Search results for: print and electronic media

Authors: Geeta Negi, Pankaj, Anjana Srivastava, Anita Sharma

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In the present study, presence of endosulfan, imidacloprid, carbendazim, in the soil /vegetables/cereals and water samples was observed in agriculture fields of Uttarakhand. In view of biodegradation of these pesticides, 9 bacterial isolates were recovered from the soil samples of the fields which tolerated endosulfan, imidacloprid, carbendazim from 100 to 200 µg/ml. Three bacterial consortia used for in vitro bioremediation experiments were consisted of 3 bacterial isolates for carbendazim, imidacloprid and endosulfan, respectively. Maximum degradation (87 and 83%) of α and β endosulfan respectively was observed in soil slurry by consortium. Degradation of Imidacloprid and carbendazim under similar conditions was 88.4 and 77.5% respectively. FT-IR analysis of biodegraded samples of pesticides in liquid media showed stretching of various bonds. GC-MS of biodegraded endosulfan sample in soil slurry showed the presence of nontoxic intermediates. A pot trial with Bacterial treatments lowered down the uptake of pesticides in onion plants.

Keywords: Biodegradation, carbendazim, consortium, Endosulfan.

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Authors: S. Mohajer, R. M. Taha, M. Adel

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Developing our knowledge of when pineapple roots grow can lead to improved water, fertilizer applications, and more precise culture management. This paper presents current understanding of morphological traits in pineapple roots, highlighting studies using incubation periods and various solid MS media treated with different sucrose concentrations and pH, which directly assess in vitro environmental factors. Rooting parameters had different optimal sucrose concentrations and incubation periods. All shoots failed to root in medium supplemented with sucrose at 5 g/L and no roots formed within the first 45 days in medium enriched with sucrose at 10 g/L. After 75 days, all shoots rooted in medium enriched with 10 and 20 g/L sucrose. Moreover, MS medium supplied with 20 g/L sucrose resulted in the longest and the highest number of roots with 27.3 mm and 4.7, respectively. Root function, such as capacity for P and N uptake, declined rapidly with root length. As a result, the longer the incubation period, the better the rooting responses would be.

Keywords: Environmental factors, in vitro rooting, pineapple, tissue culture.

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Authors: Saleh Alumaran, Giampaolo Bella, Feng Chen

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The study of organisations’ information security cultures has attracted scholars as well as healthcare services industry to research the topic and find appropriate tools and approaches to develop a positive culture. The vast majority of studies in Saudi national health services are on the use of technology to protect and secure health services information. On the other hand, there is a lack of research on the role and impact of an organisation’s cultural dimensions on information security. This research investigated and analysed the role and impact of cultural dimensions on information security in Saudi Arabia health service. Hypotheses were tested and two surveys were carried out in order to collect data and information from three major hospitals in Saudi Arabia (SA). The first survey identified the main cultural-dimension problems in SA health services and developed an initial information security culture framework model. The second survey evaluated and tested the developed framework model to test its usefulness, reliability and applicability. The model is based on human behaviour theory, where the individual’s attitude is the key element of the individual’s intention to behave as well as of his or her actual behaviour. The research identified a set of cultural and sub-cultural dimensions in SA health information security and services.

Keywords: Behaviour theory, Culture dimensions, Electronic health records, Information security.

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Authors: Ziya Uddin

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This paper deals with the theoretical and numerical investigation of magneto hydrodynamic boundary layer flow of a nanofluid past a wedge shaped wick in heat pipe used for the cooling of electronic components and different type of machines. To incorporate the effect of nanoparticle diameter, concentration of nanoparticles in the pure fluid, nanothermal layer formed around the nanoparticle and Brownian motion of nanoparticles etc., appropriate models are used for the effective thermal and physical properties of nanofluids. To model the rotation of nanoparticles inside the base fluid, microfluidics theory is used. In this investigation ethylene glycol (EG) based nanofluids, are taken into account. The non-linear equations governing the flow and heat transfer are solved by using a very effective particle swarm optimization technique along with Runge-Kutta method. The values of heat transfer coefficient are found for different parameters involved in the formulation viz. nanoparticle concentration, nanoparticle size, magnetic field and wedge angle etc. It is found that, the wedge angle, presence of magnetic field, nanoparticle size and nanoparticle concentration etc. have prominent effects on fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics for the considered configuration.

Keywords: Heat transfer, Heat pipe, numerical modeling, nanofluid applications, particle swarm optimization, wedge shaped wick.

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Authors: Kiran Kumar K, Ramesh Babu Bejjam, Atul Najan

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A thermosyphon system is a heat transfer loop which operates on the basis of gravity and buoyancy forces. It guarantees a good reliability and low maintenance cost as it does not involve any mechanical pump. Therefore, it can be used in many industrial applications such as refrigeration and air conditioning, electronic cooling, nuclear reactors, geothermal heat extraction, etc. But flow instabilities and loop configuration are the major problems in this system. Several previous researchers studied that stabilities can be suppressed by using nanofluids as loop fluid. In the present study a rectangular thermosyphon loop with end heat exchangers are considered for the study. This configuration is more appropriate for many practical applications such as solar water heater, geothermal heat extraction, etc. In the present work, steady-state analysis is carried out on thermosyphon loop with parallel flow coaxial heat exchangers at heat source and heat sink. In this loop nanofluid is considered as the loop fluid and water is considered as the external fluid in both hot and cold heat exchangers. For this analysis onedimensional homogeneous model is developed. In this model, conservation equations like conservation of mass, momentum, energy are discretized using finite difference method. A computer code is written in MATLAB to simulate the flow in thermosyphon loop. A comparison in terms of heat transfer is made between water and nanofluid as working fluids in the loop.

Keywords: Heat exchanger, Heat transfer, Nanofluid, Thermosyphon loop.

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Authors: Todsaporn Fuangrod, Daryl J. O'Connor, Boyd MC McCurdy, Peter B. Greer

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An electronic portal image device (EPID) has become a method of patient-specific IMRT dose verification for radiotherapy. Research studies have focused on pre and post-treatment verification, however, there are currently no interventional procedures using EPID dosimetry that measure the dose in real time as a mechanism to ensure that overdoses do not occur and underdoses are detected as soon as is practically possible. As a result, an EPID-based real time dose verification system for dynamic IMRT was developed and was implemented with MATLAB/Simulink. The EPID image acquisition was set to continuous acquisition mode at 1.4 images per second. The system defined the time constraint gap, or execution gap at the image acquisition time, so that every calculation must be completed before the next image capture is completed. In addition, the <=-evaluation method was used for dose comparison, with two types of comparison processes; individual image and cumulative dose comparison monitored. The outputs of the system are the <=-map, the percent of <=<1, and mean-<= versus time, all in real time. Two strategies were used to test the system, including an error detection test and a clinical data test. The system can monitor the actual dose delivery compared with the treatment plan data or previous treatment dose delivery that means a radiation therapist is able to switch off the machine when the error is detected.

Keywords: real-time dose verification, EPID dosimetry, simulation, dynamic IMRT

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Authors: Fátima Gonçalves, Joaquim Brigas, Jorge Gonçalves

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As a way of managing the increasing volume and complexity of information that circulates in the present time, graphical representations are increasingly used, which add meaning to the information presented in communication media, through an efficient communication design. The visual culture itself, driven by technological evolution, has been redefining the forms of communication, so that contemporary visual communication represents a major impact on society. This article presents the results and respective comparative analysis of four publications in the Iberian press, focusing on the formal aspects of newspapers and the space they dedicate to the various communication elements. Two Portuguese newspapers and two Spanish newspapers were selected for this purpose. The findings indicated that the newspapers show a similarity in the use of graphic solutions, which corroborate a visual trend in communication design. The results also reveal that Spanish newspapers are more meticulous with graphic consistency. This study intended to contribute to improving knowledge of the Iberian generalist press.

Keywords: Communication design, graphic resources, Iberian Press, visual journalism.

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Authors: Melissa C. LaDuke

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The purpose of this targeted analysis was to identify the use of online communities of practice (CoP) within e-learning environments as a method to build social interaction and student-centered educational experiences. A literature review was conducted to survey and collect scholarly thoughts concerning CoPs from a variety of sources. Data collected included best practices, ties to educational theories, and examples of online CoPs. Social interaction has been identified as a critical piece of the learning infrastructure, specifically for adult learners. CoPs are an effective way to help students connect to each other and the material of interest. The use of CoPs falls in line with many educational theories, including situated learning theory, social constructivism, connectivism, adult learning theory, and motivation. New literacies such as social media and gamification can help increase social interaction in online environments and provide methods to host CoPs. Steps to build and sustain a CoP were discussed in addition to CoP considerations and best practices.

Keywords: Community of practice, knowledge sharing, social interaction, online course design, new literacies.

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Authors: Kiurski S. Jelena, Aksentijević M. Snežana, Kecić S. Vesna, Oros B. Ivana

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Prosperity of electronic equipment in photocopying environment not only has improved work efficiency, but also has changed indoor air quality. Considering the number of photocopying employed, indoor air quality might be worse than in general office environments. Determining the contribution from any type of equipment to indoor air pollution is a complex matter. Non-methane hydrocarbons are known to have an important role on air quality due to their high reactivity. The presence of hazardous pollutants in indoor air has been detected in one photocopying shop in Novi Sad, Serbia. Air samples were collected and analyzed for five days, during 8-hr working time in three time intervals, whereas three different sampling points were determined. Using multiple linear regression model and software package STATISTICA 10 the concentrations of occupational hazards and microclimates parameters were mutually correlated. Based on the obtained multiple coefficients of determination (0.3751, 0.2389 and 0.1975), a weak positive correlation between the observed variables was determined. Small values of parameter F indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the concentration levels of nonmethane hydrocarbons and microclimates parameters. The results showed that variable could be presented by the general regression model: y = b0 + b1xi1+ b2xi2. Obtained regression equations allow to measure the quantitative agreement between the variables and thus obtain more accurate knowledge of their mutual relations.

Keywords: Indoor air quality, multiple regression analysis, nonmethane hydrocarbons, photocopying process.

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Authors: Yannick Verbelen, Sam De Winne, Niek Blondeel, Ann Peeters, An Braeken, Abdellah Touhafi

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The growing popularity of solid state thermoelectric devices in cooling applications has sparked an increasing diversity of thermoelectric coolers (TECs) on the market, commonly known as “Peltier modules”. They can also be used as generators, converting a temperature difference into electric power, and opportunities are plentiful to make use of these devices as thermoelectric generators (TEGs) to supply energy to low power, autonomous embedded electronic applications. Their adoption as energy harvesters in this new domain of usage is obstructed by the complex thermoelectric models commonly associated with TEGs. Low cost TECs for the consumer market lack the required parameters to use the models because they are not intended for this mode of operation, thereby urging an alternative method to obtain electric power estimations in specific operating conditions. The design of the test setup implemented in this paper is specifically targeted at benchmarking commercial, off-the-shelf TECs for use as energy harvesters in domestic environments: applications with limited temperature differences and space available. The usefulness is demonstrated by testing and comparing single and multi stage TECs with different sizes. The effect of a boost converter stage on the thermoelectric end-to-end efficiency is also discussed.

Keywords: Thermoelectric cooler, TEC, complementary balanced energy harvesting, step-up converter, DC/DC converter, embedded systems, energy harvesting, thermal harvesting.

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Authors: Suttipong Boonphadung

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Practicum placements are an critical factor for student teachers on Education Programs. How can student teachers become professionals? This study was to investigate problems, weakness and obstacles of practicum placements and develop guidelines for partnership in the practicum placements. In response to this issue, a partnership concept was implemented for developing student teachers into professionals. Data were collected through questionnaires on attitude toward problems, weaknesses, and obstacles of practicum placements of student teachers in Rajabhat universities and included focus group interviews. The research revealed that learning management, classroom management, curriculum, assessment and evaluation, classroom action research, and teacher demeanor are the important factors affecting the professional development of Education Program student teachers. Learning management plan and classroom management concerning instructional design, teaching technique, instructional media, and student behavior management are another important aspects influencing the professional development for student teachers.

Keywords: Developing student teacher, Partnership concepts, Professional teachers.

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Authors: Seyyed Yasser Hashemi, Khalil Monfaredi

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Automatic transformation of paper documents into electronic documents requires document segmentation at the first stage. However, some parameters restrictions such as variations in character font sizes, different text line spacing, and also not uniform document layout structures altogether have made it difficult to design a general-purpose document layout analysis algorithm for many years. Thus in most previously reported methods it is inevitable to include these parameters. This problem becomes excessively acute and severe, especially in Persian/Arabic documents. Since the Persian/Arabic scripts differ considerably from the English scripts, most of the proposed methods for the English scripts do not render good results for the Persian scripts. In this paper, we present a novel parameter-free method for segmenting the Persian/Arabic document images which also works well for English scripts. This method segments the document image into maximal homogeneous regions and identifies them as texts and non-texts based on a pyramidal image structure. In other words the proposed method is capable of document segmentation without considering the character font sizes, text line spacing, and document layout structures. This algorithm is examined for 150 Arabic/Persian and English documents and document segmentation process are done successfully for 96 percent of documents.

Keywords: Persian/Arabic document, document segmentation, Pyramidal Image Structure, skew detection and correction.

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Authors: S. Cobos-Guzman

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This paper presents the results of a mechatronic design based on a 4-wheel omnidirectional mobile robot that can be used in indoor logistic applications. The low-level control has been selected using two open-source hardware (Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+ and Arduino Mega 2560) that control four industrial motors, four ultrasound sensors, four optical encoders, a vision system of two cameras, and a Hokuyo URG-04LX-UG01 laser scanner. Moreover, the system is powered with a lithium battery that can supply 24 V DC and a maximum current-hour of 20Ah.The Robot Operating System (ROS) has been implemented in the Raspberry Pi and the performance is evaluated with the selection of the sensors and hardware selected. The mechatronic system is evaluated and proposed safe modes of power distribution for controlling all the electronic devices based on different tests. Therefore, based on different performance results, some recommendations are indicated for using the Raspberry Pi and Arduino in terms of power, communication, and distribution of control for different devices. According to these recommendations, the selection of sensors is distributed in both real-time controllers (Arduino and Raspberry Pi). On the other hand, the drivers of the cameras have been implemented in Linux and a python program has been implemented to access the cameras. These cameras will be used for implementing a deep learning algorithm to recognize people and objects. In this way, the level of intelligence can be increased in combination with the maps that can be obtained from the laser scanner.

Keywords: Autonomous, indoor robot, mechatronic, omnidirectional robot.

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Authors: R. M. Siddiqui, D. Z. Moghaddam, T. R. Turlapati, S. H. Khan, I. Ul Ahad

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Quality of 2D and 3D cross-sectional images produce by Computed Tomography primarily depend upon the degree of precision of primary and secondary X-Ray intensity detection. Traditional method of primary intensity detection is apt to errors. Recently the X-Ray intensity measurement system along with smart X-Ray sensors is developed by our group which is able to detect primary X-Ray intensity unerringly. In this study a new smart X-Ray sensor is developed using Light-to-Frequency converter TSL230 from Texas Instruments which has numerous advantages in terms of noiseless data acquisition and transmission. TSL230 construction is based on a silicon photodiode which converts incoming X-Ray radiation into the proportional current signal. A current to frequency converter is attached to this photodiode on a single monolithic CMOS integrated circuit which provides proportional frequency count to incoming current signal in the form of the pulse train. The frequency count is delivered to the center of PICDEM FS USB board with PIC18F4550 microcontroller mounted on it. With highly compact electronic hardware, this Demo Board efficiently read the smart sensor output data. The frequency output approaches overcome nonlinear behavior of sensors with analog output thus un-attenuated X-Ray intensities could be measured precisely and better normalization could be acquired in order to attain high resolution.

Keywords: Computed tomography, detector technology, X-Ray intensity measurement

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Authors: Jelena Slugan, Ivica Ružić

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We are witnessing the rapid development of technologies that change the world around us. However, curriculums and teaching processes are often slow to adapt to the change; it takes time, money and expertise to implement technology in the classroom. Therefore, the University of Split, Croatia, partnered with local school Marko Marulić High School and created the project "Modern competence in modern high schools" as part of which five different curriculums for STEM areas were developed. One of the curriculums involves combining information technology with physics. The main idea was to teach students how to use different circuits and microcomputers to explore nature and physical phenomena. As a result, using electrical circuits, students are able to recreate in the classroom the phenomena that they observe every day in their environment. So far, high school students had very little opportunity to perform experiments independently, and especially, those physics experiment did not involve ICT. Therefore, this project has a great importance, because the students will finally get a chance to develop themselves in accordance to modern technologies. This paper presents some new methods of teaching physics that will help students to develop experimental skills through the study of deterministic nature of physical laws. Students will learn how to formulate hypotheses, model physical problems using the electronic circuits and evaluate their results. While doing that, they will also acquire useful problem solving skills.

Keywords: ICT in physics, curriculum, laboratory activities, STEM.

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Authors: Kuo-Cheng Liu

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In this paper, we propose ablock-wise watermarking scheme for color image authentication to resist malicious tampering of digital media. The thresholding technique is incorporated into the scheme such that the tampered region of the color image can be recovered with high quality while the proofing result is obtained. The watermark for each block consists of its dual authentication data and the corresponding feature information. The feature information for recovery iscomputed bythe thresholding technique. In the proofing process, we propose a dual-option parity check method to proof the validity of image blocks. In the recovery process, the feature information of each block embedded into the color image is rebuilt for high quality recovery. The simulation results show that the proposed watermarking scheme can effectively proof the tempered region with high detection rate and can recover the tempered region with high quality.

Keywords: thresholding technique, tamper proofing, tamper recovery

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Authors: Zehra Yigit, Hatice Inan, Guven Seydioglu, Vedat Uyak

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Natural organic matter (NOM) is heterogeneous mixture of organic compounds that enter the water media from animal and plant remains, domestic and industrial wastes. Researches showed that NOM is likely precursor material for disinfection by products (DBPs). Chlorine very commenly used for disinfection purposes and NOM and chlorine reacts then Trihalomethane (THM) and Haloacetic acids (HAAs) which are cancerogenics for human health are produced. The aim of the study is to search NOM removal by enhanced coagulation from drinking water source of Eskisehir which is supplied from Porsuk Dam. Recently, Porsuk dam water is getting highly polluted and therefore NOM concentration is increasing. Enhanced coagulation studies were evaluated by measurement of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), UV absorbance at 254 nm (UV254), and different trihalomethane formation potential (THMFP) tests. Results of jar test experiments showed that NOM can be removed from water about 40-50 % of efficiency by enhanced coagulation. Optimum coagulant type and coagulant dosages were determined using FeCl3 and Alum.

Keywords: Chlorination, Disinfection by-products, DOC, Enhanced Coagulation, NOM, Porsuk, UV254.

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Authors: Linnea Stenliden

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The aim of this paper is to understand emerging learning conditions, when a visual analytics is implemented and used in K 12 (education). To date, little attention has been paid to the role visual analytics (digital media and technology that highlight visual data communication in order to support analytical tasks) can play in education, and to the extent to which these tools can process actionable data for young students. This study was conducted in three public K 12 schools, in four social science classes with students aged 10 to 13 years, over a period of two to four weeks at each school. Empirical data were generated using video observations and analyzed with help of metaphors within Actor-network theory (ANT). The learning conditions are found to be distinguished by broad complexity, characterized by four dimensions. These emerge from the actors’ deeply intertwined relations in the activities. The paper argues in relation to the found dimensions that novel approaches to teaching and learning could benefit students’ knowledge building as they work with visual analytics, analyzing visualized data.

Keywords: Analytical reasoning, complexity, data use, problem space, visual analytics, visual storytelling, translation.

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Authors: Mohammed Erritali

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The growth in the volume of text data such as books and articles in libraries for centuries has imposed to establish effective mechanisms to locate them. Early techniques such as abstraction, indexing and the use of classification categories have marked the birth of a new field of research called "Information Retrieval". Information Retrieval (IR) can be defined as the task of defining models and systems whose purpose is to facilitate access to a set of documents in electronic form (corpus) to allow a user to find the relevant ones for him, that is to say, the contents which matches with the information needs of the user. Most of the models of information retrieval use a specific data structure to index a corpus which is called "inverted file" or "reverse index". This inverted file collects information on all terms over the corpus documents specifying the identifiers of documents that contain the term in question, the frequency of each term in the documents of the corpus, the positions of the occurrences of the word... In this paper we use an oriented object database (db4o) instead of the inverted file, that is to say, instead to search a term in the inverted file, we will search it in the db4o database. The purpose of this work is to make a comparative study to see if the oriented object databases may be competing for the inverse index in terms of access speed and resource consumption using a large volume of data.

Keywords: Information Retrieval, indexation, oriented object database (db4o), inverted file.

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Authors: M. Hamad Hassan, S.A.M. Gilani

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In this paper, a semi-fragile watermarking scheme is proposed for color image authentication. In this particular scheme, the color image is first transformed from RGB to YST color space, suitable for watermarking the color media. Each channel is divided into 4×4 non-overlapping blocks and its each 2×2 sub-block is selected. The embedding space is created by setting the two LSBs of selected sub-block to zero, which will hold the authentication and recovery information. For verification of work authentication and parity bits denoted by 'a' & 'p' are computed for each 2×2 subblock. For recovery, intensity mean of each 2×2 sub-block is computed and encoded upto six to eight bits depending upon the channel selection. The size of sub-block is important for correct localization and fast computation. For watermark distribution 2DTorus Automorphism is implemented using a private key to have a secure mapping of blocks. The perceptibility of watermarked image is quite reasonable both subjectively and objectively. Our scheme is oblivious, correctly localizes the tampering and able to recovery the original work with probability of near one.

Keywords: Image Authentication, YST Color Space, Intensity Mean, LSBs, PSNR.

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Authors: Jatindra N. Bhakta, Yukihiro Munekage

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The present study attempted to improve the Mercury (Hg) sorption capacity of kanuma volcanic ash soil (KVAS) by impregnating the cupper (Cu). Impregnation was executed by 1 and 5% Cu powder and sorption characterization of optimum Hg removing Cu impregnated KVAS was performed under different operational conditions, contact time, solution pH, sorbent dosage and Hg concentration using the batch operation studies. The 1% Cu impregnated KVAS pronounced optimum improvement (79%) in removing Hg from water compare to control. The present investigation determined the equilibrium state of maximum Hg adsorption at 6 h contact period. The adsorption revealed a pH dependent response and pH 3.5 showed maximum sorption capacity of Hg. Freundlich isotherm model is well fitted with the experimental data than that of Langmuir isotherm. It can be concluded that the Cu impregnation improves the Hg sorption capacity of KVAS and 1% Cu impregnated KVAS could be employed as cost-effective adsorbent media for treating Hg contaminated water.

Keywords: Cupper, impregnation, isotherm, kanuma volcanic ash soil, mercury, sorption

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Authors: Yu-Wei Chang, Chiao-Hung Cheng, Wen-Fang Wu, Sih-Li Chen

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This article experimentally investigates the thermal performance of thermoelectric air-cooling module which comprises a thermoelectric cooler (TEC) and an air-cooling heat sink. The influences of input current and heat load are determined. And performances under each situation are quantified by thermal resistance analysis. Since TEC generates Joule heat, this nature makes construction of thermal resistance network difficult. To simplify the analysis, this article emphasizes on the resistance heat load might meet when passing through the device. Therefore, the thermal resistances in this paper are to divide temperature differences by heat load. According to the result, there exists an optimum input current under every heating power. In this case, the optimum input current is around 6A or 7A. The performance of the heat sink would be improved with TEC under certain heating power and input current, especially at a low heat load. According to the result, the device can even make the heat source cooler than the ambient. However, TEC is not always effective at every heat load and input current. In some situation, the device works worse than the heat sink without TEC. To determine the availability of TEC, this study figures out the effective operating region in which the TEC air-cooling module works better than the heat sink without TEC. The result shows that TEC is more effective at a lower heat load. If heat load is too high, heat sink with TEC will perform worse than without TEC. The limit of this device is 57W. Besides, TEC is not helpful if input current is too high or too low. There is an effective range of input current, and the range becomes narrower when the heat load grows.

Keywords: Thermoelectric cooler, TEC, electronic cooling, heat sink.

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Authors: Phumelele P. Kubheka, Pius A. Owolawi, Gbolahan Aiyetoro

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Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms where users share their opinions on different subjects. Twitter can be considered a great source for mining text due to the high volumes of data generated through the platform daily. Many industries such as telecommunication companies can leverage the availability of Twitter data to better understand their markets and make an appropriate business decision. This study performs topic modeling on Twitter data using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). The obtained results are benchmarked with another topic modeling technique, Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI). The study aims to retrieve topics on a Twitter dataset containing user tweets on South African Telcos. Results from this study show that LSI is much faster than LDA. However, LDA yields better results with higher topic coherence by 8% for the best-performing model in this experiment. A higher topic coherence score indicates better performance of the model.

Keywords: Big data, latent Dirichlet allocation, latent semantic indexing, Telco, topic modeling, Twitter.

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Authors: S. Mousavian, A. Abedianpour, A. Khanmohammadi, S. Hematian, Gh. Eidi Veisi

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Ionic liquids are finding a wide range of applications from reaction media to separations and materials processing. In these applications, Vapor–Liquid equilibrium (VLE) is the most important one. VLE for six systems at 353 K and activity coefficients at infinite dilution [(γ)_i^∞] for various solutes (alkanes, alkenes, cycloalkanes, cycloalkenes, aromatics, alcohols, ketones, esters, ethers, and water) in the ionic liquids (1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide [EMIM][BTI], 1-hexyl-3-methyl imidazolium bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide [HMIM][BTI], 1-octyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide [OMIM][BTI], and 1-butyl-1-methylpyrrolidinium bis (trifluoromethylsulfonyl) imide [BMPYR][BTI]) have been used to train neural networks in the temperature range from (303 to 333) K. Densities of the ionic liquids, Hildebrant constant of substances, and temperature were selected as input of neural networks. The networks with different hidden layers were examined. Networks with seven neurons in one hidden layer have minimum error and good agreement with experimental data.

Keywords: Ionic liquid, Neural networks, VLE, Dilute solution.

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Authors: André C. Silva, Débora N. Sousa, Elenice M. S. Silva, Thales P. Fontes, Raphael S. Tomaz

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Starches are widely used as depressant in froth flotation operations in Brazil due to their efficiency, increasing the selectivity in the inverse flotation of quartz depressing iron ore. Starches market have been growing and improving in recent years, leading to better products attending the requirements of the mineral industry. The major source of starch used for iron ore is corn starch, which needs to be gelatinized with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) prior to use. This stage has a direct impact on industrials costs, once the lowest consumption of NaOH in gelatinization provides better control of the pH in the froth flotation and reduces the amount of electrolytes present in the pulp. In order to evaluate the gelatinization degree of different starches and flour were subjected to the addiction of NaOH and temperature variation experiments. Samples of starch (corn, cassava, HIPIX 100, HIPIX 101 and HIPIX 102 commercialized by Ingredion) and flour (cassava and potato) were tested. The starch samples were characterized through Scanning Electronic Microscopy and the amylose content were determined through spectrometry, swelling and solubility tests. The gelatinization was carried out through titration with NaOH, keeping the solution temperature constant at 40 ^oC. At the end of the tests, the optimal amount of NaOH consumed to gelatinize the starch or flour from different botanical sources was established and a correlation between the content of amylopectin in the starch and the starch/NaOH ratio needed for its gelatinization.

Keywords: Froth flotation, gelatinization, sodium hydroxide, starches and flours.

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Authors: Temitope O. Tokosi

Abstract:

Healthcare is a human right. The sensitivity of health issues has necessitated the introduction of Enterprise Content Management (ECM) at district hospitals in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. The objective is understanding clinicians’ perception of ECM at their workplace. It is a descriptive case study design of constructivist paradigm. It employed a phenomenological data analysis method using a pattern matching deductive based analytical procedure. Purposive and s4nowball sampling techniques were applied in selecting participants. Clinicians expressed concerns and frustrations using ECM such as, non-integration with other hospital systems. Inadequate access points to ECM. Incorrect labelling of notes and bar-coding causes more time wasted in finding information. System features and/or functions (such as search and edit) are not possible. Hospital management and clinicians are not constantly interacting and discussing. Information turnaround time is unacceptably lengthy. Resolving these problems would involve a positive working relationship between hospital management and clinicians. In addition, prioritising the problems faced by clinicians in relation to relevance can ensure problem-solving in order to meet clinicians’ expectations and hospitals’ objective. Clinicians’ perception should invoke attention from hospital management with regards technology use. The study’s results can be generalised across clinician groupings exposed to ECM at various district hospitals because of professional and hospital homogeneity.

Keywords: Clinician, electronic content management, hospital, perception, technology.

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Authors: C. lo Storto

Abstract:

This paper presents an approach based on the adoption of a distributed cognition framework and a non parametric multicriteria evaluation methodology (DEA) designed specifically to compare e-commerce websites from the consumer/user viewpoint. In particular, the framework considers a website relative efficiency as a measure of its quality and usability. A website is modelled as a black box capable to provide the consumer/user with a set of functionalities. When the consumer/user interacts with the website to perform a task, he/she is involved in a cognitive activity, sustaining a cognitive cost to search, interpret and process information, and experiencing a sense of satisfaction. The degree of ambiguity and uncertainty he/she perceives and the needed search time determine the effort size – and, henceforth, the cognitive cost amount – he/she has to sustain to perform his/her task. On the contrary, task performing and result achievement induce a sense of gratification, satisfaction and usefulness. In total, 9 variables are measured, classified in a set of 3 website macro-dimensions (user experience, site navigability and structure). The framework is implemented to compare 40 websites of businesses performing electronic commerce in the information technology market. A questionnaire to collect subjective judgements for the websites in the sample was purposely designed and administered to 85 university students enrolled in computer science and information systems engineering undergraduate courses.

Keywords: Website, e-commerce, DEA, distributed cognition, evaluation, comparison.

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Authors: R. Rajendiran, S. Gayathri devi, B.T. SureshKumar, V. Arul Priya

Abstract:

Plackett-Burman statistical screening of media constituents and operational conditions for extracellular lipase production from isolate Trichoderma viride has been carried out in submerged fermentation. This statistical design is used in the early stages of experimentation to screen out unimportant factors from a large number of possible factors. This design involves screening of up to 'n-1' variables in just 'n' number of experiments. Regression coefficients and t-values were calculated by subjecting the experimental data to statistical analysis using Minitab version 15. The effects of nine process variables were studied in twelve experimental trials. Maximum lipase activity of 7.83 μmol /ml /min was obtained in the 6th trail. Pareto chart illustrates the order of significance of the variables affecting the lipase production. The present study concludes that the most significant variables affecting lipase production were found to be palm oil, yeast extract, K2HPO4, MgSO4 and CaCl2.

Keywords: lipase, submerged fermentation, statistical optimization, Trichoderma viride

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Authors: Jason Chien-Hsun Tseng, Nguyen Dong-Thai Dao, Chong-Ching Chang

Abstract:

A novel PDE solver using the multidimensional wave digital filtering (MDWDF) technique to achieve the solution of a 2D seismic wave system is presented. In essence, the continuous physical system served by a linear Kirchhoff circuit is transformed to an equivalent discrete dynamic system implemented by a MD wave digital filtering (MDWDF) circuit. This amounts to numerically approximating the differential equations used to describe elements of a MD passive electronic circuit by a grid-based difference equations implemented by the so-called state quantities within the passive MDWDF circuit. So the digital model can track the wave field on a dense 3D grid of points. Details about how to transform the continuous system into a desired discrete passive system are addressed. In addition, initial and boundary conditions are properly embedded into the MDWDF circuit in terms of state quantities. Graphic results have clearly demonstrated some physical effects of seismic wave (P-wave and S–wave) propagation including radiation, reflection, and refraction from and across the hard boundaries. Comparison between the MDWDF technique and the finite difference time domain (FDTD) approach is also made in terms of the computational efficiency.

Keywords: Seismic Wave Propagation, Multi-dimension WaveDigital Filters, Partial Differential Equations.

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Authors: F. Zarrabi, J. R. Brown

Abstract:

Although English is not a second language in Iran, it has become an inseparable part of many Iranian people’s lives and is becoming more and more widespread. This high demand has caused a significant increase in the number of private English language institutes in Iran. Although English is a compulsory course in schools and universities, the majority of Iranian people are unable to communicate easily in English. This paper reviews the current state of teaching and learning English as an international language in Iran. Attitudes and motivations about learning English are reviewed. Five different aspects of using English within the country are analysed, including: English in public domain, English in Media, English in organizations/businesses, English in education, and English in private language institutes. Despite the time and money spent on English language courses in private language institutes, the majority of learners seem to forget what has been learned within months of completing their course. That is, when they are students with the support of the teacher and formal classes, they appear to make progress and use English more or less fluently. When this support is removed, their language skills either stagnant or regress. The findings of this study suggest that a dependant approach to learning is potentially one of the main reasons for English language learning problems and this is encouraged by English course books and approaches to teaching.

Keywords: English in Iran, English language learning, English language teaching, evaluation.

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