Search results for: global generalized minimum residual (Gl-GMRES).
1648 Application of Artificial Neural Networks for Temperature Forecasting
Authors: Mohsen Hayati, Zahra Mohebi
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In this paper, the application of neural networks to study the design of short-term temperature forecasting (STTF) Systems for Kermanshah city, west of Iran was explored. One important architecture of neural networks named Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) to model STTF systems is used. Our study based on MLP was trained and tested using ten years (1996-2006) meteorological data. The results show that MLP network has the minimum forecasting error and can be considered as a good method to model the STTF systems.Keywords: Artificial neural networks, Forecasting, Weather, Multi-layer perceptron.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 43571647 Heritability and Repeatability Estimates of Some Measurable Traits in Meat Type Chickens Reared for Ten Weeks in Abeokuta, Nigeria
Authors: A. J. Sanda, O. Olowofeso, M. A. Adeleke, A. O Oso, S. O. Durosaro, M. O. Sanda
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A total of 150 meat type chickens comprising 50 each of Arbor Acre, Marshall and Ross were used for this study which lasted for 10 weeks at the Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Nigeria. Growth performance data were collected from the third week through week 10 and data obtained were analysed using the Generalized Linear Model Procedure. Heritability estimates (h2) for body dimensions carried out on the chicken strains ranged from low to high. Marshall broiler chicken strain had the highest h2 for body weight 0.46±0.04, followed by Arbor Acre and Ross with h2 being 0.38±0.12 and 0.26±0.06, respectively. The repeatability estimates for body weight in the three broiler strains were high, and it ranged from 0.70 at week 4 to 0.88 at week 10. Relationships between the body weight and linear body measurements in the broiler chicken strains were positive and highly significant (p > 0.05).
Keywords: Broiler chicken strains, heritability, repeatability, traits.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29861646 Irrigation Water Quality Evaluation Based on Multivariate Statistical Analysis: A Case Study of Jiaokou Irrigation District
Authors: Panpan Xu, Qiying Zhang, Hui Qian
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Groundwater is main source of water supply in the Guanzhong Basin, China. To investigate the quality of groundwater for agricultural purposes in Jiaokou Irrigation District located in the east of the Guanzhong Basin, 141 groundwater samples were collected for analysis of major ions (K+, Na+, Mg2+, Ca2+, SO42-, Cl-, HCO3-, and CO32-), pH, and total dissolved solids (TDS). Sodium percentage (Na%), residual sodium carbonate (RSC), magnesium hazard (MH), and potential salinity (PS) were applied for irrigation water quality assessment. In addition, multivariate statistical techniques were used to identify the underlying hydrogeochemical processes. Results show that the content of TDS mainly depends on Cl-, Na+, Mg2+, and SO42-, and the HCO3- content is generally high except for the eastern sand area. These are responsible for complex hydrogeochemical processes, such as dissolution of carbonate minerals (dolomite and calcite), gypsum, halite, and silicate minerals, the cation exchange, as well as evaporation and concentration. The average evaluation levels of Na%, RSC, MH, and PS for irrigation water quality are doubtful, good, unsuitable, and injurious to unsatisfactory, respectively. Therefore, it is necessary for decision makers to comprehensively consider the indicators and thus reasonably evaluate the irrigation water quality.
Keywords: Irrigation water quality, multivariate statistical analysis, groundwater, hydrogeochemical process.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5691645 Extracting Single Trial Visual Evoked Potentials using Selective Eigen-Rate Principal Components
Authors: Samraj Andrews, Ramaswamy Palaniappan, Nidal Kamel
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In single trial analysis, when using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to extract Visual Evoked Potential (VEP) signals, the selection of principal components (PCs) is an important issue. We propose a new method here that selects only the appropriate PCs. We denote the method as selective eigen-rate (SER). In the method, the VEP is reconstructed based on the rate of the eigen-values of the PCs. When this technique is applied on emulated VEP signals added with background electroencephalogram (EEG), with a focus on extracting the evoked P3 parameter, it is found to be feasible. The improvement in signal to noise ratio (SNR) is superior to two other existing methods of PC selection: Kaiser (KSR) and Residual Power (RP). Though another PC selection method, Spectral Power Ratio (SPR) gives a comparable SNR with high noise factors (i.e. EEGs), SER give more impressive results in such cases. Next, we applied SER method to real VEP signals to analyse the P3 responses for matched and non-matched stimuli. The P3 parameters extracted through our proposed SER method showed higher P3 response for matched stimulus, which confirms to the existing neuroscience knowledge. Single trial PCA using KSR and RP methods failed to indicate any difference for the stimuli.Keywords: Electroencephalogram, P3, Single trial VEP.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16411644 Effect of Single Overload Ratio and Stress Ratio on Fatigue Crack Growth
Authors: M. Benachour, N. Benachour, M. Benguediab
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In this investigation variation of cyclic loading effect on fatigue crack growth is the studied. This study is performed on 2024 T351 and 7050-T74 aluminum alloys, used in aeronautical structures. The propagation model used in this study is NASGRO model. In constant amplitude loading (CA), effect of stress ratio has been investigated. Fatigue life and fatigue crack growth rate were affected by this factor. Results showed an increasing in fatigue crack growth rates (FCGRs) with increasing stress ratio. Variable amplitude loading (VAL) can take many forms i.e. with a single overload, overload band… etc. The shape of these loads affects strongly the fracture life and FCGRs. The application of a single overload (ORL) decrease the FCGR and increase the delay crack length caused by the formation of a larger plastic zone compared to the plastic zone due without VAL. The fatigue behavior of the both material under single overload has been compared.
Keywords: Fatigue crack growth, overload ratio, stress ratio, generalized willenborg model, retardation, Al-alloys.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 36011643 Mathematical Approach towards Fault Detection and Isolation of Linear Dynamical Systems
Authors: V.Manikandan, N.Devarajan
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The main objective of this work is to provide a fault detection and isolation based on Markov parameters for residual generation and a neural network for fault classification. The diagnostic approach is accomplished in two steps: In step 1, the system is identified using a series of input / output variables through an identification algorithm. In step 2, the fault is diagnosed comparing the Markov parameters of faulty and non faulty systems. The Artificial Neural Network is trained using predetermined faulty conditions serves to classify the unknown fault. In step 1, the identification is done by first formulating a Hankel matrix out of Input/ output variables and then decomposing the matrix via singular value decomposition technique. For identifying the system online sliding window approach is adopted wherein an open slit slides over a subset of 'n' input/output variables. The faults are introduced at arbitrary instances and the identification is carried out in online. Fault residues are extracted making a comparison of the first five Markov parameters of faulty and non faulty systems. The proposed diagnostic approach is illustrated on benchmark problems with encouraging results.
Keywords: Artificial neural network, Fault Diagnosis, Identification, Markov parameters.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16331642 A Study on the Heading of Spur Gears: Numerical Analysis and Experiments
Authors: M.Zadshakouyan, E.Abdi Sobbouhi, H.Jafarzadeh
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In this study, the precision heading process of spur gears has been investigated by means of numerical analysis. The effect of some parameters such as teeth number and module on the forming force and material flow were presented. The simulation works were performed rigid-plastic finite element method using DEFORM 3D software. In order to validate the estimated numerical results, they were compared with those obtained experimentally during heading of spur gear using lead as a model material. Results showed that the optimum number of gear teeth is between 10 to 20, that is because of being the specific pressure in its minimum value.Keywords: Heading, spur gear, numerical analysis, experiments.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19541641 On the Efficient Implementation of a Serial and Parallel Decomposition Algorithm for Fast Support Vector Machine Training Including a Multi-Parameter Kernel
Authors: Tatjana Eitrich, Bruno Lang
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This work deals with aspects of support vector machine learning for large-scale data mining tasks. Based on a decomposition algorithm for support vector machine training that can be run in serial as well as shared memory parallel mode we introduce a transformation of the training data that allows for the usage of an expensive generalized kernel without additional costs. We present experiments for the Gaussian kernel, but usage of other kernel functions is possible, too. In order to further speed up the decomposition algorithm we analyze the critical problem of working set selection for large training data sets. In addition, we analyze the influence of the working set sizes onto the scalability of the parallel decomposition scheme. Our tests and conclusions led to several modifications of the algorithm and the improvement of overall support vector machine learning performance. Our method allows for using extensive parameter search methods to optimize classification accuracy.
Keywords: Support Vector Machine Training, Multi-ParameterKernels, Shared Memory Parallel Computing, Large Data
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 14431640 Cooperative Multi Agent Soccer Robot Team
Authors: Vahid Rostami, Saeed Ebrahimijam, P.khajehpoor, P.Mirzaei, Mahdi Yousefiazar
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This paper introduces our first efforts of developing a new team for RoboCup Middle Size Competition. In our robots we have applied omni directional based mobile system with omnidirectional vision system and fuzzy control algorithm to navigate robots. The control architecture of MRL middle-size robots is a three layered architecture, Planning, Sequencing, and Executing. It also uses Blackboard system to achieve coordination among agents. Moreover, the architecture should have minimum dependency on low level structure and have a uniform protocol to interact with real robot.Keywords: Robocup, Soccer robots, Fuzzy controller, Multi agent.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15581639 Energy Requirement for Cutting Corn Stalks (Single Cross 704 Var.)
Authors: M. Azadbakht, A. Rezaei Asl, K. Tamaskani Zahedi
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Corn is cultivated in most countries because of high consumption, quality, and food value. This study evaluated needed energy for cutting corn stems in different levels of cutting height and moisture content. For this reason, test device was fabricated and then calibrated. The device works on the principle of conservation of energy. The results were analyzed using split plot design and SAS software. The results showed that effect of height and moisture content and their interaction effect on cutting energy are significant (P<1%). The maximum cutting energy was 3.22 kJ in 63 (w.b.%) moisture content and the minimum cutting energy was 1.63 kJ in 83.25 (w.b.%) moisture content.
Keywords: Cutting energy, Corn stalk, Cutting height, Moisture content, Impact cutting.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 31431638 Auto Regressive Tree Modeling for Parametric Optimization in Fuzzy Logic Control System
Authors: Arshia Azam, J. Amarnath, Ch. D. V. Paradesi Rao
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The advantage of solving the complex nonlinear problems by utilizing fuzzy logic methodologies is that the experience or expert-s knowledge described as a fuzzy rule base can be directly embedded into the systems for dealing with the problems. The current limitation of appropriate and automated designing of fuzzy controllers are focused in this paper. The structure discovery and parameter adjustment of the Branched T-S fuzzy model is addressed by a hybrid technique of type constrained sparse tree algorithms. The simulation result for different system model is evaluated and the identification error is observed to be minimum.Keywords: Fuzzy logic, branch T-S fuzzy model, tree modeling, complex nonlinear system.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13891637 Harmonic Reduction In Three-Phase Parallel Connected Inverter
Authors: M.A.A. Younis, N. A. Rahim, S. Mekhilef
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This paper presents the design and analysis of a parallel connected inverter configuration of. The configuration consists of parallel connected three-phase dc/ac inverter. Series resistors added to the inverter output to maintain same current in each inverter of the two parallel inverters, and to reduce the circulating current in the parallel inverters to the minimum. High frequency third harmonic injection PWM (THIPWM) employed to reduce the total harmonic distortion and to make maximum use of the voltage source. DSP was used to generate the THIPWM and the control algorithm for the converter. Selected experimental results have been shown to validate the proposed system.Keywords: Three-phase inverter, Third harmonic injection PWM, inverters parallel connection.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 37751636 Sorting Primitives and Genome Rearrangementin Bioinformatics: A Unified Perspective
Authors: Swapnoneel Roy, Minhazur Rahman, Ashok Kumar Thakur
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Bioinformatics and computational biology involve the use of techniques including applied mathematics, informatics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry, and biochemistry to solve biological problems usually on the molecular level. Research in computational biology often overlaps with systems biology. Major research efforts in the field include sequence alignment, gene finding, genome assembly, protein structure alignment, protein structure prediction, prediction of gene expression and proteinprotein interactions, and the modeling of evolution. Various global rearrangements of permutations, such as reversals and transpositions,have recently become of interest because of their applications in computational molecular biology. A reversal is an operation that reverses the order of a substring of a permutation. A transposition is an operation that swaps two adjacent substrings of a permutation. The problem of determining the smallest number of reversals required to transform a given permutation into the identity permutation is called sorting by reversals. Similar problems can be defined for transpositions and other global rearrangements. In this work we perform a study about some genome rearrangement primitives. We show how a genome is modelled by a permutation, introduce some of the existing primitives and the lower and upper bounds on them. We then provide a comparison of the introduced primitives.Keywords: Sorting Primitives, Genome Rearrangements, Transpositions, Block Interchanges, Strip Exchanges.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 21611635 Net Fee and Commission Income Determinants of European Cooperative Banks
Authors: Karolína Vozková, Matěj Kuc
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Net fee and commission income is one of the key elements of a bank’s core income. In the current low-interest rate environment, this type of income is gaining importance relative to net interest income. This paper analyses the effects of bank and country specific determinants of net fee and commission income on a set of cooperative banks from European countries in the 2007-2014 period. In order to do that, dynamic panel data methods (system Generalized Methods of Moments) were employed. Subsequently, alternative panel data methods were run as robustness checks of the analysis. Strong positive impact of bank concentration on the share of net fee and commission income was found, which proves that cooperative banks tend to display a higher share of fee income in less competitive markets. This is probably connected with the fact that they stick with their traditional deposit-taking and loan-providing model and fees on these services are driven down by the competitors. Moreover, compared to commercial banks, cooperatives do not expand heavily into non-traditional fee bearing services under competition and their overall fee income share is therefore decreasing with the increased competitiveness of the sector.
Keywords: Cooperative banking, dynamic panel data models, net fee, commission income, system GMM.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29441634 A New Approach to Predicting Physical Biometrics from Behavioural Biometrics
Authors: Raid R. O. Al-Nima, S. S. Dlay, W. L. Woo
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A relationship between face and signature biometrics is established in this paper. A new approach is developed to predict faces from signatures by using artificial intelligence. A multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network is used to generate face details from features extracted from signatures, here face is the physical biometric and signatures is the behavioural biometric. The new method establishes a relationship between the two biometrics and regenerates a visible face image from the signature features. Furthermore, the performance efficiencies of our new technique are demonstrated in terms of minimum error rates compared to published work.
Keywords: Behavioural biometric, Face biometric, Neural network, Physical biometric, Signature biometric.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16841633 The Affect of Ethnic Minority People: A Prediction by Gender and Marital Status
Authors: A. K. M. Rezaul Karim, Abu Yusuf Mahmud, S. H. Mahmud
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The study aimed to investigate whether the affect (experience of feeling or emotion) of ethnic minority people can be predicted by gender and marital status. Toward this end, positive affect and negative affect of 103 adult indigenous persons were measured. Analysis of data in multiple regressions demonstrated that both gender and marital status are significantly associated with positive affect (Gender: β=.318, p<.001; Marital status: β=.201, p<.05), but not with negative affect. Results indicated that the indigenous males have 0.32 standard deviations increased positive affect as compared to the indigenous females and that married individuals have 0.20 standard deviations increased positive affect as compared to their unmarried counterparts. These findings advance our understanding that gender and marital status inequalities in the experience of emotion are not specific to the mainstream society; rather it is a generalized picture of all societies. In general, men possess more positive affect than females; married persons possess more positive affect than the unmarried persons.
Keywords: Positive Affect, Negative Affect, Ethnic Minority, Gender, Marital Status.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 19041632 A Method under Uncertain Information for the Selection of Students in Interdisciplinary Studies
Authors: José M. Merigó, Pilar López-Jurado, M.Carmen Gracia, Montserrat Casanovas
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We present a method for the selection of students in interdisciplinary studies based on the hybrid averaging operator. We assume that the available information given in the problem is uncertain so it is necessary to use interval numbers. Therefore, we suggest a new type of hybrid aggregation called uncertain induced generalized hybrid averaging (UIGHA) operator. It is an aggregation operator that considers the weighted average (WA) and the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator in the same formulation. Therefore, we are able to consider the degree of optimism of the decision maker and grades of importance in the same approach. By using interval numbers, we are able to represent the information considering the best and worst possible results so the decision maker gets a more complete view of the decision problem. We develop an illustrative example of the proposed scheme in the selection of students in interdisciplinary studies. We see that with the use of the UIGHA operator we get a more complete representation of the selection problem. Then, the decision maker is able to consider a wide range of alternatives depending on his interests. We also show other potential applications that could be used by using the UIGHA operator in educational problems about selection of different types of resources such as students, professors, etc.Keywords: Decision making, Selection of students, Uncertainty, Aggregation operators.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 13951631 Block-Based 2D to 3D Image Conversion Method
Authors: S. Sowmyayani, V. Murugan
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With the advent of three-dimension (3D) technology, there are lots of research in converting 2D images to 3D images. The main difference between 2D and 3D is the visual illusion of depth in 3D images. In the recent era, there are more depth estimation techniques. The objective of this paper is to convert 2D images to 3D images with less computation time. For this, the input image is divided into blocks from which the depth information is obtained. Having the depth information, a depth map is generated. Then the 3D image is warped using the original image and the depth map. The proposed method is tested on Make3D dataset and NYU-V2 dataset. The experimental results are compared with other recent methods. The proposed method proved to work with less computation time and good accuracy.
Keywords: Depth map, 3D image warping, image rendering, bilateral filter, minimum spanning tree.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3611630 Modeling and Analysis of Concrete Slump Using Hybrid Artificial Neural Networks
Authors: Vinay Chandwani, Vinay Agrawal, Ravindra Nagar
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Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) trained using backpropagation (BP) algorithm are commonly used for modeling material behavior associated with non-linear, complex or unknown interactions among the material constituents. Despite multidisciplinary applications of back-propagation neural networks (BPNN), the BP algorithm possesses the inherent drawback of getting trapped in local minima and slowly converging to a global optimum. The paper present a hybrid artificial neural networks and genetic algorithm approach for modeling slump of ready mix concrete based on its design mix constituents. Genetic algorithms (GA) global search is employed for evolving the initial weights and biases for training of neural networks, which are further fine tuned using the BP algorithm. The study showed that, hybrid ANN-GA model provided consistent predictions in comparison to commonly used BPNN model. In comparison to BPNN model, the hybrid ANNGA model was able to reach the desired performance goal quickly. Apart from the modeling slump of ready mix concrete, the synaptic weights of neural networks were harnessed for analyzing the relative importance of concrete design mix constituents on the slump value. The sand and water constituents of the concrete design mix were found to exhibit maximum importance on the concrete slump value.
Keywords: Artificial neural networks, Genetic algorithms, Back-propagation algorithm, Ready Mix Concrete, Slump value.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 29041629 Effect of a Linear-Exponential Penalty Functionon the GA-s Efficiency in Optimization of a Laminated Composite Panel
Authors: A. Abedian, M. H. Ghiasi, B. Dehghan-Manshadi
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A stiffened laminated composite panel (1 m length × 0.5m width) was optimized for minimum weight and deflection under several constraints using genetic algorithm. Here, a significant study on the performance of a penalty function with two kinds of static and dynamic penalty factors was conducted. The results have shown that linear dynamic penalty factors are more effective than the static ones. Also, a specially combined linear-exponential function has shown to perform more effective than the previously mentioned penalty functions. This was then resulted in the less sensitivity of the GA to the amount of penalty factor.Keywords: Genetic algorithms, penalty function, stiffenedcomposite panel, finite element method.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 16781628 Causal Relationship between Macro-Economic Indicators and Funds Unit Prices Behavior: Evidence from Malaysian Islamic Equity Unit Trust Funds Industry
Authors: Anwar Hasan Abdullah Othman, Ahamed Kameel, Hasanuddeen Abdul Aziz
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In this study, attempt has been made to investigate the relationship specifically the causal relation between fund unit prices of Islamic equity unit trust fund which measure by fund NAV and the selected macro-economic variables of Malaysian economy by using VECM causality test and Granger causality test. Monthly data has been used from Jan, 2006 to Dec, 2012 for all the variables. The findings of the study showed that industrial production index, political election and financial crisis are the only variables having unidirectional causal relationship with fund unit price. However the global oil price is having bidirectional causality with fund NAV. Thus, it is concluded that the equity unit trust fund industry in Malaysia is an inefficient market with respect to the industrial production index, global oil prices, political election and financial crisis. However the market is approaching towards informational efficiency at least with respect to four macroeconomic variables, treasury bill rate, money supply, foreign exchange rate, and corruption index.
Keywords: Fund unit price, unit trust industry, Malaysia, macroeconomic variables, causality.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 36031627 Multi-Objective Optimization Contingent on Subcarrier-Wise Beamforming for Multiuser MIMO-OFDM Interference Channels
Authors: R. Vedhapriya Vadhana, Ruba Soundar, K. G. Jothi Shalini
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We address the problem of interference over all the channels in multiuser MIMO-OFDM systems. This paper contributes three beamforming strategies designed for multiuser multiple-input and multiple-output by way of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing, in which the transmit and receive beamformers are acquired repetitious by secure-form stages. In the principal case, the transmit (TX) beamformers remain fixed then the receive (RX) beamformers are computed. This eradicates one interference span for every user by means of extruding the transmit beamformers into a null space of relevant channels. Formerly, by gratifying the orthogonality condition to exclude the residual interferences in RX beamformer for every user is done by maximizing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). The second case comprises mutually optimizing the TX and RX beamformers from controlled SNR maximization. The outcomes of first case is used here. The third case also includes combined optimization of TX-RX beamformers; however, uses the both controlled SNR and signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio maximization (SINR). By the standardized channel model for IEEE 802.11n, the proposed simulation experiments offer rapid beamforming and enhanced error performance.Keywords: Beamforming, interference channels, MIMO-OFDM, multi-objective optimization.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11261626 Prospects for Sustainable Chemistry in South Africa: A Plural Healthcare System
Authors: Ntokozo C. Mthembu
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The notion of sustainable chemistry has become significant in the discourse for a global post-colonial era, including South Africa, especially when it comes to access to the general health system and related policies in relation to disease or ease of human life. In view of the stubborn vestiges of coloniality in the daily lives of indigenous African people in general, the fundamentals of present Western medical and traditional medicine systems and related policies in the democratic era were examined in this study. The situation of traditional healers in relation to current policy was also reviewed. The advent of democracy in South Africa brought about a variety of development opportunities and limitations, particularly with respect to indigenous African knowledge systems such as traditional medicine. There were high hopes that the limitations of previous narrow cultural perspectives would be rectified in the democratic era through development interventions, but some sections of society, such as traditional healers, remain marginalised. The Afrocentric perspective was explored in dissecting government interventions related to traditional medicine. This article highlights that multiple medical systems should be adopted and that health policies should be aligned in order to guarantee mutual respect and to address the remnants of colonialism in South Africa, Africa and the broader global community.
Keywords: Traditional healing system, healers, pluralist healthcare system, post-colonial era.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 5561625 Minimizing Examinee Collusion with a Latin- Square Treatment Structure
Authors: M. H. Omar
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Cheating on standardized tests has been a major concern as it potentially minimizes measurement precision. One major way to reduce cheating by collusion is to administer multiple forms of a test. Even with this approach, potential collusion is still quite large. A Latin-square treatment structure for distributing multiple forms is proposed to further reduce the colluding potential. An index to measure the extent of colluding potential is also proposed. Finally, with a simple algorithm, the various Latin-squares were explored to find the best structure to keep the colluding potential to a minimum.Keywords: Colluding pairs, Scale for Colluding Potential, Latin-Square Structure, Minimization of Cheating.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 11661624 Effectiveness of Moringa oleifera Coagulant Protein as Natural Coagulant aid in Removal of Turbidity and Bacteria from Turbid Waters
Authors: B. Bina, M.H. Mehdinejad, Gunnel Dalhammer, Guna RajaraoM. Nikaeen, H. Movahedian Attar
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Coagulation of water involves the use of coagulating agents to bring the suspended matter in the raw water together for settling and the filtration stage. Present study is aimed to examine the effects of aluminum sulfate as coagulant in conjunction with Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein as coagulant aid on turbidity, hardness, and bacteria in turbid water. A conventional jar test apparatus was employed for the tests. The best removal was observed at a pH of 7 to 7.5 for all turbidities. Turbidity removal efficiency was resulted between % 80 to % 99 by Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein as coagulant aid. Dosage of coagulant and coagulant aid decreased with increasing turbidity. In addition, Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein significantly has reduced the required dosage of primary coagulant. Residual Al+3 in treated water were less than 0.2 mg/l and meets the environmental protection agency guidelines. The results showed that turbidity reduction of % 85.9- % 98 paralleled by a primary Escherichia coli reduction of 1-3 log units (99.2 – 99.97%) was obtained within the first 1 to 2 h of treatment. In conclusions, Moringa Oleifera Coagulant Protein as coagulant aid can be used for drinking water treatment without the risk of organic or nutrient release. We demonstrated that optimal design method is an efficient approach for optimization of coagulation-flocculation process and appropriate for raw water treatment.Keywords: MOCP, Coagulant aid, turbidity removal, E.coliremoval, water, treatment
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 35411623 A Frequency Grouping Approach for Blind Deconvolution of Fairly Motionless Sources
Authors: E. S. Gower, T. Tsalaile, E. Rakgati, M. O. J. Hawksford
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A frequency grouping approach for multi-channel instantaneous blind source separation (I-BSS) of convolutive mixtures is proposed for a lower net residual inter-symbol interference (ISI) and inter-channel interference (ICI) than the conventional short-time Fourier transform (STFT) approach. Starting in the time domain, STFTs are taken with overlapping windows to convert the convolutive mixing problem into frequency domain instantaneous mixing. Mixture samples at the same frequency but from different STFT windows are grouped together forming unique frequency groups. The individual frequency group vectors are input to the I-BSS algorithm of choice, from which the output samples are dispersed back to their respective STFT windows. After applying the inverse STFT, the resulting time domain signals are used to construct the complete source estimates via the weighted overlap-add method (WOLA). The proposed algorithm is tested for source deconvolution given two mixtures, and simulated along with the STFT approach to illustrate its superiority for fairly motionless sources.Keywords: Blind source separation, short-time Fouriertransform, weighted overlap-add method
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 15271622 A Study of Panel Logit Model and Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System in the Prediction of Financial Distress Periods
Authors: Ε. Giovanis
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The purpose of this paper is to present two different approaches of financial distress pre-warning models appropriate for risk supervisors, investors and policy makers. We examine a sample of the financial institutions and electronic companies of Taiwan Security Exchange (TSE) market from 2002 through 2008. We present a binary logistic regression with paned data analysis. With the pooled binary logistic regression we build a model including more variables in the regression than with random effects, while the in-sample and out-sample forecasting performance is higher in random effects estimation than in pooled regression. On the other hand we estimate an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) with Gaussian and Generalized Bell (Gbell) functions and we find that ANFIS outperforms significant Logit regressions in both in-sample and out-of-sample periods, indicating that ANFIS is a more appropriate tool for financial risk managers and for the economic policy makers in central banks and national statistical services.Keywords: ANFIS, Binary logistic regression, Financialdistress, Panel data
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 23421621 The Effectiveness of National Fiscal Rules in the Asia-Pacific Countries
Authors: Chiung-Ju Huang, Yuan-Hong Ho
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This study utilizes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Fiscal Rules Dataset focusing on four specific fiscal rules such as expenditure rule, revenue rule, budget balance rule, and debt rule and five main characteristics of each fiscal rule those are monitoring, enforcement, coverage, legal basis, and escape clause to construct the Fiscal Rule Index for nine countries in the Asia-Pacific region from 1996 to 2015. After constructing the fiscal rule index for each country, we utilize the Panel Generalized Method of Moments (Panel GMM) by using the constructed fiscal rule index to examine the effectiveness of fiscal rules in reducing procyclicality. Empirical results show that national fiscal rules have a significantly negative impact on procyclicality of government expenditure. Additionally, stricter fiscal rules combined with high government effectiveness are effective in reducing procyclicality of government expenditure. Results of this study indicate that for nine Asia-Pacific countries, policymakers’ use of fiscal rules and government effectiveness to reducing procyclicality of fiscal policy are effective.
Keywords: Counter-cyclical policy, fiscal rules, government effectiveness, procyclical policy.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 8251620 Modeling and Simulation of Robotic Arm Movement using Soft Computing
Authors: V. K. Banga, Jasjit Kaur, R. Kumar, Y. Singh
Abstract:
In this research paper we have presented control architecture for robotic arm movement and trajectory planning using Fuzzy Logic (FL) and Genetic Algorithms (GAs). This architecture is used to compensate the uncertainties like; movement, friction and settling time in robotic arm movement. The genetic algorithms and fuzzy logic is used to meet the objective of optimal control movement of robotic arm. This proposed technique represents a general model for redundant structures and may extend to other structures. Results show optimal angular movement of joints as result of evolutionary process. This technique has edge over the other techniques as minimum mathematics complexity used.Keywords: Kinematics, Genetic algorithms (GAs), Fuzzy logic(FL), Optimal control.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 30091619 An Advanced Method for Speech Recognition
Authors: Meysam Mohamad pour, Fardad Farokhi
Abstract:
In this paper in consideration of each available techniques deficiencies for speech recognition, an advanced method is presented that-s able to classify speech signals with the high accuracy (98%) at the minimum time. In the presented method, first, the recorded signal is preprocessed that this section includes denoising with Mels Frequency Cepstral Analysis and feature extraction using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) coefficients; Then these features are fed to Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) network for classification. Finally, after training of neural network effective features are selected with UTA algorithm.Keywords: Multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network, Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) , Mels Scale Frequency Filter , UTA algorithm.
Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2366