Search results for: Cemented carbide with high cobalt content
6267 Calibration Model of %Titratable Acidity (Citric Acid) for Intact Tomato by Transmittance SW-NIR Spectroscopy
Authors: K. Petcharaporn, S. Kumchoo
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The acidity (citric acid) is the one of chemical content that can be refer to the internal quality and it’s a maturity index of tomato, The titratable acidity (%TA) can be predicted by a non-destructive method prediction by using the transmittance short wavelength (SW-NIR) spectroscopy in the wavelength range between 665-955 nm. The set of 167 tomato samples divided into groups of 117 tomatoes sample for training set and 50 tomatoes sample for test set were used to establish the calibration model to predict and measure %TA by partial least squares regression (PLSR) technique. The spectra were pretreated with MSC pretreatment and it gave the optimal result for calibration model as (R = 0.92, RMSEC = 0.03%) and this model obtained high accuracy result to use for %TA prediction in test set as (R = 0.81, RMSEP = 0.05%). From the result of prediction in test set shown that the transmittance SW-NIR spectroscopy technique can be used for a non-destructive method for %TA prediction of tomato.
Keywords: Tomato, quality, prediction, transmittance, titratable acidity, citric acid.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 26856266 A Study of the Growth of Single-Phase Mg0.5Zn0.5O Films for UV LED
Authors: Hong Seung Kim, Chang Hoi Kim, Lili Yue
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Single-phase, high band gap energy Zn0.5Mg0.5O films were grown under oxygen pressure, using pulse laser deposition with a Zn0.5Mg0.5O target. Structural characterization studies revealed that the crystal structures of the ZnX-1MgXO films could be controlled via changes in the oxygen pressure. TEM analysis showed that the thickness of the deposited Zn1-xMgxO thin films was 50–75 nm. As the oxygen pressure increased, we found that one axis of the crystals did not show a very significant increase in the crystallization compared with that observed at low oxygen pressure. The X-ray diffraction peak intensity for the hexagonal-ZnMgO (002) plane increased relative to that for the cubic-ZnMgO (111) plane. The corresponding c-axis of the h-ZnMgO lattice constant increased from 5.141 to 5.148 Å, and the a-axis of the c-ZnMgO lattice constant decreased from 4.255 to 4.250 Å. EDX analysis showed that the Mg content in the mixed-phase ZnMgO films decreased significantly, from 54.25 to 46.96 at.%. As the oxygen pressure was increased from 100 to 150 mTorr, the absorption edge red-shifted from 3.96 to 3.81 eV; however, a film grown at the highest oxygen pressure tested here (200 mTorr).
Keywords: MgO, UV LED, ZnMgO, ZnO.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21086265 Earphone Style Wearable Device for Automatic Guidance Service with Position Sensing
Authors: Dawei Cai
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This paper describes a design of earphone style wearable device that may provide an automatic guidance service for visitors. With both position information and orientation information obtained from NFC and terrestrial magnetism sensor, a high level automatic guide service may be realized. To realize the service, a algorithm for position detection using the packet from NFC tags, and developed an algorithm to calculate the device orientation based on the data from acceleration and terrestrial magnetism sensors called as MEMS. If visitors want to know some explanation about an exhibit in front of him, what he has to do is only move to the object and stands for a moment. The identification program will automatically recognize the status based on the information from NFC and MEMS, and start playing explanation content about the exhibit. This service should be useful for improving the understanding of the exhibition items and bring more satisfactory visiting experience without less burden.Keywords: Wearable device, MEMS sensor, NFC, ubiquitous computing, guide system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9616264 Effect of High-Heeled Shoes on Gait: A Micro-Electro-Mechanical-Systems Based Approach
Authors: Harun Sumbul, Orhan Ozyurt
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The accelerations generated by the shoes in the body should be known in order to prevent balance problems, degradation of body shape and to spend less energy. In this study, it is aimed to investigate the effects of the shoe heel height on the human body. The working group has been created as five women (range 27-32 years) with different characteristics and five shoes with different heel heights (1, 3.5, 5, 7 and 9 cm). Individuals in the study group wore shoes and walked along a 20-meter racecourse. The accelerations created by the shoes are measured in three axes (30.270 accelerometric data) and analyzed. Results show us that; while walking with high-heeled shoes, the foot is lifted more; in this case, more effort has been spent. So, more weight has occurred at ankles and joints. Since high-heeled shoes cause greater acceleration, women wearing high-heeled shoes tend to pay more attention when taking a step. As a result, for foot and body health, shoe heel must be designed to absorb the reaction from the ground. High heels disrupt the structure of the foot and it is damaging the body shape. In this respect, this study is considered to be a remarkable method to find of effect of high-heeled shoes on gait by using accelerometer in the literature.
Keywords: Acceleration, sensor, gait analysis, high shoe heel, micro-electro-mechanical-systems.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 9586263 Phytochemical Analysis and Antioxidant Activity of Colocasia esculenta (L.) Leaves
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.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 17616262 Zinc Borate Synthesis Using Hydrozincite and Boric Acid with Ultrasonic Method
Authors: D. S. Vardar, A. S. Kipcak, F. T. Senberber, E. M. Derun, N. Tugrul, S. Piskin
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Zinc borate is an important inorganic hydrate borate material, which can be used as a flame retardant agent and corrosion resistance material. This compound can loss its structural water content at higher than 290°C. Due to thermal stability; Zinc Borate can be used as flame retardant at high temperature process of plastic and gum. In this study, the ultrasonic reaction of zinc borates were studied using hydrozincite (Zn5(CO3)2·(OH)6) and boric acid (H3BO3) raw materials. Before the synthesis raw materials were characterized by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). Ultrasonic method is a new application on the zinc borate synthesis. The synthesis parameters were set to 90°C reaction temperature and 55 minutes of reaction time, with 1:1, 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 and 1:5 molar ratio of starting materials (Zn5(CO3)2·(OH)6 : H3BO3). After the zinc borate synthesis, the products were analyzed by XRD and FT-IR. As a result, optimum molar ratio of 1:5 is determined for the synthesis of zinc borates with ultrasonic method.Keywords: Borate, ultrasonic method, zinc borate, zinc borate synthesis.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 20516261 Evaluation of Curriculum Quality of Postgraduate Studies of Actuarial Science Field at Public Universities of Iran
Authors: F. Havas Beigi, M. Vafaee Yeganeh, E. Mohammadi
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Evaluation and survey of curriculum quality as one of the most important components of universities system is necessary for different levels in higher education. The main purpose of this study was to survey of the curriculum quality of Actuarial science field. Case: University of SHahid Beheshti and Higher education institute of Eco insurance (according to viewpoint of students, alumni, employers and faculty members). Descriptive statistics (mean, tables, percentage, and frequency distribution) and inferential statistics (CHI SQUARE) were used to analyze the data. Six criteria considered for the Quality of curriculum: objectives, content, teaching and learning methods, space and facilities, Time, assessment of learning. Content, teaching and learning methods, space and facilities, assessment of learning criteria were relatively desirable level, objectives and time criterions were desirable level. The quality of curriculum of Actuarial Science field was relatively desirable level.
Keywords: Quality, curriculum, Actuarial science, higher education
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18496260 Structural Characteristics of Batch Processed Agro-Waste Fibres
Authors: E. I. Akpan, S. O. Adeosun, G. I. Lawal, S. A. Balogun, X. D. Chen
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The characterisation of agro-wastes fibres for composite applications from Nigeria using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) has been done. Fibres extracted from groundnut shell, coconut husk, rice husk, palm fruit bunch and palm fruit stalk are processed using two novel cellulose fibre production methods developed by the authors. Cellulose apparent crystallinity calculated using the deconvolution of the diffractometer trace shows that the amorphous portion of cellulose was permeable to hydrolysis yielding high crystallinity after treatment. All diffratograms show typical cellulose structure with well-defined 110, 200 and 040 peaks. Palm fruit fibres had the highest 200 crystalline cellulose peaks compared to others and it is an indication of rich cellulose content. Surface examination of the resulting fibres using SEM indicates the presence of regular cellulose network structure with some agglomerated laminated layer of thin leaves of cellulose microfibrils. The surfaces were relatively smooth indicating the removal of hemicellulose, lignin and pectin.
Keywords: X-ray diffraction, SEM, cellulose, deconvolution, crystallinity.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27166259 Deformation of Metallic Foams with Closed Cell at High Temperatures
Authors: Emrah Ersoy, Yusuf Özçatalbas
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The aim of this study is to investigate formability of Al based closed cell metallic foams at high temperature. The foam specimens with rectangular section were produced from AlMg1Si0.6TiH20.8 alloy preform material. Bending and free bending tests based on gravity effect were applied to foam specimens at high temperatures. During the tests, the time-angular deformation relationships with various temperatures were determined. Deformation types formed in cell walls were investigated by means of Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy. Bending deformation about 90° was achieved without any defect at high temperatures. The importance of a critical temperature and deformation rate was emphasized in maintaining the deformation. Significant slip lines on surface of cell walls at tensile zones of bending specimen were observed. At high strain rates, the microcrack formation in boundaries of elongated grains was determined.Keywords: Al alloy, Closed cell, hot deformation, metallic foam.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21706258 A Hybrid Image Fusion Model for Generating High Spatial-Temporal-Spectral Resolution Data Using OLI-MODIS-Hyperion Satellite Imagery
Authors: Yongquan Zhao, Bo Huang
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Spatial, Temporal, and Spectral Resolution (STSR) are three key characteristics of Earth observation satellite sensors; however, any single satellite sensor cannot provide Earth observations with high STSR simultaneously because of the hardware technology limitations of satellite sensors. On the other hand, a conflicting circumstance is that the demand for high STSR has been growing with the remote sensing application development. Although image fusion technology provides a feasible means to overcome the limitations of the current Earth observation data, the current fusion technologies cannot enhance all STSR simultaneously and provide high enough resolution improvement level. This study proposes a Hybrid Spatial-Temporal-Spectral image Fusion Model (HSTSFM) to generate synthetic satellite data with high STSR simultaneously, which blends the high spatial resolution from the panchromatic image of Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI), the high temporal resolution from the multi-spectral image of Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), and the high spectral resolution from the hyper-spectral image of Hyperion to produce high STSR images. The proposed HSTSFM contains three fusion modules: (1) spatial-spectral image fusion; (2) spatial-temporal image fusion; (3) temporal-spectral image fusion. A set of test data with both phenological and land cover type changes in Beijing suburb area, China is adopted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method. The experimental results indicate that HSTSFM can produce fused image that has good spatial and spectral fidelity to the reference image, which means it has the potential to generate synthetic data to support the studies that require high STSR satellite imagery.Keywords: Hybrid spatial-temporal-spectral fusion, high resolution synthetic imagery, least square regression, sparse representation, spectral transformation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12126257 Investigating the Efficacy of HIV/AIDS Psycho-Education and Behavioural Skills Training in Reducing Sexual Risk Behaviours in a Trucking Population in Nigeria
Authors: Abiodun M. Lawal, Benjamin O. Olley
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Long Distance Truck Drivers (LDTDs) have been found to be a high risk group in the spread of HIV/AIDS globally; perhaps, due to their high Sexual Risk Behaviours (SRBs). Interventions for reducing SRBs in trucking population have not been fully exploited. A quasi-experimental control group pretest-posttest design was used to assess the efficacy of psycho-education and behavioural skills training in reducing SRBs among LDTDs. Sixteen drivers rivers were randomly assigned into either experimental or control groups using balloting technique. Questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. Repeated measures t-test and independent t-test were used to test hypotheses. Intervention had significant effect on the SRBs among LDTDs at post-test (t{7}= 6.01, p<.01) and at follow up (t{7} = 6.42, p<.01). No significant difference in sexual risk behaviour of LDTDs at post-test and at follow-up stage. Similarly, intervention had significant effects on sexual risk behaviour at post-test (t {14} = - 4.69, p<.05) and at follow-up (t {14} = -9.56, p<.05) respectively. At post-test and follow-up stages, drivers in experimental group reported reduced SRBs than those in control group. Drivers in experimental group reported lower sexual risk behaviour a week after intervention as well as at three months follow-up than those in control group. It is concluded that HIV/AIDS preventive intervention that provides the necessary informational and behavioural skills content can significantly impact long distance truck drivers’ sexual risk behaviours.
Keywords: HIV/AIDS interventions, Long distance truck drivers, Nigeria, Sexual risk behaviours.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 22116256 Enzymatic Esterification of Carboxylic Acids and Higher Alcohols in Organic Medium
Authors: D.T. Mirzarakhmetova
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The studying of enzymatic esterification of carboxylic acids and higher alcohols was performed by esterase Saccharomyces cerevisiae in water-organic medium. Investigation of the enzyme specificity to acetic substrates showed the best result with acetic acid in esterification reactions with ethanol whereas within other carboxylic acids the esterification decreased with acids: hexanoic > pentanoic > butyric > decanoic. In relation to higher alcohols C3-C5, esterification increased with alcohols propanol < butanol < amylol. Also it was determined that esterase was more specific to alcohols with branched chain such as isobutyl alcohol and isoamyl alcohol. Data obtained may have important practical implications, for example, for application of yeast esterase in producing various volatile esters as well as in enzymatic transformation of volatile acids and toxic fusel alcohols into volatile esters by providing the production of the high quality alcoholic beverages with redused content of higher alcohols as well as with improved degustational and hygienic properties.Keywords: enzymes in non-conventional media, esterification, higher alcohols, volatile esters, yeast esterase
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 34886255 High Level Characterization and Optimization of Switched-Current Sigma-Delta Modulators with VHDL-AMS
Authors: A. Fakhfakh, N. Ksentini, M. Loulou, N. Masmoudi, J. J. Charlot
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Today, design requirements are extending more and more from electronic (analogue and digital) to multidiscipline design. These current needs imply implementation of methodologies to make the CAD product reliable in order to improve time to market, study costs, reusability and reliability of the design process. This paper proposes a high level design approach applied for the characterization and the optimization of Switched-Current Sigma- Delta Modulators. It uses the new hardware description language VHDL-AMS to help the designers to optimize the characteristics of the modulator at a high level with a considerably reduced CPU time before passing to a transistor level characterization.Keywords: high level design, optimization, switched-Current Sigma-Delta Modulators, VHDL-AMS.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15056254 Fabrication of Nanoengineered Radiation Shielding Multifunctional Polymeric Sandwich Composites
Authors: Nasim Abuali Galehdari, Venkat Mani, Ajit D. Kelkar
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Space Radiation has become one of the major factors in successful long duration space exploration. Exposure to space radiation not only can affect the health of astronauts but also can disrupt or damage materials and electronics. Hazards to materials include degradation of properties, such as, modulus, strength, or glass transition temperature. Electronics may experience single event effects, gate rupture, burnout of field effect transistors and noise. Presently aluminum is the major component in most of the space structures due to its lightweight and good structural properties. However, aluminum is ineffective at blocking space radiation. Therefore, most of the past research involved studying at polymers which contain large amounts of hydrogen. Again, these materials are not structural materials and would require large amounts of material to achieve the structural properties needed. One of the materials to alleviate this problem is polymeric composite materials, which has good structural properties and use polymers that contained large amounts of hydrogen. This paper presents steps involved in fabrication of multi-functional hybrid sandwich panels that can provide beneficial radiation shielding as well as structural strength. Multifunctional hybrid sandwich panels were manufactured using vacuum assisted resin transfer molding process and were subjected to radiation treatment. Study indicates that various nanoparticles including Boron Nano powder, Boron Carbide and Gadolinium nanoparticles can be successfully used to block the space radiation without sacrificing the structural integrity.Keywords: Multi-functional, polymer composites, radiation shielding, sandwich composites.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 18006253 Player Number Localization and Recognition in Soccer Video using HSV Color Space and Internal Contours
Authors: Matko Šaric, Hrvoje Dujmic, Vladan Papic, Nikola Rožic
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Detection of player identity is challenging task in sport video content analysis. In case of soccer video player number recognition is effective and precise solution. Jersey numbers can be considered as scene text and difficulties in localization and recognition appear due to variations in orientation, size, illumination, motion etc. This paper proposed new method for player number localization and recognition. By observing hue, saturation and value for 50 different jersey examples we noticed that most often combination of low and high saturated pixels is used to separate number and jersey region. Image segmentation method based on this observation is introduced. Then, novel method for player number localization based on internal contours is proposed. False number candidates are filtered using area and aspect ratio. Before OCR processing extracted numbers are enhanced using image smoothing and rotation normalization.
Keywords: player number, soccer video, HSV color space
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19716252 A Comparison between Artificial Neural Network Prediction Models for Coronal Hole Related High-Speed Streams
Authors: Rehab Abdulmajed, Amr Hamada, Ahmed Elsaid, Hisashi Hayakawa, Ayman Mahrous
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Solar emissions have a high impact on the Earth’s magnetic field, and the prediction of solar events is of high interest. Various techniques have been used in the prediction of the solar wind using mathematical models, MHD models and neural network (NN) models. This study investigates the coronal hole (CH) derived high-speed streams (HSSs) and their correlation to the CH area and create a neural network model to predict the HSSs. Two different algorithms were used to compare different models to find a model that best simulated the HSSs. A dataset of CH synoptic maps through Carrington rotations 1601 to 2185 along with Omni-data set solar wind speed averaged over the Carrington rotations is used, which covers Solar Cycles (SC) 21, 22, 23, and most of 24.
Keywords: Artificial Neural Network, ANN, Coronal Hole Area Feed-Forward neural network models, solar High-Speed Streams, HSSs.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 946251 Empirical Modeling of Air Dried Rubberwood Drying System
Authors: S. Khamtree, T. Ratanawilai, C. Nuntadusit
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Rubberwood is a crucial commercial timber in Southern Thailand. All processes in a rubberwood production depend on the knowledge and expertise of the technicians, especially the drying process. This research aims to develop an empirical model for drying kinetics in rubberwood. During the experiment, the temperature of the hot air and the average air flow velocity were kept at 80-100 °C and 1.75 m/s, respectively. The moisture content in the samples was determined less than 12% in the achievement of drying basis. The drying kinetic was simulated using an empirical solver. The experimental results illustrated that the moisture content was reduced whereas the drying temperature and time were increased. The coefficient of the moisture ratio between the empirical and the experimental model was tested with three statistical parameters, R-square (R²), Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Chi-square (χ²) to predict the accuracy of the parameters. The experimental moisture ratio had a good fit with the empirical model. Additionally, the results indicated that the drying of rubberwood using the Henderson and Pabis model revealed the suitable level of agreement. The result presented an excellent estimation (R² = 0.9963) for the moisture movement compared to the other models. Therefore, the empirical results were valid and can be implemented in the future experiments.
Keywords: Empirical models, hot air, moisture ratio, rubberwood.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 7606250 Software Engineering Mobile Learning Software Solution Using Task Based Learning Approach
Authors: Bekim Fetaji, Majlinda Fetaji
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The development and use of mobile devices as well as its integration within education systems to deliver electronic contents and to support real-time communications was the focus of this research. In order to investigate the software engineering issues in using mobile devices a research on electronic content was initiated. The Developed MP3 mobile software solution was developed as a prototype for testing and developing a strategy for designing a usable m-learning environment. The mobile software solution was evaluated using mobile device using the link: http://projects.seeu.edu.mk/mlearn. The investigation also tested the correlation between the two mobile learning indicators: electronic content and attention, based on the Task Based learning instructional method. The mobile software solution ''M-Learn“ was developed as a prototype for testing the approach and developing a strategy for designing usable m-learning environment. The proposed methodology is about what learning modeling approach is more appropriate to use when developing mobile learning software.
Keywords: M-learning, mobile software development, mobiledevices, learning instructions, task based learning.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16286249 A Study of the Variables in the Optimisation of a Platinum Precipitation Process
Authors: Tebogo Phetla, Edison Muzenda, M Belaid
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This study investigated possible ways to improve the efficiency of the platinum precipitation process using ammonium chloride by reducing the platinum content reporting to the effluent. The ore treated consist of five platinum group metals namely, ruthenium, rhodium, iridium, platinum, palladium and a precious metal gold. Gold, ruthenium, rhodium and iridium were extracted prior the platinum precipitation process. Temperature, reducing agent, flow rate and potential difference were the variables controlled to determine the operation conditions for optimum platinum precipitation efficiency. Hydrogen peroxide was added as the oxidizing agent at the temperature of 85-90oC and potential difference of 700-850mV was the variable used to check the oxidizing state of platinum. The platinum was further purified at temperature between 60-65oC, potential difference above 700 mV, ammonium chloride of 200 l, and at these conditions the platinum content reporting to the effluent was reduced to less than 300ppm, resulting in optimum platinum precipitation efficiency and purity of 99.9%.Keywords: Platinum Group Metals (PGM), Potential difference, Precipitation, Redox reactions.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 47786248 Assessment of Menus in a Selected Social Welfare Home with Regard to Nutritional Recommendations
Authors: E. Grochowska-Niedworok, K. Brukalo, B. Całyniuk, J. Piekorz, M. Kardas
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The aim of the study was to assess diets of residents of nursing homes. Provided by social welfare home, 10 day menus were introduced into the computer program Diet 5 and analyzed in respect of protein, fats, carbohydrates, energy, vitamin D and calcium. The resulting mean values of 10-day menus were compared with the existing Nutrition Standards for Polish population. The analysis menus showed that the average amount of energy supplied from food is not sufficient. Carbohydrates in food supply are too high and represent 257% of normal. The average value of fats and proteins supplied with food is adequate 85.2 g/day and 75.2 g/day. The calcium content of the diet is 513.9 mg/day. The amount of vitamin D supplied in the age group 51-65 years is 2.3 µg/day. Dietary errors that have been shown are due to the lack of detailed nutritional guidelines for nursing homes, as well as state-owned care facilities in general.
Keywords: Assessment of diet, essential nutrients, social welfare home, nutrition.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11156247 The Use of Dynamically Optimised High Frequency Moving Average Strategies for Intraday Trading
Authors: Abdalla Kablan, Joseph Falzon
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This paper is motivated by the aspect of uncertainty in financial decision making, and how artificial intelligence and soft computing, with its uncertainty reducing aspects can be used for algorithmic trading applications that trade in high frequency. This paper presents an optimized high frequency trading system that has been combined with various moving averages to produce a hybrid system that outperforms trading systems that rely solely on moving averages. The paper optimizes an adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system that takes both the price and its moving average as input, learns to predict price movements from training data consisting of intraday data, dynamically switches between the best performing moving averages, and performs decision making of when to buy or sell a certain currency in high frequency.Keywords: Financial decision making, High frequency trading, Adaprive neuro-fuzzy systems, moving average strategy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 50506246 Integrating Low and High Level Object Recognition Steps
Authors: András Barta, István Vajk
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In pattern recognition applications the low level segmentation and the high level object recognition are generally considered as two separate steps. The paper presents a method that bridges the gap between the low and the high level object recognition. It is based on a Bayesian network representation and network propagation algorithm. At the low level it uses hierarchical structure of quadratic spline wavelet image bases. The method is demonstrated for a simple circuit diagram component identification problem.Keywords: Object recognition, Bayesian network, Wavelets, Document processing.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14716245 Cognitive eTransformation Framework for Education Sector
Authors: A. Hol
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21st century brought waves of business and industry eTransformations. The impact of change is also being seen in education. To identify the extent of this, scenario analysis methodology was utilised with the aim to assess business transformations across industry sectors ranging from craftsmanship, medicine, finance and manufacture to innovations and adoptions of new technologies and business models. Firstly, scenarios were drafted based on the current eTransformation models and its dimensions. Following this, eTransformation framework was utilised with the aim to derive the key eTransformation parameters, the essential characteristics that have enabled eTransformations across the sectors. Following this, identified key parameters were mapped to the transforming domain-education. The mapping assisted in deriving a cognitive eTransformation framework for education sector. The framework highlights the importance of context and the notion that education today needs not only to deliver content to students but it also needs to be able to meet the dynamically changing demands of specific student and industry groups. Furthermore, it pinpoints that for such processes to be supported, specific technology is required, so that instant, on demand and periodic feedback as well as flexible, dynamically expanding study content can be sought and received via multiple education mediums.Keywords: Education sector, business transformation, eTransformation model, cognitive model, cognitive systems, eTransformation.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6506244 Design Techniques and Implementation of Low Power High-Throughput Discrete Wavelet Transform Tilters for JPEG 2000 Standard
Authors: Grigorios D. Dimitroulakos, N. D. Zervas, N. Sklavos, Costas E. Goutis
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In this paper, the implementation of low power, high throughput convolutional filters for the one dimensional Discrete Wavelet Transform and its inverse are presented. The analysis filters have already been used for the implementation of a high performance DWT encoder [15] with minimum memory requirements for the JPEG 2000 standard. This paper presents the design techniques and the implementation of the convolutional filters included in the JPEG2000 standard for the forward and inverse DWT for achieving low-power operation, high performance and reduced memory accesses. Moreover, they have the ability of performing progressive computations so as to minimize the buffering between the decomposition and reconstruction phases. The experimental results illustrate the filters- low power high throughput characteristics as well as their memory efficient operation.Keywords: Discrete Wavelet Transform; JPEG2000 standard; VLSI design; Low Power-Throughput-optimized filters
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 12686243 An In-Depth Analysis of Open Data Portals as an Emerging Public E-Service
Authors: Martin Lnenicka
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Governments collect and produce large amounts of data. Increasingly, governments worldwide have started to implement open data initiatives and also launch open data portals to enable the release of these data in open and reusable formats. Therefore, a large number of open data repositories, catalogues and portals have been emerging in the world. The greater availability of interoperable and linkable open government data catalyzes secondary use of such data, so they can be used for building useful applications which leverage their value, allow insight, provide access to government services, and support transparency. The efficient development of successful open data portals makes it necessary to evaluate them systematic, in order to understand them better and assess the various types of value they generate, and identify the required improvements for increasing this value. Thus, the attention of this paper is directed particularly to the field of open data portals. The main aim of this paper is to compare the selected open data portals on the national level using content analysis and propose a new evaluation framework, which further improves the quality of these portals. It also establishes a set of considerations for involving businesses and citizens to create eservices and applications that leverage on the datasets available from these portals.
Keywords: Big data, content analysis, criteria comparison, data quality, open data, open data portals, public sector.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 30666242 Design of High-speed Modified Booth Multipliers Operating at GHz Ranges
Authors: Soojin Kim, Kyeongsoon Cho
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This paper describes the pipeline architecture of high-speed modified Booth multipliers. The proposed multiplier circuits are based on the modified Booth algorithm and the pipeline technique which are the most widely used to accelerate the multiplication speed. In order to implement the optimally pipelined multipliers, many kinds of experiments have been conducted. The speed of the multipliers is greatly improved by properly deciding the number of pipeline stages and the positions for the pipeline registers to be inserted. We described the proposed modified Booth multiplier circuits in Verilog HDL and synthesized the gate-level circuits using 0.13um standard cell library. The resultant multiplier circuits show better performance than others. Since the proposed multipliers operate at GHz ranges, they can be used in the systems requiring very high performance.Keywords: multiplier, pipeline, high-speed, modified Boothalgorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 27176241 Achieving High Availability by Implementing Beowulf Cluster
Authors: A.F.A. Abidin, N.S.M. Usop
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A computer cluster is a group of tightly coupled computers that work together closely so that in many respects they can be viewed as though they are a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks. Clusters are usually deployed to improve performance and/or availability over that provided by a single computer, while typically being much more cost-effective than single computers of comparable speed or availability. This paper proposed the way to implement the Beowulf Cluster in order to achieve high performance as well as high availability.Keywords: Beowulf Cluster, grid computing, GridMPI, MPICH.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16646240 Prediction Compressive Strength of Self-Compacting Concrete Containing Fly Ash Using Fuzzy Logic Inference System
Authors: O. Belalia Douma, B. Boukhatem, M. Ghrici
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Self-compacting concrete (SCC) developed in Japan in the late 80s has enabled the construction industry to reduce demand on the resources, improve the work condition and also reduce the impact of environment by elimination of the need for compaction. Fuzzy logic (FL) approaches has recently been used to model some of the human activities in many areas of civil engineering applications. Especially from these systems in the model experimental studies, very good results have been obtained. In the present study, a model for predicting compressive strength of SCC containing various proportions of fly ash, as partial replacement of cement has been developed by using Fuzzy Inference System (FIS). For the purpose of building this model, a database of experimental data were gathered from the literature and used for training and testing the model. The used data as the inputs of fuzzy logic models are arranged in a format of five parameters that cover the total binder content, fly ash replacement percentage, water content, superplasticizer and age of specimens. The training and testing results in the fuzzy logic model have shown a strong potential for predicting the compressive strength of SCC containing fly ash in the considered range.
Keywords: Self-compacting concrete, fly ash, strength prediction, fuzzy logic.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 28366239 Egg Production Performance of Old Laying Hen Fed Dietary Turmeric Powder
Authors: D. P. Rahardja, M. Rahman Hakim, V. Sri Lestari
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An experiment was conducted to elucidate the effects of turmeric powder supplementation on egg production performance of old laying hens (80 weeks of age). There were 40 hens of Hysex Brown strain used in the study. They were caged individually, and randomly divided into 4 treatment groups of diet containing 0 (control), 1, 2 and 4 % oven dried turmeric powder for 3 periods of 4 weeks; Egg production (% hen day) and feed intake of the 4 treatment groups at the commencement of the experiment were not significantly different. In addition to egg production performance (% and egg weight), feed and water intakes were measured daily, and cholesterol content of the whole egg was determined. The results indicated that feed intakes of the hen were significantly lowered when 4% turmeric powder supplemented, while there were no significant changes in water intakes. Egg production were significantly increased and maintained at a higher level by turmeric powder supplementation up to 4% compared with the control, while the weight of eggs were not significantly affected. The research markedly demonstrated that supplementation of turmeric powder up to 4% could improve and maintain egg production performance of the old laying hen at a higher level with a lower cholesterol content.
Keywords: Curcumin, feed and water intake, old laying hen, egg production.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 35086238 The Effect of Soil Contamination on Chemical Composition and Quality of Aronia (Aronia melanocarpa) Fruits
Authors: Violina R. Angelova, Sava G. Tabakov, Aleksander B. Peltekov, Krasimir I. Ivanov
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A field study was conducted to evaluate the chemical composition and quality of the Aronia fruits, as well as the possibilities of Aronia cultivation on soils contaminated with heavy metals. The experiment was performed on an agricultural field contaminated by the Non-Ferrous-Metal Works (NFMW) near Plovdiv, Bulgaria. The study included four varieties of Aronia; Aron variety, Hugin variety, Viking variety and Nero variety. The Aronia was cultivated according to the conventional technology on areas at a different distance from the source of pollution NFMW- Plovdiv (1 km, 3.5 km, and 15 km). The concentrations of macroelements, microelements, and heavy metals in Aronia fruits were determined. The dry matter content, ash, sugars, proteins, and fats were also determined. Aronia is a crop that is tolerant to heavy metals and can successfully be grown on soils contaminated with heavy metals. The increased content of heavy metals in the soil leads to less absorption of the nutrients (Ca, Mg and P) in the fruit of the Aronia. Soil pollution with heavy metals does not affect the quality of the Aronia fruit varieties.
Keywords: Aronia, chemical composition, fruits, quality.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1115