Search results for: Latent values/vectors

Authors: Syukri Himran, Rustan Taraka, Anto Duma

Abstract:

The aim of the study is to improve the understanding of latent and sensible thermal energy storage within a paraffin wax media by an array of cylindrical tubes arranged both in in-line and staggered layouts. An analytical and experimental study is carried out in a horizontal shell-and-tube type system during melting process. Pertamina paraffin-wax was used as a phase change material (PCM), while the tubes are embedded in the PCM. From analytical study we can obtain the useful information in designing a thermal energy storage such as: the motion of interface, amount of material melted at any time in the process, and the heat storage characteristic during melting. The use of staggered tubes is proposed compared to in-line layout in a heat exchanger as thermal storage. The experimental study is used to verify the validity of the analytical predictions. From the comparisons, the analytical and experimental data are in a good agreement.

Keywords: Latent, sensible, paraffin-wax, thermal energy storage, conduction, natural convection.

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Authors: Ozan Mut, Mehmet Göktürk

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Matching algorithms have significant importance in speaker recognition. Feature vectors of the unknown utterance are compared to feature vectors of the modeled speakers as a last step in speaker recognition. A similarity score is found for every model in the speaker database. Depending on the type of speaker recognition, these scores are used to determine the author of unknown speech samples. For speaker verification, similarity score is tested against a predefined threshold and either acceptance or rejection result is obtained. In the case of speaker identification, the result depends on whether the identification is open set or closed set. In closed set identification, the model that yields the best similarity score is accepted. In open set identification, the best score is tested against a threshold, so there is one more possible output satisfying the condition that the speaker is not one of the registered speakers in existing database. This paper focuses on closed set speaker identification using a modified version of a well known matching algorithm. The results of new matching algorithm indicated better performance on YOHO international speaker recognition database.

Keywords: Automatic Speaker Recognition, Voice Recognition, Pattern Recognition, Digital Audio Signal Processing.

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Authors: Prasan Pitiranggon, Nunthika Benjathepanun, Somsri Banditvilai, Veera Boonjing

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Our study proposes an alternative method in building Fuzzy Rule-Based System (FRB) from Support Vector Machine (SVM). The first set of fuzzy IF-THEN rules is obtained through an equivalence of the SVM decision network and the zero-ordered Sugeno FRB type of the Adaptive Network Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS). The second set of rules is generated by combining the first set based on strength of firing signals of support vectors using Gaussian kernel. The final set of rules is then obtained from the second set through input scatter partitioning. A distinctive advantage of our method is the guarantee that the number of final fuzzy IFTHEN rules is not more than the number of support vectors in the trained SVM. The final FRB system obtained is capable of performing classification with results comparable to its SVM counterpart, but it has an advantage over the black-boxed SVM in that it may reveal human comprehensible patterns.

Keywords: Fuzzy Rule Base, Rule Extraction, Rule Generation, Support Vector Machine.

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Authors: Sanghoon Kim, Sun-Tae Chung, Souhwan Jung, Seongwon Cho

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Robust face recognition under various illumination environments is very difficult and needs to be accomplished for successful commercialization. In this paper, we propose an improved illumination normalization method for face recognition. Illumination normalization algorithm based on anisotropic smoothing is well known to be effective among illumination normalization methods but deteriorates the intensity contrast of the original image, and incurs less sharp edges. The proposed method in this paper improves the previous anisotropic smoothing-based illumination normalization method so that it increases the intensity contrast and enhances the edges while diminishing the effect of illumination variations. Due to the result of these improvements, face images preprocessed by the proposed illumination normalization method becomes to have more distinctive feature vectors (Gabor feature vectors) for face recognition. Through experiments of face recognition based on Gabor feature vector similarity, the effectiveness of the proposed illumination normalization method is verified.

Keywords: Illumination Normalization, Face Recognition, Anisotropic smoothing, Gabor feature vector.

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Authors: Norwati Mustapha, Manijeh Jalali, Abolghasem Bozorgniya, Mehrdad Jalali

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Web usage mining algorithms have been widely utilized for modeling user web navigation behavior. In this study we advance a model for mining of user-s navigation pattern. The model makes user model based on expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm.An EM algorithm is used in statistics for finding maximum likelihood estimates of parameters in probabilistic models, where the model depends on unobserved latent variables. The experimental results represent that by decreasing the number of clusters, the log likelihood converges toward lower values and probability of the largest cluster will be decreased while the number of the clusters increases in each treatment.

Keywords: Web Usage Mining, Expectation maximization, navigation pattern mining.

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Authors: N. Arulanand, P. M. Ananth

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Quality of Service (QoS) attributes as part of the service description is an important factor for service attribute. It is not easy to exactly quantify the weight of each QoS conditions since human judgments based on their preference causes vagueness. As web services selection requires optimization, evolutionary computing based on heuristics to select an optimal solution is adopted. In this work, the evolutionary computing technique Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is used for selecting a suitable web services based on the user’s weightage of each QoS values by optimizing the QoS weight vector and thereby finding the best weight vectors for best services that is being selected. Finally the results are compared and analyzed using static inertia weight and deterministic inertia weight of PSO.

Keywords: QoS, Optimization, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), weight vector, web services, web service selection.

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Authors: J. Maksimainen

Abstract:

The values of managers and employees in organizations are phenomena that have captured the interest of researchers at large. Despite this attention, there continues to be a lack of agreement on what values are and how they influence individuals, or how they are constituted in individuals- mind. In this article content-based approach is presented as alternative reference frame for exploring values. In content-based approach human thinking in different contexts is set at the focal point. Differences in valuations can be explained through the information contents of mental representations. In addition to the information contents, attention is devoted to those cognitive processes through which mental representations of values are constructed. Such informational contents are in decisive role for understanding human behavior. By applying content-based analysis to an examination of values as mental representations, it is possible to reach a deeper to the motivational foundation of behaviors, such as decision making in organizational procedures, through understanding the structure and meanings of specific values at play.

Keywords: Content-based Approach, Mental Content, Mental Representations, Organizational values, Values

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Authors: Nuzlinda Abdul Rahman, Syerrina Zakaria

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Deprivation indices are widely used in public health study. These indices are also referred as the index of inequalities or disadvantage. Even though, there are many indices that have been built before, it is believed to be less appropriate to use the existing indices to be applied in other countries or areas which had different socio-economic conditions and different geographical characteristics. The objective of this study is to construct the index based on the geographical and socio-economic factors in Peninsular Malaysia which is defined as the weighted household-based deprivation index. This study has employed the variables based on household items, household facilities, school attendance and education level obtained from Malaysia 2000 census report. The factor analysis is used to extract the latent variables from indicators, or reducing the observable variable into smaller amount of components or factor. Based on the factor analysis, two extracted factors were selected, known as Basic Household Amenities and Middle-Class Household Item factor. It is observed that the district with a lower index values are located in the less developed states like Kelantan, Terengganu and Kedah. Meanwhile, the areas with high index values are located in developed states such as Pulau Pinang, W.P. Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.

Keywords: Factor Analysis, Basic Household Amenities, Middle-Class Household Item, Socio-economic Index

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Authors: A. Gamil, G. Herold

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The concept of differential protection based on current quantities has been discussed in many paper and researches. For certificating and inverting of currents and voltages through converter systems, there is no conventional current differential relay, which can compare current quantities, because they are different in form and frequencies. An overview over a new concept of differential protection for converters based on instantaneous power quantities will be discussed in this paper. To drive the power quantities a mathematical background of the space vectors will be introduced. A simple DCLink is preceded in this paper and a power analysis description and simulation is derived using Matlab®/ SimulinkTM concerning a certain construction scheme of Power Differential Relay System. Finally a complete analysis of three phase fault in DC-Link Rectifier is discussed to ensure the ability of Power Differential Protection System to detect the fault in main and selectivity protection sections.

Keywords: Space Vectors, Power Differential Relay (PDR), Short Circuit Power, Diode Recovery Energy, Detected Power Differential Signal (DPDS), Power Space Vector (PSV), Power Space Vector Protection Area (PSVPA).

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Authors: Jaime R. S. Fonseca

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Nevertheless the widespread application of finite mixture models in segmentation, finite mixture model selection is still an important issue. In fact, the selection of an adequate number of segments is a key issue in deriving latent segments structures and it is desirable that the selection criteria used for this end are effective. In order to select among several information criteria, which may support the selection of the correct number of segments we conduct a simulation study. In particular, this study is intended to determine which information criteria are more appropriate for mixture model selection when considering data sets with only categorical segmentation base variables. The generation of mixtures of multinomial data supports the proposed analysis. As a result, we establish a relationship between the level of measurement of segmentation variables and some (eleven) information criteria-s performance. The criterion AIC3 shows better performance (it indicates the correct number of the simulated segments- structure more often) when referring to mixtures of multinomial segmentation base variables.

Keywords: Quantitative Methods, Multivariate Data Analysis, Clustering, Finite Mixture Models, Information Theoretical Criteria, Simulation experiments.

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Authors: Maria C. Proença, Maria T. Rebelo, Maria J. Alves, Sofia Cunha

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Vector-borne diseases are transmitted to humans by mosquitos, sandflies, bugs, ticks, and other vectors. Some are re-transmitted between vectors, if the infected human has a new contact when his levels of infection are high. The vector is infected for lifetime and can transmit infectious diseases not only between humans but also from animals to humans. Some vector borne diseases are very disabling and globally account for more than one million deaths worldwide. The mosquitoes from the complex Culex pipiens sl. are the most abundant in Portugal, and we dispose in this moment of a data set from the surveillance program that has been carried on since 2006 across the country. All mosquitos’ species are included, but the large coverage of Culex pipiens sl. and its importance for public health make this vector an interesting candidate to assess risk of disease amplification. This work focus on ports and airports identified as key areas of high density of vectors. Mosquitoes being ectothermic organisms, the main factor for vector survival and pathogen development is temperature. Minima and maxima local air temperatures for each area of interest are averaged by month from data gathered on a daily basis at the national network of meteorological stations, and interpolated in a geographic information system (GIS). The range of temperatures ideal for several pathogens are known and this work shows how to use it with the meteorological data in each port and airport facility, to focus an efficient implementation of countermeasures and reduce simultaneously risk transmission and mitigation costs. The results show an increased alert with decreasing latitude, which corresponds to higher minimum and maximum temperatures and a lower amplitude range of the daily temperature.

Keywords: Human health, risk assessment, risk management, vector-borne diseases.

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Authors: H. B. Kekre, Kavita Patil

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This paper describes a novel and effective approach to content-based image retrieval (CBIR) that represents each image in the database by a vector of feature values called “Standard deviation of mean vectors of color distribution of rows and columns of images for CBIR". In many areas of commerce, government, academia, and hospitals, large collections of digital images are being created. This paper describes the approach that uses contents as feature vector for retrieval of similar images. There are several classes of features that are used to specify queries: colour, texture, shape, spatial layout. Colour features are often easily obtained directly from the pixel intensities. In this paper feature extraction is done for the texture descriptor that is 'variance' and 'Variance of Variances'. First standard deviation of each row and column mean is calculated for R, G, and B planes. These six values are obtained for one image which acts as a feature vector. Secondly we calculate variance of the row and column of R, G and B planes of an image. Then six standard deviations of these variance sequences are calculated to form a feature vector of dimension six. We applied our approach to a database of 300 BMP images. We have determined the capability of automatic indexing by analyzing image content: color and texture as features and by applying a similarity measure Euclidean distance.

Keywords: Standard deviation Image retrieval, color distribution, Variance, Variance of Variance, Euclidean distance.

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Authors: Abdallah S. Abdallah, A. Lynn Abbott, Mohamad Abou El-Nasr

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This paper presents a new technique for detection of human faces within color images. The approach relies on image segmentation based on skin color, features extracted from the two-dimensional discrete cosine transform (DCT), and self-organizing maps (SOM). After candidate skin regions are extracted, feature vectors are constructed using DCT coefficients computed from those regions. A supervised SOM training session is used to cluster feature vectors into groups, and to assign “face" or “non-face" labels to those clusters. Evaluation was performed using a new image database of 286 images, containing 1027 faces. After training, our detection technique achieved a detection rate of 77.94% during subsequent tests, with a false positive rate of 5.14%. To our knowledge, the proposed technique is the first to combine DCT-based feature extraction with a SOM for detecting human faces within color images. It is also one of a few attempts to combine a feature-invariant approach, such as color-based skin segmentation, together with appearance-based face detection. The main advantage of the new technique is its low computational requirements, in terms of both processing speed and memory utilization.

Keywords: Face detection, skin color segmentation, self-organizingmap.

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Authors: Başak Uçanok

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The aim of this study is to test the “work values" inventory developed by Tevruz and Turgut and to utilize the concept in a model, which aims to create a greater understanding of the work experience. In the study multiple effects of work values, work-value congruence and work centrality on organizational citizenship behavior are examined. In this respect, it is hypothesized that work values and work-value congruence predict organizational citizenship behavior through work centrality. Work-goal congruence test, Tevruz and Turgut-s work values inventory are administered along with Kanungo-s work centrality and Podsakoff et al.-s [47] organizational citizenship behavior test to employees working in Turkish SME-s. The study validated that Tevruz and Turgut-s work values inventory and the work-value congruence test were reliable and could be used for future research. The study revealed the mediating role of work centrality only for the relationship of work values and the responsibility dimension of citizenship behavior. Most important, this study brought in an important concept, work-value congruence, which enables a better understanding of work values and their relation to various attitudinal variables.

Keywords: Work values, work-value congruence, work centrality, organizational citizenship behavior.

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Authors: Amna Javed, Katsuhiro Umemoto, Youji Kohda

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The purpose of this paper is to examine co-creation of non-economic values in Islamic banking services and their significance for service science by comparing Islamic and conventional banking services. Although many scholars have discussed co-creation of values in services, most of them have focused on only economic values.

Following Sharia (Islamic principles that are based on Qur’an and Sunnah) traditions, Islamic banking is more concerned with such non-economic values as well-being, partnership, fairness, trust, and justice, than such economic values as money in terms of interest.  Therefore, it may be more sustainable and suitable for today’s unpredictable socio-economic environments.

We also argue that Islamic banking is essentially a value co-creation business model that fits better with the so-called Service-Dominant Logic (SDL) than conventional banking. This paper explores a new frontier of value co-creation in services, thereby contributing to further development of service science.

Keywords: Value co-creation, Islamic banking, Non-economic values, Service science.

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Authors: K. Maria Agnes, J. Joshua Bapu

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This paper impart the design and testing of Nanotechnology based sequential circuits using multiplexer conservative QCA (MX-CQCA) logic gates, which is easily testable using only two vectors. This method has great prospective in the design of sequential circuits based on reversible conservative logic gates and also smashes the sequential circuits implemented in traditional gates in terms of testability. Reversible circuits are similar to usual logic circuits except that they are built from reversible gates. Designs of multiplexer conservative QCA logic based two vectors testable double edge triggered (DET) sequential circuits in VHDL language are also accessible here; it will also diminish intricacy in testing side. Also other types of sequential circuits such as D, SR, JK latches are designed using this MX-CQCA logic gate. The objective behind the proposed design methodologies is to amalgamate arithmetic and logic functional units optimizing key metrics such as garbage outputs, delay, area and power. The projected MX-CQCA gate outshines other reversible gates in terms of the intricacy, delay.

Keywords: Conservative logic, Double edge triggered (DET) flip flop, majority voters, MX-CQCA gate, reversible logic, Quantum dot Cellular automata.

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Authors: Ali Nouri Emamzadeh

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The experiment was performed to study the relationship between excreta viscosity and Nitrogen-corrected true metabolisable energy quantities of soybean meals using conventional addition method (CAM) in adult cockerels for 7 d: a 3-d preexperiment and a 4-d experiment period. Results indicated that differences between the excreta viscosity values were (P<0.01) significant for SBMs. The excreta viscosity values were less (P<0.01) for SBMs 6, 2, 8, 1 and 3 than other SBMs. The mean TMEn (kcal/kg) values were significant (P<0.01) between SBMs. The most TMEn values were (P<0.01) for SBMs 6, 2, 8 and 1, also the lowest TMEn values were (P<0.01) for SBMs 3, 7, 4, 9 and 5. There was a reverse linear relationship between the values of excreta viscosity and TMEn in SBMs. In conclusion, there was a reverse linear relationship between the values of excreta viscosity and TMEn in SBMs probably due to their various soluble NSPs.

Keywords: soybean meals (SBMs), Nitrogen-corrected true metabolisable energy (TMEn), viscosity

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Authors: Abdenour Bourabaa, Mohamed Saighi, Said El Metenani

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In the present work an investigation of the effects of the air frontal velocity, relative humidity and dry air temperature on the heat transfer characteristics of plain finned tube evaporator has been conducted. Using an appropriate correlation for the air side heat transfer coefficient the temperature distribution along the fin surface was calculated using a dimensionless temperature distribution. For a constant relative humidity and bulb temperature, it is found that the temperature distribution decreases with increasing air frontal velocity. Apparently, it is attributed to the condensate water film flowing over the fin surface. When dry air temperature and face velocity are being kept constant, the temperature distribution decreases with the increase of inlet relative humidity. An increase in the inlet relative humidity is accompanied by a higher amount of moisture on the fin surface. This results in a higher amount of latent heat transfer which involves higher fin surface temperature. For the influence of dry air temperature, the results here show an increase in the dimensionless temperature parameter with a decrease in bulb temperature. Increasing bulb temperature leads to higher amount of sensible and latent heat transfer when other conditions remain constant.

Keywords: Fin efficiency, heat and mass transfer, dehumidifying conditions, finned tube heat exchangers.

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Authors: Mahmoud Tarek Mohamed Hammad

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Despite the importance of the role and efforts made by the universities of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in reviving and preserving heritage architecture as an important cultural heritage in the Kingdom, The idea revolves around restoration and conservation processes and neglects the architectural heritage values, whose content can be used in sustainable contemporary architectural works. Educational values based on heritage architecture and how to integrate with the contemporary requirements were investigated in this research. For this purpose, by understanding the heritage architectural values as well as educational, academic process, the researcher presented an educational model of questionnaire forms for architecture students and the staff at the Architecture Department at Al-Baha University as a case study that serves the aims of the research. The results of the research show that heritage values especially those interview results are considered as a positive indicator of the importance of these values. The students and the staff need both to gain an understanding of heritage values as well as an understanding of theories of incorporating those values into the design process of contemporary local architecture. The research concludes that a correct understanding of the heritage values, its performance, and its reintegration with modern architecture technology should be focused on architectural education.

Keywords: Heritage architecture, academic work, heritage values, sustainable contemporary local architectural.

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Authors: Chao He, Shunhua Zhou, Peijun Guo

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The vast majority of existing underground railway lines consist of twin tunnels. In this paper, the dynamic interaction between two neighboring tunnels in a layered half-space is investigated by an analytical model. The two tunnels are modelled as cylindrical thin shells, while the soil in the form of a layered half-space with two cylindrical cavities is simulated by the elastic continuum theory. The transfer matrix method is first used to derive the relationship between the plane wave vectors in arbitrary layers and the source layer. Thereafter, the wave translation and transformation are introduced to determine the plane and cylindrical wave vectors in the source layer. The solution for the dynamic interaction between twin tunnels in a layered half-space is obtained by means of the compatibility of displacements and equilibrium of stresses on the two tunnel–soil interfaces. By coupling the proposed model with a fully track model, the train-induced vibrations from twin tunnels in a multi-layered half-space are investigated. The numerical results demonstrate that the existence of a neighboring tunnel has a significant effect on ground vibrations.

Keywords: Underground railway, twin tunnels, wave translation and transformation, transfer matrix method.

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Authors: Zhazira Kuanyshbayeva

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Article is devoted to the problem of Kazakhstan people national values in the conditions of the Republic of Kazakhstan independence. Formation of ethnos national values is viewed as the mandatory constituent of this process in contemporary conditions. The article shows the dynamics of forming socialspiritual basis of Kazakhstan people-s national values. It depicts peculiarities of interethnic relations in poly-ethnic and multiconfessional Kazakhstan. The study reviews in every detail various directions of the state social policy development in the sphere of national values. It is aimed to consolidation of the society to achieve the shared objective, i.e. building democratic and civilized state. The author discloses peculiarities of ethnos national values development using specific sources. It is underlined that renewal and modernization of Kazakhstan society represents new stage in the national value development, and its typical feature is integration process based on peoples- friendship, cultural principles of interethnic communication.

Keywords: Interethnic relation, Kazakhstan people, national policy, national values.

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Authors: Elnaz Saeedi, Jamileh Abolaghasemi, Mohsen Nasiri Tousi, Saeedeh Khosravi

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Goals and Objectives: A typical analysis of survival data involves the modeling of time-to-event data, such as the time till death. A frailty model is a random effect model for time-to-event data, where the random effect has a multiplicative influence on the baseline hazard function. This article aims to investigate the use of gamma frailty model with concomitant variable in order to individualize the prognostic factors that influence the liver cirrhosis patients’ survival times. Methods: During the one-year study period (May 2008-May 2009), data have been used from the recorded information of patients with liver cirrhosis who were scheduled for liver transplantation and were followed up for at least seven years in Imam Khomeini Hospital in Iran. In order to determine the effective factors for cirrhotic patients’ survival in the presence of latent variables, the gamma frailty distribution has been applied. In this article, it was considering the parametric model, such as Exponential and Weibull distributions for survival time. Data analysis is performed using R software, and the error level of 0.05 was considered for all tests. Results: 305 patients with liver cirrhosis including 180 (59%) men and 125 (41%) women were studied. The age average of patients was 39.8 years. At the end of the study, 82 (26%) patients died, among them 48 (58%) were men and 34 (42%) women. The main cause of liver cirrhosis was found hepatitis 'B' with 23%, followed by cryptogenic with 22.6% were identified as the second factor. Generally, 7-year’s survival was 28.44 months, for dead patients and for censoring was 19.33 and 31.79 months, respectively. Using multi-parametric survival models of progressive and regressive, Exponential and Weibull models with regard to the gamma frailty distribution were fitted to the cirrhosis data. In both models, factors including, age, bilirubin serum, albumin serum, and encephalopathy had a significant effect on survival time of cirrhotic patients. Conclusion: To investigate the effective factors for the time of patients’ death with liver cirrhosis in the presence of latent variables, gamma frailty model with parametric distributions seems desirable.

Keywords: Frailty model, latent variables, liver cirrhosis, parametric distribution.

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Authors: T. Kjosmoen, T. Ryen, T. Eftestøl

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In biological and biomedical research motif finding tools are important in locating regulatory elements in DNA sequences. There are many such motif finding tools available, which often yield position weight matrices and significance indicators. These indicators, p-values and E-values, describe the likelihood that a motif alignment is generated by the background process, and the expected number of occurrences of the motif in the data set, respectively. The various tools often estimate these indicators differently, making them not directly comparable. One approach for comparing motifs from different tools, is computing the E-value as the product of the p-value and the number of possible alignments in the data set. In this paper we explore the combinatorics of the motif alignment models OOPS, ZOOPS, and ANR, and propose a generic algorithm for computing the number of possible combinations accurately. We also show that using the wrong alignment model can give E-values that significantly diverge from their true values.

Keywords: Motif alignment, combinatorics, p-value, E-value, OOPS, ZOOPS, ANR.

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Authors: Radouane Elbahjaoui, Hamid El Qarnia

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The present work aims to investigate numerically the thermal and flow characteristics of a rectangular latent heat storage unit (LHSU) during the melting process of a phase change material (PCM). The LHSU consists of a number of vertical and identical plates of PCM separated by rectangular channels. The melting process is initiated when the LHSU is heated by a heat transfer fluid (HTF: water) flowing in channels in a downward or upward direction. The proposed study is motivated by the need to optimize the thermal performance of the LHSU by accelerating the charging process. A mathematical model is developed and a fixed-grid enthalpy formulation is adopted for modeling the melting process coupling with convection-conduction heat transfer. The finite volume method was used for discretization. The obtained numerical results are compared with experimental, analytical and numerical ones found in the literature and reasonable agreement is obtained. Thereafter, the numerical investigations were carried out to highlight the effects of the HTF flow direction and the aspect ratio of the PCM slabs on the heat transfer characteristics and thermal performance enhancement of the LHSU.

Keywords: Phase change material, thermal energy storage, latent heat storage unit, melting.

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Authors: Dehong Li, Yuchen Chen, Alireza Kaboorani, Denis Rodrigue, Xiaodong (Alice) Wang

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Utilizing solar energy for thermal energy storage has emerged as an appealing option for lowering the amount of energy that is consumed by buildings. Due to their high heat storage density, non-corrosive and non-polluting properties, alcohols can be a good alternative to petroleum-derived paraffin phase change materials (PCMs). In this paper, ternary eutectic PCMs with suitable phase change temperatures were designed and prepared using lauryl alcohol (LA), cetyl alcohol (CA), stearyl alcohol (SA) and xylitol (X). The Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) results revealed that the phase change temperatures of LA-CA-SA, LA-CA-X, and LA-SA-X were 20.52 °C, 20.37 °C, and 22.18 °C, respectively. The latent heat of phase change of the ternary eutectic PCMs were all stronger than that of the paraffinic PCMs at roughly the same temperature. The highest latent heat was 195 J/g. It had good thermal energy storage capacity. The preparation mechanism was investigated using Fourier-transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and it was found that the ternary eutectic PCMs were only physically mixed among the components. Ternary eutectic PCMs had a simple preparation process, suitable phase change temperature, and high energy storage density. They are suitable for low-temperature architectural packaging applications.

Keywords: Thermal energy storage, buildings, phase change materials, alcohols.

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Authors: Fawzi Irshaid, Adnan Jaran, Fatiha Dilmi, Khaled Tarawneh, Raji Hadeth, Ahad Al-Khatib

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The aim of this study was to estimate the frequency of EBV infection in Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma (NHL) occurring in Jordanian patients. A total of 55 patients with lymphoma were examined in this study. Of 55 patients, 30 and 25 were diagnosed as HL and NHL, respectively. The four HL subtypes were observed with the majority of the cases exhibited the mixed cellularity (MC) subtype followed by the nodular sclerosis (NS). The high grade was found to be the commonest subtype of NHL in our sample, followed by the low grade. The presence of EBV virus was detected by immunostating for expression of latent membrane protein-1 (LMP-1). The frequency of LMP-1 expression occurred more frequent in patients with HL (60.0%) than in patients with NHL (32.0%). The frequency of LMP-1 expression was also higher in patients with MC subtype (61.11%) than those patients with NS (28.57%). No age or gender difference in occurrence of EBV infection was observed among patient with HL. By contrast, the prevalence of EBV infection in NHL patients aged below 50 was lower (16.66%) than in NHL patients aged 50 or above (46.15%). In addition, EBV infection was more frequent in females with NHL (38.46%) than in male with NHL (25%). In NHL cases, the frequency of EBV infection in intermediate grade (60.0%) was high when compared with frequency of low (25%) or high grades (25%). In conclusion, analysis of LMP-1 expression indicates an important role for this viral oncogene in the pathogenesis of EBV-associated malignant lymphomas. These data also support the previous findings that people with EBV may develop lymphoma and that efforts to maintain low lymphoma should be considered for people with EBV infection.

Keywords: Hodgkin lymphoma, Epstein Barr virus, hematoxylin, infection, LMP-1 expression.

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Authors: Kuppusamy Singaravelloo, Zahra Kamiab

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This study explores the mediating effects of motivation in the relationship between human values and service quality. To examine the fundamental relationships among human values, motivation, and service quality, a Structural Equation Model (SEM) with a full mediation model was adopted. The model was designed and subsequently analyzed by utilizing the Partial Least Squares (PLS) procedure on data collected from a survey that yielded 936 usable questionnaires. The survey was sent to all 117 branches of two local commercial banks (CIMB and Maybank) operating in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Both banks ranked the highest in terms of asset size and market capitalization. The mediating role of motivation was examined in the relationship between four dimensions of human values and bank service quality, whereby human values initiate service quality. The results support the notion that employee motivation fully mediates the relationship between self-enhancement values and service quality in commercial banks. These results demonstrate the unpredictable role of the interaction structures of human values on bank service quality.

Keywords: Human values, service quality, mediation, motivation, commercial bank.

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Authors: Shohei Maruyama, Yasuo Matsuyama, Sachiyo Aburatani

Abstract:

Development of a method to estimate gene functions is an important task in bioinformatics. One of the approaches for the annotation is the identification of the metabolic pathway that genes are involved in. Since gene expression data reflect various intracellular phenomena, those data are considered to be related with genes’ functions. However, it has been difficult to estimate the gene function with high accuracy. It is considered that the low accuracy of the estimation is caused by the difficulty of accurately measuring a gene expression. Even though they are measured under the same condition, the gene expressions will vary usually. In this study, we proposed a feature extraction method focusing on the variability of gene expressions to estimate the genes' metabolic pathway accurately. First, we estimated the distribution of each gene expression from replicate data. Next, we calculated the similarity between all gene pairs by KL divergence, which is a method for calculating the similarity between distributions. Finally, we utilized the similarity vectors as feature vectors and trained the multiclass SVM for identifying the genes' metabolic pathway. To evaluate our developed method, we applied the method to budding yeast and trained the multiclass SVM for identifying the seven metabolic pathways. As a result, the accuracy that calculated by our developed method was higher than the one that calculated from the raw gene expression data. Thus, our developed method combined with KL divergence is useful for identifying the genes' metabolic pathway.

Keywords: Metabolic pathways, gene expression data, microarray, Kullback–Leibler divergence, KL divergence, support vector machines, SVM, machine learning.

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Authors: P. Guayjarernpanishkand, T. Mayureesawan

Abstract:

This paper presents a comparison of average outgoing quality limit of the MCSP-2-C plan with MCSP-C when MCSP-2-C has been developed from MCSP-C. The parameters used in MCSP-2- C are: i (the clearance number), c (the acceptance number), m (the number of conforming units to be found before allowing c nonconforming units in the sampling inspection), f1 and f2 (the sampling frequency at level 1 and 2, respectively). The average outgoing quality limit (AOQL) values from two plans were compared and we found that for all sets of i, r, and c values, MCSP-2-C gives higher values than MCSP-C. For all sets of i, r, and c values, the average outgoing quality values of MCSP-C and MCSP-2-C are similar when p is low or high but is difference when p is moderate.

Keywords: average outgoing quality, average outgoing quality limit, continuous sampling plan.

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Authors: Loai AbdAllah, Mahmoud Kaiyal

Abstract:

Missing values in real-world datasets are a common problem. Many algorithms were developed to deal with this problem, most of them replace the missing values with a fixed value that was computed based on the observed values. In our work, we used a distance function based on Bhattacharyya distance to measure the distance between objects with missing values. Bhattacharyya distance, which measures the similarity of two probability distributions. The proposed distance distinguishes between known and unknown values. Where the distance between two known values is the Mahalanobis distance. When, on the other hand, one of them is missing the distance is computed based on the distribution of the known values, for the coordinate that contains the missing value. This method was integrated with Wikaya, a digital health company developing a platform that helps to improve prevention of chronic diseases such as diabetes and cancer. In order for Wikaya’s recommendation system to work distance between users need to be measured. Since there are missing values in the collected data, there is a need to develop a distance function distances between incomplete users profiles. To evaluate the accuracy of the proposed distance function in reflecting the actual similarity between different objects, when some of them contain missing values, we integrated it within the framework of k nearest neighbors (kNN) classifier, since its computation is based only on the similarity between objects. To validate this, we ran the algorithm over diabetes and breast cancer datasets, standard benchmark datasets from the UCI repository. Our experiments show that kNN classifier using our proposed distance function outperforms the kNN using other existing methods.

Keywords: Missing values, distance metric, Bhattacharyya distance.

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