Search results for: Digital content strategy

Authors: Anders Berglund, Cornel Mihai Nicolescu, Henrik Svensson

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Swedish truck industry is investigating the possibility for implementing the use of Compacted Graphite Iron (CGI) in their heavy duty diesel engines. Compared to the alloyed gray iron used today, CGI has superior mechanical properties but not as good machinability. Another issue that needs to be addressed when implementing CGI is the inhomogeneous microstructure when the cast component has different section thicknesses, as in cylinder blocks. Thinner sections results in finer pearlite, in the material, with higher strength. Therefore an investigation on its influence on machinability was needed. This paper focuses on the effect that interlamellar distance in pearlite has on CGI machinability and material physical properties. The effect of pearlite content and nodularity is also examined. The results showed that interlamellar distance in pearlite did not have as large effect on the material physical properties or machinability as pearlite content. The paper also shows the difficulties of obtaining a homogeneous microstructure in inhomogeneous workpieces.

Keywords: Compacted graphite iron (CGI), machinability, microstructure, milling, interlamellar distance in pearlite.

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Authors: Renee P. Baang, Romeo M. Del Rosario, Nenita D. Palmes

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The crude methanol extracts of five indigenous vegetables namely, Amarathus tricolor, Basella rubra L., Chochurus olitorius L., Ipomea batatas, and Momordica chuchinensis L., were examined for their phytochemical profile and antioxidant activity using 1,1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) free radical. The values for DPPH radical scavenging activity ranged from 7.6-89.53% with B. rubra and I. batatas having the lowest and highest values, respectively. The total flavonoid content of all five indigenous vegetables ranged from 74.65-277.3 mg quercetin equivalent per gram of dried vegetable material while the total phenolic content ranged from 1.93-6.15 mg gallic acid equivalent per gram dried material. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of steroids, flavonoids, saponins, tannins, carbohydrates and reducing sugars, which may also be associated with the antioxidant activity shown by these indigenous vegetables.

Keywords: Antioxidant, DPPH radical scavenging activity, Philippine indigenous vegetables, phytochemical screening.

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Authors: Hassnen M. Jafer, W. Atherton, F. Ruddock, E. Loffil

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This paper represents the results of experimental work to investigate the suitability of a waste material (WM) for soft soil stabilisation. In addition, the effect of particle size distribution (PSD) of the waste material on its performance as a soil stabiliser was investigated. The WM used in this study is produced from the incineration processes in domestic energy power plant and it is available in two different grades of fineness (coarse waste material (CWM) and fine waste material (FWM)). An intermediate plasticity silty clayey soil with medium organic matter content has been used in this study. The suitability of the CWM and FWM to improve the physical and engineering properties of the selected soil was evaluated dependant on the results obtained from the consistency limits, compaction characteristics (optimum moisture content (OMC) and maximum dry density (MDD)); along with the unconfined compressive strength test (UCS). Different percentages of CWM were added to the soft soil (3, 6, 9, 12 and 15%) to produce various admixtures. Then the UCS test was carried out on specimens under different curing periods (zero, 7, 14, and 28 days) to find the optimum percentage of CWM. The optimum and other two percentages (either side of the optimum content) were used for FWM to evaluate the effect of the fineness of the WM on UCS of the stabilised soil. Results indicated that both types of the WM used in this study improved the physical properties of the soft soil where the index of plasticity (IP) was decreased significantly. IP was decreased from 21 to 13.64 and 13.10 with 12% of CWM and 15% of FWM respectively. The results of the unconfined compressive strength test indicated that 12% of CWM was the optimum and this percentage developed the UCS value from 202kPa to 500kPa for 28 days cured samples, which is equal, approximately 2.5 times the UCS value for untreated soil. Moreover, this percentage provided 1.4 times the value of UCS for stabilized soil-CWA by using FWM which recorded just under 700kPa after 28 days curing. 

Keywords: Soft soil stabilisation, waste materials, fineness, and unconfined compressive strength.

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Authors: Gemma García López

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The goal of this study is to analyze if search queries carried out in search engines such as Google, can offer emotional information about the user that performs them. Knowing the emotional state in which the Internet user is located can be a key to achieve the maximum personalization of content and the detection of worrying behaviors. For this, two studies were carried out using tools with advanced natural language processing techniques. The first study determines if a query can be classified as positive, negative or neutral, while the second study extracts emotional content from words and applies the categorical and dimensional models for the representation of emotions. In addition, we use search queries in Spanish and English to establish similarities and differences between two languages. The results revealed that text search queries performed by users on the Internet can be classified emotionally. This allows us to better understand the emotional state of the user at the time of the search, which could involve adapting the technology and personalizing the responses to different emotional states.

Keywords: Emotion classification, text search queries, emotional analysis, sentiment analysis in text, natural language processing.

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Authors: A. J. Otjen

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Native American communities are struggling with unemployment and depressed economies. A major cause is a lack of business knowledge, education, and cultural desire. And yet, in the history of the American West, Native Americans were considered the best traders and negotiators for everything from furs to weapons to buffalo. To improve these economies, there has been an effort to reintroduce that heritage to todays and tomorrows generation of tribal members, such Crow, Cheyenne, and Blackfeet. Professors at the College of Business Montana State University-Billings (MSUB) teach tribal students in Montana to create business plans. These plans have won national small business plan competitions. The teaching and advising method used at MSUB is uniquely successful as theses business students are now five time national champions. This article reviews the environment and the method of learning to achieve a winning small business plan with Native American students. It discusses the five plans that became national champions. And it discusses the problems and solutions discovered in the process of achieving results. Students who participated in this endeavor have graduated and become CPAs, MBAs, and gainfully employed in their chosen professions. They have also worked to improve the economies of their native lands and homes. By educating members of these communities with business strategy and plan development, they are better able to impact their own economies.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Native Americans economies, small businesses.

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Authors: Amit Kr. Happy

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This paper is motivated by the importance of multi-sensor image fusion with specific focus on Infrared (IR) and Visible image (VI) fusion for various applications including military reconnaissance. Image fusion can be defined as the process of combining two or more source images into a single composite image with extended information content that improves visual perception or feature extraction. These images can be from different modalities like Visible camera & IR Thermal Imager. While visible images are captured by reflected radiations in the visible spectrum, the thermal images are formed from thermal radiation (IR) that may be reflected or self-emitted. A digital color camera captures the visible source image and a thermal IR camera acquires the thermal source image. In this paper, some image fusion algorithms based upon Multi-Scale Transform (MST) and region-based selection rule with consistency verification have been proposed and presented. This research includes implementation of the proposed image fusion algorithm in MATLAB along with a comparative analysis to decide the optimum number of levels for MST and the coefficient fusion rule. The results are presented, and several commonly used evaluation metrics are used to assess the suggested method's validity. Experiments show that the proposed approach is capable of producing good fusion results. While deploying our image fusion algorithm approaches, we observe several challenges from the popular image fusion methods. While high computational cost and complex processing steps of image fusion algorithms provide accurate fused results, but they also make it hard to become deployed in system and applications that require real-time operation, high flexibility and low computation ability. So, the methods presented in this paper offer good results with minimum time complexity.

Keywords: Image fusion, IR thermal imager, multi-sensor, Multi-Scale Transform.

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Authors: K. K. Starkov, A. Y. Pogromsky, I. J. B. F. Adan, J. E. Rooda

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In this paper we present our results on the performance analysis of a multi-product manufacturing line. We study the influence of external perturbations, intermediate buffer content and the number of manufacturing stages on the production tracking error of each machine in the multi-product line operated under a surplusbased production control policy. Starting by the analysis of a single machine with multiple production stages (one for each product type), we provide bounds on the production error of each stage. Then, we extend our analysis to a line of multi-stage machines, where similarly, bounds on each production tracking error for each product type, as well as buffer content are obtained. Details on performance of the closed-loop flow line model are illustrated in numerical simulations.

Keywords: Flexible manufacturing systems, tracking systems, discrete time systems, production control, boundary conditions.

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Authors: Y. Parvizi, M. Gorji, M.H. Mahdian, M. Omid

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Soil organic carbon (SOC) plays a key role in soil fertility, hydrology, contaminants control and acts as a sink or source of terrestrial carbon content that can affect the concentration of atmospheric CO2. SOC supports the sustainability and quality of ecosystems, especially in semi-arid region. This study was conducted to determine relative importance of 13 different exploratory climatic, soil and geometric factors on the SOC contents in one of the semiarid watershed zones in Iran. Two methods canonical discriminate analysis (CDA) and feed-forward back propagation neural networks were used to predict SOC. Stepwise regression and sensitivity analysis were performed to identify relative importance of exploratory variables. Results from sensitivity analysis showed that 7-2-1 neural networks and 5 inputs in CDA models output have highest predictive ability that explains %70 and %65 of SOC variability. Since neural network models outperformed CDA model, it should be preferred for estimating SOC.

Keywords: Soil organic carbon, modeling, neural networks, CDA.

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Authors: Phichak Phutrakhul

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The purposes of this research were to study concepts and strategies of human resource development in the automotive manufacturers and to articulate the proposals against the government about the human resource development for automotive industry. In the present study, qualitative study was an in-depth interview in which the qualitative data were collected from the executive or the executive of human resource division from five automotive companies - Toyota Motor (Thailand) Co., Ltd., Nissan Motor (Thailand) Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Motors (Thailand) Co., Ltd., Honda Automobile (Thailand) Co., Ltd., and Suzuki Motor (Thailand) Co., Ltd. Qualitative data analysis was performed by using inter-coder agreement technique. The research findings were as follows: The external factors included the current conditions of the automotive industry, government’s policy related to the automotive industry, technology, labor market and human resource development systems of the country. The internal factors included management, productive management, organizational strategies, leadership, organizational culture and philosophy of human resource development. These factors were affected to the different concept of human resources development -the traditional human resource development and the strategies of human resource development. The organization focuses on human resources as intellectual capital and uses the strategies of human resource development in all development processes. The strategies of human resource development will enhance the ability of human resources in the organization and the country.

Keywords: Human Resource Development Strategy, Automotive industry, Eco-Cars, ASEAN.

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Authors: Tsai-Hsiu Lin

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Presentism is one of the orientations of teachers’ teaching culture. However, there are few researchers to explore it in Taiwan. The objective of this study is to establish an expert-based determination of the content of teachers’ presentism in Taiwan. The author reviewed the works of Jackson, Lortie, and Hargreaves and employed Hargreaves’ three forms of teachers’ presentism as a framework to design the questionnaire of this study. The questionnaire of teachers’ presentism comprised of 42 statements. A three-round web-based Delphi survey was proposed to 14 participants (two teacher educators, two educational administrators, three school principals, and seven schoolteachers), 13 participants (92.86%) completed the three-rounds of the study. The participants were invited to indicate the importance of each statement. The Delphi study used means and standard deviation to present information concerning the collective judgments of respondents. Finally, the author obtained consensual results for 67% (28/42). However, the outcome of this study could be the result of identifying a series of general statements rather than an in-depth exposition of the topic.

Keywords: Delphi Technique, teachers’ presentism, sociology of teaching, teaching culture.

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Authors: Hamid Tavakolipour, Mohsen Mokhtarian, Ahmad Kalbasi Ashtari

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In this study, the effect of various drying methods (sun drying, shade drying and industrial drying) on final moisture content, shell splitting degree, shrinkage and color change were studied. Sun drying resulted higher degree of pistachio nuts shell splitting on pistachio nuts relative other drying methods. The ANOVA results showed that the different drying methods did not significantly effects on color change of dried pistachio nut. The results illustrated that pistachio nut dried by industrial drying had the lowest moisture content. After the end of drying process, initially, the experimental drying data were fitted with five famous drying models namely Newton, Page, Silva et al., Peleg and Henderson and Pabis. The results indicated that Peleg and Page models gave better results compared with other models to monitor the moisture ratio’s pistachio nut in industrial drying and open sun (or shade drying) methods, respectively.

Keywords: Industrial drying, Modeling, Pistachio, quality properties, Traditional drying.

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Authors: B. Ghanbarian-Alavijeh, A.M. Liaghat, S. Sohrabi

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Saturated hydraulic conductivity is one of the soil hydraulic properties which is widely used in environmental studies especially subsurface ground water. Since, its direct measurement is time consuming and therefore costly, indirect methods such as pedotransfer functions have been developed based on multiple linear regression equations and neural networks model in order to estimate saturated hydraulic conductivity from readily available soil properties e.g. sand, silt, and clay contents, bulk density, and organic matter. The objective of this study was to develop neural networks (NNs) model to estimate saturated hydraulic conductivity from available parameters such as sand and clay contents, bulk density, van Genuchten retention model parameters (i.e. r θ , α , and n) as well as effective porosity. We used two methods to calculate effective porosity: : (1) eff s FC φ =θ -θ , and (2) inf φ =θ -θ eff s , in which s θ is saturated water content, FC θ is water content retained at -33 kPa matric potential, and inf θ is water content at the inflection point. Total of 311 soil samples from the UNSODA database was divided into three groups as 187 for the training, 62 for the validation (to avoid over training), and 62 for the test of NNs model. A commercial neural network toolbox of MATLAB software with a multi-layer perceptron model and back propagation algorithm were used for the training procedure. The statistical parameters such as correlation coefficient (R2), and mean square error (MSE) were also used to evaluate the developed NNs model. The best number of neurons in the middle layer of NNs model for methods (1) and (2) were calculated 44 and 6, respectively. The R2 and MSE values of the test phase were determined for method (1), 0.94 and 0.0016, and for method (2), 0.98 and 0.00065, respectively, which shows that method (2) estimates saturated hydraulic conductivity better than method (1).

Keywords: Neural network, Saturated hydraulic conductivity, Soil physical properties.

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Authors: Duangkamol Thitivesa

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This paper explores the use of project work in a content-based instruction in a Rajabhat University, Thailand. The use of project is to promote kinds of learning expected of student teachers as stated by Thailand Quality Framework: TQF. The kinds of learning are grouped into five domains: Ethical and moral development, knowledge, cognitive skill, interpersonal skills and responsibility, and analytical and communication skills. The content taught in class is used to lead the student teachers to relate their previously-acquired linguistic knowledge to meaningful realizations of the language system in passages of immediate relevance to their professional interests, teaching methods in particular. Two research questions are formulate to guide this study: 1) To what degree are the five domains of learning expected of student teachers after the use of project in a content class?, and 2) What is the academic achievement of the students’ writing skills, as part of the learning domains stated by TQF, against the 70% attainment target after the use of project to enhance the skill? The sample of the study comprised of 38 fourth-year English major students. The data was collected by means of a summative achievement test, student writing works, an observation checklist, and project diary. The scores in the summative achievement test were analyzed by mean score, standard deviation, and t-test. Project diary serves as students’ record of the language acquired during the project. List of structures and vocabulary noted in the diary has shown students’ ability to attend to, recognize, and focus on meaningful patterns of language forms.

Keywords: Thailand Quality Framework, Project Work, Writing skill.

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Authors: Saeed Talamkhani, Seyed Abolhassan Naeini

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In recent years, the occurrence of several liquefactions in sandy soils containing various values of clay content has shown that in addition to silty sands, clayey sands are also susceptible to liquefaction. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the properties of these soil compositions and their behavioral characteristics. This paper presents the effect of clay fines on the undrained shear strength of sands at various confining pressures. For this purpose, a series of unconsolidated undrained triaxial shear tests were carried out on clean sand and sand mixed with 5, 10, 15, 20, and 30 percent of clay fines. It was found that the presence of clay particle in sandy specimens change the dilative behavior to contraction. The result also showed that increasing the clay fines up to 10 percent causes to increase the potential for liquefaction, and decreases it at higher values fine content. These results reveal the important role of clay particles in changing the undrained strength of the sandy soil.

Keywords: Clayey sand, liquefaction, triaxial test, undrained shear strength.

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Authors: Suhadiyana Hanapi, Alhassan Salami Tijani, W. A. N Wan Mohamed

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In this paper, a prototype PEM fuel cell vehicle integrated with a 1 kW air-blowing proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) stack as a main power sources has been developed for a lightweight cruising vehicle. The test vehicle is equipped with a PEM fuel cell system that provides electric power to a brushed DC motor. This vehicle was designed to compete with industrial lightweight vehicle with the target of consuming least amount of energy and high performance. Individual variations in driving style have a significant impact on vehicle energy efficiency and it is well established from the literature. The primary aim of this study was to assesses the power and fuel consumption of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle operating at three difference driving technique (i.e. 25 km/h constant speed, 22-28 km/h speed range, 20-30 km/h speed range). The goal is to develop the best driving strategy to maximize performance and minimize fuel consumption for the vehicle system. The relationship between power demand and hydrogen consumption has also been discussed. All the techniques can be evaluated and compared on broadly similar terms. Automatic intelligent controller for driving prototype fuel cell vehicle on different obstacle while maintaining all systems at maximum efficiency was used. The result showed that 25 km/h constant speed was identified for optimal driving with less fuel consumption.

Keywords: Prototype fuel cell electric vehicles, energy efficient, control/driving technique, fuel economy.

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Authors: Sandra Muizniece-Brasava, Lija Dukalska, Irisa Murniece, Ilona Dabina-Bicka, Emils Kozlinskis, Svetlana Sarvi, Ralfs Santars, Anna Silvjane

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The research object was wheat bread. Experiments were carried out at the Faculty of Food Technology of the Latvia University of Agriculture. An active packaging in combination with modified atmosphere (MAP, CO2 60% and N2 40%) was examined and compared with traditional packaging in air ambiance. Polymer Multibarrier 60, PP and OPP bags were used. Influence of iron based oxygen absorber in sachets of 100 cc obtained from Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Europe Ageless® was tested on the quality during the shelf of wheat bread. Samples of 40±4 g were packaged in polymer pouches (110 mm x 120 mm), hermetically sealed by MULTIVAC C300 vacuum chamber machine, and stored in room temperature +21.0±0.5 °C. The physiochemical properties – weight losses, moisture content, hardness, pH, colour, changes of atmosphere content (CO2 and O2) in headspace of packs, and microbial conditions were analysed before packaging and in the 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th days of storage.

Keywords: Active packaging, wheat bread, shelf life.

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Authors: E. Zsédely, A. Király, Cs. Szabó., K. Németh, O. Dóka, J. Schmidt

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Theexperiment was carried out with 2x5 male Merino lambs raised under intensive conditions to investigate the effect of dietary calcium soap of linseed oil on the color and fatty acid composition of longissimusdorsi muscle. Control lambs fed a basal diet and the experimental lambs consumed a diet supplemented with 3% calcium soap of linseed oil. The color values (L*, a*, b* a*/b* and chroma) were not influenced by dietary treatment. The MUFA proportion reduced, SFA and PUFA content did not alter. As expected, the linolenic (C18:3 n3) and thusthe n-3 content significantly improved by linseed supplement (0.47 and 0.81; 0.78 and 1.16 in control and in experimental samples, respectively). Other n-3 and n-6 fatty acids had similar valuestocontrol samples. The n- 6/n-3 ratio was significantly narrower in the experimental group (6.31 vs. 9.38) but the P/S ratio did not differ betweenthe two groups.In conclusion calcium soap of linseed oil seems to be a suitable supplement form of n-3 fatty acids to improve the nutritive value of lamb meat.

Keywords: calcium soap, fatty acid, lamb meat, linseed

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Authors: M. Das, R. K. Saha, B. C. Meikap

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Iron ore and coal are the two major important raw materials being used in Iron making industries. Usually ore fines containing around 5% Alumina are rejected due to higher proportion of alumina. Therefore, a technology or process which may reduce the alumina content by 2% by beneficiation process will be highly attractive . In addition fine coals with ash content is used nearly 12% is directly injected in blast furnace. Fast fluidization is a technology by using dry beneficiation of coal and iron ore can be done. During the fluidization process the iron ore band coal is fluidized at high velocity in the riser of a fast fluidized bed, the heavier and coarse particles is generally settled at the bottom in a dense zone of the riser while the finer and lighter particle are entrained to the top dilute zone and then via a cyclone is fed back to the bottom of the riser column. Most of the alumina and low ash fine size coals being lighter are expected to move up to the riser and by a natural beneficiation of ores is expected to take place in the riser. Therefore in this study an attempt has been made for dry beneficiation of iron ore and coal in a fluidized bed and its hydrodynamic characterization.

Keywords: beneficiation, fluidization, gas-solid fluidization, riser .

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Authors: Ivana Scidà, Francesco Alotto, Anna Osello

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Due to the importance given today to innovation, the education sector is evolving thanks digital technologies. Virtual Reality (VR) can be a potential teaching tool offering many advantages in the field of training and education, as it allows to acquire theoretical knowledge and practical skills using an immersive experience in less time than the traditional educational process. These assumptions allow to lay the foundations for a new educational environment, involving and stimulating for students. Starting from the objective of strengthening the innovative teaching offer and the learning processes, the case study of the research concerns the digitalization of MastrLAB, High Quality Laboratory (HQL) belonging to the Department of Structural, Building and Geotechnical Engineering (DISEG) of the Polytechnic of Turin, a center specialized in experimental mechanical tests on traditional and innovative building materials and on the structures made with them. The MastrLAB-VR has been developed, a revolutionary innovative training tool designed with the aim of educating the class in total safety on the techniques of use of machinery, thus reducing the dangers arising from the performance of potentially dangerous activities. The virtual laboratory, dedicated to the students of the Building and Civil Engineering Courses of the Polytechnic of Turin, has been projected to simulate in an absolutely realistic way the experimental approach to the structural tests foreseen in their courses of study: from the tensile tests to the relaxation tests, from the steel qualification tests to the resilience tests on elements at environmental conditions or at characterizing temperatures. The research work proposes a methodology for the virtualization of technical laboratories through the application of Building Information Modelling (BIM), starting from the creation of a digital model. The process includes the creation of an independent application, which with Oculus Rift technology will allow the user to explore the environment and interact with objects through the use of joypads. The application has been tested in prototype way on volunteers, obtaining results related to the acquisition of the educational notions exposed in the experience through a virtual quiz with multiple answers, achieving an overall evaluation report. The results have shown that MastrLAB-VR is suitable for both beginners and experts and will be adopted experimentally for other laboratories of the University departments.

Keywords: Building Information Modelling, digital learning, education, virtual laboratory, virtual reality.

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Authors: Muhammad Sajjad, Naveed Khattak, Noman Jafri

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World has entered in 21st century. The technology of computer graphics and digital cameras is prevalent. High resolution display and printer are available. Therefore high resolution images are needed in order to produce high quality display images and high quality prints. However, since high resolution images are not usually provided, there is a need to magnify the original images. One common difficulty in the previous magnification techniques is that of preserving details, i.e. edges and at the same time smoothing the data for not introducing the spurious artefacts. A definitive solution to this is still an open issue. In this paper an image magnification using adaptive interpolation by pixel level data-dependent geometrical shapes is proposed that tries to take into account information about the edges (sharp luminance variations) and smoothness of the image. It calculate threshold, classify interpolation region in the form of geometrical shapes and then assign suitable values inside interpolation region to the undefined pixels while preserving the sharp luminance variations and smoothness at the same time. The results of proposed technique has been compared qualitatively and quantitatively with five other techniques. In which the qualitative results show that the proposed method beats completely the Nearest Neighbouring (NN), bilinear(BL) and bicubic(BC) interpolation. The quantitative results are competitive and consistent with NN, BL, BC and others.

Keywords: Adaptive, digital image processing, imagemagnification, interpolation, geometrical shapes, qualitative &quantitative analysis.

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Authors: Henok Hailemariam, Frank Wuttke

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Collapsible soils are weak soils that appear to be stable in their natural state, normally dry condition, but rapidly deform under saturation (wetting), thus generating large and unexpected settlements which often yield disastrous consequences for structures unwittingly built on such deposits. In this study, a prediction model for the relative subsidence of stressed collapsible soils based on dielectric permittivity measurement is presented. Unlike most existing methods for soil subsidence prediction, this model does not require moisture content as an input parameter, thus providing the opportunity to obtain accurate estimation of the relative subsidence of collapsible soils using dielectric measurement only. The prediction model is developed based on an existing relative subsidence prediction model (which is dependent on soil moisture condition) and an advanced theoretical frequency and temperature-dependent electromagnetic mixing equation (which effectively removes the moisture content dependence of the original relative subsidence prediction model). For large scale sub-surface soil exploration purposes, the spatial sub-surface soil dielectric data over wide areas and high depths of weak (collapsible) soil deposits can be obtained using non-destructive high frequency electromagnetic (HF-EM) measurement techniques such as ground penetrating radar (GPR). For laboratory or small scale in-situ measurements, techniques such as an open-ended coaxial line with widely applicable time domain reflectometry (TDR) or vector network analysers (VNAs) are usually employed to obtain the soil dielectric data. By using soil dielectric data obtained from small or large scale non-destructive HF-EM investigations, the new model can effectively predict the relative subsidence of weak soils without the need to extract samples for moisture content measurement. Some of the resulting benefits are the preservation of the undisturbed nature of the soil as well as a reduction in the investigation costs and analysis time in the identification of weak (problematic) soils. The accuracy of prediction of the presented model is assessed by conducting relative subsidence tests on a collapsible soil at various initial soil conditions and a good match between the model prediction and experimental results is obtained.

Keywords: Collapsible soil, relative subsidence, dielectric permittivity, moisture content.

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Authors: M. O. Hamzah, M. R. M. Hasan

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Binder drainage test is widely used to set an upper limit to the design binder content of porous asphalt. However, the presence of high amount of fine particles in the drained binder may affect the accuracy of the test result. This paper presents a study to characterize the composition and particle size distribution of fine particles accumulated in the drained binder. Fine aggregates and filler in the drained binder were extracted using a suitable solvent. Then, wet and dry sieve analysis was carried out to identify the actual composition of the extracted fine aggregates and filler. From the results, almost half of the drained binder consisted of fine aggregates and this significantly affects the accuracy of the design binder content of porous asphalt mix. This simple finding highlights the importance of taking into account the presence of fine aggregates in the calculation of drained binder.

Keywords: Porous asphalt, Binder drainage test, Drained binder, Fine particle proportion

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Authors: Sito Ismanti, Noriyuki Yasufuku

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Cement utilization to improve the properties of soil is a well-known method applied in field. However, its addition in large quantity must be controlled. This study presents utilization of natural and environmental-friendly material mixed with small amount of cement content in soil improvement, i.e. bamboo chips. Absorbability, elongation, and flatness ratio of bamboo chips were examined to investigate and understand the influence of its characteristics in the mixture. Improvement of dilation behavior as a problem of loose and poorly graded sand soil is discussed. Bamboo chips are able to improve the permeability value that affects the dilation behavior of cemented sand soil. It is proved by the stress path as the result of triaxial compression test in the undrained condition. The effect of size and content variation of bamboo chips, as well as the curing time variation are presented and discussed.  

Keywords: Bamboo chips, permeability, mechanical properties, triaxial compression.

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Authors: Chuang-Hung Lin, Cheng-Yuan Hsu, Jia-Yan Lin

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It is an indispensible strategy to adopt greenery approach on architectural bases so as to improve ecological habitats, decrease heat-island effect, purify air quality, and relieve surface runoff as well as noise pollution, all of which are done in an attempt to achieve sustainable environment. How we can do with plant design to attain the best visual quality and ideal carbon dioxide fixation depends on whether or not we can appropriately make use of greenery according to the nature of architectural bases. To achieve the goal, it is a need that architects and landscape architects should be provided with sufficient local references. Current greenery studies focus mainly on the heat-island effect of urban with large scale. Most of the architects still rely on people with years of expertise regarding the adoption and disposition of plantation in connection with microclimate scale. Therefore, environmental design, which integrates science and aesthetics, requires fundamental research on landscape environment technology divided from building environment technology. By doing so, we can create mutual benefits between green building and the environment. This issue is extremely important for the greening design of the bases of green buildings in cities and various open spaces. The purpose of this study is to establish plant selection and allocation strategies under different building sunshade levels. Initially, with the shading of sunshine on the greening bases as the starting point, the effects of the shades produced by different building types on the greening strategies were analyzed. Then, by measuring the PAR (photosynthetic active radiation), the relative DLI (daily light integral) was calculated, while the DLI Map was established in order to evaluate the effects of the building shading on the established environmental greening, thereby serving as a reference for plant selection and allocation. The discussion results were to be applied in the evaluation of environment greening of greening buildings and establish the “right plant, right place” design strategy of multi-level ecological greening for application in urban design and landscape design development, as well as the greening criteria to feedback to the eco-city greening buildings.

Keywords: Daily light integral, plant design, urban open space.

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Authors: T. Holden, G. Tremberger, Jr, E. Cheung, R. Subramaniam, R. Sullivan, N. Gadura, P. Schneider, P. Marchese, A. Flamholz, T. Cheung, D. Lieberman

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A nucleotide sequence can be expressed as a numerical sequence when each nucleotide is assigned its proton number. A resulting gene numerical sequence can be investigated for its fractal dimension in terms of evolution and chemical properties for comparative studies. We have investigated such nucleotide fluctuation in the 16S rRNA gene of archaea thermophiles. The studied archaea thermophiles were archaeoglobus fulgidus, methanothermobacter thermautotrophicus, methanocaldococcus jannaschii, pyrococcus horikoshii, and thermoplasma acidophilum. The studied five archaea-euryarchaeota thermophiles have fractal dimension values ranging from 1.93 to 1.97. Computer simulation shows that random sequences would have an average of about 2 with a standard deviation about 0.015. The fractal dimension was found to correlate (negative correlation) with the thermophile-s optimal growth temperature with R2 value of 0.90 (N =5). The inclusion of two aracheae-crenarchaeota thermophiles reduces the R2 value to 0.66 (N = 7). Further inclusion of two bacterial thermophiles reduces the R2 value to 0.50 (N =9). The fractal dimension is correlated (positive) to the sequence GC content with an R2 value of 0.89 for the five archaea-euryarchaeota thermophiles (and 0.74 for the entire set of N = 9), although computer simulation shows little correlation. The highest correlation (positive) was found to be between the fractal dimension and di-nucleotide Shannon entropy. However Shannon entropy and sequence GC content were observed to correlate with optimal growth temperature having an R2 of 0.8 (negative), and 0.88 (positive), respectively, for the entire set of 9 thermophiles; thus the correlation lacks species specificity. Together with another correlation study of bacterial radiation dosage with RecA repair gene sequence fractal dimension, it is postulated that fractal dimension analysis is a sensitive tool for studying the relationship between genotype and phenotype among closely related sequences.

Keywords: Fractal dimension, archaea thermophiles, Shannon entropy, GC content

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Authors: Yoshiaki Shikata, Nobutane Hanayama

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We present a prioritized, limited multi-server processor sharing (PS) system where each server has various capacities, and N (≥2) priority classes are allowed in each PS server. In each prioritized, limited server, different service ratio is assigned to each class request, and the number of requests to be processed is limited to less than a certain number. Routing strategies of such prioritized, limited multi-server PS systems that take into account the capacity of each server are also presented, and a performance evaluation procedure for these strategies is discussed. Practical performance measures of these strategies, such as loss probability, mean waiting time, and mean sojourn time, are evaluated via simulation. In the PS server, at the arrival (or departure) of a request, the extension (shortening) of the remaining sojourn time of each request receiving service can be calculated by using the number of requests of each class and the priority ratio. Utilising a simulation program which executes these events and calculations, the performance of the proposed prioritized, limited multi-server PS rule can be analyzed. From the evaluation results, most suitable routing strategy for the loss or waiting system is clarified.

Keywords: Processor sharing, multi-server, various capacity, N priority classes, routing strategy, loss probability, mean sojourn time, mean waiting time, simulation.

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Authors: Javad Rahimipour Anaraki, Saeed Samet, Mahdi Eftekhari, Chang Wook Ahn

Abstract:

Feature selection and attribute reduction are crucial problems, and widely used techniques in the field of machine learning, data mining and pattern recognition to overcome the well-known phenomenon of the Curse of Dimensionality. This paper presents a feature selection method that efficiently carries out attribute reduction, thereby selecting the most informative features of a dataset. It consists of two components: 1) a measure for feature subset evaluation, and 2) a search strategy. For the evaluation measure, we have employed the fuzzy-rough dependency degree (FRFDD) of the lower approximation-based fuzzy-rough feature selection (L-FRFS) due to its effectiveness in feature selection. As for the search strategy, a modified version of a binary shuffled frog leaping algorithm is proposed (B-SFLA). The proposed feature selection method is obtained by hybridizing the B-SFLA with the FRDD. Nine classifiers have been employed to compare the proposed approach with several existing methods over twenty two datasets, including nine high dimensional and large ones, from the UCI repository. The experimental results demonstrate that the B-SFLA approach significantly outperforms other metaheuristic methods in terms of the number of selected features and the classification accuracy.

Keywords: Binary shuffled frog leaping algorithm, feature selection, fuzzy-rough set, minimal reduct.

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Authors: Hynek Chlup, Lukas Horny, Rudolf Zitny, Svatava Konvickova, Tomas Adamek

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Coronary artery bypass grafts (CABG) are widely studied with respect to hemodynamic conditions which play important role in presence of a restenosis. However, papers which concern with constitutive modeling of CABG are lacking in the literature. The purpose of this study is to find a constitutive model for CABG tissue. A sample of the CABG obtained within an autopsy underwent an inflation–extension test. Displacements were recoredered by CCD cameras and subsequently evaluated by digital image correlation. Pressure – radius and axial force – elongation data were used to fit material model. The tissue was modeled as onelayered composite reinforced by two families of helical fibers. The material is assumed to be locally orthotropic, nonlinear, incompressible and hyperelastic. Material parameters are estimated for two strain energy functions (SEF). The first is classical exponential. The second SEF is logarithmic which allows interpretation by means of limiting (finite) strain extensibility. Presented material parameters are estimated by optimization based on radial and axial equilibrium equation in a thick-walled tube. Both material models fit experimental data successfully. The exponential model fits significantly better relationship between axial force and axial strain than logarithmic one.

Keywords: Constitutive model, coronary artery bypass graft, digital image correlation, fiber reinforced composite, inflation test, saphenous vein.

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Authors: José Paulo Leal, Ricardo Queirós

Abstract:

Standards for learning objects focus primarily on content presentation. They were already extended to support automatic evaluation but it is limited to exercises with a predefined set of answers. The existing standards lack the metadata required by specialized evaluators to handle types of exercises with an indefinite set of solutions. To address this issue existing learning object standards were extended to the particular requirements of a specialized domain. A definition of programming problems as learning objects, compatible both with Learning Management Systems and with systems performing automatic evaluation of programs, is presented in this paper. The proposed definition includes metadata that cannot be conveniently represented using existing standards, such as: the type of automatic evaluation; the requirements of the evaluation engine; and the roles of different assets - tests cases, program solutions, etc. The EduJudge project and its main services are also presented as a case study on the use of the proposed definition of programming problems as learning objects.

Keywords: Content Packaging, eLearning Services, Interoperability, Learning Objects.

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Authors: Intan Izafina Idrus, Mardina Abdullah, Alina Marie Hasbi, Asnawi Husin

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This paper presents the result of large-scale traveling ionospheric disturbance (LSTID) observation during moderate magnetic storm event on 25 October 2011 with SYM-H ~ -160 nT and Kp ~ 7 over Peninsular Malaysia at equatorial region using vertical total electron content (VTEC) from the Global Positioning System (GPS) observation measurement. The propagation of the LSTID signatures in the TEC measurements over Peninsular Malaysia was also investigated using VTEC map. The LSTID was found to propagate equatorward during this event. The results showed that the LSTID propagated with an average phase velocity of 526.41 m/s and average periods of 140 min. The occurrence of this LSTID was also found to be the subsequent effects of substorm activities in the auroral region.

Keywords: Global Positioning System (GPS), large-scale traveling ionospheric disturbance (LSTID), moderate geomagnetic storm, vertical total electron content (VTEC).

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