Search results for: high performance computing

Authors: N. Khon, A. Kim, T. Mukhitdinova

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The aim of this research was to reveal the link between mental variables, such as spatial abilities, memory, intellect and professional experience of drivers. Participants were allocated to four groups: no experience, inexperienced, skilled and professionals (total 85 participants). The level of ability for spatial navigation and indicator of nonverbal memory grow along the process of accumulation of driving experience. At high levels of driving experience, this tendency is especially noticeable. The professionals having personal achievements in driving (racing) differ from skilled drivers in better feeling of direction, which is specific for them not just in a short-term situation of an experimental task, but also in life-size perspective. The level of ability of mental rotation does not grow with the growth of driving experience, which confirms the multiple intelligence theory according to which spatial abilities represent specific, other than logical intelligence type of intellect. The link between spatial abilities, memory, intellect and professional experience of drivers seems to be different relating spatial navigation or mental rotation as different kinds of spatial abilities.

Keywords: Memory, spatial abilities, intellect, drivers.

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Authors: Rehan Waheed, Hasan Aftab Saeed, Wasim Tarar, Khalid Mahmood, Sajid Ullah Butt

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Electromagnetic Interference (EMI) shielded doors made from brass extruded channels need to be welded with shielded enclosures to attain optimum shielding performance. Control of welding induced distortion is a problem in welding dissimilar metals like steel and brass. In this research, soldering of the steel-brass joint has been proposed to avoid weld distortion. The material used for brass channel is UNS C36000. The thickness of brass is defined by the manufacturing process, i.e. extrusion. The thickness of shielded enclosure material (ASTM A36) can be varied to produce joint between the dissimilar metals. Steel sections of different gauges are soldered using (91% tin, 9% zinc) solder to the brass, and strength of joint is measured by standard test procedures. It is observed that thin steel sheets produce a stronger bond with brass. The steel sections further require to be welded with shielded enclosure steel sheets through TIG welding process. Stresses and deformation in the vicinity of soldered portion is calculated through FE simulation. Crack formation in soldered area is also studied through experimental work. It has been found that in thin sheets deformation produced due to applied force is localized and has no effect on soldered joint area whereas in thick sheets profound cracks have been observed in soldered joint. The shielding effectiveness of EMI shielded door is compromised due to these cracks. The shielding effectiveness of the specimens is tested and results are compared.

Keywords: Dissimilar metals, soldering, joint strength, EMI shielding.

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Authors: Yoshifumi Sakamoto, Kouichi Ono, Takeo Nakada, Yousuke Kubo, Hiroto Yasuura

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This paper describes a system-level SoC energy consumption estimation method based on a dynamic behavior of embedded software in the early stages of the SoC development. A major problem of SOC development is development rework caused by unreliable energy consumption estimation at the early stages. The energy consumption of an SoC used in embedded systems is strongly affected by the dynamic behavior of the software. At the early stages of SoC development, modeling with a high level of abstraction is required for both the dynamic behavior of the software, and the behavior of the SoC. We estimate the energy consumption by a UML model-based simulation. The proposed method is applied for an actual embedded system in an MFP. The energy consumption estimation of the SoC is more accurate than conventional methods and this proposed method is promising to reduce the chance of development rework in the SoC development. ∈

Keywords: SoC, Embedded Sytem, Energy Consumption, Dynamic behavior, UML, Modeling, Model-based simulation

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Authors: Wooseok Song, Sunjung Park, Jongkwon Lee, Jaye Koo

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The objective of this paper is to observe the effects of injection conditions on flame structures in gas-centered swirl coaxial injector. Gaseous oxygen and liquid kerosene were used as propellants. For different injection conditions, two types of injector, which only differ in the diameter of the tangential inlet, were used in this study. In addition, oxidizer injection pressure was varied to control the combustion chamber pressure in different types of injector. In order to analyze the combustion instability intensity, the dynamic pressure was measured in both the combustion chamber and propellants lines. With the increase in differential pressure between the propellant injection pressure and the combustion chamber pressure, the combustion instability intensity increased. In addition, the flame structure was recorded using a high-speed camera to detect CH* chemiluminescence intensity. With the change in the injection conditions in the gas-centered swirl coaxial injector, the flame structure changed.

Keywords: Liquid rocket engine, flame structure, combustion instability, dynamic pressure.

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Authors: H. Elomari, M. Fallah, A. Elmousadik

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This work was conducted in the Souss region, known by severe water scarcity and a high agricultural activity dominated by the citrus (representing 40% of the area of Morocco's citrus). The objective of this work is to diagnose the current situation of the water efficiency in citrus irrigation and analyze the impact of various production factors on water productivity and its sustainability in the context of climate change. A field survey was conducted on 65 farms with areas varying from 0.5 to 350 ha. The stratification method was adopted as a sampling frame. Initial result indicates that the use of water shows a huge shortfall, since 31% of farms in the region are still using the surface irrigation system and 67% of farms are still using only the experience of the manager to control and adjust irrigation. The assessment of water productivity showed a value of 1.2 kg/m³ for surface irrigation and 3.8 kg/m³ for drip irrigation. The use of tools for control and adjustment of irrigation increases the water productivity of drip irrigation by 25%. The availability of the technical staff (internal or external) allows an increase in productivity of 172.4% compared to farms without technical advice.

Keywords: Citrus, irrigation efficiency, water productivity, drip irrigation.

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Authors: Jiří F. Urbánek, David Král

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Small and Middle Enterprises (SME) have a specific mission, characteristics, and behavior in global business competitive environments. They must respect policy, rules, requirements and standards in all their inherent and outer processes of supply - customer chains and networks. Paper aims and purposes are to introduce computational assistance, which enables us the using of prevailing operation system MS Office (SmartArt...) for mathematical models, using DYVELOP (Dynamic Vector Logistics of Processes) method. It is providing for SMS´s global environment the capability and profit to achieve its commitment regarding the effectiveness of the quality management system in customer requirements meeting and also the continual improvement of the organization’s and SME´s processes overall performance and efficiency, as well as its societal security via continual planning improvement. DYVELOP model´s maps - the Blazons are able mathematically - graphically express the relationships among entities, actors, and processes, including the discovering and modeling of the cycling cases and their phases. The blazons need live PowerPoint presentation for better comprehension of this paper mission – added value analysis. The crisis management of SMEs is obliged to use the cycles for successful coping of crisis situations.  Several times cycling of these cases is a necessary condition for the encompassment of the both the emergency event and the mitigation of organization´s damages. Uninterrupted and continuous cycling process is a good indicator and controlling actor of SME continuity and its sustainable development advanced possibilities.

Keywords: Blazons, computational assistance, DYVELOP method, small and middle enterprises.

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Authors: Wenbo Wang, Yi-fang Brook Wu

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The spread of misinformation and disinformation has become a major concern, particularly with the rise of social media as a primary source of information for many people. As a means to address this phenomenon, automated fact-checking has emerged as a safeguard against the spread of misinformation and disinformation. Existing fact-checking approaches aim to determine whether a news claim is true or false, and they have achieved decent veracity prediction accuracy. However, the state of the art methods rely on manually verified external information to assist the checking model in making judgments, which requires significant human resources. This study presents a framework, SAC, which focuses on 1) augmenting the representation of a claim by incorporating additional context using general-purpose, comprehensive and authoritative data; 2) developing a search function to automatically select relevant, new and credible references; 3) focusing on the important parts of the representations of a claim and its reference that are most relevant to the fact-checking task. The experimental results demonstrate that: 1) Augmenting the representations of claims and references through the use of a knowledge base, combined with the multi-head attention technique, contributes to improved performance of fact-checking. 2) SAC with auto-selected references outperforms existing fact-checking approaches with manual selected references. Future directions of this study include I) exploring knowledge graph in Wikidata to dynamically augment the representations of claims and references without introducing too much noises; II) exploring semantic relations in claims and references to further enhance fact-checking.

Keywords: Fact checking, claim verification, Deep Learning, Natural Language Processing.

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Authors: Deogratius Musiige, François Anton, Vital Yatskevich, Laulagnet Vincent, Darka Mioc, Nguyen Pierre

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This paper presents a methodology towards the emulation of the electrical power consumption of the RF device during the cellular phone/handset transmission mode using the LTE technology. The emulation methodology takes the physical environmental variables and the logical interface between the baseband and the RF system as inputs to compute the emulated power dissipation of the RF device. The emulated power, in between the measured points corresponding to the discrete values of the logical interface parameters is computed as a polynomial interpolation using polynomial basis functions. The evaluation of polynomial and spline curve fitting models showed a respective divergence (test error) of 8% and 0.02% from the physically measured power consumption. The precisions of the instruments used for the physical measurements have been modeled as intervals. We have been able to model the power consumption of the RF device operating at 5MHz using homotopy between 2 continuous power consumptions of the RF device operating at the bandwidths 3MHz and 10MHz.

Keywords: Radio frequency, high power amplifier, baseband, LTE, power, emulation, homotopy, interval analysis, Tx power, register-transfer level.

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Authors: S. Nurashikin, E. Z. Rusley, A. Husaini

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Kojic acid is an organic acid that is widely used as an ingredient for dermatological products, precursor for flavor enhancer and also as anti-inflammatory drug. The present study was undertaken to test the feasibility of pineapple residues as substrate for kojic acid production by Aspergillus flavus Link 44-1 via solid-state fermentation. The effect of initial moisture content, pH and incubation time on kojic acid fermentation was investigated. The best initial moisture content for kojic acid production from pineapple residues was observed at 70% (v/w) whereas initial culture pH 2.5 was identified to give high production of kojic acid. The optimal range of incubation time was identified between 8 and 14 days of incubation which corresponded to highest range of kojic acid produced. The results from this study pronounce the promising usability of pineapple residues as alternative substrate for kojic acid production by A. flavus Link 44-1.

Keywords: Aspergillus flavus, kojic acid, pineapple residues, solid state fermentation.

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Authors: Su-Hyun Cho, Chang-U Chae

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Environmental impact assessment techniques have been developed as a result of the worldwide efforts to reduce the environmental impact of global warming. By using the quantification method in the construction industry, it is now possible to manage the greenhouse gas is to systematically evaluate the impact on the environment over the entire construction process. In particular, the proportion of greenhouse gas emissions at the production stage of construction material occupied is high, and efforts are needed in particular in the construction field. In this research, intended for concrete products for the construction materials, by using the LCA method, we compared the results of environmental impact assessment and carbon emissions of developing products that have been applied low-carbon technologies compared to existing products. As a results, by introducing a raw material of industrial waste, showed carbon reduction. Through a comparison of the carbon emission reduction effect of low carbon technologies, it is intended to provide academic data for the evaluation of greenhouse gases in the construction sector and the development of low carbon technologies of the future.

Keywords: CO2 Emissions, CO2 Reduction, Ready-mixed Concrete, Environmental Impact Assessment.

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Authors: Chih-Ming Wang, Chih-Yu Wen, Ying-Chung Chen, Chun-Chieh Wang, Chien-Chung Hsu, Jui-Yang Chang, Jyun-Min Lin

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In this study, we developed a complementary electrochromic device consisting of WO₃ and NiO films fabricated by rf-magnetron sputtered. The electrochromic properties of WO₃ and NiO films were investigated using cyclic voltammograms (CV), performed on WO₃ and NiO films immersed in an electrolyte of 1 M LiClO₄ in propylene carbonate (PC). Optical and electrochemical of the films, as a function of coloration–bleaching cycle, were characterized using an UV-Vis-NIR spectrophotometer and cyclic voltammetry (CV). After investigating the properties of WO₃ film, NiO film, and complementary electrochromic devices, we concluded that this device provides good reversibility, low power consumption of -2.5 V in color state, high variation of transmittance of 58.96%, changes in optical density of 0.81 and good memory effect under open-circuit conditions. In addition, electrochromic component penetration rate can be retained below 20% within 24h, showing preferred memory features; however, component coloring and bleaching response time are about 33s.

Keywords: Complementary electrochromic device, Rf-magnetron sputtered, Transmittance, Memory effect, Optical density change

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Authors: Ubaidillah Zuhdi, Shunsuke Mori, Kazuhisa Kamegai

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The purpose of this study is to forecast the influences of information and communication technology (ICT) on the structural changes of Japanese economies. In this study, input-output (IO) and statistical approaches are used as analysis instruments. More specifically, this study employs Leontief IO coefficients and constrained multivariate regression (CMR) model in order to achieve the purpose. The periods of initial and forecast in this study are 2005 and 2015, respectively. In this study, ICT is represented by ICT capital stocks. This study conducts two levels of analysis, namely macro and micro. The results of macro level analysis show that the dynamics of Japanese economies on the forecast period, relative to the initial period, are not so high. We focus on (1) commerce, (2) business services and office supplies, and (3) personal services sectors when conducting the analysis of the micro level. Further, we analyze its specific IO coefficients when doing this analysis. The results of the analysis explain that ICT gives a strong influence on the changes of these coefficients from initial to forecast periods.

Keywords: Forecast, ICT, Structural changes, Japanese economies.

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Authors: Yuyun, Fritz Akhmad Nuzir, Bart Julien Dewancker

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Check-in locations on social media provide information about an individual’s location. The millions of units of data generated from these sites provide knowledge for human activity. In this research, we used a geolocation service and users’ texts posted on Twitter social media to analyze human mobility. Our research will answer the questions; what are the movement patterns of a citizen? And, how far do people travel in the city? We explore the people trajectory of 201,118 check-ins and 22,318 users over a period of one month in Makassar city, Indonesia. To accommodate individual mobility, the authors only analyze the users with check-in activity greater than 30 times. We used sampling method with a systematic sampling approach to assign the research sample. The study found that the individual movement shows a high degree of regularity and intensity in certain places. The other finding found that the average distance an urban inhabitant can travel per day is as far as 9.6 km.

Keywords: Mobility, check-in, distance, Twitter.

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Authors: Vishal Awasthi, Krishna Raj

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Unwanted side effects because of spectral aliasing and spectral imaging during signal processing would be the major concern over the sampling rate alteration. Multirate-multistage implementation of digital filter could come about a large computational saving than single rate filter suitable for sample rate conversion. This implementation can further improve through high-level architectural transformation in circuit level. Reallocating registers and  relocating flip-flops across logic gates through retiming certainly a prominent sequential transformation technology, that optimize hardware circuits to achieve faster clocking speed without affecting the functionality. In this paper, we proposed an efficient compensated cascade Integrator comb (CIC) decimation filter structure that analyze the consequence of filter order variation which has a retimed FIR filter being compensator while using the cutset retiming technique and achieved an improvement in the passband droop by 14% to 39%, in computation time by 38.04%, 25.78%, 12.21%, 6.69% and 4.44% and reduction in path delay by 62.27%, 72%, 86.63%, 91.56% and 94.42% of 3, 6, 8, 12 and 24 order filter respectively than the non-retimed CIC compensation filter.

Keywords: Multirate Filtering, CIC decimation filter, Compensation theory, Retiming, Retiming algorithm, Filter order, Synchronous dataflow graph.

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Authors: Saktioto, F.D Ismail, P.P. Yupapin, J. Ali

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The equilibrium process of plasma nitrogen species by chemical kinetic reactions along various pressures is successfully investigated. The equilibrium process is required in industrial application to obtain the stable condition when heating up the material for having homogenous reaction. Nitrogen species densities is modeled by a continuity equation and extended Arrhenius form. These equations are used to integrate the change of density over the time. The integration is to acquire density and the reaction rate of each reaction where temperature and time dependence are imposed. A comparison is made with global model within pressure range of 1- 100mTorr and the temperature of electron is set to be higher than other nitrogen species. The results shows that the chemical kinetic model only agrees for high pressure because of no power imposed; while the global model considers the external power along the pressure range then the electron and nitrogen species give highly quantity densities by factor of 3 to 5.

Keywords: chemical kinetic model, Arrhenius equation, nitrogen plasma, low pressure discharge

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Authors: J. Daba, J. Dubois

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In this work, we improve a previously developed segmentation scheme aimed at extracting edge information from speckled images using a maximum likelihood edge detector. The scheme was based on finding a threshold for the probability density function of a new kernel defined as the arithmetic mean-to-geometric mean ratio field over a circular neighborhood set and, in a general context, is founded on a likelihood random field model (LRFM). The segmentation algorithm was applied to discriminated speckle areas obtained using simple elliptic discriminant functions based on measures of the signal-to-noise ratio with fractional order moments. A rigorous stochastic analysis was used to derive an exact expression for the cumulative density function of the probability density function of the random field. Based on this, an accurate probability of error was derived and the performance of the scheme was analysed. The improved segmentation scheme performed well for both simulated and real images and showed superior results to those previously obtained using the original LRFM scheme and standard edge detection methods. In particular, the false alarm probability was markedly lower than that of the original LRFM method with oversegmentation artifacts virtually eliminated. The importance of this work lies in the development of a stochastic-based segmentation, allowing an accurate quantification of the probability of false detection. Non visual quantification and misclassification in medical ultrasound speckled images is relatively new and is of interest to clinicians.

Keywords: Discriminant function, false alarm, segmentation, signal-to-noise ratio, skewness, speckle.

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Authors: M. Sajjadnejad, H. Omidvar, M. Javanbakht, A. Mozafari

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Pure nickel coatings have been successfully electrodeposited on copper substrates by the pulse plating technique. The influence of current density, duty cycle and pulse frequency on the surface morphology, crystal orientation, and microhardness was determined. It was found that the crystallite size of the deposit increases with increasing current density and duty cycle. The crystal orientation progressively changed from a random texture at 1 A/dm2 to (200) texture at 10 A/dm2. Increasing pulse frequency resulted in increased texture coefficient and peak intensity of (111) reflection. An increase in duty cycle resulted in considerable increase in texture coefficient and peak intensity of (311) reflection. Coatings obtained at high current densities and duty cycle present a mixed morphology of small and large grains. Maximum microhardness of 193 Hv was achieved at 4 A/dm2, 10 Hz and duty cycle of 50%. Nickel coatings with (200) texture are ductile while (111) texture improves the microhardness of the coatings.

Keywords: Current density, Duty cycle, Microstructure, Nickel, Pulse frequency.

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Authors: Abdulfatah Al-Jaradi, Marzoq Ali Odhah, Abdulnasser A. Haza’a

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Background: Antenatal care can be defined as the care provided by skilled healthcare professionals to pregnant women and adolescent girls to ensure the best health conditions for both mother and baby during pregnancy. The components of Antenatal Care (ANC) include risk identification; prevention and management of pregnancy-related or concurrent diseases; and health education and health promotion. The aim of this study: to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pregnant women regarding ANC. Methodology: A descriptive knowledge, attitude, and practice (KAP) study was conducted in public hospitals in Sana'a City, Yemen. The study population included all pregnant women that intended to the prenatal department and clinical outpatient department; the final sample size was 371 pregnant women. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect the data, statistical package for social sciences SPSS was used to data analysis. The results: Most (79%) of pregnant women had correct answers in total knowledge regarding ANC, and about two-thirds (67%) of pregnant women had performance practice regarding ANC and two-third (68%) of pregnant women had a positive attitude. Conclusions: More than three quarter of pregnant women had good knowledge level, most of pregnant women had moderate practice level, and more than two-thirds of pregnant women had a positive attitude regarding antenatal care. There was a statistically significant association between overall knowledge and practice level toward ANC and demographic characteristics of pregnant women, at P-value ≤ 0.05. Recommendations: we recommended more education and training courses, lecturers, and education sessions in clinical facilitators focused on ANC, which relies on evidence-based interventions provided to women during pregnancy by skilled healthcare providers such as midwives, doctors, and nurses.

Keywords: Antenatal care, knowledge, practice, attitude, pregnant women.

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Authors: S. M. Feroz, K. Yoshimura, A. Hagihara

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The forest stand consisted of four layers. The species composition between the third and the bottom layers was almost similar, whereas it was almost exclusive between the top and the lower three layers. The values of Shannon-s index H' and Pielou-s index J ' tended to increase from the bottom layer upward, except for H' -value of the top layer. The values of H' and J ' were 4.21 bit and 0.73, respectively, for the total stand. High woody species diversity of the forest depended on large trees in the upper layers, which trend was different from a subtropical evergreen broadleaf forest grown in silicate habitat in the northern part of Okinawa Island. The spatial distribution of trees was overlapped between the third and the bottom layers, whereas it was independent or slightly exclusive between the top and the lower three layers. Mean tree weight of each layer decreased from the top toward the bottom layer, whereas the corresponding tree density increased from the top downward. This relationship was analogous to the process of self-thinning plant populations.

Keywords: Canopy multi-layering, limestone habitat, mean tree weight-density relationship, species diversity, subtropical forest.

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Authors: I. Abasi, L. Fata, M. Sadeghi, S. Banihashemi, A. Mohammadee

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Background: Dimensional and transdiagnostic approaches as a result of high comorbidity among mental disorders have captured researchers and clinicians interests for exploring the latent factors to development and maintenance of some psychological disorders. The goal of present study is comparing some of these common factors between generalized anxiety disorder and unipolar mood disorder. Methods: 27 patients with generalized anxiety disorder, 29 patients with depression disorder were recruited by using SCID-I and 69 non-clinical populations were selected by using GHQ cut off point. MANCOVA was used for analyzing data. Results: The results show that worry, rumination, intolerance of uncertainty, maladaptive metacognitive beliefs, and experiential avoidance were all significantly different between GAD and unipolar mood disorder groups. However, there weren’t any significant differences in difficulties in emotion regulation and neuroticism between GAD and unipolar mood disorder groups. Discussion: Results indicate that although there are some transdiagnostic and common factors in GAD and unipolar mood disorder, there may be some specific vulnerability factors for each disorder. Further study is needed for answering these questions.

Keywords: Depression, emotion regulation, generalized anxiety disorder, transdiagnostic.

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Authors: P. Kanakasabapathy, Radhika. S,

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In the competitive electricity market environment, the profit of the pumped-storage plant in the energy market can be maximized by operating it as a generator, when market clearing price is high and as a pump, to pump water from lower reservoir to upper reservoir, when the price is low. An optimal self-scheduling plan has been developed for a pumped-storage plant, carried out on weekly basis in order to maximize the profit of the plant, keeping into account of all the major uncertainties such as the sudden ancillary service delivery request and the price forecasting errors. For a pumped storage power plant to operate in a real time market successive self scheduling has to be done by considering the forecast of the day-ahead market and the modified reservoir storage due to the ancillary service request of the previous day. Sliding Window Technique has been used for successive self scheduling to ensure profit for the plant.

Keywords: Ancillary services, BPSO, Power System Economics (Electricity markets), Self-Scheduling, Sliding Window Technique.

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Authors: M. Qorbani

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Neuromuscular control of posture as understood through studies of responses to mechanical sudden acceleration automatically has been previously demonstrated in individuals with chronic ankle instability (CAI), but the presence of acute condition has not been previously explored specially in a sudden acceleration. The aim of this study was to determine neuromuscular control pattern in those with and without unilateral acute ankle sprains. Design: Case - control. Setting: University research laboratory. The sinker–card protocol with surface translation was be used as a sudden acceleration protocol with study of EMG upon 4 posture stabilizer muscles in two sides of the body in response to sudden acceleration in forward and backward directions. 20 young adult women in two groups (10 LAS; 23.9 ± 2.03 yrs and 10 normal; 26.4 ± 3.2 yrs). The data of EMG were assessed by using multivariate test and one-way repeated measures 2×2×4 ANOVA (P< 0.05). The results showed a significant muscle by direction interaction. Higher TA activity of left and right side in LAS group than normal group in forward direction significantly be showed. Higher MGR activity in normal group than LAS group in backward direction significantly showed. These findings suggest that compared two sides of the body in two directions for 4 muscles EMG activities between and within group for neuromuscular control of posture in avoiding fall. EMG activations of two sides of the body in lateral ankle sprain (LAS) patients were symmetric significantly. Acute ankle instability following once ankle sprains caused to coordinated temporal spatial patterns and strategy selection.

Keywords: Neuromuscular response, sEMG, Lateral Ankle Sprain, posture.

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Authors: Wee A. S. S. Lee, S. Rengasamy, Lim Boon Hooi, C. Varatharajoo, M. Ibrahim K. Azeez

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This study was conducted to examine the effectiveness of Teaching Games For Understanding (TGFU) in improving the hockey tactical skills and state self-confidence among 16-year-old students. Two hundred fifty-nine (259) school students were selected for the study based on the intact sampling method. One class was used as the control group (Boys=60, Girls=70), while another as the treatment group (Boys=60, Girls=69) underwent intervention with TGFU in physical education class conducted twice a week for four weeks. The Games Performance Assessment Instrument was used to observe the hockey tactical skills and The State Self-Confidence Inventory was used to determine the state of self-confidence among the students. After four weeks, ANCOVA analysis indicated the treatment groups had significant improvement in hockey tactical skills with F (1, 118) =313.37, p<.05 for school boys, and F (1, 136) =92.62, p<.05 for school girls. The MannWhitney U test also showed the treatment groups had significant improvement in state self-confidence with U=428.50, z= -7.22, p < .05, r=.06 for school boys. ANCOVA analysis also showed the treatment group had significant improvement in state self-confidence with F (1, 136) =74.40, p<.05 for school girls. This indicates that TGFU in a 40-minute physical education class conducted twice a week for four weeks can significantly improve the hockey tactical skills and state self-confidence among 16-year-old students. The findings give new knowledge to PE teachers to implement the TGFU method as it enhances the hockey tactical skills and state selfconfidence among 16-year-old students. Some recommendation was suggested for future research. 

Keywords: Hockey tactical skills, state self-confidence, teaching games for understanding, traditional teaching.

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Authors: Binnur Sagbas

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Artificial joint replacements such as total knee and total hip prosthesis have been applied to the patients who affected by osteoarthritis. Although different material combinations are used for these joints, biopolymers are most commonly preferred materials especially for acetabular cup and tibial component of hip and knee joints respectively. The main limitation that shortens the service life of these prostheses is wear. Wear is complicated phenomena and it must be considered with friction and lubrication. In this study, micro wave (MW) induced argon+oxygen plasma surface modification were applied on ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) and vitamin E blended UHMWPE (VE-UHMWPE) biopolymer surfaces to improve surface wettability and wear resistance of the surfaces. Contact angel measurement method was used for determination of wettability. Ball-on-disc wear test was applied under 25% bovine serum lubrication conditions. The results show that surface wettability and wear resistance of both material samples were increased by plasma surface modification.

Keywords: Artificial joints, plasma surface modification, UHMWPE, vitamin E, wear.

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Authors: Jidapa Manaso, Apanee Luengnaruemitchai, Sujitra Wongkasemjit

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Pretreatment is an essential step in the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass to fermentable sugar that used for biobutanol production. Among pretreatment processes, microwave is considered to improve pretreatment efficiency due to its high heating efficiency, easy operation, and easily to combine with chemical reaction. The main objectives of this work are to investigate the feasibility of microwave pretreatment to enhance enzymatic hydrolysis of corncobs and to determine the optimal conditions using response surface methodology. Corncobs were pretreated via two-stage pretreatment in dilute sodium hydroxide (2 %) followed by dilute sulfuric acid 1 %. Pretreated corncobs were subjected to enzymatic hydrolysis to produce reducing sugar. Statistical experimental design was used to optimize pretreatment parameters including temperature, residence time and solid-to-liquid ratio to achieve the highest amount of glucose. The results revealed that solid-to-liquid ratio and temperature had a significant effect on the amount of glucose.

Keywords: Corncobs, Microwave radiation, Pretreatment, Response Surface Methodology.

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Authors: Mannan Mridha, Mohammad S. Islam

Abstract:

Innovative medical technologies offer more effective medical care, with less risk to patient and healthcare personnel. Medical technology and devices when properly used provide better data, precise monitoring and less invasive treatments and can be more targeted and often less costly. The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) equipped with patient monitoring, respiratory and cardiac support, pain management, emergency resuscitation and life support devices is particularly prone to medical errors for various reasons. Many people in the developing countries now wonder whether their visit to hospital might harm rather than help them. This is because; clinicians in the developing countries are required to maintain an increasing workload with limited resources and absence of well-functioning safety system. A team of experts from the medical, biomedical and clinical engineering in Sweden and Bangladesh have worked together to study the incidents, adverse events at the ICU in Bangladesh. The study included both public and private hospitals to provide a better understanding for physical structure, organization and practice in operating processes of care, and the occurrence of adverse outcomes the errors, risks and accidents related to medical devices at the ICU, and to develop a ICT based support system in order to reduce hazards and errors and thus improve the quality of performance, care and cost effectiveness at the ICU. Concrete recommendations and guidelines have been made for preparing appropriate ICT related tools and methods for improving the routine for use of medical devices, reporting and analyzing of the incidents at the ICU in order to reduce the number of undetected and unsolved incidents and thus improve the patient safety.

Keywords: Accidents reporting system, patient car and safety, safe medical devices.

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Authors: Somaye Abdollahi Pour, Mohsen Saneei

Abstract:

This paper describes a novel monitoring scheme to minimize total active power in digital circuits depend on the demand frequency, by adjusting automatically both supply voltage and threshold voltages based on circuit operating conditions such as temperature, process variations, and desirable frequency. The delay monitoring results, will be control and apply so as to be maintained at the minimum value at which the chip is able to operate for a given clock frequency. Design details of power monitor are examined using simulation framework in 32nm BTPM model CMOS process. Experimental results show the overhead of proposed circuit in terms of its power consumption is about 40 μW for 32nm technology; moreover the results show that our proposed circuit design is not far sensitive to the temperature variations and also process variations. Besides, uses the simple blocks which offer good sensitivity, high speed, the continuously feedback loop. This design provides up to 40% reduction in power consumption in active mode.

Keywords: active mode, delay monitor, body biasing, VDD scaling, low power.

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Authors: Wen-Tsann Lin, Yung-Tsan Jou, Yih-Chuan Wu, Yuan-Du Hsiao

Abstract:

The Emergency Department of a medical center in Taiwan cooperated to conduct the research. A predictive model of triage system is contracted from the contract procedure, selection of parameters to sample screening. 2,000 pieces of data needed for the patients is chosen randomly by the computer. After three categorizations of data mining (Multi-group Discriminant Analysis, Multinomial Logistic Regression, Back-propagation Neural Networks), it is found that Back-propagation Neural Networks can best distinguish the patients- extent of emergency, and the accuracy rate can reach to as high as 95.1%. The Back-propagation Neural Networks that has the highest accuracy rate is simulated into the triage acuity expert system in this research. Data mining applied to the predictive model of the triage acuity expert system can be updated regularly for both the improvement of the system and for education training, and will not be affected by subjective factors.

Keywords: Back-propagation Neural Networks, Data Mining, Emergency Department, Triage System.

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Authors: E. Kam, G. Karahan, H. Aslıyuksek, A. Bozkurt

Abstract:

This study aims to determine the natural radioactivity levels in some foodstuffs produced in Turkey. For this purpose, 48 different foods samples were collected from different land parcels throughout the country. All samples were analyzed to designate both gross alpha and gross beta radioactivities and the radionuclides’ concentrations. The gross alpha radioactivities were measured as below 1 Bq kg^-1 in most of the samples, some of them being due to the detection limit of the counting system. The gross beta radioactivity levels ranged from 1.8 Bq kg^-1 to 453 Bq kg^-1, larger levels being observed in leguminous seeds while the highest level being in haricot bean. The concentrations of natural radionuclides in the foodstuffs were investigated by the method of gamma spectroscopy. High levels of ⁴⁰K were measured in all the samples, the highest activities being again in leguminous seeds. Low concentrations of ²³⁸U and ²²⁶Ra were found in some of the samples, which are comparable to the reported results in the literature. Based on the activity concentrations obtained in this study, average annual effective dose equivalents for the radionuclides ²²⁶Ra, ²³⁸U, and ⁴⁰K were calculated as 77.416 µSv y^-1, 0.978 µSv y^-1, and 140.55 µSv y^-1, respectively.

Keywords: Foods, radioactivity, gross alpha, gross beta, annual equivalent dose, Turkey.

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Authors: Mojtaba Heydarizad

Abstract:

Zagros mountain range is a very important precipitation zone in Iran as it receives high average annual precipitation compared to other parts of this country. Although this region is important precipitation zone in semi-arid an arid country like Iran, accurate method to study water resources in this region has not been applied yet. In this study, stable isotope δ¹⁸O content of precipitation and groundwater resources showed spatial variations across Zagros region as southern parts of Zagros region showed more enriched isotope values compared to the northern parts. This is normal as southern Zagros region is much drier with higher air temperature and evaporation compared to northern parts. In addition, the spatial variations of stable isotope δ¹⁸O in precipitation in Zagros region have been simulated by the models which consider the altitude and latitude variations as input to simulate δ¹⁸O in precipitation.

Keywords: Groundwater, precipitation, simulation, stable isotopes, Zagros region.

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