Search results for: free trade agreement

Authors: Kyoko Tominaga

Abstract:

Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs), Social Enterprises and other actors play an important role in political decisions in governments at the international levels. Especially, such organizations’ and activists’ network in civil society is quite important to effect to the global politics. To solve the complex social problems in global era, diverse actors should corporate each other. Moreover, network of protesters is also contributes to diffuse tactics, information and other resources of social movements.

Based on the findings from the study of International Trade Fairs (ITFs), the author analyzes the network of activists in anti-globalism movement. This research focuses the transition of 54 activists’ whole network in the “protest event” against 2008 G8 summit in Japan. Their network is examined at the three periods: Before protest event phase, during protest event phase and after event phase. A mixed method is used in this study: the author shows the hypothesis from social network analysis and evaluates that with interview data analysis. This analysis gives the two results. Firstly, the more protesters participate to the various events during the protest event, the more they build the network. After that, active protesters keep their network as well. From interview data, we can understand that the active protesters can build their network and diffuse the information because they communicate with other participants and understand that diverse issues are related. This paper comes to same conclusion with previous researches: protest events activate the network among the political activists. However, some participants succeed to build their network, others do not. “Networked” activists are participated in the various events for short period of time and encourage the diffusion of information and tactics of social movements.

Keywords: Social Movement, Global Justice Movement, Tactics, Diffusion.

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Authors: T. K. Das, N. Senapatil, R. K. Dhal

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An unsteady mixed free convection MHD flow of elastic-viscous incompressible fluid past an infinite vertical porous flat plate is investigated when the presence of heat Source/sink, temperature and concentration are assumed to be oscillating with time and hall effect. The governing equations are solved by complex variable technique. The expressions for the velocity field, temperature field and species concentration are demonstrated in graphs. The effects of the Prandtl number, the Grashof number, modified Grashof number, the Schimidt number, the Hall parameter, Elastic parameter & Magnetic parameter are discussed.

Keywords: MHD, Mixed convective, Elastic-viscous incompressible, rotational, heat transfer, mass transfer, suction and injection.

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Authors: Anjan Sil, Rajni Sharma, Subrata Ray

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The effect of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) on the electrical properties of Poly(vinylidene fluoride-hexafluoropropylene) (P(VdF-HFP)) based gel polymer electrolytes has been investigated in the present work. The length and diameter ranges of CNFs used in the present work are 5-50 μm and 200-600 nm respectively. The nanocomposite gel polymer electrolytes have been synthesized by solution casting technique with varying CNFs content in terms of weight percentage. Electrochemical impedance analysis demonstrates that the reinforcement of carbon nanofibers significantly enhances the ionic conductivity of the polymer electrolyte. The decrease of crystallinity of P(VdF-HFP) due the addition of CNFs has been confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The interaction of CNFs with various constituents of nanocomposite gel polymer electrolytes has been assessed by Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy. Moreover CNFs added gel polymer electrolytes offer superior thermal stability as compared to that of CNFs free electrolytes as confirmed by Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA).

Keywords: Polymer electrolytes, CNFs, Ionic conductivity, TGA.

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Authors: Md Rashadul Islam, Umme Amina Mannan, Rafiqul A. Tarefder

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Stiffness of Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) in flexible pavement is largely dependent of temperature, mode of testing and age of pavement. Accurate measurement of HMA stiffness is thus quite challenging. This study determines HMA stiffness based on Finite Element Model (FEM) and validates the results using field data. As a first step, stiffnesses of different layers of a pavement section on Interstate 40 (I-40) in New Mexico were determined by Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) test. Pavement temperature was not measured at that time due to lack of temperature probe. Secondly, a FE model is developed in ABAQUS. Stiffness of the base, subbase and subgrade were taken from the FWD test output obtained from the first step. As HMA stiffness largely varies with temperature it was assigned trial and error approach. Thirdly, horizontal strain and vertical stress at the bottom of the HMA and temperature at different depths of the pavement were measured with installed sensors on the whole day on December 25th, 2012. Fourthly, outputs of FEM were correlated with measured stress-strain responses. After a number of trials a relationship was developed between the trial stiffness of HMA and measured mid-depth HMA temperature. At last, the obtained relationship between stiffness and temperature is verified by further FWD test when pavement temperature was recorded. A promising agreement between them is observed. Therefore, conclusion can be drawn that linear elastic FEM can accurately predict the stiffness and the structural response of flexible pavement.

Keywords: Asphalt pavement, falling weight deflectometer test, field instrumentation, finite element model, horizontal strain, temperature probes.

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Authors: Chaiwat Tantarangsee

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The purposes of this study are 1) to study the frequent English writing errors of students registering the course: Reading and Writing English for Academic Purposes II, and 2) to find out the results of writing error correction by using coded indirect corrective feedback and writing error treatments. Samples include 28 2nd year English Major students, Faculty of Education, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. Tool for experimental study includes the lesson plan of the course; Reading and Writing English for Academic Purposes II, and tool for data collection includes 4 writing tests of short texts. The research findings disclose that frequent English writing errors found in this course comprise 7 types of grammatical errors, namely Fragment sentence, Subject-verb agreement, Wrong form of verb tense, Singular or plural noun endings, Run-ons sentence, Wrong form of verb pattern and Lack of parallel structure. Moreover, it is found that the results of writing error correction by using coded indirect corrective feedback and error treatment reveal the overall reduction of the frequent English writing errors and the increase of students’ achievement in the writing of short texts with the significance at .05.

Keywords: Coded indirect corrective feedback, error correction, and error treatment.

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Authors: Rabah Haoui

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The aim of this work is to analyze a viscous flow around the axisymmetric blunt body taken into account the mesh size both in the free stream and into the boundary layer. The resolution of the Navier-Stokes equations is realized by using the finite volume method to determine the flow parameters and detached shock position. The numerical technique uses the Flux Vector Splitting method of Van Leer. Here, adequate time stepping parameter, CFL coefficient and mesh size level are selected to ensure numerical convergence. The effect of the mesh size is significant on the shear stress and velocity profile. The best solution is obtained with using a very fine grid. This study enabled us to confirm that the determination of boundary layer thickness can be obtained only if the size of the mesh is lower than a certain value limits given by our calculations.

Keywords: Supersonic flow, viscous flow, finite volume, blunt body.

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Authors: K. L. Verma

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Analysis for the propagation of elastic waves in arbitrary anisotropic plates is investigated, commencing with a formal analysis of waves in a layered plate of an arbitrary anisotropic media, the dispersion relations of elastic waves are obtained by invoking continuity at the interface and boundary of conditions on the surfaces of layered plate. The obtained solutions can be used for material systems of higher symmetry such as monoclinic, orthotropic, transversely isotropic, cubic, and isotropic as it is contained implicitly in the analysis. The cases of free layered plate and layered half space are considered separately. Some special cases have also been deduced and discussed. Finally numerical solution of the frequency equations for an aluminum epoxy is carried out, and the dispersion curves for the few lower modes are presented. The results obtained theoretically have been verified numerically and illustrated graphically.

Keywords: Anisotropic, layered, dispersion, elastic waves, frequency equations.

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Authors: Nicolò Vaiana, Giorgio Serino

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In this paper, an advanced Nonlinear Exponential Model (NEM), able to simulate the uniaxial dynamic behavior of seismic isolators having a continuously decreasing tangent stiffness with increasing displacement in the relatively large displacements range and a hardening or softening behavior at large displacements, is presented. The mathematical model is validated by comparing the experimental force-displacement hysteresis loops obtained during cyclic tests, conducted on a helical wire rope isolator and a recycled rubber-fiber reinforced bearing, with those predicted analytically. Good agreement between the experimental and simulated results shows that the proposed model can be an effective numerical tool to predict the force-displacement relationship of seismic isolation devices within the large displacements range. Compared to the widely used Bouc-Wen model, unable to simulate the response of seismic isolators at large displacements, the proposed one allows to avoid the numerical solution of a first order nonlinear ordinary differential equation for each time step of a nonlinear time history analysis, thus reducing the computation effort. Furthermore, the proposed model can simulate the smooth transition of the hysteresis loops from small to large displacements by adopting only one set of five parameters determined from the experimental hysteresis loops having the largest amplitude.

Keywords: Base isolation, hardening behavior, nonlinear exponential model, seismic isolators, softening behavior.

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Authors: Nemat Abazari, Ilgin Sager

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In this paper smooth trajectories are computed in the Lie group SO(2, 1) as a motion planning problem by assigning a Frenet frame to the rigid body system to optimize the cost function of the elastic energy which is spent to track a timelike curve in Minkowski space. A method is proposed to solve a motion planning problem that minimize the integral of the square norm of Darboux vector of a timelike curve. This method uses the coordinate free Maximum Principle of Optimal control and results in the theory of integrable Hamiltonian systems. The presence of several conversed quantities inherent in these Hamiltonian systems aids in the explicit computation of the rigid body motions.

Keywords: Optimal control, Hamiltonian vector field, Darboux vector, maximum principle, lie group, Rigid body motion, Lorentz metric.

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Authors: Eng. Alaa K. Satti Salih

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Revolutions Applications such as telecommunications, hands-free communications, recording, etc. which need at least one microphone, the signal is usually infected by noise and echo. The important application is the speech enhancement, which is done to remove suppressed noises and echoes taken by a microphone, beside preferred speech. Accordingly, the microphone signal has to be cleaned using digital signal processing DSP tools before it is played out, transmitted, or stored. Engineers have so far tried different approaches to improving the speech by get back the desired speech signal from the noisy observations. Especially Mobile communication, so in this paper will do reconstruction of the speech signal, observed in additive background noise, using the Kalman filter technique to estimate the parameters of the Autoregressive Process (AR) in the state space model and the output speech signal obtained by the MATLAB. The accurate estimation by Kalman filter on speech would enhance and reduce the noise then compare and discuss the results between actual values and estimated values which produce the reconstructed signals.

Keywords: Autoregressive Process, Kalman filter, Matlab and Noise speech.

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Authors: Kholoud H. Al-Zedjali, Abir S. Al-Harrasi, Ali H. Al-Badi

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Recently there has been a dramatic proliferation in the number of social networking sites (SNSs) users; however, little is published about what motivates college students to use SNSs in education. The main goal of this research is to explore the college students’ motives for using SNSs in education. A conceptual framework has therefore been developed to identify the main factors that influence/motivate students to use social networking sites for learning purposes. To achieve the research objectives a quantitative method was used to collect data. A questionnaire has been distributed amongst college students. The results reveal that social influence, perceived enjoyment, institute regulation, perceived usefulness, ranking up-lift, attractiveness, communication tools, free of charge, sharing material and course nature all play an important role in the motivation of college students to use SNSs for learning purposes.

Keywords: Social networking sites (SNSs), education, college students.

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Authors: Asmaa M. Hussein, Amr Wassal, Ahmed Farouk Al-Sadek, A. F. Abd El-Rahman

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In this study, a multivariate analysis of potato spectroscopic data was presented to detect the presence of brown rot disease or not. Near-Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy (1,350-2,500 nm) combined with multivariate analysis was used as a rapid, non-destructive technique for the detection of brown rot disease in potatoes. Spectral measurements were performed in 565 samples, which were chosen randomly at the infection place in the potato slice. In this study, 254 infected and 311 uninfected (brown rot-free) samples were analyzed using different advanced statistical analysis techniques. The discrimination performance of different multivariate analysis techniques, including classification, pre-processing, and dimension reduction, were compared. Applying a random forest algorithm classifier with different pre-processing techniques to raw spectra had the best performance as the total classification accuracy of 98.7% was achieved in discriminating infected potatoes from control.

Keywords: Brown rot disease, NIR spectroscopy, potato, random forest.

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Authors: Esra E. Aleisa, Li Lin

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Complex engineering design problems consist of numerous factors of varying criticalities. Considering fundamental features of design and inferior details alike will result in an extensive waste of time and effort. Design parameters should be introduced gradually as appropriate based on their significance relevant to the problem context. This motivates the representation of design parameters at multiple levels of an abstraction hierarchy. However, developing abstraction hierarchies is an area that is not well understood. Our research proposes a novel hierarchical abstraction methodology to plan effective engineering designs and processes. It provides a theoretically sound foundation to represent, abstract and stratify engineering design parameters and tasks according to causality and criticality. The methodology creates abstraction hierarchies in a recursive and bottom-up approach that guarantees no backtracking across any of the abstraction levels. The methodology consists of three main phases, representation, abstraction, and layering to multiple hierarchical levels. The effectiveness of the developed methodology is demonstrated by a design problem.

Keywords: Hierarchies, Abstraction, Loop-free, Engineering Design

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Authors: H.A. Ashorynejad, M. Farhadi, K.Sedighi, A.Hasanpour

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We report the results of an lattice Boltzmann simulation of magnetohydrodynamic damping of sidewall convection in a rectangular enclosure filled with a porous medium. In particular we investigate the suppression of convection when a steady magnetic field is applied in the vertical direction. The left and right vertical walls of the cavity are kept at constant but different temperatures while both the top and bottom horizontal walls are insulated. The effects of the controlling parameters involved in the heat transfer and hydrodynamic characteristics are studied in detail. The heat and mass transfer mechanisms and the flow characteristics inside the enclosure depended strongly on the strength of the magnetic field and Darcy number. The average Nusselt number decreases with rising values of the Hartmann number while this increases with increasing values of the Darcy number.

Keywords: Lattice Boltzmann method , Natural convection , Magnetohydrodynamic , Porous medium

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Authors: M. Battira, R. Bessaih

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We numerically study the three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) stability of oscillatory natural convection flow in a rectangular cavity, with free top surface, filled with a liquid metal, having an aspect ratio equal to A=L/H=5, and subjected to a transversal temperature gradient and a uniform magnetic field oriented in x and z directions. The finite volume method was used in order to solve the equations of continuity, momentum, energy, and potential. The stability diagram obtained in this study highlights the dependence of the critical value of the Grashof number Grcrit , with the increase of the Hartmann number Ha for two orientations of the magnetic field. This study confirms the possibility of stabilization of a liquid metal flow in natural convection by application of a magnetic field and shows that the flow stability is more important when the direction of magnetic field is longitudinal than when the direction is transversal.

Keywords: Natural convection, Magnetic field, Oscillatory, Cavity, Liquid metal.

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Authors: Naoya Ozaki, Takuya Watanabe, Ryosuke Matsumoto, Noriko Fukasawa

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In the metropolitan areas in Japan, in many stations, shopping areas are set up, and escalators and elevators are installed to make the stations be barrier-free. Further, many areas around the stations are being redeveloped. Railway business operators want to know how much effect these circumstances have on attractiveness of the station or number of passengers using the station. So, we performed a questionnaire survey of the station users in the metropolitan areas for finding factors to affect the attractiveness of stations. Then, based on the analysis of the survey, we developed a method to quantitatively evaluate attractiveness of the stations. We also developed an estimation method for number of passengers based on combination of attractiveness of the station quantitatively evaluated and the residential and labor population around the station. Then, we derived precise linear regression models estimating the attractiveness of the station and number of passengers of the station.

Keywords: Attractiveness of the station, estimation method, number of passengers of the station, redevelopment around the station, renovation of the station.

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Authors: Farid Ezanee Mohamed Ghazali

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The Malaysia Highway Authority (MHA) was established by the Government in 1980 for the purpose of designing, constructing and maintaining toll highways in Malaysia that include the North-South Expressway and the Penang Bridge, which were procured using the publicly-funded traditional procurement. However following a recession in the mid 80-s, the operations of these tolledhighways had been privatized to ensure that their operational services continue through private financing as a result of long-term concession agreement concurred between the Malaysian Government and private operators. The change in the contract strategy for highway projects in Malaysia would have a great tendency to dictate a significant risk exposure towards the key parties involved, particularly the Malaysian Government as project principal, unless operational risks are clearly identified and managed via appropriate mitigation measures prior to a contract signing. This research identifies potential operational risks that have a possibility to occur in highway projects in Malaysia from the perspective of public sector clients. Since this research focuses on the operational risks for highway projects in Malaysia, the initial results acquired from literature review on the operational risks of highway projects in some Asian countries are then justified by a number of key individuals from the MHA through interviews. As a result, among key operational risks that have possibility to occur in the highway projects in Malaysia include initial toll-tariff decided by the Government, traffic congestion, change of road network and overloaded freight transportation, which could cause damage to the road surface and hence affecting the operation of a particular highway.

Keywords: Malaysia, operating highway project, operational risk.

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Authors: Ahmed A. Helal, Nahla E. Zakzouk, Yasser G. Desouky

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This paper presents a fuzzy logic controlled shunt active power filter used to compensate for harmonic distortion in three-phase four-wire systems. The shunt active filter employs a simple method for the calculation of the reference compensation current based of Fast Fourier Transform. This presented filter is able to operate in both balanced and unbalanced load conditions. A fuzzy logic based current controller strategy is used to regulate the filter current and hence ensure harmonic free supply current. The validity of the presented approach in harmonic mitigation is verified via simulation results of the proposed test system under different loading conditions.

Keywords: Active power filters, Fuzzy logic controller, Power quality

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Authors: Vincent Lau Chun Fai, Yang Doo Lee, Kyongsoo Lee, Keun-Soo Lee, Shin-Kyung, Byeong-Kwon Ju

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Chemical detection is still a continuous challenge when it comes to designing single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) sensors with high selectivity, especially in complex chemical environments. A perfect example of such an environment would be in thermally oxidized soybean oil. At elevated temperatures, oil oxidizes through a series of chemical reactions which results in the formation of monoacylglycerols, diacylglycerols, oxidized triacylglycerols, dimers, trimers, polymers, free fatty acids, ketones, aldehydes, alcohols, esters, and other minor products. In order to detect the rancidity of oxidized soybean oil, carbon nanotube chemiresistor sensors have been coated with polyethylenimine (PEI) to enhance the sensitivity and selectivity. PEI functionalized SWCNTs are known to have a high selectivity towards strong electron withdrawing molecules. The sensors were very responsive to different oil oxidation levels and furthermore, displayed a rapid recovery in ambient air without the need of heating or UV exposure.

Keywords: Carbon nanotubes, polyethylenimine, sensor, oxidized oil

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Authors: R. Bansal, A. Jain, M. Kumar, R. S. Meena

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Present wireless communication demands compact and intelligent devices with multitasking capabilities at affordable cost. The focus in the presented paper is on a dual band antenna for wireless communication with the capability of operating at two frequency bands with same structure. Two resonance frequencies are observed with the second operation band at 4.2GHz approximately three times the first resonance frequency at 1.5GHz. Structure is simple loop of microstrip line with characteristic impedance 50 ohms. The proposed antenna is designed using defective ground structure (DGS) and shows the nearly one third reductions in size as compared to without DGS. This antenna was simulated on electromagnetic (EM) simulation software and fabricated using microwave integrated circuit technique on RT-Duroid dielectric substrate (ε_r= 2.22) of thickness (H=15 mils). The designed antenna was tested on automatic network analyzer and shows the good agreement with simulated results. The proposed structure is modeled into an equivalent electrical circuit and simulated on circuit simulator. Subsequently, theoretical analysis was carried out and simulated. The simulated, measured, equivalent circuit response, and theoretical results shows good resemblance. The bands of operation draw many potential applications in today’s wireless communication.

Keywords: Defective Ground plane, Dual band, Loop Antenna, Microstrip antenna, Resonance frequency.

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Authors: Soon-ok Myong, Byong-soon Chun

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This paper intends to identify the ethnic Kazakhstani Koreans- political process of identity formation by exploring their narrative and practice about the state language represented in the course of their becoming the new citizens of a new independent state. The Russophone Kazakhstani Koreans- inability to speak the official language of their affiliated state is considered there as dissatisfying the basic requirement of citizens of the independent state, so that they are becoming marginalized from the public sphere. Their contradictory attitude that at once demonstrates nominal reception and practical rejection of the obligatory state language unveils a high barrier inside between their self-language and other-language. In this paper, the ethnic Korean group-s conflicting linguistic identity is not seen as a free and simple choice, but as a dynamic struggle and political process in which the subject-s past experiences and memories intersect with the external elements of pressure.

Keywords: Ethnic Kazakhstani Koreans, Soviet Korean's Russification, Linguistic Identity, Russian-Kazakh Dichotomy.

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Authors: Mario Mastriani

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Super-resolution is nowadays used for a high-resolution image produced from several low-resolution noisy frames. In this work, we consider the problem of high-quality interpolation of a single noise-free image. Such images may come from different sources, i.e., they may be frames of videos, individual pictures, etc. On the other hand, in the encoder we apply a downsampling via bidimen-sional interpolation of each frame, and in the decoder we apply a upsampling by which we restore the original size of the image. If the compression ratio is very high, then we use a convolutive mask that restores the edges, eliminating the blur. Finally, both, the encoder and the complete decoder are implemented on General-Purpose computation on Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU) cards. In fact, the mentioned mask is coded inside texture memory of a GPGPU.

Keywords: General-Purpose computation on Graphics ProcessingUnits, Image Compression, Interpolation, Super-resolution.

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Authors: Jessie Yiying Quah, Vivian Netto, Jack Sheng Kee, Eric Mouchel La Fosse, Mi Kyoung Park

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We present a dextran modified silicon microring resonator sensor for high density antibody immobilization. An array of sensors consisting of three sensor rings and a reference ring was fabricated and its surface sensitivity and the limit of detection were obtained using polyelectrolyte multilayers. The mass sensitivity and the limit of detection of the fabricated sensor ring are 0.35 nm/ng mm-2 and 42.8 pg/mm2 in air, respectively. Dextran modified sensor surface was successfully prepared by covalent grafting of oxidized dextran on 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) modified silicon sensor surface. The antibody immobilization on hydrogel dextran matrix improves 40% compared to traditional antibody immobilization method via APTES and glutaraldehyde linkage.

Keywords: Antibody immobilization, Dextran, Immunosensor, Label-free detection, Silicon micro-ring resonator

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Authors: M. Khal, Ab. Algouti, A. Algouti

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Water erosion is the major cause of the erosion that shapes the earth's surface. Modeling water erosion requires the use of software and GIS programs, commercial or closed source. The very high prices for commercial GIS licenses, motivates users and researchers to find open source software as relevant and applicable as the proprietary GIS. The objective of this study is the modeling of water erosion and the hydrogeological and morphophysical characterization of the Oued M'Goun watershed (southern flank of the Central High Atlas) developed by free programs of GIS. The very pertinent results are obtained by executing tasks and algorithms in a simple and easy way. Thus, the various geoscientific and geostatistical analyzes of a digital elevation model (SRTM 30 m resolution) and their combination with the treatments and interpretation of satellite imagery information allowed us to characterize the region studied and to map the area most vulnerable to water erosion.

Keywords: Central High-Atlas, hydrogeology, M’Goun watershed, OpenGIS, water erosion.

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Authors: Peristera A. Baziana

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The idea of the asynchronous transmission in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) ring MANs is studied in this paper. Especially, we present an efficient access technique to coordinate the collisions-free transmission of the variable sizes of IP traffic in WDM ring core networks. Each node is equipped with a tunable transmitter and a tunable receiver. In this way, all the wavelengths are exploited for both transmission and reception. In order to evaluate the performance measures of average throughput, queuing delay and packet dropping probability at the buffers, a simulation model that assumes symmetric access rights among the nodes is developed based on Poisson statistics. Extensive numerical results show that the proposed protocol achieves apart from high bandwidth exploitation for a wide range of offered load, fairness of queuing delay and dropping events among the different packets size categories.

Keywords: Asynchronous transmission, collision avoidance, wavelength division multiplexing.

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Authors: M. Dehestani, M. Ghasemi-Kooch

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In this work, adsorption of chlorophylls a and b pigments in aqueous solution on the inner and outer surfaces of single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) has been studied using molecular dynamics simulation. The linear interaction energy algorithm has been used to calculate the binding free energy. The results show that the adsorption of two pigments is fine on the both positions. Although there is the close similarity between these two pigments, their interaction with the nanotube is different. This result is useful to separate these pigments from one another. According to interaction energy between the pigments and carbon nanotube, interaction between these pigments-SWCNT on the inner surface is stronger than the outer surface. The interaction of SWCNT with chlorophylls phytol tail is stronger than the interaction of SWCNT with porphyrin ring of chlorophylls.

Keywords: Dynamic simulation, single walled carbon nanotube, chlorophyll, adsorption.

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Authors: Mazeni Ismail, Nurul Aliah, Hasmadi Hassan

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The purpose of this study is to gather the consensus of experts regarding the use of moral guidance amongst preschool teachers vis-a-vis the Islamic Project module (I-Project Module). This I-Project Module seeks to provide pertinent data on the assimilation of noble values in subject-matter teaching. To obtain consensus for the various components of the module, the Modified Delphi technique was used to develop the module. 12 subject experts from various educational fields of Islamic education, early childhood education, counselling and language fully participated in the development of this module. The Modified Delphi technique was administered in two mean cycles. The standard deviation value derived from questionnaires completed by the participating panel of experts provided the value of expert consensus reached. This was subsequently analyzed using SPSS version 22. Findings revealed that the panel of experts reached a discernible degree of agreement on five topics outlined in the module, viz; content (mean value 3.36), teaching strategy (mean value 3.28), programme duration (mean value 3.0), staff involved and attention-grabbing strategy of target group participating in the value program (mean value 3.5), and strategy to attract attention of target group to utilize i-project (mean value 3.0). With regard to the strategy to attract the attention of the target group, the experts proposed for creative activities to be added in order to enhance teachers’ creativity.

Keywords: Islamic project, modified Delphi technique, project approach, teacher moral guidance.

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Authors: Jahar Sarkar

Abstract:

In the present study, a steady-state simulation model has been developed to evaluate the system performance of a transcritical carbon dioxide heat pump system for simultaneous water cooling and heating. Both the evaporator (including both two-phase and superheated zone) and gas cooler models consider the highly variable heat transfer characteristics of CO2 and pressure drop. The numerical simulation model of transcritical CO2 heat pump has been validated by test data obtained from experiments on the heat pump prototype. Comparison between the test results and the model prediction for system COP variation with compressor discharge pressure shows a modest agreement with a maximum deviation of 15% and the trends are fairly similar. Comparison for other operating parameters also shows fairly similar deviation between the test results and the model prediction. Finally, the simulation results are presented to study the effects of operating parameters such as, temperature of heat exchanger fluid at the inlet, discharge pressure, compressor speed on system performance of CO2 heat pump, suitable in a dairy plant where simultaneous cooling at 4oC and heating at 73oC are required. Results show that good heat transfer properties of CO2 for both two-phase and supercritical region and efficient compression process contribute a lot for high system COPs.

Keywords: CO2 heat pump, dairy system, experiment, simulation model, validation.

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Authors: T. O. Olwal, K. Djouani, B. J. van Wyk, Y. Hamam, P. Siarry

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Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks (MRMC-WMNs) operate at the backbone to access and route high volumes of traffic simultaneously. Such roles demand high network capacity, and long “online" time at the expense of accelerated transmission energy depletion and poor connectivity. This is the problem of transmission power control. Numerous power control methods for wireless networks are in literature. However, contributions towards MRMC configurations still face many challenges worth considering. In this paper, an energy-efficient power selection protocol called PMMUP is suggested at the Link-Layer. This protocol first divides the MRMC-WMN into a set of unified channel graphs (UCGs). A UCG consists of multiple radios interconnected to each other via a common wireless channel. In each UCG, a stochastic linear quadratic cost function is formulated. Each user minimizes this cost function consisting of trade-off between the size of unification states and the control action. Unification state variables come from independent UCGs and higher layers of the protocol stack. The PMMUP coordinates power optimizations at the network interface cards (NICs) of wireless mesh routers. The proposed PMMUP based algorithm converges fast analytically with a linear rate. Performance evaluations through simulations confirm the efficacy of the proposed dynamic power control.

Keywords: Effective band inference based power control algorithm (EBIA), Power Selection MRMC Unification Protocol (PMMUP), MRMC State unification Variable Prediction (MRSUP), Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs).

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Authors: M. Asato, C. Liu, N. Fujima, T. Hoshino, Y. Chen, T. Mohri

Abstract:

We study the temperature dependence of the interaction energies (IEs) of X (=Ru, Rh) impurities in Pd, due to the Fermi-Dirac (FD) distribution and the thermal vibration effect by the Debye-Grüneisen model. The n-body (n=2~4) IEs among X impurities in Pd, being used to calculate the internal energies in the free energies of the Pd-rich PdX alloys, are determined uniquely and successively from the lower-order to higher-order, by the full-potential Korringa-Kohn-Rostoker Green’s function method (FPKKR), combined with the generalized gradient approximation in the density functional theory. We found that the temperature dependence of IEs due to the FD distribution, being usually neglected, is very important to reproduce the X-concentration dependence of the observed solvus temperatures of the Pd-rich PdX (X=Ru, Rh) alloys.

Keywords: Full-potential KKR-Green’s function method, Fermi-Dirac distribution, GGA, phase diagram of Pd-rich PdX (X=Ru, Rh) alloys, thermal vibration effect.

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