Search results for: book cover

Authors: Souvik Bhattacharyya, Aparajita Khan, Indradip Banerjee, Gautam Sanyal

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Steganography is the art and science that hides the information in an appropriate cover carrier like image, text, audio and video media. In this work the authors propose a new image based steganographic method for hiding information within the complex bit planes of the image. After slicing into bit planes the cover image is analyzed to extract the most complex planes in decreasing order based on their bit plane complexity. The complexity function next determines the complex noisy blocks of the chosen bit plane and finally pixel mapping method (PMM) has been used to embed secret bits into those regions of the bit plane. The novel approach of using pixel mapping method (PMM) in bit plane domain adaptively embeds data on most complex regions of image, provides high embedding capacity, better imperceptibility and resistance to steganalysis attack.

Keywords: PMM (Pixel Mapping Method), Bit Plane, Steganography, SSIM, KL-Divergence.

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Authors: Mohd Hasmadi Ismail, Kamaruzaman Jusoff

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In order to develop forest management strategies in tropical forest in Malaysia, surveying the forest resources and monitoring the forest area affected by logging activities is essential. There are tremendous effort has been done in classification of land cover related to forest resource management in this country as it is a priority in all aspects of forest mapping using remote sensing and related technology such as GIS. In fact classification process is a compulsory step in any remote sensing research. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to assess classification accuracy of classified forest map on Landsat TM data from difference number of reference data (200 and 388 reference data). This comparison was made through observation (200 reference data), and interpretation and observation approaches (388 reference data). Five land cover classes namely primary forest, logged over forest, water bodies, bare land and agricultural crop/mixed horticultural can be identified by the differences in spectral wavelength. Result showed that an overall accuracy from 200 reference data was 83.5 % (kappa value 0.7502459; kappa variance 0.002871), which was considered acceptable or good for optical data. However, when 200 reference data was increased to 388 in the confusion matrix, the accuracy slightly improved from 83.5% to 89.17%, with Kappa statistic increased from 0.7502459 to 0.8026135, respectively. The accuracy in this classification suggested that this strategy for the selection of training area, interpretation approaches and number of reference data used were importance to perform better classification result.

Keywords: Image Classification, Reference Data, Accuracy Assessment, Kappa Statistic, Forest Land Cover

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Authors: B. S. Raghavendra, D. Narayana Dutt

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In this paper, we have developed a method to compute fractal dimension (FD) of discrete time signals, in the time domain, by modifying the box-counting method. The size of the box is dependent on the sampling frequency of the signal. The number of boxes required to completely cover the signal are obtained at multiple time resolutions. The time resolutions are made coarse by decimating the signal. The loglog plot of total number of boxes required to cover the curve versus size of the box used appears to be a straight line, whose slope is taken as an estimate of FD of the signal. The results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method using parametric fractal signals. The estimation accuracy of the method is compared with that of Katz, Sevcik, and Higuchi methods. In addition, some properties of the FD are discussed.

Keywords: Box-counting, Fractal dimension, Higuchi method, Katz method, Parametric fractal signals, Sevcik method.

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Authors: Mukesh Singh Boori, Venerando Eustáquio Amaro

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The objective of this study was to improve our understanding of vulnerability and environmental change; it's causes basically show the intensity, its distribution and human-environment effect on the ecosystem in the Apodi Valley Region, This paper is identify, assess and classify vulnerability and environmental change in the Apodi valley region using a combined approach of landscape pattern and ecosystem sensitivity. Models were developed using the following five thematic layers: Geology, geomorphology, soil, vegetation and land use/cover, by means of a Geographical Information Systems (GIS)-based on hydro-geophysical parameters. In spite of the data problems and shortcomings, using ESRI-s ArcGIS 9.3 program, the vulnerability score, to classify, weight and combine a number of 15 separate land cover classes to create a single indicator provides a reliable measure of differences (6 classes) among regions and communities that are exposed to similar ranges of hazards. Indeed, the ongoing and active development of vulnerability concepts and methods have already produced some tools to help overcome common issues, such as acting in a context of high uncertainties, taking into account the dynamics and spatial scale of asocial-ecological system, or gathering viewpoints from different sciences to combine human and impact-based approaches. Based on this assessment, this paper proposes concrete perspectives and possibilities to benefit from existing commonalities in the construction and application of assessment tools.

Keywords: Vulnerability, Land use/cover, Ecosystem, Remotesensing, GIS.

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Authors: Masoud Afrand, Amin Behzadmehr, Arash Karimipour

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The world demand for potable water is increasing every day with growing population. Desalination using solar energy is suitable for potable water production from brackish and seawater. In this paper, we present a theoretical study of solar distillation in a single basin under the open environmental conditions of Chabahar-Iran. The still has a base area of 2000mm×500mm with a glass cover inclined at 25° in order to obtain extra solar energy. We model the still and conduct its energy balance equations under minor assumptions. We computed the temperatures of glass cover, seawater interface, moist air and bottom using numerical method. The investigation addressed the following: The still productivity, distilled water salinity and still performance in terms of the still efficiency. Calculated still productivity in July was higher than December. So in this paper, we show that still productivity is directly functioning of solar radiation.

Keywords: Inclined Solar still, Solar energy, Solar desalination, Numerical Simulation.

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Authors: Mehrnoosh Omati, Mahmod Reza Sahebi

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The information on land use/land cover changing plays an essential role for environmental assessment, planning and management in regional development. Remotely sensed imagery is widely used for providing information in many change detection applications. Polarimetric Synthetic aperture radar (PolSAR) image, with the discrimination capability between different scattering mechanisms, is a powerful tool for environmental monitoring applications. This paper proposes a new boundary-based segmentation algorithm as a fundamental step for land cover change detection. In this method, first, two PolSAR images are segmented using integration of marker-controlled watershed algorithm and coupled Markov random field (MRF). Then, object-based classification is performed to determine changed/no changed image objects. Compared with pixel-based support vector machine (SVM) classifier, this novel segmentation algorithm significantly reduces the speckle effect in PolSAR images and improves the accuracy of binary classification in object-based level. The experimental results on Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) polarimetric images show a 3% and 6% improvement in overall accuracy and kappa coefficient, respectively. Also, the proposed method can correctly distinguish homogeneous image parcels.

Keywords: Coupled Markov random field, environment, object-based analysis, Polarimetric SAR images.

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Authors: Souvik Bhattacharyya, Gautam Sanyal

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Recent years have witnessed the rapid development of the Internet and telecommunication techniques. Information security is becoming more and more important. Applications such as covert communication, copyright protection, etc, stimulate the research of information hiding techniques. Traditionally, encryption is used to realize the communication security. However, important information is not protected once decoded. Steganography is the art and science of communicating in a way which hides the existence of the communication. Important information is firstly hidden in a host data, such as digital image, video or audio, etc, and then transmitted secretly to the receiver.In this paper a data hiding model with high security features combining both cryptography using finite state sequential machine and image based steganography technique for communicating information more securely between two locations is proposed. The authors incorporated the idea of secret key for authentication at both ends in order to achieve high level of security. Before the embedding operation the secret information has been encrypted with the help of finite-state sequential machine and segmented in different parts. The cover image is also segmented in different objects through normalized cut.Each part of the encoded secret information has been embedded with the help of a novel image steganographic method (PMM) on different cuts of the cover image to form different stego objects. Finally stego image is formed by combining different stego objects and transmit to the receiver side. At the receiving end different opposite processes should run to get the back the original secret message.

Keywords: Cover Image, Finite state sequential machine, Melaymachine, Pixel Mapping Method (PMM), Stego Image, NCUT.

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Authors: Phusit Phukamchanoad

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This research was to analyze personality’s activities based on sufficiency economy philosophy of people and community leaders in urban communities. The data were collected through questionnaires administered to 392 people and interviewed with community leaders. It was found that most people revealed that their lives depend on activities in accordance with the sufficiency economy philosophy in high level especially, being honest and aware on sufficiency, occupations, peacefulness in the community leaders’ side, they reported on extravagant reduction, planting home vegetable garden, having household accounting, expense planning by dividing into 3 categories; 1) saving for illness cover 2) saving for business cover, and 3) household daily expense. The samples were also adjusted their livings quite well with the rapid change of urbanization. Although those people have encountered with any hardships, their honesty in occupations and awareness on sufficiency remain to survive happily.

Keywords: Sufficiency Economy Philosophy, individual and household activities, urban community.

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Authors: Meenakshi Bansal, Iqbal Singh, Parvinder S. Sandhu

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In over deployed sensor networks, one approach to Conserve energy is to keep only a small subset of sensors active at Any instant. For the coverage problems, the monitoring area in a set of points that require sensing, called demand points, and consider that the node coverage area is a circle of range R, where R is the sensing range, If the Distance between a demand point and a sensor node is less than R, the node is able to cover this point. We consider a wireless sensor network consisting of a set of sensors deployed randomly. A point in the monitored area is covered if it is within the sensing range of a sensor. In some applications, when the network is sufficiently dense, area coverage can be approximated by guaranteeing point coverage. In this case, all the points of wireless devices could be used to represent the whole area, and the working sensors are supposed to cover all the sensors. We also introduce Hybrid Algorithm and challenges related to coverage in sensor networks.

Keywords: Wireless sensor networks, network coverage, Energy conservation, Hybrid Algorithms.

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Authors: Bahareh Aghasi, Ahmad Jalalian, Naser Honarjoo

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Land use change, if not based on proper scientific investigation affects other physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil and leading to increased destruction and erosion. It was imperative to study the effects of changing rangelands to farmlands on some Soil quality indexes. Undisturbed soil samples were collected from the depths of 0-10 and 10-30 centimeter in pasture with good vegetation cover(GP), pasture with medium vegetation cover(MP), abandoned dry land farming(ADF) and degraded dry land farming(DDF) land uses in Ghareh Aghaj watershed of Isfahan province. The results revealed that organic matter(OM), cation exchange capacity(CEC) and available potassium(AK) decreasing in the depth of 0-10 centimeter were 66.6, 38.8 and 70 percent and in the depth of 10-30 centimeter were 58, 61.4 and 83.5 percent respectively in DDF comparison with GP. Concerning to the results, it seems that land use change can decrease soil quality and increase soil degradation and lead in undesirable consequences.

Keywords: Land use change, Soil degradation, Soil quality

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Authors: Souvik Bhattacharyya, Gautam Sanyal

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Over last two decades, due to hostilities of environment over the internet the concerns about confidentiality of information have increased at phenomenal rate. Therefore to safeguard the information from attacks, number of data/information hiding methods have evolved mostly in spatial and transformation domain.In spatial domain data hiding techniques,the information is embedded directly on the image plane itself. In transform domain data hiding techniques the image is first changed from spatial domain to some other domain and then the secret information is embedded so that the secret information remains more secure from any attack. Information hiding algorithms in time domain or spatial domain have high capacity and relatively lower robustness. In contrast, the algorithms in transform domain, such as DCT, DWT have certain robustness against some multimedia processing.In this work the authors propose a novel steganographic method for hiding information in the transform domain of the gray scale image.The proposed approach works by converting the gray level image in transform domain using discrete integer wavelet technique through lifting scheme.This approach performs a 2-D lifting wavelet decomposition through Haar lifted wavelet of the cover image and computes the approximation coefficients matrix CA and detail coefficients matrices CH, CV, and CD.Next step is to apply the PMM technique in those coefficients to form the stego image. The aim of this paper is to propose a high-capacity image steganography technique that uses pixel mapping method in integer wavelet domain with acceptable levels of imperceptibility and distortion in the cover image and high level of overall security. This solution is independent of the nature of the data to be hidden and produces a stego image with minimum degradation.

Keywords: Cover Image, Pixel Mapping Method (PMM), StegoImage, Integer Wavelet Tranform.

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Authors: Souvik Bhattacharyya, Indradip Banerjee, Anumoy Chakraborty, Gautam Sanyal

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Recent growth in digital multimedia technologies has presented a lot of facilities in information transmission, reproduction and manipulation. Therefore, the concept of information security is one of the superior articles in the present day situation. The biometric information security is one of the information security mechanisms. It has the advantages as well as disadvantages. The biometric system is at risk to a range of attacks. These attacks are anticipated to bypass the security system or to suspend the normal functioning. Various hazards have been discovered while using biometric system. Proper use of steganography greatly reduces the risks in biometric systems from the hackers. Steganography is one of the fashionable information hiding technique. The goal of steganography is to hide information inside a cover medium like text, image, audio, video etc. through which it is not possible to detect the existence of the secret information. Here in this paper a new security concept has been established by making the system more secure with the help of steganography along with biometric security. Here the biometric information has been embedded to a skin tone portion of an image with the help of proposed steganographic technique.

Keywords: Biometrics, Skin tone detection, Series, Polynomial, Cover Image, Stego Image.

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Authors: Khalid A. Al-Afandy, El-Sayyed El-Rabaie, Osama Salah, Ahmed El-Mhalaway

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This paper presents a high secure data hiding technique using image cropping and Least Significant Bit (LSB) steganography. The predefined certain secret coordinate crops will be extracted from the cover image. The secret text message will be divided into sections. These sections quantity is equal the image crops quantity. Each section from the secret text message will embed into an image crop with a secret sequence using LSB technique. The embedding is done using the cover image color channels. Stego image is given by reassembling the image and the stego crops. The results of the technique will be compared to the other state of art techniques. Evaluation is based on visualization to detect any degradation of stego image, the difficulty of extracting the embedded data by any unauthorized viewer, Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio of stego image (PSNR), and the embedding algorithm CPU time. Experimental results ensure that the proposed technique is more secure compared with the other traditional techniques.

Keywords: Steganography, stego, LSB, crop.

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Authors: C. Cruz, A. Breda

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Emotions are manifestations of everything that happens around us, influencing, consequently, our actions. People experience emotions continuously when socialize with friends, when facing complex situations, and when at school, among many other situations. Although the influence of emotions in the teaching and learning process is nothing new, its study in the academic field has been more popular in recent years, distinguishing between positive (e.g., enjoyment and curiosity) and negative emotions (e.g., boredom and frustration). There is no doubt that emotions play an important role in the students’ learning process since the development of knowledge involves thoughts, actions, and emotions. Nowadays, one of the most significant changes in acquiring knowledge, accessing information, and communicating is the way we do it through technological and digital resources. Faced with an increasingly frequent use of technological or digital means with different purposes, whether in the acquisition of knowledge or in communicating with others, the emotions involved in these processes change naturally. The speed with which the Internet provides information reduces the excitement for searching for the answer, the gratification of discovering something through our own effort, the patience, the capacity for effort, and resilience. Thus, technological and digital devices are bringing changes to the emotional domain. For this reason and others, it is essential to educate children from an early age to understand that it is not possible to have everything with just one click and to deal with negative emotions. Currently, many curriculum guidelines highlight the importance of the development of so-called soft skills, in which the emotional domain is present, in academic contexts. Within the scope of the Portuguese reality, the “Students’ profile by the end of compulsory schooling” and the “Health education reference” also emphasize the importance of emotions in education. There are several resources to stimulate good emotions in articulation with cognitive development. One of the most predictable and not very used resources in the most diverse areas of knowledge after pre-school education is the literature. Due to its characteristics, in the narrative or in the illustrations, literature provides the reader with a journey full of emotions. On the other hand, literature makes it possible to establish bridges between narrative and different areas of knowledge, reconciling the cognitive and emotional domains. This study results from the presentation session of a children's book, entitled “From the Outside to Inside and from the Inside to Outside”, to children attending the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th years of basic education in the Portuguese education system. In this book, rationale and emotion are in constant dialogue, so in this session, based on excerpts from the book dramatized by the authors, some questions were asked to the children in a large group, with an aim to explore their perception regarding certain emotions or events that trigger them. According to the aim of this study, qualitative, descriptive, and interpretative research was carried out based on participant observation and audio records.

Keywords: Emotions, children’s literature, basic education, soft skills.

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Authors: Mohamed Sanad, Noha Hassan

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A low wind-load light-weight broad-band multi-beam base station antenna has been developed. It can generate any required number of beams with the required beamwidths. It can have horizontal and vertical sectorization at the same time. Vertical sectorization doubles the overall number of beams. It will be very valuable in LTE-A and 5G. It can be used to serve vertically split inner and outer cells, which improves system performance. The intersection between the beams of the proposed multi-beam antenna can be controlled by optimizing the design parameters of the antenna. The gain at the points of intersection between the beams, the null filling and the overlap between the beams can all be modified. The proposed multi-beam base station antenna can cover an unlimited number of wireless applications, regardless of their frequency bands. It can simultaneously cover all, current and future, wireless technology generations such as 2G, 3G, 4G (LTE), --- etc. For example, in LTE, it covers the bands 450-470 MHz, 690-960 MHz, 1.4-2.7 GHz and 3.3-3.8 GHz. It has at least 2 ports for each band in each beam for ±45° polarizations. It can include up to 72 ports or even more, which could facilitate any further needed capacity expansions.

Keywords: Base station antenna, multi-beam antenna, smart antenna, vertical sectorization.

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Authors: Krishnamoorthi R., Sheba Kezia Malarchelvi P. D.

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In this paper, an image adaptive, invisible digital watermarking algorithm with Orthogonal Polynomials based Transformation (OPT) is proposed, for copyright protection of digital images. The proposed algorithm utilizes a visual model to determine the watermarking strength necessary to invisibly embed the watermark in the mid frequency AC coefficients of the cover image, chosen with a secret key. The visual model is designed to generate a Just Noticeable Distortion mask (JND) by analyzing the low level image characteristics such as textures, edges and luminance of the cover image in the orthogonal polynomials based transformation domain. Since the secret key is required for both embedding and extraction of watermark, it is not possible for an unauthorized user to extract the embedded watermark. The proposed scheme is robust to common image processing distortions like filtering, JPEG compression and additive noise. Experimental results show that the quality of OPT domain watermarked images is better than its DCT counterpart.

Keywords: Orthogonal Polynomials based Transformation, Digital Watermarking, Copyright Protection, Visual model.

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Authors: Tatiana V. Raudina, Sergey P. Kulizhskiy

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A large part of Russia is located in permafrost areas. These areas are widely used because there are concentrated valuable natural resources. Therefore to explore of cryosols it is important due to the significant increase of anthropogenic stress as well as the problem of global climate change. In the north of Western Siberia permafrost phenomena is widespread. Permafrost as a factor of soil formation and cryogenesis as a process have a great impact on the soil formation of these areas. Based on the research results of permafrost-affected soils tundra landscapes formed in the central part of the Tazovskiy Peninsula in cryogenic conditions, data were obtained which characterize the morphological features of soils. The specificity of soil cover distribution and manifestation of soil-forming processes within the study area are noted. Permafrost features such as frost cracking, cryoturbation, thixotropy, movement of humus are formed. The formation of these features is increased with the development of the territory. As a consequence, there is a change in the components of the environment and the destruction of the soil cover.

Keywords: Gleyed and nongleyed soils, permafrost, soil cryogenesis (pedocryogenesis), soil-forming macroprocesses.

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Authors: A. Breda, C. Cruz

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The role of images/illustrations in communicating meanings and triggering emotions assumes an increasingly relevant role in contemporary texts, regardless of the age group for which they are intended or the nature of the texts that host them. It is no coincidence that children's books are full of illustrations and that the image/text ratio decreases as the age group grows. The vast majority of children's books can be considered as multimodal texts containing text and images/illustrations, interacting with each other, to provide the young reader with a broader and more creative understanding of the book's narrative. This interaction is very diverse, ranging from images/illustrations that are not essential for understanding the storytelling to those that contribute significantly to the meaning of the story. Usually, these books are also read by adults, namely by parents, educators, and teachers who act as mediators between the book and the children, explaining aspects that are or seem to be too complex for the child's context. It should be noted that there are books labeled as children's books, that are clearly intended for both children and adults. In this work, following a qualitative and interpretative methodology based on written productions, participant observation, and field notes, we will describe the perceptions of future teachers of the 1st cycle of basic education, attending a master’s degree at a Portuguese university, about the role of the image in literary and non-literary texts, namely in mathematical texts, and how these can constitute precious resources for emotional regulation and for the design of creative didactic situations. The analysis of the collected data allowed us to obtain evidence regarding the evolution of the participants' perception regarding the crucial role of images in children's literature, not only as an emotional regulator for young readers but also as a creative source for the design of meaningful didactical situations, crossing other scientific areas, other than the mother tongue, namely mathematics.

Keywords: Children’s literature, emotions, multimodal texts, soft skills.

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Authors: Aba-Carina Pârlog

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The paper shows that on transferring sense from the SL to the TL, the translator’s reading against the grain determines the creation of a faulty pattern of rendering the original meaning in the receiving culture which reflects the use of misleading transformative codes. In this case, the translator is a writer per se who decides what goes in and out of the book, how the style is to be ciphered and what elements of ideology are to be highlighted. The paper also proves that figurative language must not be flattened for the sake of clarity or naturalness. The missing figurative elements make the translated text less interesting, less challenging and less vivid which reflects poorly on the writer. There is a close connection between style and the writer’s person. If the writer’s style is very much altered in a translation, the translation is useless as the original writer and his / her imaginative world can no longer be discovered. The purpose of the paper is to prove that adaptation is a dangerous tool which leads to variants that sometimes reflect the original less than the reader would wish to. It contradicts the very essence of the process of translation which is that of making an original work available in a foreign language. If the adaptive transformative codes are so flexible that they encourage the translator to repeatedly leave out parts of the original work, then a subversive pattern emerges which changes the entire book. In conclusion, as a result of using adaptation, manipulative or subversive effects are created in the translated work. This is generally achieved by adding new words or connotations, creating new figures of speech or using explicitations. The additional meanings of the original work are neglected and the translator creates new meanings, implications, emphases and contexts. Again s/he turns into a new author who enjoys the freedom of expressing his / her own ideas without the constraints of the original text. Reading against the grain is unadvisable during the process of translation and consequently, following personal common sense becomes essential in the field of translation as well as everywhere else, so that translation should not become a source of fantasy.

Keywords: Speculative aesthetics, substance of expression, transformative code, translation.

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Authors: Giwrgos S. Gkarmpounis, Aikaterini G. Rokkou, Marios N. Moschakis

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Increased energy consumption in the academic buildings, creates the need to implement energy saving measures and to take advantage of the renewable energy sources to cover the electrical needs of those buildings. An Academic Library will be used as a case study. With the aid of RETScreen software that takes into account the energy consumptions and characteristics of the Library Building, it is proved that measures such as the replacement of fluorescent lights with led lights, the installation of outdoor shading, the replacement of the openings and Building Management System installation, provide a high level of energy savings. Moreover, given the available space of the building and the climatic data, the installation of a photovoltaic system of 100 kW can also cover a serious amount of the building energy consumption, unlike a wind system that seems uncompromising. Lastly, HOMER software is used to compare the use of a photovoltaic system against a wind system in order to verify the results that came up from the RETScreen software concerning the renewable energy sources.

Keywords: Energy saving measures, homer software, renewable energy sources, RETScreen software, energy efficiency and quality.

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Authors: George D. Ranis, Valasia Iakovoglou, George N. Zaimes

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Fires is one of the main types of disturbances that shape ecosystems in the Mediterranean region. However nowadays, climate alterations towards higher temperatures result on increased levels of fire intensity, frequency and spread as well as difficulties for natural regeneration to occur. Thasos Island is one of the Greek islands that has experienced those problems. Since 1984, a series of wildfires led to the reduction of forest cover from 61.6% to almost 20%. The negative impacts were devastating in many different aspects for the island. The absence of plant cover, post-wildfire precipitation and steep slopes were the major factors that induced severe soil erosion and intense floods. That also resulted to serious economic problems to the local communities and the inability of the burnt areas to regenerate naturally. Despite the substantial amount of published work regarding Thasos wildfires, there is no information related to post-wildfire effects on factors such as soil erosion. More research related to post-fire effects should help to an overall assessment of the negative impacts of wildfires on land degradation through processes such as soil erosion and flooding.

Keywords: Erosion, land degradation, Mediterranean islands, regeneration, Thasos, wildfires.

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Authors: Umair Baig, Kohei Nagai

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At highly congested reinforcement regions, which is common at beam-column joint area, clear spacing between parallel bars becomes less than maximum normal aggregate size (20mm) which has not been addressed in any design code and specifications. Limited clear spacing between parallel bars (herein after thin cover) is one of the causes which affect anchorage performance. In this study, an experimental investigation was carried out to understand anchorage performance of reinforcement in Self-Compacting Concrete (SCC) and Normal Concrete (NC) at highly congested regions under uni-axial tensile loading.  Column bar was pullout whereas; beam bars were offset from column reinforcement creating thin cover as per site condition. Two different sizes of coarse aggregate were used for NC (20mm and 10mm). Strain gauges were also installed along the bar in some specimens to understand the internal stress mechanism. Test results reveal that anchorage performance is affected at highly congested reinforcement region in NC with maximum aggregate size 20mm whereas; SCC and Small Aggregate (10mm) gives better structural performance. 

Keywords: Anchorage capacity, bond, Normal Concrete, self-compacting concrete.

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Authors: Sheetal Sharma

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Urban planning is associated with land transformation from natural areas to modified and developed ones which leads to modification of natural environment. The basic knowledge of relationship between both should be ascertained before proceeding for the development of natural areas. Changes on land surface due to build up pavements, roads and similar land cover, affect surface water flow. There is a gap between urban planning and basic knowledge of hydrological processes which should be known to the planners. The paper aims to identify these variations in surface flow due to urbanization for a temporal scale of 40 years using Storm Water Management Mode (SWMM) and again correlating these findings with the urban planning guidelines in study area along with geological background to find out the suitable combinations of land cover, soil and guidelines. For the purpose of identifying the changes in surface flows, 19 catchments were identified with different geology and growth in 40 years facing different ground water levels fluctuations. The increasing built up, varying surface runoff are studied using Arc GIS and SWMM modeling, regression analysis for runoff. Resulting runoff for various land covers and soil groups with varying built up conditions were observed. The modeling procedures also included observations for varying precipitation and constant built up in all catchments. All these observations were combined for individual catchment and single regression curve was obtained for runoff. Thus, it was observed that alluvial with suitable land cover was better for infiltration and least generation of runoff but excess built up could not be sustained on alluvial soil. Similarly, basalt had least recharge and most runoff demanding maximum vegetation over it. Sandstone resulted in good recharging if planned with more open spaces and natural soils with intermittent vegetation. Hence, these observations made a keystone base for planners while planning various land uses on different soils. This paper contributes and provides a solution to basic knowledge gap, which urban planners face during development of natural surfaces.

Keywords: Runoff, built up, roughness, recharge, temporal changes.

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Authors: Anuruddha Jayasuriya, Thanakorn Pheeraphan

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In this paper, a review of different mathematical models which can be used as prediction tools to assess the time to crack reinforced concrete (RC) due to corrosion is investigated. This investigation leads to an experimental study to validate a selected prediction model. Most of these mathematical models depend upon the mechanical behaviors, chemical behaviors, electrochemical behaviors or geometric aspects of the RC members during a corrosion process. The experimental program is designed to verify the accuracy of a well-selected mathematical model from a rigorous literature study. Fundamentally, the experimental program exemplifies both one-dimensional chloride diffusion using RC squared slab elements of 500 mm by 500 mm and two-dimensional chloride diffusion using RC squared column elements of 225 mm by 225 mm by 500 mm. Each set consists of three water-to-cement ratios (w/c); 0.4, 0.5, 0.6 and two cover depths; 25 mm and 50 mm. 12 mm bars are used for column elements and 16 mm bars are used for slab elements. All the samples are subjected to accelerated chloride corrosion in a chloride bath of 5% (w/w) sodium chloride (NaCl) solution. Based on a pre-screening of different models, it is clear that the well-selected mathematical model had included mechanical properties, chemical and electrochemical properties, nature of corrosion whether it is accelerated or natural, and the amount of porous area that rust products can accommodate before exerting expansive pressure on the surrounding concrete. The experimental results have shown that the selected model for both one-dimensional and two-dimensional chloride diffusion had ±20% and ±10% respective accuracies compared to the experimental output. The half-cell potential readings are also used to see the corrosion probability, and experimental results have shown that the mass loss is proportional to the negative half-cell potential readings that are obtained. Additionally, a statistical analysis is carried out in order to determine the most influential factor that affects the time to corrode the reinforcement in the concrete due to chloride diffusion. The factors considered for this analysis are w/c, bar diameter, and cover depth. The analysis is accomplished by using Minitab statistical software, and it showed that cover depth is the significant effect on the time to crack the concrete from chloride induced corrosion than other factors considered. Thus, the time predictions can be illustrated through the selected mathematical model as it covers a wide range of factors affecting the corrosion process, and it can be used to predetermine the durability concern of RC structures that are vulnerable to chloride exposure. And eventually, it is further concluded that cover thickness plays a vital role in durability in terms of chloride diffusion.

Keywords: Accelerated corrosion, chloride diffusion, corrosion cracks, passivation layer, reinforcement corrosion.

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Authors: E. B. Quarcoo, I. Yakubu, K. J. Appau

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Current land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics in Ghana have revealed considerable changes in settlement spaces. As a result, this study is intended to merge the cellular automata and Markov chain models using remotely sensed data and Geographical Information System (GIS) approaches to monitor, map, and detect the spatio-temporal LULC change in state lands within Cape Coast Metropolis. Multi-temporal satellite images from 1986-2020 were pre-processed, geo-referenced, and then mapped using supervised maximum likelihood classification to investigate the state’s land cover history (1986-2020) with an overall mapping accuracy of approximately 85%. The study further observed the rate of change for the area to have favored the built-up area 9.8 (12.58 km2) to the detriment of vegetation 5.14 (12.68 km2), but on average, 0.37 km2 (91.43 acres, or 37.00 ha.) of the landscape was transformed yearly. Subsequently, the CA-Markov model was used to anticipate the potential LULC for the study area for 2030. According to the anticipated 2030 LULC map, the patterns of vegetation transitioning into built-up regions will continue over the following ten years as a result of urban growth.

Keywords: LULC, cellular automata, Markov Chain, state lands, urbanisation, public lands, cape coast metropolis.

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Authors: Abdulkarim Mohammed Iliyasu, Mahmud Abba Tahir

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Freezing and thawing are considered to be one of the major causes of concrete deterioration in the cold regions. This study aimed at assessing the freezing and thawing of concrete within the cover zone by monitoring the formation of ice and melting at different temperatures using electrical measurement technique. A multi-electrode array system was used to obtain the resistivity of ice formation and melting at discrete depths within the cover zone of the concrete. A total number of four concrete specimens (250 mm x 250 mm x 150 mm) made of ordinary Portland cement concrete and ordinary Portland cement replaced by 65% ground granulated blast furnace slag (GGBS) is investigated. Water/binder ratios of 0.35 and 0.65 were produced and ponded with water to ensure full saturation and then subjected to freezing and thawing process in a refrigerator within a temperature range of -30 ⁰C and 20 ⁰C over a period of time 24 hours. The data were collected and analysed. The obtained results show that the addition of GGBS changed the pore structure of the concrete which resulted in the decrease in conductance. It was recommended among others that, the surface of the concrete structure should be protected as this will help to prevent the instantaneous propagation of ice trough the rebar and to avoid corrosion and subsequent damage.

Keywords: Concrete, conductance, deterioration, freezing and thawing, ordinary Portland cement.

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Authors: Qiangqiang Xu, Xu Ji, Jingyang Han, Changchun Yang, Ming Li

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Replacing of complex solar concentrating unit, this paper designs a solar heat-concentrating medium-temperature steam-generating system. Solar radiation is collected by using a large solar collecting and heat concentrating plate and is converged to the metal evaporating pipe with high efficient heat transfer. In the meantime, the heat loss is reduced by employing a double-glazed cover and other heat insulating structures. Thus, a high temperature is reached in the metal evaporating pipe. The influences of the system's structure parameters on system performance are analyzed. The steam production rate and the steam production under different solar irradiance, solar collecting and heat concentrating plate area, solar collecting and heat concentrating plate temperature and heat loss are obtained. The results show that when solar irradiance is higher than 600 W/m², the effective heat collecting area is 7.6 m² and the double-glazing cover is adopted, the system heat loss amount is lower than the solar irradiance value. The stable steam is produced in the metal evaporating pipe at 100 ℃, 110 ℃, and 120 ℃, respectively. When the average solar irradiance is about 896 W/m², and the steaming cumulative time is about 5 hours, the daily steam production of the system is about 6.174 kg. In a single day, the solar irradiance is larger at noon, thus the steam production rate is large at that time. Before 9:00 and after 16:00, the solar irradiance is smaller, and the steam production rate is almost 0.

Keywords: Heat concentrating, heat loss, medium temperature, solar steam production.

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Authors: Denise Levy, Anna Lucia C. H. Villavicencio

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In a rapid-changing world, science teachers face considerable challenges. In addition to the basic curriculum, there must be included several transversal themes, which demand creative and innovative strategies to be arranged and integrated to traditional disciplines. In Brazil, nuclear science is still a controversial theme, and teachers themselves seem to be unaware of the issue, most often perpetuating prejudice, errors and misconceptions. This article presents the authors’ experience in the development of an interdisciplinary pedagogical proposal to include nuclear science in the basic curriculum, in a transversal and integrating way. The methodology applied was based on the analysis of several normative documents that define the requirements of essential learning, competences and skills of basic education for all schools in Brazil. The didactic materials and resources were developed according to the best practices to improve learning processes privileging constructivist educational techniques, with emphasis on active learning process, collaborative learning and learning through research. The material consists of an illustrated book for students, a book for teachers and a manual with activities that can articulate nuclear science to different disciplines: Portuguese, mathematics, science, art, English, history and geography. The content counts on high scientific rigor and articulate nuclear technology with topics of interest to society in the most diverse spheres, such as food supply, public health, food safety and foreign trade. Moreover, this pedagogical proposal takes advantage of the potential value of digital technologies, implementing QR codes that excite and challenge students of all ages, improving interaction and engagement. The expected results include the education of the educators for nuclear science communication in a transversal and integrating way, demystifying nuclear technology in a contextualized and significant approach. It is expected that the interdisciplinary pedagogical proposal contributes to improving attitudes towards knowledge construction, privileging reconstructive questioning, fostering a culture of systematic curiosity and encouraging critical thinking skills.

Keywords: Science education, interdisciplinary learning, nuclear science; scientific literacy.

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Authors: Mahboobe Zardosht, Nasser Ghasem-Aghaee

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We propose an enhanced collaborative filtering method using Hofstede-s cultural dimensions, calculated for 111 countries. We employ 4 of these dimensions, which are correlated to the costumers- buying behavior, in order to detect users- preferences for items. In addition, several advantages of this method demonstrated for data sparseness and cold-start users, which are important challenges in collaborative filtering. We present experiments using a real dataset, Book Crossing Dataset. Experimental results shows that the proposed algorithm provide significant advantages in terms of improving recommendation quality.

Keywords: Collaborative filtering, Cross-cultural, E-commerce, Recommender systems

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Authors: Sumiko Anno, Keiji Imaoka, Takeo Tadono, Tamotsu Igarashi, Subramaniam Sivaganesh, Selvam Kannathasan, Vaithehi Kumaran, Sinnathamby Noble Surendran

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Dengue outbreaks are affected by biological, ecological, socio-economic and demographic factors that vary over time and space. These factors have been examined separately and still require systematic clarification. The present study aimed to investigate the spatial-temporal clustering relationships between these factors and dengue outbreaks in the northern region of Sri Lanka. Remote sensing (RS) data gathered from a plurality of satellites were used to develop an index comprising rainfall, humidity and temperature data. RS data gathered by ALOS/AVNIR-2 were used to detect urbanization, and a digital land cover map was used to extract land cover information. Other data on relevant factors and dengue outbreaks were collected through institutions and extant databases. The analyzed RS data and databases were integrated into geographic information systems, enabling temporal analysis, spatial statistical analysis and space-time clustering analysis. Our present results showed that increases in the number of the combination of ecological factor and socio-economic and demographic factors with above the average or the presence contribute to significantly high rates of space-time dengue clusters.

Keywords: ALOS/AVNIR-2, Dengue, Space-time clustering analysis, Sri Lanka.

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