Search results for: Extraction rates
Commenced in January 2007
Frequency: Monthly
Edition: International
Paper Count: 1532

Search results for: Extraction rates

572 A Strategy for Scaling-Up Vitamin A Supplementation in a Remote Rural Setting

Authors: Wisdom G. Dube, Talent Makoni, Tasiana K. Nyadzayo, Namukolo M. Covic

Abstract:

Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in Zimbabwe. Addressing vitamin A deficiency has the potential of enhancing resistance to disease and reducing mortality especially in children less than 5 years. We implemented and adapted vitamin A outreach supplementation strategy within the National Immunization Days and Extended Programme of Immunization in a rural district in Zimbabwe. Despite usual operational challenges faced this approach enabled the district to increase delivery of supplementation coverage. This paper describes the outreach strategy that was implemented in the remote rural district. The strategy covered 63 outreach sites with 2 sites being covered per day and visited once per month for the whole year. Coverage reached 71% in an area of previous coverage rates of around less than 50%. We recommend further exploration of this strategy by others working in similar circumstances. This strategy can be a potential way for use by Scaling-Up-Nutrition member states.

Keywords: Coverage, Strategy, Supplementation, Vitamin A.

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571 Optimal and Generalized Multiple Descriptions Image Coding Transform in the Wavelet Domain

Authors: Bahi brahim, El hassane Ibn Elhaj, Driss Aboutajdine

Abstract:

In this paper we propose a Multiple Description Image Coding(MDIC) scheme to generate two compressed and balanced rates descriptions in the wavelet domain (Daubechies biorthogonal (9, 7) wavelet) using pairwise correlating transform optimal and application method for Generalized Multiple Description Coding (GMDC) to image coding in the wavelet domain. The GMDC produces statistically correlated streams such that lost streams can be estimated from the received data. Our performance test shown that the proposed method gives more improvement and good quality of the reconstructed image when the wavelet coefficients are normalized by Gaussian Scale Mixture (GSM) model then the Gaussian one ,.

Keywords: Multiple description coding (MDC), gaussian scale mixture (GSM) model, joint source-channel coding, pairwise correlating transform, GMDCT.

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570 A ZVS Flyback DC-DC Converter using Multilayered Coreless Printed-Circuit Board(PCB) Step-down Power Transformer

Authors: Hari Babu Kotte, Radhika Ambatipudi, Dr. Kent Bertilsson

Abstract:

The experimental and theoretical results of a ZVS (Zero Voltage Switching) isolated flyback DC-DC converter using multilayered coreless PCB step down 2:1 transformer are presented. The performance characteristics of the transformer are shown which are useful for the parameters extraction. The measured energy efficiency of the transformer is found to be more than 94% with the sinusoidal input voltage excitation. The designed flyback converter has been tested successfully upto the output power level of 10W, with a switching frequency in the range of 2.7MHz-4.3MHz. The input voltage of the converter is varied from 25V-40V DC. Frequency modulation technique is employed by maintaining constant off time to regulate the output voltage of the converter. The energy efficiency of the isolated flyback converter circuit under ZVS condition in the MHz frequency region is found to be approximately in the range of 72-84%. This paper gives the comparative results in terms of the energy efficiency of the hard switched and soft switched flyback converter in the MHz frequency region.

Keywords: Coreless PCB step down transformer, DC-DCconverter, Flyback, Hard Switched Converter, MHz frequencyregion, Multilayered PCB transformer, Zero Voltage Switching

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569 Granularity Analysis for Spatio-Temporal Web Sensors

Authors: Shun Hattori

Abstract:

In recent years, many researches to mine the exploding Web world, especially User Generated Content (UGC) such as weblogs, for knowledge about various phenomena and events in the physical world have been done actively, and also Web services with the Web-mined knowledge have begun to be developed for the public. However, there are few detailed investigations on how accurately Web-mined data reflect physical-world data. It must be problematic to idolatrously utilize the Web-mined data in public Web services without ensuring their accuracy sufficiently. Therefore, this paper introduces the simplest Web Sensor and spatiotemporallynormalized Web Sensor to extract spatiotemporal data about a target phenomenon from weblogs searched by keyword(s) representing the target phenomenon, and tries to validate the potential and reliability of the Web-sensed spatiotemporal data by four kinds of granularity analyses of coefficient correlation with temperature, rainfall, snowfall, and earthquake statistics per day by region of Japan Meteorological Agency as physical-world data: spatial granularity (region-s population density), temporal granularity (time period, e.g., per day vs. per week), representation granularity (e.g., “rain" vs. “heavy rain"), and media granularity (weblogs vs. microblogs such as Tweets).

Keywords: Granularity analysis, knowledge extraction, spatiotemporal data mining, Web credibility, Web mining, Web sensor.

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568 Hydrogen Production from Alcohol Wastewater by Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket Reactors under Mesophilic Temperature

Authors: Thipsalin Poontaweegeratigarn, Sumaeth Chavadej, Pramoch Rangsunvigit

Abstract:

In this work, biohydrogen production via dark fermentation from alcohol wastewater using upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactors (UASB) with a working volume of 4 L was investigated to find the optimum conditions for a maximum hydrogen yield. The system was operated at different COD loading rates (23, 31, 46 and 62 kg/m3d) at mesophilic temperature (37 ºC) and pH 5.5. The seed sludge was pretreated before being fed to the UASB system by boiling at 95 ºC for 15 min. When the system was operated under the optimum COD loading rate of 46 kg/m3d, it provided the hydrogen content of 27%, hydrogen yield of 125.1 ml H2/g COD removed and 95.1 ml H2/g COD applied, hydrogen production rate of 18 l/d, specific hydrogen production rate of 1080 ml H2/g MLVSS d and 1430 ml H2/ L d, and COD removal of 24%.

Keywords: Hydrogen production, Upflow anaerobic sludge blanket reactor (UASB), Optimum condition, Alcohol wastewater

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567 Two-Dimensional Modeling of Spent Nuclear Fuel Using FLUENT

Authors: Imane Khalil, Quinn Pratt

Abstract:

In a nuclear reactor, an array of fuel rods containing stacked uranium dioxide pellets clad with zircalloy is the heat source for a thermodynamic cycle of energy conversion from heat to electricity. After fuel is used in a nuclear reactor, the assemblies are stored underwater in a spent nuclear fuel pool at the nuclear power plant while heat generation and radioactive decay rates decrease before it is placed in packages for dry storage or transportation. A computational model of a Boiling Water Reactor spent fuel assembly is modeled using FLUENT, the computational fluid dynamics package. Heat transfer simulations were performed on the two-dimensional 9x9 spent fuel assembly to predict the maximum cladding temperature for different input to the FLUENT model. Uncertainty quantification is used to predict the heat transfer and the maximum temperature profile inside the assembly.

Keywords: Spent nuclear fuel, conduction, heat transfer, uncertainty quantification.

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566 Hardware Implementation of Stack-Based Replacement Algorithms

Authors: Hassan Ghasemzadeh, Sepideh Mazrouee, Hassan Goldani Moghaddam, Hamid Shojaei, Mohammad Reza Kakoee

Abstract:

Block replacement algorithms to increase hit ratio have been extensively used in cache memory management. Among basic replacement schemes, LRU and FIFO have been shown to be effective replacement algorithms in terms of hit rates. In this paper, we introduce a flexible stack-based circuit which can be employed in hardware implementation of both LRU and FIFO policies. We propose a simple and efficient architecture such that stack-based replacement algorithms can be implemented without the drawbacks of the traditional architectures. The stack is modular and hence, a set of stack rows can be cascaded depending on the number of blocks in each cache set. Our circuit can be implemented in conjunction with the cache controller and static/dynamic memories to form a cache system. Experimental results exhibit that our proposed circuit provides an average value of 26% improvement in storage bits and its maximum operating frequency is increased by a factor of two

Keywords: Cache Memory, Replacement Algorithms, LeastRecently Used Algorithm, First In First Out Algorithm.

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565 Sampling of Variables in Discrete-Event Simulation using the Example of Inventory Evolutions in Job-Shop-Systems Based on Deterministic and Non-Deterministic Data

Authors: Bernd Scholz-Reiter, Christian Toonen, Jan Topi Tervo, Dennis Lappe

Abstract:

Time series analysis often requires data that represents the evolution of an observed variable in equidistant time steps. In order to collect this data sampling is applied. While continuous signals may be sampled, analyzed and reconstructed applying Shannon-s sampling theorem, time-discrete signals have to be dealt with differently. In this article we consider the discrete-event simulation (DES) of job-shop-systems and study the effects of different sampling rates on data quality regarding completeness and accuracy of reconstructed inventory evolutions. At this we discuss deterministic as well as non-deterministic behavior of system variables. Error curves are deployed to illustrate and discuss the sampling rate-s impact and to derive recommendations for its wellfounded choice.

Keywords: discrete-event simulation, job-shop-system, sampling rate.

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564 An Improved k Nearest Neighbor Classifier Using Interestingness Measures for Medical Image Mining

Authors: J. Alamelu Mangai, Satej Wagle, V. Santhosh Kumar

Abstract:

The exponential increase in the volume of medical image database has imposed new challenges to clinical routine in maintaining patient history, diagnosis, treatment and monitoring. With the advent of data mining and machine learning techniques it is possible to automate and/or assist physicians in clinical diagnosis. In this research a medical image classification framework using data mining techniques is proposed. It involves feature extraction, feature selection, feature discretization and classification. In the classification phase, the performance of the traditional kNN k nearest neighbor classifier is improved using a feature weighting scheme and a distance weighted voting instead of simple majority voting. Feature weights are calculated using the interestingness measures used in association rule mining. Experiments on the retinal fundus images show that the proposed framework improves the classification accuracy of traditional kNN from 78.57 % to 92.85 %.

Keywords: Medical Image Mining, Data Mining, Feature Weighting, Association Rule Mining, k nearest neighbor classifier.

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563 Factors Having Impact on Marketing and Improvement Measures in the Real Estate Sector of Turkey

Authors: Ali Ihtiyar, Serdar Durdyev, Syuhaida Ismail

Abstract:

Marketing is an essential issue to the survival of any real estate company in Turkey. There are some factors which are constraining the achievements of the marketing and sales strategies in the Turkey real estate industry. This study aims to identify and prioritise the most significant constraints to marketing in real estate sector and new strategies based on those constraints. This study is based on survey method, where the respondents such as credit counsellors, real estate investors, consultants, academicians and marketing representatives in Turkey were asked to rank forty seven sub-factors according to their levels of impact. The results of Multiattribute analytical technique indicated that the main subcomponents having impact on marketing in real estate sector are interest rates, real estate credit availability, accessibility, company image and consumer real income, respectively. The identified constraints are expected to guide the marketing team in a sales-effective way.

Keywords: Marketing, marketing constraints, Real estate marketing, Turkey real estate sector

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562 Conceptual Design of Experimental Helium Cooling Loop for Indian TBM R&D Experiments

Authors: B. K. Yadav, A. Gandhi, A. K. Verma, T. S. Rao, A. Saraswat, E. R. Kumar, M. Sarkar, K. N. Vyas

Abstract:

This paper deals with the conceptual design of Experimental Helium Cooling Loop (EHCL) for Indian Test Blanket Module (TBM) and its related thermal hydraulic experiments. Indian TBM team is developing Lead Lithium cooled Ceramic Breeder (IN-LLCB) TBM to be tested in ITER. The TBM box structure is cooled by high pressure (8 MPa) and high temperature (300-500C) helium gas.

The first wall of TBM made of complex channel geometry having several parallel channels carrying helium gas for efficient heat extraction. Several mock-ups of these channels need to be tested before finalizing the TBM first wall design and fabrication. Besides the individual testing of such mock-ups of breeding blanket, the testing of Pb-Li to helium heat exchanger, the operational experience of helium loop and understanding of the behavior of high pressure and high temperature system components are very essential for final development of Helium Cooling System for LLCB TBM in ITER. The main requirements and characteristics of the EHCL and its conceptual design are presented in this paper.

Keywords: DEMO, EHCL, ITER, LLCB TBM.

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561 Impact of Music on Brain Function during Mental Task using Electroencephalography

Authors: B. Geethanjali, K. Adalarasu, R. Rajsekaran

Abstract:

Music has a great effect on human body and mind; it can have a positive effect on hormone system. Objective of this study is to analysis the effect of music (carnatic, hard rock and jazz) on brain activity during mental work load using electroencephalography (EEG). Eight healthy subjects without special musical education participated in the study. EEG signals were acquired at frontal (Fz), parietal (Pz) and central (Cz) lobes of brain while listening to music at three experimental condition (rest, music without mental task and music with mental task). Spectral powers features were extracted at alpha, theta and beta brain rhythms. While listening to jazz music, the alpha and theta powers were significantly (p < 0.05) high for rest as compared to music with and without mental task in Cz. While listening to Carnatic music, the beta power was significantly (p < 0.05) high for with mental task as compared to rest and music without mental task at Cz and Fz location. This finding corroborates that attention based activities are enhanced while listening to jazz and carnatic as compare to Hard rock during mental task.

Keywords: Music, Brain Function, Electroencephalography (EEG), Mental Task, Features extraction parameters

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560 Semi-Automatic Analyzer to Detect Authorial Intentions in Scientific Documents

Authors: Kanso Hassan, Elhore Ali, Soule-dupuy Chantal, Tazi Said

Abstract:

Information Retrieval has the objective of studying models and the realization of systems allowing a user to find the relevant documents adapted to his need of information. The information search is a problem which remains difficult because the difficulty in the representing and to treat the natural languages such as polysemia. Intentional Structures promise to be a new paradigm to extend the existing documents structures and to enhance the different phases of documents process such as creation, editing, search and retrieval. The intention recognition of the author-s of texts can reduce the largeness of this problem. In this article, we present intentions recognition system is based on a semi-automatic method of extraction the intentional information starting from a corpus of text. This system is also able to update the ontology of intentions for the enrichment of the knowledge base containing all possible intentions of a domain. This approach uses the construction of a semi-formal ontology which considered as the conceptualization of the intentional information contained in a text. An experiments on scientific publications in the field of computer science was considered to validate this approach.

Keywords: Information research, text analyzes, intentionalstructure, segmentation, ontology, natural language processing.

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559 Value Stream Oriented Inventory Management

Authors: GuentherSchuh, Till Potente, SaschaFuchs, Annika Hauptvogel, Tobias Welter

Abstract:

Producing companies aspire to high delivery availability despite appearing disruptions. To ensure high delivery availability safety stocksare required. Howeversafety stock leads to additional capital commitment and compensates disruptions instead of solving the reasons.The intention is to increase the stability in production by configuring the production planning and control systematically. Thus the safety stock can be reduced. The largest proportion of inventory in producing companies is caused by batch inventory, schedule deviations and variability of demand rates.These reasons for high inventory levels can be reduced by configuring the production planning and control specifically. Hence the inventory level can be reduced. This is enabled by synchronizing the lot size straightening the demand as well as optimizing the releasing order, sequencing and capacity control.

Keywords: inventory level, inventory management, production planning and control, safety stock

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558 Performance Analysis of a Series of Adaptive Filters in Non-Stationary Environment for Noise Cancelling Setup

Authors: Anam Rafique, Syed Sohail Ahmed

Abstract:

One of the essential components of much of DSP application is noise cancellation. Changes in real time signals are quite rapid and swift. In noise cancellation, a reference signal which is an approximation of noise signal (that corrupts the original information signal) is obtained and then subtracted from the noise bearing signal to obtain a noise free signal. This approximation of noise signal is obtained through adaptive filters which are self adjusting. As the changes in real time signals are abrupt, this needs adaptive algorithm that converges fast and is stable. Least mean square (LMS) and normalized LMS (NLMS) are two widely used algorithms because of their plainness in calculations and implementation. But their convergence rates are small. Adaptive averaging filters (AFA) are also used because they have high convergence, but they are less stable. This paper provides the comparative study of LMS and Normalized NLMS, AFA and new enhanced average adaptive (Average NLMS-ANLMS) filters for noise cancelling application using speech signals.

Keywords: AFA, ANLMS, LMS, NLMS.

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557 Synthetic Aperture Radar Remote Sensing Classification Using the Bag of Visual Words Model to Land Cover Studies

Authors: Reza Mohammadi, Mahmod R. Sahebi, Mehrnoosh Omati, Milad Vahidi

Abstract:

Classification of high resolution polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) images plays an important role in land cover and land use management. Recently, classification algorithms based on Bag of Visual Words (BOVW) model have attracted significant interest among scholars and researchers in and out of the field of remote sensing. In this paper, BOVW model with pixel based low-level features has been implemented to classify a subset of San Francisco bay PolSAR image, acquired by RADARSAR 2 in C-band. We have used segment-based decision-making strategy and compared the result with the result of traditional Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier. 90.95% overall accuracy of the classification with the proposed algorithm has shown that the proposed algorithm is comparable with the state-of-the-art methods. In addition to increase in the classification accuracy, the proposed method has decreased undesirable speckle effect of SAR images.

Keywords: Bag of Visual Words, classification, feature extraction, land cover management, Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar.

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556 Compton Scattering of Annihilation Photons as a Short Range Quantum Key Distribution Mechanism

Authors: Roman Novak, Matjaz Vencelj

Abstract:

The angular distribution of Compton scattering of two quanta originating in the annihilation of a positron with an electron is investigated as a quantum key distribution (QKD) mechanism in the gamma spectral range. The geometry of coincident Compton scattering is observed on the two sides as a way to obtain partially correlated readings on the quantum channel. We derive the noise probability density function of a conceptually equivalent prepare and measure quantum channel in order to evaluate the limits of the concept in terms of the device secrecy capacity and estimate it at roughly 1.9 bits per 1 000 annihilation events. The high error rate is well above the tolerable error rates of the common reconciliation protocols; therefore, the proposed key agreement protocol by public discussion requires key reconciliation using classical error-correcting codes. We constructed a prototype device based on the readily available monolithic detectors in the least complex setup.

Keywords: Compton scattering, gamma-ray polarization, quantumcryptography, quantum key distribution

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555 A New Face Detection Technique using 2D DCT and Self Organizing Feature Map

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

Abstract:

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

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

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554 Feature Extractions of EMG Signals during a Constant Workload Pedaling Exercise

Authors: Bing-Wen Chen, Alvin W. Y. Su, Yu-Lin Wang

Abstract:

Electromyography (EMG) is one of the important indicators during exercise, as it is closely related to the level of muscle activations. This work quantifies the muscle conditions of the lower limbs in a constant workload exercise. Surface EMG signals of the vastus laterals (VL), vastus medialis (VM), rectus femoris (RF), gastrocnemius medianus (GM), gastrocnemius lateral (GL) and Soleus (SOL) were recorded from fourteen healthy males. The EMG signals were segmented in two phases: activation segment (AS) and relaxation segment (RS). Period entropy (PE), peak count (PC), zero crossing (ZC), wave length (WL), mean power frequency (MPF), median frequency (MDF) and root mean square (RMS) are calculated to provide the quantitative information of the measured EMG segments. The outcomes reveal that the PE, PC, ZC and RMS have significantly changed (p<.001); WL presents moderately changed (p<.01); MPF and MDF show no changed (p>.05) during exercise. The results also suggest that the RS is also preferred for performance evaluation, while the results of the extracted features in AS are usually affected directly by the amplitudes. It is further found that the VL exhibits the most significant changes within six muscles during pedaling exercise. The proposed work could be applied to quantify the stamina analysis and to predict the instant muscle status in athletes.

Keywords: EMG, feature extraction, muscle status, pedaling exercise, relaxation segment.

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553 The Relationship between Fatigue Crack Growth and Residual Stress in Rails

Authors: F. Husem, M. E. Turan, Y. Sun, H. Ahlatci, I. Tozlu

Abstract:

Residual stress and fatigue crack growth rates are important to determine mechanical behavior of rails. This study aims to make relationship between residual stress and fatigue crack growth values in rails. For this purpose, three R260 quality rails (0.6-0.8% C, 0.6-1.25 Mn) were chosen. Residual stress of samples was measured by cutting method that is related in railway standard. Then samples were machined for fatigue crack growth test and analyze was completed according to the ASTM E647 standard which gives information about parameters of rails for this test. Microstructure characterizations were examined by Light Optic Microscope (LOM). The results showed that residual stress change with fatigue crack growth rate. The sample has highest residual stress exhibits highest crack growth rate and pearlitic structure can be seen clearly for all samples by microstructure analyze.

Keywords: Residual stress, fatigue crack growth, R260, LOM, ASTM E647.

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552 Molluscicidal Effects of Ageratum conyzoides and Datura stramonium on Bulinus globosus and Lymnea natalensis

Authors: Olofintoye Lawrence Kayode, Olorunniyi Omojola Felix

Abstract:

Schistosomiasis is a vector-borne water-based disease transmitted by Bulinus globosus, causing haematuria in the urine of man, while fascioliasis is a trematode zoonosis infectious transmitted by Lymnaea natalensis causing liver disease in man and animals. Adult Bulinus globosus and Lymnaea natalensis were used for the experiment. Aqueous leaf extract of Ageratum conyzoides and Datura stramonium were prepared into 25, 50, 75, 100, 200 and 400 ppm concentrations. Ten snails of each species were exposed to different concentrations in triplicates, and dechlorinated water was used as control at 24h, 48h, and 72h exposure. The results revealed that 100 ppm of both plants leaves extracts indicated mortality rates between 76.7% and 100% at 24h, 48h, and 72h for both snail species. (P < 0.05). In conclusion, the extract exercised molluscicidal activity to control the snail vector at lethal doses LC50 (66.611-72.021 ppm), CI = 63.083-77.90 ppm and LC90 (92.623-102.350), CI = 87.715-110.12 ppm.

Keywords: Snail, plant leaf, aqueous extract, mortality.

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551 Effects of Human Capital and Openness on Economic Growth of Developed and Developing Countries: A Panel Data Analysis

Authors: Fatma Didin Sonmez, Pinar Sener

Abstract:

Technology transfer by international trade and foreign direct investment is the most important positive outcome of open economy. It is widely accepted that new technology and knowledge have an important role in enhancing economic growth. Human capital is the other important factor assisting economic growth. In this study, the role of human capital in the growth process is examined in a view of new endogenous growth theory emphasizing on the technology transfer resulting from international trade. Using the panel data of 10 developed and 10 developing countries, impact of human capital and openness on the rate of economic growth of different countries is analysed. Evidence suggests the view that human capital and openness contribute to the economic growth in both developing and developed countries, but with different rates.

Keywords: economic growth, human capital, openness, technology

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550 Mesotrione and Tembotrione Applied Alone or in Tank-Mix with Atrazine on Weed Control in Elephant Grass

Authors: Alexandre M. Brighenti

Abstract:

The experiment was carried out in Valença, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil, to evaluate the selectivity and weed control of carotenoid biosynthesis inhibiting herbicides applied alone or in combination with atrazine in elephant grass crop. The treatments were as follows: mesotrione (0.072 and 0.144 kg ha-1 + 0.5% v/v mineral oil - Assist®), tembotrione (0.075 and 0.100 kg ha-1 + 0.5% v/v mineral oil - Aureo®), atrazine + mesotrione (1.25 + 0.072 kg ha-1 + 0.5% v/v mineral oil - Assist®), atrazine + tembotrione (1.25 + 0.100 kg ha-1 + 0.5% v/v mineral oil - Aureo®), atrazine + mesotrione (1.25 + 0.072 kg ha-1), atrazine + tembotrione (1.25 + 0.100 kg ha-1) and two controls (hoed and unhoed check). Two application rates of mesotrione with the addition of mineral oil or the tank mixture of atrazine plus mesotrione, with or without the addition of mineral oil, did not provide injuries capable to reduce elephant grass forage yield. Tembotrione was phytotoxic to elephant grass when applied with mineral oil. Atrazine and tembotrione in a tank-mix, with or without mineral oil, were also phytotoxic to elephant grass. All treatments provided satisfactory weed control.

Keywords: Forage, Napier grass, pasture, Pennisetum purpureum, weeds.

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549 Enriching Egg Yolk with Carotenoids and Phenols

Authors: Amar Benakmoum, Rosa Larid, Sofiane Zidani

Abstract:

Dried tomato peel (DTP) was tested in vivo (n=10) in 42 week-old laying hens at rates of 0, 40, 70, 100 and 130g/kg DM feed. Laying hens were fed in group 120 g DM/day/animal for 26 days. After 21 days, feed intake was not affected after DTP incorporation (97% of the offered feed in the five groups). Laying rate was not significantly different after DTP incorporation at 4 and 10% from the control group. Egg yolk resulting from DTP-enriched diets, contained lower amounts of cholesterol (14 to 17mg/g) and triglyceride (188mg/g) compared to the control group (22 and 241 mg/g, respectively) (P<0.0001). After DTP-enriched diets, content in total phenol was 2.0 to 3.6-fold higher, β-carotene 1.7 to 2.7-fold higher, and lycopene increased between 26.5 and 42.8μg/g compared to the control (P<0.0001). The optimal incorporation rate was 7% DTP.

Keywords: Carotenoid, dried tomato peel, lycopene, laying hens, phenols.

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548 Evaluation of Neighbourhood Characteristics and Active Transport Mode Choice

Authors: Tayebeh Saghapour, Sara Moridpour, Russell George Thompson

Abstract:

One of the common aims of transport policy makers is to switch people’s travel to active transport. For this purpose, a variety of transport goals and investments should be programmed to increase the propensity towards active transport mode choice. This paper aims to investigate whether built environment features in neighbourhoods could enhance the odds of active transportation. The present study introduces an index measuring public transport accessibility (PTAI), and a walkability index along with socioeconomic variables to investigate mode choice behaviour. Using travel behaviour data, an ordered logit regression model is applied to examine the impacts of explanatory variables on walking trips. The findings indicated that high rates of active travel are consistently associated with higher levels of walking and public transport accessibility.

Keywords: Active transport, public transport accessibility, walkability, ordered logit model.

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547 An Efficient Separation for Convolutive Mixtures

Authors: Salah Al-Din I. Badran, Samad Ahmadi, Dylan Menzies, Ismail Shahin

Abstract:

This paper describes a new efficient blind source separation method; in this method we uses a non-uniform filter bank and a new structure with different sub-bands. This method provides a reduced permutation and increased convergence speed comparing to the full-band algorithm. Recently, some structures have been suggested to deal with two problems: reducing permutation and increasing the speed of convergence of the adaptive algorithm for correlated input signals. The permutation problem is avoided with the use of adaptive filters of orders less than the full-band adaptive filter, which operate at a sampling rate lower than the sampling rate of the input signal. The decomposed signals by analysis bank filter are less correlated in each sub-band than the input signal at full-band, and can promote better rates of convergence.

Keywords: Blind source separation (BSS), estimates, full-band, mixtures, Sub-band.

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546 Catalytical Effect of Fluka 05120 on Methane Decomposition

Authors: Vidyasagar Shilapuram, Nesrin Ozalp, Anam Waheed

Abstract:

Carboneous catalytical methane decomposition is an attractive process because it produces two valuable products: hydrogen and carbon. Furthermore, this reaction does not emit any green house or hazardous gases. In the present study, experiments were conducted in a thermo gravimetric analyzer using Fluka 05120 as carboneous catalyst to analyze its effectiveness in methane decomposition. Various temperatures and methane partial pressures were chosen and carbon mass gain was observed as a function of time. Results are presented in terms of carbon formation rate, hydrogen production and catalytical activity. It is observed that there is linearity in carbon deposition amount by time at lower reaction temperature (780 °C). On the other hand, it is observed that carbon and hydrogen formation rates are increased with increasing temperature. Finally, we observed that the carbon formation rate is highest at 950 °C within the range of temperatures studied.

Keywords: Catalysis, Fluka 05120, Hydrogen production, Methane decomposition

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545 Quantification of Heart Rate Variability: A Measure based on Unique Heart Rates

Authors: V. I. Thajudin Ahamed, P. Dhanasekaran, A. Naseem, N. G. Karthick, T. K. Abdul Jaleel, Paul K.Joseph

Abstract:

It is established that the instantaneous heart rate (HR) of healthy humans keeps on changing. Analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) has become a popular non invasive tool for assessing the activities of autonomic nervous system. Depressed HRV has been found in several disorders, like diabetes mellitus (DM) and coronary artery disease, characterised by autonomic nervous dysfunction. A new technique, which searches for pattern repeatability in a time series, is proposed specifically for the analysis of heart rate data. These set of indices, which are termed as pattern repeatability measure and pattern repeatability ratio are compared with approximate entropy and sample entropy. In our analysis, based on the method developed, it is observed that heart rate variability is significantly different for DM patients, particularly for patients with diabetic foot ulcer.

Keywords: Autonomic nervous system, diabetes mellitus, heart rate variability, pattern identification, sample entropy

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544 Wireless Sensor Network to Help Low Incomes Farmers to Face Drought Impacts

Authors: Fantazi Walid, Ezzedine Tahar, Bargaoui Zoubeida

Abstract:

This research presents the main ideas to implement an intelligent system composed by communicating wireless sensors measuring environmental data linked to drought indicators (such as air temperature, soil moisture , etc...). On the other hand, the setting up of a spatio temporal database communicating with a Web mapping application for a monitoring in real time in activity 24:00 /day, 7 days/week is proposed to allow the screening of the drought parameters time evolution and their extraction. Thus this system helps detecting surfaces touched by the phenomenon of drought. Spatio-temporal conceptual models seek to answer the users who need to manage soil water content for irrigating or fertilizing or other activities pursuing crop yield augmentation. Effectively, spatiotemporal conceptual models enable users to obtain a diagram of readable and easy data to apprehend. Based on socio-economic information, it helps identifying people impacted by the phenomena with the corresponding severity especially that this information is accessible by farmers and stakeholders themselves. The study will be applied in Siliana watershed Northern Tunisia.

Keywords: WSN, database spatio-temporal, GIS, web-mapping, indicator of drought.

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543 Steady State Creep Behavior of Functionally Graded Thick Cylinder

Authors: Tejeet Singh, Harmanjit Singh

Abstract:

Creep behavior of thick-walled functionally graded cylinder consisting of AlSiC and subjected to internal pressure and high temperature has been analyzed. The functional relationship between strain rate with stress can be described by the well known threshold stress based creep law with a stress exponent of five. The effect of imposing non-linear particle gradient on the distribution of creep stresses in the thick-walled functionally graded composite cylinder has been investigated. The study revealed that for the assumed non-linear particle distribution, the radial stress decreases throughout the cylinder, whereas the tangential, axial and effective stresses have averaging effect. The strain rates in the functionally graded composite cylinder could be reduced to significant extent by employing non-linear gradient in the distribution of reinforcement.

Keywords: Functionally Graded Material, Pressure, Steady State Creep, Thick-Cylinder.

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