrust generationfor hover demand. The numerical results show that:The increase of nozzle radius is desired but limited by the flow separation, its optimal design is around 1.15 times rotor radius, the viscosity effects greatly constraint the influence of nozzle shape, the divergent angle around 10.5° performs best for chosen nozzle length;The parameters of inlet such as leading edge curvature, radius and internal shape do not affect thrust great but play an important role in pressure distribution which could produce most part of shroud thrust, they should be chosen according to the reduction of adverse pressure gradients to reduce the risk of boundary separation.

Keywords: Axisymmetric simulation, parametrical design, power loading, Shrouded Contra-Rotating Rotor.

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Authors: K. Mohammed, M. Agarwal, J. Mewman, Y. Ren

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An optimum technic has been developed for extracting volatile organic compounds which contribute to the aroma of lime fruit (Citrus aurantifolia). The volatile organic compounds of healthy and infested lime fruit with California red scale Aonidiella aurantii were characterized using headspace solid phase microextraction (HS-SPME) combined with gas chromatography (GC) coupled flame ionization detection (FID) and gas chromatography with mass spectrometry (GC-MS) as a very simple, efficient and nondestructive extraction method. A three-phase 50/30 μm PDV/DVB/CAR fibre was used for the extraction process. The optimal sealing and fibre exposure time for volatiles reaching equilibrium from whole lime fruit in the headspace of the chamber was 16 and 4 hours respectively. 5 min was selected as desorption time of the three-phase fibre. Herbivorous activity induces indirect plant defenses, as the emission of herbivorous-induced plant volatiles (HIPVs), which could be used by natural enemies for host location. GC-MS analysis showed qualitative differences among volatiles emitted by infested and healthy lime fruit. The GC-MS analysis allowed the initial identification of 18 compounds, with similarities higher than 85%, in accordance with the NIST mass spectral library. One of these were increased by A. aurantii infestation, D-limonene, and three were decreased, Undecane, α-Farnesene and 7-epi-α-selinene. From an applied point of view, the application of the above-mentioned VOCs may help boost the efficiency of biocontrol programs and natural enemies’ production techniques.

Keywords: Lime fruit, Citrus aurantifolia, California red scale, Aonidiella aurantii, VOCs, HS-SPME/GC-FID-MS.

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Authors: Md. Ashikur Rahman Khan, M. M. Rahman, K. Kadirgama, M.A. Maleque, Rosli A. Bakar

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Conventionally the selection of parameters depends intensely on the operator-s experience or conservative technological data provided by the EDM equipment manufacturers that assign inconsistent machining performance. The parameter settings given by the manufacturers are only relevant with common steel grades. A single parameter change influences the process in a complex way. Hence, the present research proposes artificial neural network (ANN) models for the prediction of surface roughness on first commenced Ti-15-3 alloy in electrical discharge machining (EDM) process. The proposed models use peak current, pulse on time, pulse off time and servo voltage as input parameters. Multilayer perceptron (MLP) with three hidden layer feedforward networks are applied. An assessment is carried out with the models of distinct hidden layer. Training of the models is performed with data from an extensive series of experiments utilizing copper electrode as positive polarity. The predictions based on the above developed models have been verified with another set of experiments and are found to be in good agreement with the experimental results. Beside this they can be exercised as precious tools for the process planning for EDM.

Keywords: Ti-15l-3, surface roughness, copper, positive polarity, multi-layered perceptron.

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Authors: S. Looser, W. Wehrmeyer

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Given the limited research on Small and Mediumsized Enterprises’ (SMEs) contribution to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and even scarcer research on Swiss SMEs, this paper helps to fill these gaps by enabling the identification of supranational SME parameters. Thus, the paper investigates the current state of SME practices in Switzerland and across 15 other countries. Combining the degree to which SMEs demonstrate an explicit (or business case) approach or see CSR as an implicit moral activity with the assessment of their attributes for “variety of capitalism” defines the framework of this comparative analysis. To outline Swiss small business CSR patterns in particular, 40 SME owner-managers were interviewed. A secondary data analysis of studies from different countries laid groundwork for this comparative overview of small business CSR. The paper identifies Swiss small business CSR as driven by norms, values, and by the aspiration to contribute to society, thus, as an implicit part of the day-to-day business. Similar to most Central European, Mediterranean, Nordic, and Asian countries, explicit CSR is still very rare in Swiss SMEs. Astonishingly, also British and American SMEs follow this pattern in spite of their strong and distinctly liberal market economies. Though other findings show that nationality matters this research concludes that SME culture and an informal CSR agenda are strongly formative and superseding even forces of market economies, nationally cultural patterns, and language. Hence, classifications of countries by their market system, as found in the comparative capitalism literature, do not match the CSR practices in SMEs as they do not mirror the peculiarities of their business. This raises questions on the universality and generalisability of unmediated, explicit management concepts, especially in the context of small firms.

Keywords: CSR, comparative study, cultures of capitalism, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises.

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Authors: SeHun Lim, Sanghoon Kim, Sun-Tae Chung, Seongwon Cho

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Face authentication for access control is a face membership authentication which passes the person of the incoming face if he turns out to be one of an enrolled person based on face recognition or rejects if not. Face membership authentication belongs to the two class classification problem where SVM(Support Vector Machine) has been successfully applied and shows better performance compared to the conventional threshold-based classification. However, most of previous SVMs have been trained using image feature vectors extracted from face images of each class member(enrolled class/unenrolled class) so that they are not robust to variations in illuminations, poses, and facial expressions and much affected by changes in member configuration of the enrolled class In this paper, we propose an effective face membership authentication method based on SVM using class discriminating features which represent an incoming face image-s associability with each class distinctively. These class discriminating features are weakly related with image features so that they are less affected by variations in illuminations, poses and facial expression. Through experiments, it is shown that the proposed face membership authentication method performs better than the threshold rule-based or the conventional SVM-based authentication methods and is relatively less affected by changes in member size and membership.

Keywords: Face Authentication, Access control, member ship authentication, SVM.

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Authors: Ali M. Eltamaly, A. I. Alolah, R. Hamouda, M. Y. Abdulghany

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In this paper a novel, simple and reliable digital firing scheme has been implemented for speed control of three-phase induction motor using ac voltage controller. The system consists of three-phase supply connected to the three-phase induction motor via three triacs and its control circuit. The ac voltage controller has three modes of operation depending on the shape of supply current. The performance of the induction motor differs in each mode where the speed is directly proportional with firing angle in two modes and inversely in the third one. So, the control system has to detect the current mode of operation to choose the correct firing angle of triacs. Three sensors are used to feed the line currents to control system to detect the mode of operation. The control strategy is implemented using a low cost Xilinx Spartan-3E field programmable gate array (FPGA) device. Three PI-controllers are designed on FPGA to control the system in the three-modes. Simulation of the system is carried out using PSIM computer program. The simulation results show stable operation for different loading conditions especially in mode 2/3. The simulation results have been compared with the experimental results from laboratory prototype.

Keywords: FPGA, Induction motor, PSIM, triac, Voltage controller.

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Authors: Wang Shuen-Tai, Lin Yu-Ching, Chang Hsi-Ya

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Cloud computing is the innovative and leading information technology model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort. In this paper, we aim at the development of workflow management system for cloud computing platforms based on our previous research on the dynamic allocation of the cloud computing resources and its workflow process. We took advantage of the HTML5 technology and developed web-based workflow interface. In order to enable the combination of many tasks running on the cloud platform in sequence, we designed a mechanism and developed an execution engine for workflow management on clouds. We also established a prediction model which was integrated with job queuing system to estimate the waiting time and cost of the individual tasks on different computing nodes, therefore helping users achieve maximum performance at lowest payment. This proposed effort has the potential to positively provide an efficient, resilience and elastic environment for cloud computing platform. This development also helps boost user productivity by promoting a flexible workflow interface that lets users design and control their tasks' flow from anywhere.

Keywords: Web-based, workflow, HTML5, Cloud Computing, Queuing System.

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Authors: H. Ferfera-Harrar, N. Aiouaz, N. Dairi

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Superabsorbent polymers received much attention and are used in many fields because of their superior characters to traditional absorbents, e.g., sponge and cotton. So, it is very important but challenging to prepare highly and fast-swelling superabsorbents. A reliable, efficient and low-cost technique for removing heavy metal ions from wastewater is the adsorption using bio-adsorbents obtained from biological materials, such as polysaccharides-based hydrogels superabsorbents. In this study, novel multi-functional superabsorbent composites type semi-interpenetrating polymer networks (Semi-IPNs) were prepared via graft polymerization of acrylamide onto chitosan backbone in presence of gelatin, CTS-g-PAAm/Ge, using potassium persulfate and N,N’-methylene bisacrylamide as initiator and crosslinker, respectively. These hydrogels were also partially hydrolyzed to achieve superabsorbents with ampholytic properties and uppermost swelling capacity. The formation of the grafted network was evidenced by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) and Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA). The porous structures were observed by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). From TGA analysis, it was concluded that the incorporation of the Ge in the CTS-g-PAAm network has marginally affected its thermal stability. The effect of gelatin content on the swelling capacities of these superabsorbent composites was examined in various media (distilled water, saline and pH-solutions). The water absorbency was enhanced by adding Ge in the network, where the optimum value was reached at 2 wt. % of Ge. Their hydrolysis has not only greatly optimized their absorption capacity but also improved the swelling kinetic.These materials have also showed reswelling ability. We believe that these super-absorbing materials would be very effective for the adsorption of harmful metal ions from wastewater.

Keywords: Chitosan, gelatin, superabsorbent, water absorbency.

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Authors: Carolyn J. Ortega, Stephen E. Berger

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The role of the custody evaluator is perhaps one of the most controversial and risky endeavors in clinical practice. Complaints filed with licensing boards regarding a child-custody evaluation constitute the second most common reason for such an event. Although the evaluator is expected to answer for the family-law court what is in the “best interest of the child,” there is a lack of clarity on how to establish this in any empirically validated manner. Hence, practitioners must contend with a nebulous framework in formulating their methodological procedures that inherently places them at risk in an already litigious context. This study sought to qualitatively investigate patterns of practice among doctoral practitioners conducting child custody evaluations in the area of Southern California. Ten psychologists were interviewed who devoted between 25 and 100% of their California private practice to custody work. All held Ph.D. degrees with a range of eight to 36 years of experience in custody work. Semi-structured interviews were used to investigate assessment practices, ensure adherence to guidelines, risk management, and qualities of evaluators. Forty-three Specific Themes were identified using Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Seven Higher Order Themes clustered on salient factors such as use of Ethics, Law, Guidelines; Parent Variables; Child Variables; Psychologist Variables; Testing; Literature; and Trends. Evaluators were aware of the ever-present reality of a licensure complaint and thus presented idiosyncratic descriptions of risk management considerations. Ambiguity about quantifying and validly tapping parenting abilities was also reviewed. Findings from this study suggested a high reliance on unstructured and observational methods in child custody practices.

Keywords: Forensic psychology, psychological testing, assessment methodology, child custody.

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Authors: Sadia Iqbal, Faheem Iqbal, Furqan Iqbal

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Efficient utilization of existing water is a pressing need for Pakistan. Due to rising population, reduction in present storage capacity and poor delivery efficiency of 30 to 40% from canal. A study to evaluate an irrigation system in the cotton-wheat zone of Pakistan, after the watercourse lining was conducted. The study is made on the basis of cropping pattern and salinity to evaluate the system. This study employed an index-based approach of using Geographic information system with field data. The satellite images of different years were use to examine the effective area. Several combinations of the ratio of signals received in different spectral bands were used for development of this index. Near Infrared and Thermal IR spectral bands proved to be most effective as this combination helped easy detection of salt affected area and cropping pattern of the study area. Result showed that 9.97% area under salinity in 1992, 9.17% in 2000 and it left 2.29% in year 2005. Similarly in 1992, 45% area is under vegetation it improves to 56% and 65% in 2000 and 2005 respectively. On the basis of these results evaluation is done 30% performance is increase after the watercourse improvement.

Keywords: Salinity, remote sensing index, salinity index, cropping pattern.

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Authors: Ali Osman Güney, Bahattin Kanber

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In this work, the effect of material type, diameter, orientation and closeness of fibers on the general performance of reinforced vulcanized rubbers are investigated using finite element method with experimental verification. Various fiber materials such as hemp, nylon, polyester are used for different fiber diameters, orientations and closeness. 3D finite element models are developed by considering bonded contact elements between fiber and rubber sheet interfaces. The fibers are assumed as linear elastic, while vulcanized rubber is considered as hyper-elastic. After an experimental verification of finite element results, the developed models are analyzed under prescribed displacement that causes tension. The normal stresses in fibers and shear stresses between fibers and rubber sheet are investigated in all models. Large deformation of reinforced rubber sheet also represented with various fiber conditions under incremental loading. A general assessment is achieved about best fiber properties of reinforced rubber sheets for tension-load conditions.

Keywords: Fiber properties, finite element method, tension-load condition, reinforced vulcanized rubbers.

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Authors: Zheng Zhang, Xin Chen, Guoqing Ding

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Electronic apex locators (EAL) has been widely used clinically for measuring root canal working length with high accuracy, which is crucial for successful endodontic treatment. In order to maintain high accuracy in different measurement environments, this study presented a system for root canal length measurement based on multifrequency impedance method. This measuring system can generate a sweep current with frequencies from 100 Hz to 1 MHz through a direct digital synthesizer. Multiple impedance ratios with different combinations of frequencies were obtained and transmitted by an analog-to-digital converter and several of them with representatives will be selected after data process. The system analyzed the functional relationship between these impedance ratios and the distance between the file and the apex with statistics by measuring plenty of teeth. The position of the apical foramen can be determined by the statistical model using these impedance ratios. The experimental results revealed that the accuracy of the system based on multifrequency impedance ratios method to determine the position of the apical foramen was higher than the dual-frequency impedance ratio method. Besides that, for more complex measurement environments, the performance of the system was more stable.

Keywords: Root canal length, apex locator, multifrequency impedance, sweep frequency.

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Authors: M. Amir Abas, M. Dahlui

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This paper presents the investigation results of UV measurement at different level of altitudes and the development of a new portable instrument for measuring UV. The rapid growth of industrial sectors in developing countries including Malaysia, brings not only income to the nation, but also causes pollution in various forms. Air pollution is one of the significant contributors to global warming by depleting the Ozone layer, which would reduce the filtration of UV rays. Long duration of exposure to high to UV rays has many devastating health effects to mankind directly or indirectly through destruction of the natural resources. This study aimed to show correlation between UV and altitudes which indirectly can help predict Ozone depletion. An instrument had been designed to measure and monitors the level of UV. The instrument comprises of two main blocks namely data logger and Graphic User Interface (GUI). Three sensors were used in the data logger to detect changes in the temperature, humidity and ultraviolet. The system has undergone experimental measurement to capture data at two different conditions; industrial area and high attitude area. The performance of the instrument showed consistency in the data captured and the results of the experiment drew a significantly high reading of UV at high altitudes.

Keywords: Ozone Layer, Monitoring, Global Warming, Measurement, Ultraviolet

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Authors: Luis Fonseca, Filipe Cabral Pinto, Susana Sargento

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The increase of the world population, especially in large urban centers, has resulted in new challenges particularly with the control and optimization of public safety. Thus, in the present work, a solution is proposed for the prediction of criminal occurrences in a city based on historical data of incidents and demographic information. The entire research and implementation will be presented start with the data collection from its original source, the treatment and transformations applied to them, choice and the evaluation and implementation of the Machine Learning model up to the application layer. Classification models will be implemented to predict criminal risk for a given time interval and location. Machine Learning algorithms such as Random Forest, Neural Networks, K-Nearest Neighbors and Logistic Regression will be used to predict occurrences, and their performance will be compared according to the data processing and transformation used. The results show that the use of Machine Learning techniques helps to anticipate criminal occurrences, which contributed to the reinforcement of public security. Finally, the models were implemented on a platform that will provide an API to enable other entities to make requests for predictions in real-time. An application will also be presented where it is possible to show criminal predictions visually.

Keywords: Crime prediction, machine learning, public safety, smart city.

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Authors: Thuy Thi Nguyen, Nguyen Dang Binh, Horst Bischof

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In this work, we present a novel active learning approach for learning a visual object detection system. Our system is composed of an active learning mechanism as wrapper around a sub-algorithm which implement an online boosting-based learning object detector. In the core is a combination of a bootstrap procedure and a semi automatic learning process based on the online boosting procedure. The idea is to exploit the availability of classifier during learning to automatically label training samples and increasingly improves the classifier. This addresses the issue of reducing labeling effort meanwhile obtain better performance. In addition, we propose a verification process for further improvement of the classifier. The idea is to allow re-update on seen data during learning for stabilizing the detector. The main contribution of this empirical study is a demonstration that active learning based on an online boosting approach trained in this manner can achieve results comparable or even outperform a framework trained in conventional manner using much more labeling effort. Empirical experiments on challenging data set for specific object deteciton problems show the effectiveness of our approach.

Keywords: Computer vision, object detection, online boosting, active learning, labeling complexity.

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Authors: Ghada Badr, Arwa Alturki

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The biological function of an RNA molecule depends on its structure. The objective of the alignment is finding the homology between two or more RNA secondary structures. Knowing the common functionalities between two RNA structures allows a better understanding and a discovery of other relationships between them. Besides, identifying non-coding RNAs -that is not translated into a protein- is a popular application in which RNA structural alignment is the first step A few methods for RNA structure-to-structure alignment have been developed. Most of these methods are partial structure-to-structure, sequence-to-structure, or structure-to-sequence alignment. Less attention is given in the literature to the use of efficient RNA structure representation and the structure-to-structure alignment methods are lacking. In this paper, we introduce an O(N2) Component-based Pairwise RNA Structure Alignment (CompPSA) algorithm, where structures are given as a component-based representation and where N is the maximum number of components in the two structures. The proposed algorithm compares the two RNA secondary structures based on their weighted component features rather than on their base-pair details. Extensive experiments are conducted illustrating the efficiency of the CompPSA algorithm when compared to other approaches and on different real and simulated datasets. The CompPSA algorithm shows an accurate similarity measure between components. The algorithm gives the flexibility for the user to align the two RNA structures based on their weighted features (position, full length, and/or stem length). Moreover, the algorithm proves scalability and efficiency in time and memory performance.

Keywords: Alignment, RNA secondary structure, pairwise, component-based, data mining.

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Authors: Manpreet Singh, V. P. Agrawal, Gurmanjot Singh Bhatti

Abstract:

From the last decades, there is a significant technological advancement in the field of robotics, and a number of modular self-reconfigurable robots were introduced that can help in space exploration, bucket to stuff, search, and rescue operation during earthquake, etc. As there are numbers of self-reconfigurable robots, choosing the optimum one is always a concern for robot user since there is an increase in available features, facilities, complexity, etc. The objective of this research work is to present a multiple attribute decision making based methodology for coding, evaluation, comparison ranking and selection of modular self-reconfigurable robots using a technique for order preferences by similarity to ideal solution approach. However, 86 attributes that affect the structure and performance are identified. A database for modular self-reconfigurable robot on the basis of different pertinent attribute is generated. This database is very useful for the user, for selecting a robot that suits their operational needs. Two visual methods namely linear graph and spider chart are proposed for ranking of modular self-reconfigurable robots. Using five robots (Atron, Smores, Polybot, M-Tran 3, Superbot), an example is illustrated, and raking of the robots is successfully done, which shows that Smores is the best robot for the operational need illustrated, and this methodology is found to be very effective and simple to use.

Keywords: Self-reconfigurable robots, MADM, TOPSIS, morphogenesis, scalability.

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Authors: Hassan Haleh, Amin Ghaffari, Parisa Farahpour

Abstract:

Need for an appropriate system of evaluating students- educational developments is a key problem to achieve the predefined educational goals. Intensity of the related papers in the last years; that tries to proof or disproof the necessity and adequacy of the students assessment; is the corroborator of this matter. Some of these studies tried to increase the precision of determining question weights in scientific examinations. But in all of them there has been an attempt to adjust the initial question weights while the accuracy and precision of those initial question weights are still under question. Thus In order to increase the precision of the assessment process of students- educational development, the present study tries to propose a new method for determining the initial question weights by considering the factors of questions like: difficulty, importance and complexity; and implementing a combined method of PROMETHEE and fuzzy analytic network process using a data mining approach to improve the model-s inputs. The result of the implemented case study proves the development of performance and precision of the proposed model.

Keywords: Assessing students, Analytic network process, Clustering, Data mining, Fuzzy sets, Multi-criteria decision making, and Preference function.

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Authors: Nasim Abuali Galehdari, Thomas J. Ryan, Ajit D. Kelkar

Abstract:

In recent years, nanotechnology has played an important role in the design of an efficient radiation shielding polymeric composites. It is well known that, high loading of nanomaterials with radiation absorption properties can enhance the radiation attenuation efficiency of shielding structures. However, due to difficulties in dispersion of nanomaterials into polymer matrices, there has been a limitation in higher loading percentages of nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. Therefore, the objective of the present work is to provide a methodology to fabricate and then to characterize the functionally graded radiation shielding structures, which can provide an efficient radiation absorption property along with good structural integrity. Sandwich structures composed of Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) fabric as face sheets and functionally graded epoxy nanocomposite as core material were fabricated. A method to fabricate a functionally graded core panel with controllable gradient dispersion of nanoparticles is discussed. In order to optimize the design of functionally graded sandwich composites and to analyze the stress distribution throughout the sandwich composite thickness, a finite element method was used. The sandwich panels were discretized using 3-Dimensional 8 nodded brick elements. Classical laminate analysis in conjunction with simplified micromechanics equations were used to obtain the properties of the face sheets. The presented finite element model would provide insight into deformation and damage mechanics of the functionally graded sandwich composites from the structural point of view.

Keywords: Nanotechnology, functionally graded material, radiation shielding, sandwich composites, finite element method.

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Authors: U. Kalay, O. Kalıpsız

Abstract:

For a spatiotemporal database management system, I/O cost of queries and other operations is an important performance criterion. In order to optimize this cost, an intense research on designing robust index structures has been done in the past decade. With these major considerations, there are still other design issues that deserve addressing due to their direct impact on the I/O cost. Having said this, an efficient buffer management strategy plays a key role on reducing redundant disk access. In this paper, we proposed an efficient buffer strategy for a spatiotemporal database index structure, specifically indexing objects moving over a network of roads. The proposed strategy, namely MONPAR, is based on the data type (i.e. spatiotemporal data) and the structure of the index structure. For the purpose of an experimental evaluation, we set up a simulation environment that counts the number of disk accesses while executing a number of spatiotemporal range-queries over the index. We reiterated simulations with query sets with different distributions, such as uniform query distribution and skewed query distribution. Based on the comparison of our strategy with wellknown page-replacement techniques, like LRU-based and Prioritybased buffers, we conclude that MONPAR behaves better than its competitors for small and medium size buffers under all used query-distributions.

Keywords: Buffer Management, Spatiotemporal databases.

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Authors: D. O. Omondi, M. K. Walingo, G. M. Mbagaya

Abstract:

Objective: This study explored the possibility of integrating Health Belief Concepts as additional predictors of intention to adopt a recommended diet-category within the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Methods: The study adopted a Sequential Exploratory Mixed Methods approach. Qualitative data were generated on attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control and perceptions on predetermined diet-categories including perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, perceived severity and cues to action. Synthesis of qualitative data was done using constant comparative approach during phase 1. A survey tool developed from qualitative results was used to collect information on the same concepts across 237 legible Type 2 diabetics. Data analysis included use of Structural Equation Modeling in Analysis of Moment Structures to explore the possibility of including perceived susceptibility, perceived benefits, perceived severity and cues to action as additional intention predictors in a single nested model. Results: Two models-one nested based on the traditional TPB model {χ2=223.3, df = 77, p = .02, χ2/df = 2.9; TLI = .93; CFI =.91; RMSEA (90CI) = .090(.039, .146)} and the newly proposed Planned Behavior Health Belief Model (PBHB) {χ2 = 743.47, df = 301, p = .019; TLI = .90; CFI=.91; RMSEA (90CI) = .079(.031, .14)} passed the goodness of fit tests based on common fit indicators used. Conclusion: The newly developed PBHB Model ranked higher than the traditional TPB model with reference made to chi-square ratios (PBHB: χ2/df = 2.47; p=0.19 against TPB: χ2/df = 2.9, p=0.02). The integrated model can be used to motivate Type 2 diabetics towards healthy eating.

Keywords: Theory, intention, predictors, mixed methods design.

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Authors: Zsolt Szabolcsi

Abstract:

Political communication in Hungary has undergone a significant change in the 2010s. One element of the transformation is the Flashnews. This media product was launched in March 2015 and since then 40-50 blocks are broadcasted, daily, on 5 channels. Flashnews blocks are condensed news sessions, containing the summary of political narratives. It starts with the introduction of the narrator, then, usually four news topics are presented and, finally, the narrator concludes the block. The block lasts only one minute and, therefore, it provides a blink session into the main narratives of political communication at the time. Beyond its rapid pace, what makes its avoidance difficult is that these blocks are always in the first position in the commercial break of a non-political media product. Although it is only one minute long, its significance is high. The content of the Flashnews reflects the main governmental narratives and, therefore, the Flashnews is part of the agenda-setting capacity of political communication. It reaches media consumers who have limited knowledge and interest in politics, and their use of media products is not politically related. For this audience, the Flashnews pops up in the same way as commercials. Due to its structure and appearance, the impact of Flashnews seems to be similar to commercials, imbedded into the break of media products. It activates existing knowledge constructs, builds up associational links and maintains their presence in a way that the recipient is not aware of the phenomenon. The research aims to examine the extent to which the Flashnews and the main news narratives are identical in their content. This aim is realized with the content analysis of the two news products by examining the Flashnews and the evening news during main sport events from 2016 to 2018. The initial hypothesis of the research is that Flashnews is a contribution to the news management technique for an effective articulation of political narratives in public service media channels.

Keywords: Flashnews, political communication, political marketing, news management.

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