Search results for: primary education

Authors: S. Usha, S. Arumugam

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Cancer affects people globally with breast cancer being a leading killer. Breast cancer is due to the uncontrollable multiplication of cells resulting in a tumour or neoplasm. Tumours are called ‘benign’ when cancerous cells do not ravage other body tissues and ‘malignant’ if they do so. As mammography is an effective breast cancer detection tool at an early stage which is the most treatable stage it is the primary imaging modality for screening and diagnosis of this cancer type. This paper presents an automatic mammogram classification technique using wavelet and Gabor filter. Correlation feature selection is used to reduce the feature set and selected features are classified using different decision trees.

Keywords: Breast Cancer, Mammogram, Symlet Wavelets, Gabor Filters, Decision Trees

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Authors: Amin Eisazadeh, Khairul Anuar Kassim, Hadi Nur

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The expansive nature of soils containing high amounts of clay minerals can be altered through chemical stabilization, resulting in a material suitable for construction purposes. The primary objective of this investigation was to study the changes induced in the molecular structure of phosphoric acid stabilized bentonite and lateritic soil using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Based on the obtained data, it was found that a surface alteration mechanism was the main reason responsible for the improvement of treated soils. Furthermore, the results indicated that the Al present in the octahedral layer of clay minerals were more amenable to chemical attacks and also partly responsible for the formation of new products.

Keywords: Bentonite, Laterite clay, Molecularcharacterization, Phosphoric acid, Stabilization

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Authors: Amah Nnachi Lofty, Oyefeso Olufemi, Ibiam Udu Ama

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New and more powerful communications technologies continue to emerge at a rapid pace and their uses in education are widespread and the impact remarkable in the developing societies. This study investigates Mobile Collaboration Learning Technique (MCLT) on learners’ outcome among students in tertiary institutions of developing nations (a case of Nigeria students). It examines the significance of retention achievement scores of students taught using mobile collaboration and conventional method. The sample consisted of 120 students using Stratified random sampling method. Five research questions and hypotheses were formulated, and tested at 0.05 level of significance. A student achievement test (SAT) was made of 40 items of multiple-choice objective type, developed and validated for data collection by professionals. The SAT was administered to students as pre-test and post-test. The data were analyzed using t-test statistic to test the hypotheses. The result indicated that students taught using MCLT performed significantly better than their counterparts using the conventional method of instruction. Also, there was no significant difference in the post-test performance scores of male and female students taught using MCLT. Based on the findings, the following submissions was made that: Mobile collaboration system be encouraged in the institutions to boost knowledge sharing among learners, workshop and training should be organized to train teachers on the use of this technique, schools and government should consistently align curriculum standard to trends of technological dictates and formulate policies and procedures towards responsible use of MCLT.

Keywords: Education, communication, learning, mobile collaboration, technology.

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Authors: Adnan Al-Smadi

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One of the primary uses of higher order statistics in signal processing has been for detecting and estimation of non- Gaussian signals in Gaussian noise of unknown covariance. This is motivated by the ability of higher order statistics to suppress additive Gaussian noise. In this paper, several methods to test for non- Gaussianity of a given process are presented. These methods include histogram plot, kurtosis test, and hypothesis testing using cumulants and bispectrum of the available sequence. The hypothesis testing is performed by constructing a statistic to test whether the bispectrum of the given signal is non-zero. A zero bispectrum is not a proof of Gaussianity. Hence, other tests such as the kurtosis test should be employed. Examples are given to demonstrate the performance of the presented methods.

Keywords: Non-Gaussian, bispectrum, kurtosis, hypothesistesting, histogram.

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Authors: Mohammed Ibrahim M, Anupama R.

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Robustness is one of the primary performance criteria for an Intelligent Video Surveillance (IVS) system. One of the key factors in enhancing the robustness of dynamic video analysis is,providing accurate and reliable means for shadow detection. If left undetected, shadow pixels may result in incorrect object tracking and classification, as it tends to distort localization and measurement information. Most of the algorithms proposed in literature are computationally expensive; some to the extent of equalling computational requirement of motion detection. In this paper, the homogeneity property of shadows is explored in a novel way for shadow detection. An adaptive division image (which highlights homogeneity property of shadows) analysis followed by a relatively simpler projection histogram analysis for penumbra suppression is the key novelty in our approach.

Keywords: homogeneity, penumbra, projection histogram, shadow correction

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Authors: Bilgehan Gültekin, Tuba Gültekin

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It is quite essential to form dialogue mechanisms and dialogue channels to solve intercultural communication issues. Therefore, every country should develop a intercultural education project which aims to resolve international communication issues. For proper mediation training, the first step is to reach an agreement on the actors to run the project. The strongest mediation mechanisms in the world should be analyzed and initiated within the educational policies. A communication-based mediation model should be developed for international mediation training. Mediators can use their convincing communication skills as a part of this model. At the first, fundamental stages of the mediation training should be specified within the scope of the model. Another important topic at this point is common sence and peace leaders to act as an ombudsman in this process. Especially for solving some social issues and conflicts, common sense leaders acting as an ombudsman would lead to effective communication. In mediation training that is run by universities and non-governmental organizations, another phase is to focus on conducting the meetings. In intercultural mediation training, one of the most critical topics is to conduct the meeting traffic and performing a shuttle diplomacy. Meeting traffic is where the mediator organizes meetings with the parties with initiative powers, in order to contribute to the solution of the issue, and schedule these meetings. In this notice titled “ Intercultural mediation training and the training process of common sense leaders by the leadership of universities communication and artistic campaigns" , communication models and strategies about this topic will be constructed and an intercultural art activities and perspectives will be presented.

Keywords: Intercultural communication, mediation education, common sense leaders, artistic sensitivity

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Authors: Peña Aguilar Juan M., Arriaga Barrera H., Velázquez Alejos Miguel, Genis Ernesto, Valencia Pérez L. R., Bermúdez Peña M. Carmen

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To give a general view of the innovation environments is the aim of this paper, we pretend to make an analysis between Mexico and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa- countries belonging to the group of five major emerging economies). The comparison takes by reference a set of various indicators that directly or indirectly affect innovation in a positive or negative way. Firstly, a research to obtain the values of each of the indicators was conducted, considering the main primary sources, then, within a set of radial charts is presented the resulting values of each nation and a comparison between them. Finally, a description of the gaps between Mexico and the BRICS were established, including the areas of opportunity for Mexico

Keywords: Innovation, triple-helix, innovation systems, indicators.

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Authors: E. Grochowska-Niedworok, K. Brukało, M. Hadasik, M. Kardas

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Consumption of vegetables by school children and adolescents is essential for their normal growth, development and health, but a significant minority of the world's population consumes the right amount of these products. The aim of the study was to evaluate the preferences and frequency of consumption of vegetables by school children and adolescents. It has been assumed that effectively implemented nutrition education programs should have an impact on increasing the frequency of vegetable consumption among the recipients. The study covered 514 students of five schools in the Opole Voivodeship aged 9 years to 22 years. The research tool was an author's questionnaire, which consisted of closed questions on the frequency of vegetable consumption and the use of 10 ways to treat them. Preferences and frequencies are shown in percentages, while correlations were estimated on the basis of Cramer`s V and gamma coefficients. In each of the examined age groups, the relationship between sex and vegetable consumption (the Cramer`s V coefficient value was 0.06 to 0.38) was determined and the various methods of culinary processing were used (V Craméra was 0.08 to 0.34). For both sexes, the relationship between age and frequency of vegetable consumption was shown (gamma values ranged from ~ 0.00 to 0.39) and different cooking methods (gamma values were 0.01 to 0.22). The most important determinant of nutritional choices is the taste and availability of products. The fact that they have a positive effect on their health is only in third position. As has been shown, obesity prevention programs can not only address nutrition education but also teach about new flavors and increase the availability of healthy foods. In addition, the frequency of vegetable consumption can be a good indicator reflecting the healthy behaviors of children and adolescents.

Keywords: Children and adolescents, frequency, welfare rate, vegetables.

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Authors: H. Urbancova, J. Urbanec

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Today the intangible assets are the capital of knowledge and are the most important and the most valuable resource for organizations. All employees have knowledge independently of the kind of jobs they do. Knowledge is thus an asset, which influences business operations. The objective of this article is to identify knowledge continuity as an objective of business continuity management. The article has been prepared based on the analysis of secondary sources and the evaluation of primary sources of data by means of a quantitative survey conducted in the Czech Republic. The conclusion of the article is that organizations that apply business continuity management do not focus on the preservation of the knowledge of key employees. Organizations ensure knowledge continuity only intuitively, on a random basis, non-systematically and discontinuously. The non-ensuring of knowledge continuity represents a threat of loss of key knowledge for organizations and can also negatively affect business continuity.

Keywords: Business continuity, knowledge, organizations, survey.

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Authors: Samson T. Obafemi, Seraphin D. Eyono Obono

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Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are pervasive nowadays, including in education where they are expected to improve the performance of learners. However, the hope placed in ICTs to find viable solutions to the problem of poor academic performance in schools in the developing world has not yet yielded the expected benefits. This problem serves as a motivation to this study whose aim is to examine the perceptions of educators on the advantages and disadvantages of e-learning. This aim will be subdivided into two types of research objectives. Objectives on the identification and design of theories and models will be achieved using content analysis and literature review. However, the objective on the empirical testing of such theories and models will be achieved through the survey of educators from different schools in the Pinetown District of the South African Kwazulu-Natal province. SPSS is used to quantitatively analyse the data collected by the questionnaire of this survey using descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations after assessing the validity and the reliability of the data. The main hypothesis driving this study is that there is a relationship between the demographics of educators’ and their adherence to learning theories on one side, and their perceptions on the advantages and disadvantages of e-learning on the other side, as argued by existing research; but this research views these learning theories under three perspectives: educators’ adherence to self-regulated learning, to constructivism, and to progressivism. This hypothesis was fully confirmed by the empirical study except for the demographic factor where teachers’ level of education was found to be the only demographic factor affecting the perceptions of educators on the advantages and disadvantages of e-learning.

Keywords: Academic performance, e-learning, Learning theories, Teaching and Learning.

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Authors: Yaser E. Hawas, Md. Didarul Alam

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Rollover crashes are complex events entailing interactions of driver, road, vehicle, and environmental factors. The primary objective of this paper is to present an empirical approach that can be used to characterise the rollover crashes and to identify some of the important factors that may lead to rollovers. Among the studied factors are the vehicle types and the rollover occurrence rate after hitting various barrier types. The carried analysis indicated that 71% of the rollover crashes occurred after impact and the type of rollover initiation is “trip/turn over” (nearly 50%). It was also found that light trucks (LTVs) vehicles are more likely to rollover than the sedan vehicles. Barrier impacts are associated with increased incidence of rollover.

Keywords: Empirical, hitting barrier, in-depth crash investigation, rollover, severe crash.

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Authors: Kari Björn, Mikael Soini

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Higher Education system reforms, especially Finnish system of Universities of Applied Sciences in 2014 are discussed. The new steering model is based on major legislative changes, output-oriented funding and open information. The governmental steering reform, especially the financial model and the resulting institutional level responses, such as a curriculum reforms are discussed, focusing especially in engineering programs. The paper is motivated by management need to establish objective steering-related performance indicators and to apply them consistently across all educational programs. The close relationship to governmental steering and funding model imply that internally derived indicators can be directly applied. Metropolia University of Applied Sciences (MUAS) as a case institution is briefly introduced, focusing on engineering education in Information and Communications Technology (ICT), and its related programs. The reform forced consolidation of previously separate smaller programs into fewer units of student application. New curriculum ICT students have a common first year before they apply for a Major. A framework of parallel and longitudinal comparisons is introduced and used across Majors in two campuses. The new externally introduced performance criteria are applied internally on ICT Majors using data ex-ante and ex-post of program merger.  A comparative performance of the Majors after completion of joint first year is established, focusing on previously omitted Majors for completeness of analysis. Some new research questions resulting from transfer of Majors between campuses and quota setting are discussed. Practical orientation identifies best practices to share or targets needing most attention for improvement. This level of analysis is directly applicable at student group and teaching team level, where corrective actions are possible, when identified. The analysis is quantitative and the nature of the corrective actions are not discussed. Causal relationships and factor analysis are omitted, because campuses, their staff and various pedagogical implementation details contain still too many undetermined factors for our limited data. Such qualitative analysis is left for further research. Further study must, however, be guided by the relevance of the observations.

Keywords: Engineering education, integrated curriculum, learning outcomes, performance measurement.

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Authors: Ayaka Kamiyama, Akihiro Iijima

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On March 11, 2011, the East coast of Japan was hit by one of the strongest earthquakes in history, followed by a devastating tsunami. Although most lifelines, infrastructure, and public facilities have been restored gradually, recovery efforts in terms of disposal of disaster waste and revival of primary industry are lagging. This study presents a summary of the damage inflicted by the earthquake and the current status of reconstruction in the disaster area. Moreover, we discuss the current trends and future perspectives on recently implemented eco-friendly reconstruction projects and focus on the pro-environmental behavior of disaster victims which is emerging as a result of the energy shortage after the earthquake. Finally, we offer ideas for initiatives for the next stage of the reconstruction policies.

Keywords: Agriculture, Disaster wastes, Pro-environmental behavior, Reconstruction policies.

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Authors: Farai Nyabadza

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The functional response of an infective is the relationship between an infected individual-s infection rate and the abundance of the number of susceptibles that one can potentially be infected. In this paper, we consider defensive attitudes for HIV prevention (primary prevention) while at the same time emphasizing on offensive attitudes that reduce infection for those infected (secondary prevention). We look at how defenses can protect an uninfected individual in the case where high risk groups such as commercial sex workers and those who deliberately go out to look for partners. We propose an infection cycle that begins with a search, then an encounter, a proposal and contact. The infection cycle illustrates the various steps an infected individual goes through to successfully infect a susceptible. For heterogeneous transmission of HIV, there will be no infection unless there is contact. The ability to avoid an encounter, detection, proposal and contact constitute defense.

Keywords: Functional response, Infection cycle, Prevention, Defences, SSS equation.

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Authors: Dariush Jafari, S. Mostafa Nowee

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In this study a ternary system containing sodium chloride as solute, water as primary solvent and ethanol as the antisolvent was considered to investigate the application of artificial neural network (ANN) in prediction of sodium solubility in the mixture of water as the solvent and ethanol as the antisolvent. The system was previously studied using by Extended UNIQUAC model by the authors of this study. The comparison between the results of the two models shows an excellent agreement between them (R2=0.99), and also approves the capability of ANN to predict the thermodynamic behavior of ternary electrolyte systems which are difficult to model.

Keywords: Thermodynamic modeling, ANN, solubility, ternary electrolyte system.

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Authors: Luminiţa Duţică, Gheorghe Duţică

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Many of the interrogations or dilemmas of the contemporary world found the answer in what was generically called the appeal to matrix. This genuine spiritual exercise of re-connection of the present to origins, to the primary source, revealed the ontological condition of timelessness, ahistorical, immutable (epi)phenomena, of those pure essences concentrated in the archetypal-referential layer of the human existence. The musical creation was no exception to this trend, the impasse generated by the deterministic excesses of the whole serialism or, conversely, by some questionable results of the extreme indeterminism proper to the avant-garde movements, stimulating the orientation of many composers to rediscover a universal grammar, as an emanation of a new ‘collective’ order (reverse of the utopian individualism). In this context, the music of oral tradition and therefore the world of the ancient modes represented a true revelation for the composers of the twentieth century, who were suddenly in front of some unsuspected (re)sources, with a major impact on all levels of edification of the musical work: morphology, syntax, timbrality, semantics etc. For the contemporary Romanian creators, the music of rituals, existing in the local archaic culture, opened unsuspected perspectives for which it meant to be a synthetic, inclusive and recoverer vision, where the primary (archetypal) genuine elements merge with the latest achievements of language of the European composers. Thus, anchored in a strong and genuine modal source, the compositions analysed in this paper evoke, in a manner as modern as possible, the atmosphere of some ancestral rituals such as: the invocation of rain during the drought (Paparudele, Scaloianul), funeral ceremony (Bocetul), traditions specific to the winter holidays and new year (Colinda, Cântecul de stea, Sorcova, Folklore traditional dances) etc. The reactivity of those rituals in the sound context of the twentieth century meant potentiating or resizing the archaic spirit of the primordial symbolic entities, in terms of some complexity levels generated by the technique of harmonies of chordal layers, of complex aggregates (gravitational or non-gravitational, geometric), of the mixture polyphonies and with global effect (group, mass), by the technique of heterophony, of texture and cluster, leading to the implementation of some processes of collective improvisation and instrumental theatre.

Keywords: Archetype, improvisation, instrumental theatre, polyphony, ritual.

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Authors: Natalia Podkhodova, Olga Sheremeteva, Mariia Soldaeva

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Creating favourable conditions for students’ comprehension of mathematical content is one of the primary problems in teaching mathematics in secondary school. The fact of comprehension includes the ability to build a working situational model and thus becomes an important means of solving mathematical problems. This paper describes a holistic approach to teaching mathematics designed to address the primary challenges of such teaching; specifically, the challenge of students’ comprehension. Essentially, this approach consists of (1) establishing links between the attributes of the notion: the sense, the meaning, and the term; (2) taking into account the components of student’s subjective experience—value-based emotions, contextual, procedural and communicative—during the educational process; (3) linking together different ways to present mathematical information; (4) identifying and leveraging the relationships between real, perceptual and conceptual (scientific) mathematical spaces by applying real-life situational modelling. The article describes approaches to the practical use of these foundational concepts. Identifying how proposed methods and techniques influence understanding of material used in teaching mathematics was the primary goal. The study included an experiment in which 256 secondary school students took part: 142 in the study group and 114 in the control group. All students in these groups had similar levels of achievement in math and studied math under the same curriculum. In the course of the experiment, comprehension of two topics — “Derivative” and “Trigonometric functions”—was evaluated. Control group participants were taught using traditional methods. Students in the study group were taught using the holistic method: under teacher’s guidance, they carried out assignments designed to establish linkages between notion’s characteristics, to convert information from one mode of presentation to another, as well as assignments that required the ability to operate with all modes of presentation. Identification, accounting for and transformation of subjective experience were associated with methods of stimulating the emotional value component of the studied mathematical content (discussions of lesson titles, assignments aimed to create study dominants, performing theme-related physical exercise ...) The use of techniques that forms inter-subject notions based on linkages between, perceptual real and mathematical conceptual spaces proved to be of special interest to the students. Results of the experiment were analysed by presenting students in each of the groups with a final test in each of the studied topics. The test included assignments that required building real situational models. Statistical analysis was used to aggregate test results. Pierson criterion x2 was used to reveal statistics significance of results (pass-fail the modelling test). Significant difference of results was revealed (p < 0.001), which allowed to conclude that students in the study group showed better comprehension of mathematical information than those in the control group. The total number of completed assignments of each student was analysed as well, with average results calculated for each group. Statistical significance of result differences against the quantitative criterion (number of completed assignments) was determined using Student’s t-test, which showed that students in the study group completed significantly more assignments than those in the control group (p = 0.0001). Authors thus come to the conclusion that suggested increase in the level of comprehension of study material took place as a result of applying implemented methods and techniques.

Keywords: Comprehension of mathematical content, holistic approach to teaching mathematics in secondary school, subjective experience, technology of the formation of inter-subject notions.

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Authors: Said C. Fares, Mary A. Fares

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It is well documented that introductory computer programming courses are difficult and that failure rates are high. The aim of this project was to reduce the high failure and withdrawal rates in learning to program. This paper presents a number of changes in module organization and instructional delivery system in teaching CS1. Daily out of class help sessions and tutoring services were applied, interactive lectures and laboratories, online resources, and timely feedback were introduced. Five years of data of 563 students in 21 sections was collected and analyzed. The primary results show that the failure and withdrawal rates were cut by more than half. Student surveys indicate a positive evaluation of the modified instructional approach, overall satisfaction with the course and consequently, higher success and retention rates.

Keywords: Failure Rate, Interactive Learning, Student engagement, CS1.

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Authors: Eric Kojo Wu Aikins

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This paper contributes to the debate on the proximate causes of climate change. Also, it discusses the impact of the global temperature increases since the beginning of the twentieth century and the effectiveness of climate change models in isolating the primary cause (anthropogenic influences or natural variability in temperature) of the observed temperature increases that occurred within this period. The paper argues that if climate scientist and policymakers ignore the anthropogenic influence (greenhouse gases) on global warming on the pretense of lack of agreement among various climate models and their inability to account for all the necessary factors of global warming at all levels the current efforts of greenhouse emissions control and global warming as a whole could be exacerbated.

Keywords: Anthropogenic Effects, Arctic, Climate Change, Natural Variability.

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Authors: Hiroshi Katanoda, Mohd Hazwan bin Yusof

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A theoretical investigation from the view point of gas-dynamics and thermodynamics was carried out, in order to clarify the energy separation mechanism in a viscous compressible vortex, as a primary flow element in a uni-flow vortex tube. The mathematical solutions of tangential velocity, density and temperature in a viscous compressible vortical flow were used in this study.It is clear that a total temperature in the vortex core falls well below that distant from the vortex core in the radial direction, causing aregion with higher total temperature,compared to the distant region,peripheral to the vortex core.

Keywords: Energy separation mechanism, theoretical analysis, vortex tube, vortical flow.

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Authors: Nittaya Kerdprasop, Narin Muenrat, Kittisak Kerdprasop

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A learning content management system (LCMS) is an environment to support web-based learning content development. Primary function of the system is to manage the learning process as well as to generate content customized to meet a unique requirement of each learner. Among the available supporting tools offered by several vendors, we propose to enhance the LCMS functionality to individualize the presented content with the induction ability. Our induction technique is based on rough set theory. The induced rules are intended to be the supportive knowledge for guiding the content flow planning. They can also be used as decision rules to help content developers on managing content delivered to individual learner.

Keywords: Decision rules, Knowledge induction, Learning content management system, Rough set.

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Authors: Ahmed Elsayed, Andrew Shea, Nicolas Kelly, John Allison

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In northern European climates, domestic space heating and hot water represents a significant proportion of total primary total primary energy use and meeting these demands from a national electricity grid network supplied by renewable energy sources provides an opportunity for a significant reduction in EU CO₂ emissions. However, in order to adapt to the intermittent nature of renewable energy generation and to avoid co-incident peak electricity usage from consumers that may exceed current capacity, the demand for heat must be decoupled from its generation. Storage of heat within the fabric of dwellings for use some hours, or days, later provides a route to complete decoupling of demand from supply and facilitates the greatly increased use of renewable energy generation into a local or national electricity network. The integration of thermal energy storage into the building fabric for retrieval at a later time requires much evaluation of the many competing thermal, physical, and practical considerations such as the profile and magnitude of heat demand, the duration of storage, charging and discharging rate, storage media, space allocation, etc. In this paper, the authors report investigations of thermal storage in building fabric using concrete material and present an evaluation of several factors that impact upon performance including heating pipe layout, heating fluid flow velocity, storage geometry, thermo-physical material properties, and also present an investigation of alternative storage materials and alternative heat transfer fluids. Reducing the heating pipe spacing from 200 mm to 100 mm enhances the stored energy by 25% and high-performance Vacuum Insulation results in heat loss flux of less than 3 W/m², compared to 22 W/m² for the more conventional EPS insulation. Dense concrete achieved the greatest storage capacity, relative to medium and light-weight alternatives, although a material thickness of 100 mm required more than 5 hours to charge fully. Layers of 25 mm and 50 mm thickness can be charged in 2 hours, or less, facilitating a fast response that could, aggregated across multiple dwellings, provide significant and valuable reduction in demand from grid-generated electricity in expected periods of high demand and potentially eliminate the need for additional new generating capacity from conventional sources such as gas, coal, or nuclear.

Keywords: Fabric integrated thermal storage, FITS, demand side management, energy storage, load shifting, renewable energy integration.

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Authors: Aishwarya Ravichandra, Kirtana Kirtivasan, Adithi Mahesh, Ashwini S.Savanth

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A Non-Contact Digital Music System has been conceptualized and implemented to create a new era of digital music. This system replaces the strings of a traditional stringed instrument with laser beams to avoid bruising of the user’s hand. The system consists of seven laser modules, detector modules and distance sensors that form the basic hardware blocks of this instrument. Arduino ATmega2560 microcontroller is used as the primary interface between the hardware and the software. MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is used as the protocol to establish communication between the instrument and the virtual synthesizer software.

Keywords: Arduino, Detector, Laser, MIDI, NOTE ON, NOTE OFF, PITCH BEND, Sharp IR distance sensor.

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Authors: Mohd Agos Salim Nasir, Ahmad Izani Md. Ismail

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Several numerical schemes utilizing central difference approximations have been developed to solve the Goursat problem. However, in a recent years compact discretization methods which leads to high-order finite difference schemes have been used since it is capable of achieving better accuracy as well as preserving certain features of the equation e.g. linearity. The basic idea of the new scheme is to find the compact approximations to the derivative terms by differentiating centrally the governing equations. Our primary interest is to study the performance of the new scheme when applied to two Goursat partial differential equations against the traditional finite difference scheme.

Keywords: Goursat problem, partial differential equation, finite difference scheme, compact finite difference

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Authors: Fatih Eren

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This research aims to find an answer to the question of which knowledge and skills do the Turkish urban planners need in their business practice. Understanding change in cities, making a prediction, making an urban decision and putting it into practice, working together with actors from different organizations from various academic disciplines, persuading people to accept something and developing good personal and professional relationships have become very complex and difficult in today’s world. The truth is that urban planners work in many institutions under various positions which are not similar to each other by field of activity and all planners are forced to develop some knowledge and skills for success in their business in Turkey. This study targets to explore what urban planners do in the global information age. The study is the product of a comprehensive nation-wide research. In-depth interviews were conducted with 174 experienced urban planners, who work in different public institutions and private companies under varied positions in the Turkish Planning System, to find out knowledge and skills needed by next-generation urban planners. The main characteristics of next-generation urban planners are defined; skills that planners needed today are explored in this paper. Findings show that the positivist (traditional) planning approach has given place to anti-positivist planning approaches in the Turkish Planning System so next-generation urban planners who seek success and want to carve out a niche for themselves in business life have to equip themselves with innovative skills. The result section also includes useful and instructive findings for planners about what is the meaning of being an urban planner and what is the ideal content and context of planning education at universities in the global age.

Keywords: The global information age, urban planners, innovative job skills, planning education.

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Authors: G. Stillo, L. Bonzano, M. Chiappalone, A. Vato, F. Davide, S. Martinoia

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Electrophysiological signals were recorded from primary cultures of dissociated rat cortical neurons coupled to Micro-Electrode Arrays (MEAs). The neuronal discharge patterns may change under varying physiological and pathological conditions. For this reason, we developed a new burst detection method able to identify bursts with peculiar features in different experimental conditions (i.e. spontaneous activity and under the effect of specific drugs). The main feature of our algorithm (i.e. Burst On Hurst), based on the auto-similarity or fractal property of the recorded signal, is the independence from the chosen spike detection method since it works directly on the raw data.

Keywords: Burst detection, cortical neuronal networks, Micro-Electrode Array (MEA), wavelets.

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Authors: Muhammad R. Alrabeiah, Ibrahim S. Alnomay

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The need in cognitive radio system for a simple, fast, and independent technique to sense the spectrum occupancy has led to the energy detection approach. Energy detector is known by its dependency on noise variation in the system which is one of its major drawbacks. In this paper, we are aiming to improve its performance by utilizing a weighted collaborative spectrum sensing, it is similar to the collaborative spectrum sensing methods introduced previously in the literature. These weighting methods give more improvement for collaborative spectrum sensing as compared to no weighting case. There is two method proposed in this paper: the first one depends on the channel status between each sensor and the primary user while the second depends on the value of the energy measured in each sensor.

Keywords: Cognitive radio, Spectrum sensing, Collaborative sensors, Weighted Decisions.

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Authors: Yunjung Lee, Pil Un Kim, Gyhyoun Lee, Jin Ho Cho, Myoung Nam Kim

Abstract:

Various sounds generated in the chest are included in auscultation sound. Adaptive Noise Canceller (ANC) is one of the useful techniques for biomedical signal. But the ANC is not suitable for auscultation sound. Because the ANC needs two input channels as a primary signal and a reference signals, but a stethoscope can provide just one input sound. Therefore, in this paper, it was proposed the Single Input ANC (SIANC) for suppression of breath sound in a cardiac auscultation sound. For the SIANC, it was proposed that the reference generation system which included Heart Sound Detector, Control and Reference Generator. By experiment and comparison, it was confirmed that the proposed SIANC was efficient for heart sound enhancement and it was independent of variations of a heartbeat.

Keywords: Adaptive noise canceller, Auscultation, Breath soundsuppression, Signal enhancement.

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Authors: Mousmita Sarma, Krishna Dutta, Kandarpa Kumar Sarma

Abstract:

Speech corpus is one of the major components in a Speech Processing System where one of the primary requirements is to recognize an input sample. The quality and details captured in speech corpus directly affects the precision of recognition. The current work proposes a platform for speech corpus generation using an adaptive LMS filter and LPC cepstrum, as a part of an ANN based Speech Recognition System which is exclusively designed to recognize isolated numerals of Assamese language- a major language in the North Eastern part of India. The work focuses on designing an optimal feature extraction block and a few ANN based cooperative architectures so that the performance of the Speech Recognition System can be improved.

Keywords: Filter, Feature, LMS, LPC, Cepstrum, ANN.

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Authors: Ayşe Coban, Orhan Coban, Haldun Soydal, Sükrü Sürücü

Abstract:

While health is a source of prosperity for individuals, it is also one of the most important determinants of economic growth for a country. Health, by increasing the productivity of labor, contributes to economic growth. Therefore, countries should give the necessary emphasis to health services. The primary aim of this study is to analyze the changes occurring in health services in Turkey by examining the developments in the sector. In this scope, the second aim of the study is to reveal the place of health expenditures in the Turkish economy. As a result of the analysis in the dataset, in which the 1999-2013 periods is considered, it was determined that some increase in health expenditures took place and that the increase in the share of health expenditures in GDP was too small. Furthermore, analysis of the results points out that in financing health expenditures, the public sector is prominent compared to the private sector.

Keywords: Healthcare, health service, health expenditures, Turkey.

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