Search results for: scale effects

Authors: Abhinav Kumar, Raja Sekhar Bandaru, B Madhusudan Rao, Saket Kulkarni, Nilesh Ghatpande

Abstract:

This paper proposes an algorithm which automatically aligns and stitches the component medical images (fluoroscopic) with varying degrees of overlap into a single composite image. The alignment method is based on similarity measure between the component images. As applied here the technique is intensity based rather than feature based. It works well in domains where feature based methods have difficulty, yet more robust than traditional correlation. Component images are stitched together using the new triangular averaging based blending algorithm. The quality of the resultant image is tested for photometric inconsistencies and geometric misalignments. This method cannot correct rotational, scale and perspective artifacts.

Keywords: Histogram Matching, Image Alignment, ImageStitching, Medical Imaging.

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Authors: Yoshimoto Kurihara, Tad Gonsalves

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Currently, in the field of object posture estimation, there is research on estimating the position and angle of an object by storing a 3D model of the object to be estimated in advance in a computer and matching it with the model. However, in this research, we have succeeded in creating a module that is much simpler, smaller in scale, and faster in operation. Our 6D pose estimation model consists of two different networks – a classification network and a regression network. From a single RGB image, the trained model estimates the class of the object in the image, the coordinates of the object, and its rotation angle in 3D space. In addition, we compared the estimation accuracy of each camera position, i.e., the angle from which the object was captured. The highest accuracy was recorded when the camera position was 75°, the accuracy of the classification was about 87.3%, and that of regression was about 98.9%.

Keywords: AlexNet, Deep learning, image recognition, 6D posture estimation.

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Authors: M. N. Nwodo, Y. P. Cheng, N. H. Minh

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In the process of recovering oil in weak sandstone formations, the strength of sandstones around the wellbore is weakened due to the increase of effective stress/load from the completion activities around the cavity. The weakened and de-bonded sandstone may be eroded away by the produced fluid, which is termed sand production. It is one of the major trending subjects in the petroleum industry because of its significant negative impacts, as well as some observed positive impacts. For efficient sand management therefore, there has been need for a reliable study tool to understand the mechanism of sanding. One method of studying sand production is the use of the widely recognized Discrete Element Method (DEM), Particle Flow Code (PFC^3D) which represents sands as granular individual elements bonded together at contact points. However, there is limited knowledge of the particle-scale behavior of the weak sandstone, and the parameters that affect sanding. This paper aims to investigate the reliability of using PFC^3D and a simple Darcy flow in understanding the sand production behavior of a weak sandstone. An isotropic tri-axial test on a weak oil sandstone sample was first simulated at a confining stress of 1MPa to calibrate and validate the parallel bond models of PFC^3D using a 10m height and 10m diameter solid cylindrical model. The effect of the confining stress on the number of bonds failure was studied using this cylindrical model. With the calibrated data and sample material properties obtained from the tri-axial test, simulations without and with fluid flow were carried out to check on the effect of Darcy flow on bonds failure using the same model geometry. The fluid flow network comprised of every four particles connected with tetrahedral flow pipes with a central pore or flow domain. Parametric studies included the effects of confining stress, and fluid pressure; as well as validating flow rate – permeability relationship to verify Darcy’s fluid flow law. The effect of model size scaling on sanding was also investigated using 4m height, 2m diameter model. The parallel bond model successfully calibrated the sample’s strength of 4.4MPa, showing a sharp peak strength before strain-softening, similar to the behavior of real cemented sandstones. There seems to be an exponential increasing relationship for the bigger model, but a curvilinear shape for the smaller model. The presence of the Darcy flow induced tensile forces and increased the number of broken bonds. For the parametric studies, flow rate has a linear relationship with permeability at constant pressure head. The higher the fluid flow pressure, the higher the number of broken bonds/sanding. The DEM PFC^3D is a promising tool to studying the micromechanical behavior of cemented sandstones.

Keywords: Discrete Element Method, fluid flow, parametric study, sand production/bonds failure.

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Authors: Joel S. Akintayo, Ramat T. Salman

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The stakeholders’ pressure on corporate managers to maintain firm’s profitability has created economic incentives for management to engage in earnings management practices. Therefore, this study examines the effects of audit quality and corporate governance on earnings management of quoted deposit money banks (DMBs) in Nigeria. This study specifically investigates the influence of audit tenure, audit fee, board independence, and board size on earnings management of DMBs. Explanatory research design was employed in carrying out the study while secondary data were sourced from the annual reports and accounts of all the 15 quoted DMBs in Nigerian Stock Exchange as at December 31, 2015 for a period of 10 years covering from 2006 to 2015. The data obtained for the study were analyzed using panel regression analysis approach. The findings reveal that board independence has a negative significant effect on earnings management at a 5% level of significance (p=0.002), while audit fee has a positive significant effect on earnings management at a 5% level of significance (p=0.013) and audit tenure has a negative significant effect on earnings management of DMBs at a 5% level of significance (p=0.003). Surprisingly, board size was statistically not significant at a 5% level of significance (p=0.086). The study concludes that high audit quality and sound corporate governance could improve the earnings quality of DMBs. Hence, the study recommends that the authorities saddled with the responsibility of banking supervision in Nigeria such the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and CBN to advise the National Assembly in Nigeria to pass into law the three years professional requirement for audit tenure.

Keywords: Audit quality, audit tenure, audit fee, board independence, corporate governance, earnings management.

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Authors: Rami H. Fouad

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The purpose of this study is to identify and evaluate the scale of implementation of Just-In-Time (JIT) in the different industrial sectors in the Middle East. This study analyzes the empirical data collected by a questionnaire survey distributed to companies in three main industrial sectors in the Middle East, which are: food, chemicals and fabrics. The following main hypotheses is formulated and tested: (The requirements of JIT application differ according to the type of industrial sector).Descriptive statistics and Box plot analysis were used to examine the hypotheses. This study indicates a reasonable evidence for accepting the main hypotheses. It reveals that there is no standard way to adopt JIT as a production system. But each industrial sector should concentrate in the investment on critical requirements that differ according to the nature and strategy of production followed in that sector.

Keywords: Just-In-Time, JIT, Questionnaire, Types of Industrial Sectors.

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Authors: Kureshi Abdul Kadir, Mohd. Hasan

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Each new semiconductor technology node brings smaller transistors and wires. Although this makes transistors faster, wires get slower. In nano-scale regime, the standard copper (Cu) interconnect will become a major hurdle for FPGA interconnect due to their high resistivity and electromigration. This paper presents the comprehensive evaluation of mixed CNT bundle interconnects and investigates their prospects as energy efficient and high speed interconnect for future FPGA routing architecture. All HSPICE simulations are carried out at operating frequency of 1GHz and it is found that mixed CNT bundle implemented in FPGAs as interconnect can potentially provide a substantial delay and energy reduction over traditional interconnects at 32nm process technology.

Keywords: CMOS, Copper Interconnect, Mixed CNT Bundle Interconnect, FPGAs.

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Authors: D. Sarkar, M. Pal, A. K. Sarkar

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Asphaltic concrete for pavement construction in India are produced by using crushed stone, gravels etc. as aggregate. In north-Eastern region of India, there is a scarcity of stone aggregate. Therefore the road engineers are always in search of an optional material as aggregate which can replace the regularly used material. The purpose of this work was to evaluate the utilization of substandard or marginal aggregates in flexible pavement construction. The investigation was undertaken to evaluate the effects of using lower quality aggregates such as over burnt brick aggregate on the preparation of asphalt concrete for flexible pavements. The scope of this work included a review of available literature and existing data, a laboratory evaluation organized to determine the effects of marginal aggregates and potential techniques to upgrade these substandard materials, and a laboratory evaluation of these upgraded marginal aggregate asphalt mixtures. Over burnt brick aggregates are water susceptible and can leads to moisture damage. Moisture damage is the progressive loss of functionality of the material owing to loss of the adhesion bond between the asphalt binder and the aggregate surface. Hence zycosoil as an anti striping additive were evaluated in this study. This study summarizes the results of the laboratory evaluation carried out to investigate the properties of asphalt concrete prepared with zycosoil modified over burnt brick aggregate. Marshall specimen were prepared with stone aggregate, zycosoil modified stone aggregate, over burnt brick aggregate and zycosoil modified over burnt brick aggregate. Results show that addition of zycosoil with stone aggregate increased stability by 6% and addition of zycosoil with over burnt brick aggregate increased stability by 30%.

Keywords: Asphalt Concrete, Over Burnt Brick Aggregate, Marshall Stability, Zycosoil.

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Authors: Birs Isabela, Muresan Cristina, Folea Silviu, Prodan Ovidiu

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The wing is one of the most important parts of an airplane because it ensures stability, sustenance and maneuverability of the airplane. Because of its shape, the airplane wing can be simplified to a smart beam. Active vibration suppression is realized using piezoelectric actuators that are mounted on the surface of the beam. This work presents a tuning procedure of fractional order controllers based on a graphical approach of the frequency domain representation. The efficacy of the method is proven by practically testing the controller on a laboratory scale experimental stand.

Keywords: Fractional order controller, piezoelectric actuators, smart beam, vibration suppression.

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Authors: F. Behrouzi, A. Maimun, M. Nakisa

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The growth of population, rising fossil fuel prices (limited and decreasing day by day), pollution problem due to use of fossil fuels and increasing electrical demand are important factors that encourage the use of green and renewable energy technologies. Among the different renewable energy technologies, hydro power generation (large and small scale) is the prime choice in terms of contribution to the world's electricity generation by using water current turbines. Currently, researchers mainly focused on design and development of different kind of turbines to capture hydropower to generate electricity as clean and reliable energy. This paper is a review of the status of research on water current turbines carried out to generate electricity from hydrokinetic energy especially in places where there is no electricity, but there is access to flowing water.

Keywords: Turbines, Renewable Energy, Hydropower.

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Authors: Mucip Tapan, Ali Ozvan, Ismail Akkaya

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This study investigated how the concrete confinement strength and axial load carrying capacity of reinforced concrete columns are affected by corrosion damage to the stirrups. A total of small-scale 12 test specimens were cast for evaluating the effect of stirrup corrosion on confinement strength of concrete. The results of this study show that the stirrup corrosion alone dramatically decreases the axial load carrying capacity of corroded reinforced concrete columns. Recommendations were presented for improved inspection practices which will allow estimating concrete confinement strength of corrosion-damaged reinforced concrete bridge columns.

Keywords: Bridge, column, concrete, corrosion, inspection, stirrup reinforcement.

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Authors: Pramod Jagtap, Kisan Jadhav, Neha Dand

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Risperidone (RISP) is an antipsychotic agent and has low water solubility and nontargeted delivery results in numerous side effects. Hence, an attempt was made to develop SLNs hydrogel for intranasal delivery of RISP to achieve maximum bioavailability and reduction of side effects. RISP loaded SLNs composed of 1.65% (w/v) lipid mass were produced by high shear homogenization (HSH) coupled ultrasound (US) method using glycerylmonostearate (GMS) or Imwitor 900K (solid lipid). The particles were loaded with 0.2% (w/v) of the RISP & surface-tailored with a 2.02% (w/v) non-ionic surfactant Tween® 80. Optimization was done using 32 factorial design using Design Expert® software. The prepared SLNs dispersion incorporated into Polycarbophil AA1 hydrogel (0.5% w/v). The final gel formulation was evaluated for entrapment efficiency, particle size, rheological properties, X ray diffraction, in vitro diffusion, ex vivo permeation using sheep nasal mucosa and histopathological studies for nasocilliary toxicity. The entrapment efficiency of optimized SLNs was found to be 76 ± 2%, polydispersity index <0.3., particle size 278 ± 5 nm. This optimized batch was incorporated into hydrogel. The pH was found to be 6.4 ± 0.14. The rheological behaviour of hydrogel formulation revealed no thixotropic behaviour. In histopathology study, there was no nasocilliary toxicity observed in nasal mucosa after ex vivo permeation. X-ray diffraction data shows drug was in amorphous form. Ex vivo permeation study shows controlled release profile of drug.

Keywords: Ex vivo, particle size, risperidone, solid lipid nanoparticles.

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Authors: Stoyan Nedeltchev, Markus Schubert

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The gas holdup fluctuations in a bubble column (0.15 m in ID) have been recorded by means of a conductivity wire-mesh sensor in order to extract information about the main transition velocities. These parameters are very important for bubble column design, operation and scale-up. For this purpose, the classical definition of the Shannon entropy was modified and used to identify both the onset (at U_G=0.034 m/s) of the transition flow regime and the beginning (at U_G=0.089 m/s) of the churn-turbulent flow regime. The results were compared with the Kolmogorov entropy (KE) results. A slight discrepancy was found, namely the transition velocities identified by means of the KE were shifted to somewhat higher (0.045 and 0.101 m/s) superficial gas velocities U_G.

Keywords: Bubble column, gas holdup fluctuations, Modified Shannon entropy, Kolmogorov entropy.

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Authors: Sarah O. Alhumoud, Mawaheb I. Altuwaijri, Tarfa M. Albuhairi, Wejdan M. Alohaideb

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Large-scale data stream analysis has become one of the important business and research priorities lately. Social networks like Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms hold an enormous amount of data that is large in volume, velocity and variety. Extracting valuable information and trends out of these data would aid in a better understanding and decision-making. Multiple analysis techniques are deployed for English content. Moreover, one of the languages that produce a large amount of data over social networks and is least analyzed is the Arabic language. The proposed paper is a survey on the research efforts to analyze the Arabic content in Twitter focusing on the tools and methods used to extract the sentiments for the Arabic content on Twitter.

Keywords: Big Data, Social Networks, Sentiment Analysis.

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Authors: Abdulmohsen A. AlBesher, Richard T. Stone

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Star rating for mobile applications is a very useful way to differentiate between the best and worst rated applications. However, the question is whether the rating reflects the level of usability or not. The aim of this paper is to find out if the user’ star ratings on mobile apps correlate with the usability of those apps. Thus, we tested three mobile apps, which have different star ratings: low, medium, and high. Participating in the study, 15 mobile phone users were asked to do one single task for each of the three tested apps. After each task, the participant evaluated the app by answering a survey based on the System Usability Scale (SUS). The results found that there is no major correlation between the star rating and the usability. However, it was found that the task completion time and the numbers of errors that may happen while completing the task were significantly correlated to the usability.

Keywords: Mobile applications, SUS, Star rating, Usability.

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Authors: H. Mansoori, A. Aghazadeh, K. Nazeradl

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The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation with raw or heat-treated sunflower oil seed with two levels of 7.5% or 15% on unsaturated fatty acids in milk fat and performances of high-yielding lactating cows. Twenty early lactating Holstein cows were used in a complete randomized design. Treatments included: 1) CON, control (without sunflower oil seed). 2) LS-UT, 7.5% raw sunflower oil seed. 3) LS-HT, 7.5% heat-treated sunflower oil seed. 4) HS-UT, 15% raw sunflower oil seed. 5) HS-HT, 15% heat-treated sunflower oil seed. Experimental period lasted for 4 wk, with first 2 wk used for adaptation to the diets. Supplementation with 7.5% raw sunflower seed (LS-UT) tended to decrease milk yield, with 28.37 kg/d compared with the control (34.75 kg/d). Milk fat percentage was increased with the HS-UT treatment that obtained 3.71% compared with CON that was 3.39% and without significant different. Milk protein percent was decreased high level sunflower oil seed treatments (15%) with 3.18% whereas CON treatment is caused 3.40% protein. The cows fed added low sunflower heat-treated (LS-HT) produced milk with the highest content of total unsaturated fatty acid with 32.59 g/100g of milk fat compared with the HS-UT with 23.59 g/100g of milk fat. Content of C18 unsaturated fatty acids in milk fat increased from 21.68 g/100g of fat in the HS-UT to 22.50, 23.98, 27.39 and 30.30 g/100g of fat from the cow fed HS-HT, CON, LS-UT and LS-HT treatments, respectively. C18:2 isomers of fatty acid in milk were greater by LSHT supplementation with significant effect (P < 0.05). Total of C18 unsaturated fatty acids content was significantly higher in milk of animal fed added low heat-treated sunflower (7.5%) than those fed with high sunflower. In all, results of this study showed that diet cow's supplementation with sunflower oil seed tended to reduce milk production of lactating cows but can improve C18 UFA (Unsaturated Fatty Acid) content in milk fat. 7.5% level of sunflower oil seed that heated seemed to be the optimal source to increase UFA production.

Keywords: Fatty acid profile, milk production, sunflower seed.

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Authors: A. Castillo, A. Gutiérrez, J.M. Gutiérrez, J.M. Gómez, E. García-López

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The continued growth of the cities is causing an increase of the amount of surface to illuminate. However, this rise into lighting brings some unintended consequences such as increased of energy consumption or the light pollution. To make these effects less intrusive as possible some councils have chosen to perform a part-night lighting in some areas. Nonetheless, this kind of shutdown may cause serious problems which we intend to highlight in this paper.

Keywords: Energy saving, part-night lighting, switch off, vial security

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Authors: John N. Ellinas

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In this paper, a robust watermarking algorithm using the wavelet transform and edge detection is presented. The efficiency of an image watermarking technique depends on the preservation of visually significant information. This is attained by embedding the watermark transparently with the maximum possible strength. The watermark embedding process is carried over the subband coefficients that lie on edges, where distortions are less noticeable, with a subband level dependent strength. Also, the watermark is embedded to selected coefficients around edges, using a different scale factor for watermark strength, that are captured by a morphological dilation operation. The experimental evaluation of the proposed method shows very good results in terms of robustness and transparency to various attacks such as median filtering, Gaussian noise, JPEG compression and geometrical transformations.

Keywords: Watermarking, wavelet transform, edge detection.

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Authors: Smaali Assia, Outemzabet Ratiba, Media El Mahdi, Kadi Mohamed

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Films of pure tin oxide SnO2 and in presence of antimony atoms (SnO2-Sb) deposited onto glass substrates have shown a sufficiently high energy gap to be transparent in the visible region, a high electrical mobility and a carrier concentration which displays a good electrical conductivity [1]. In this work, the effects of polycrystalline silicon substrate on the optical properties of pure and Sb doped tin oxide is investigated. We used the APCVD (atmospheric pressure chemical vapour deposition) technique, which is a low-cost and simple technique, under nitrogen ambient, for growing this material. A series of SnO2 and SnO2-Sb have been deposited onto polycrystalline silicon substrates with different contents of antimony atoms at the same conditions of deposition (substrate temperature, flow oxygen, duration and nitrogen atmosphere of the reactor). The effect of the substrate in terms of morphology and nonlinear optical properties, mainly the reflectance, was studied. The reflectance intensity of the device, compared to the reflectance of tin oxide films deposited directly on glass substrate, is clearly reduced on the overall wavelength range. It is obvious that the roughness of the poly-c silicon plays an important role by improving the reflectance and hence the optical parameters. A clear shift in the minimum of the reflectance upon doping level is observed. This minimum corresponds to strong free carrier absorption, resulting in different plasma frequency. This effect is followed by an increase in the reflectance depending of the antimony doping. Applying the extended Drude theory to the combining optical and electrical obtained results these effects are discussed.

Keywords: Doping, oxide, reflectance.

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Authors: Jay Singh, C. B. Vishwakarma, Kalyan Chatterjee

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A mixed method by combining modified pole clustering technique and modified cauer continued fraction is proposed for reducing the order of the large-scale dynamic systems. The denominator polynomial of the reduced order model is obtained by using modified pole clustering technique while the coefficients of the numerator are obtained by modified cauer continued fraction. This method generated 'k' number of reduced order models for kth order reduction. The superiority of the proposed method has been elaborated through numerical example taken from the literature and compared with few existing order reduction methods.

Keywords: Modified Pole Clustering, Modified Cauer Continued Fraction, Order Reduction, Stability, Transfer Function.

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Authors: N.Ibrahim, Peter A. Jensen, K. Dam-Johansen, Roshafima.R. Ali, Rafiziana.M. Kasmani

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The aim of this study was to investigate the influence of reaction temperature and wheat straw moisture content on the pyrolysis product yields, in the temperature range of 475-575 °C. Samples of straw with moisture contents from 1.5 wt % to 15.0 wt % were fed to a bench scale Pyrolysis Centrifuge Reactor (PCR). The experimental results show that the changes in straw moisture content have no significant effect on the distribution of pyrolysis product yields. The maximum bio-oil yields approximately 60 (wt %, on dry ash free feedstock basis) was observed around 525 °C - 550 °C for all straw moisture levels. The water content in the wet straw bio-oil was the highest. The heating value of bio-oil and solid char were measured and the percentages of its energy distribution were calculated. The energy distributions of bio-oil, char and gas were 56- 69 % 24-33 %, and 2-19 %, respectively.

Keywords: Flash pyrolysis, moisture content, wheat straw, biooil.

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Authors: L. Deniz

Abstract:

The main purpose of the research is to investigate the computer experiences and computer attitudes of prospective class teachers. The research also investigated the differences between computer attitudes and computer experiences, computer competencies and the influence of genders. Ninety prospective class teachers participated in the research. Computer Attitude Scale- Marmara (CAS-M), and a questionnaire, about their computer experiences, and opinions toward the use of computers in the classroom setting, were administrated. The major findings are as follows: (1) 62% of prospective class teachers have computer at home; (2) 50% of the computer owners have computers less than three years; (3) No significant differences were found between computer attitudes and gender; (4) Differences were found between general computer attitudes and computer liking attitudes of prospective class teachers based on their computer competencies in favor of more competent ones.

Keywords: Computer attitude, computer experience, prospective class teacher

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Authors: S. Zeynep Siretioglu Girgin, Gizem Turna Cebeci

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Turkey’s immigration policy is a controversial issue considering its legal, economic, social, and political and human rights dimensions. Formulation of an immigration policy goes hand in hand with political processes, where natives’ attitudes play a significant role. On the other hand, as was the case in Turkey, radical changes made in immigration policy or policies lacking transparency may cause severe reactions by the host society. The underlying discussion paper aims to analyze quantitatively the effects of the existing ‘open door’ immigration policy on the economic integration of Syrian refugees in Turkey, and on the perception of the native population of refugees. For the analysis, semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus group interviews have been conducted. After the introduction, a literature review is provided, followed by theoretical background on the explanation of natives’ attitudes towards immigrants. In the next section, a qualitative analysis of natives’ attitudes towards Syrian refugees is presented with the subtopics of (i) awareness, general opinions and expectations, (ii) open-door policy and management of the migration process, (iii) perception of positive and negative impacts of immigration, (iv) economic integration, and (v) cultural similarity. Results indicate that, natives concurrently have social, economic and security concerns regarding refugees, while difficulties regarding security and economic integration of refugees stand out. Socio-economic characteristics of the respondents, such as the educational level and employment status, are not sufficient to explain the overall attitudes towards refugees, while they can be used to explain the awareness of the respondents and the priority of the concerns felt.

Keywords: Economic integration, immigration policy, integration policies, migrants, natives’ attitudes, perception, Syrian refugees, Turkey.

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Authors: Bo Yang, Christopher Monterola

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Urban intersection control without the use of the traffic light has the potential to vastly improve the efficiency of the urban traffic flow. For most proposals in the literature, such lightless intersection control depends on the mass market commercialization of highly intelligent autonomous vehicles (AV), which limits the prospects of near future implementation. We present an efficient lightless intersection traffic control scheme that only requires Level 1 AV as defined by NHTSA. The technological barriers of such lightless intersection control are thus very low. Our algorithm can also accommodate a mixture of AVs and conventional vehicles. We also carry out large scale numerical analysis to illustrate the feasibility, safety and robustness, comfort level, and control efficiency of our intersection control scheme.

Keywords: Intersection control, autonomous vehicles, traffic modelling, intelligent transport system.

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Authors: Roy R. Gu, Mahesh Sahu, Xianggui Zhao

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Contour filter strips planted with perennial vegetation can be used to improve surface and ground water quality by reducing pollutant, such as NO3-N, and sediment outflow from cropland to a river or lake. Meanwhile, the filter strips of perennial grass with biofuel potentials also have economic benefits of producing ethanol. In this study, The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model was applied to the Walnut Creek Watershed to examine the effectiveness of contour strips in reducing NO3-N outflows from crop fields to the river or lake. Required input data include watershed topography, slope, soil type, land-use, management practices in the watershed and climate parameters (precipitation, maximum/minimum air temperature, solar radiation, wind speed and relative humidity). Numerical experiments were conducted to identify potential subbasins in the watershed that have high water quality impact, and to examine the effects of strip size and location on NO3-N reduction in the subbasins under various meteorological conditions (dry, average and wet). Variable sizes of contour strips (10%, 20%, 30% and 50%, respectively, of a subbasin area) planted with perennial switchgrass were selected for simulating the effects of strip size and location on stream water quality. Simulation results showed that a filter strip having 10%-50% of the subbasin area could lead to 55%- 90% NO3-N reduction in the subbasin during an average rainfall year. Strips occupying 10-20% of the subbasin area were found to be more efficient in reducing NO3-N when placed along the contour than that when placed along the river. The results of this study can assist in cost-benefit analysis and decision-making in best water resources management practices for environmental protection.

Keywords: modeling, SWAT, water quality, NO3-N, watershed.

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Authors: Vishal Naranje, S. Kumar

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In this paper a low cost knowledge base system (KBS) framework is proposed for design of deep drawing die and procedure for developing system modules. The task of building the system is structured into different modules for major activities of design of deep drawing die. A manufacturability assessment module of the proposed framework is developed to check the manufacturability of deep drawn parts. The technological knowledge is represented by using IF- THEN rules and it is coded in AutoLISP language. The module is designed to be loaded into the prompt area of AutoCAD. The cost of implementation of proposed system makes it affordable for small and medium scale sheet metal industries.

Keywords: Knowledge base system, Deep drawing die, Manufacturability, Sheet metal.

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Authors: S. Al Dandachli, F. Perales, Y. Monerie, F. Jamin, M. S. El Youssoufi, C. Pelissou

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The goal of this research is to study the fracture process and mechanical behavior of concrete under I–II mixed-mode stress, which is essential for ensuring the safety of concrete structures. For this purpose, two-dimensional simulations of three-point bending tests under variable load and geometry on notched cement paste samples of composite samples (cement paste/siliceous aggregate) are modeled by employing Cohesive Zone Models (CZMs). As a result of experimental validation of these tests, the CZM model demonstrates its capacity to predict fracture propagation at the local scale.

Keywords: Concrete, cohesive zone model, microstructure, fracture, three-point flexural test bending.

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Authors: H. Al-Baghli

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In this investigation, rubberized HMA technology was examined to address the most critical forms of pavement distresses in the State of Kuwait, namely, high temperature rutting, and moisture induced raveling. PelletPAVE™ additive was selected as the preferred technology, since it offered a convenient method of directly modifying the exiting local HMA recipe without having to polymer modify the bitumen. Experimental work, using various Pelletpave contents was carried out at Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) to design an optimum rubberized HMA formulation prior to conducting a pilot-scale road trial. With the aid of a gyratory compactor, the compaction and volumetric properties of HMAs containing 2.5% and 3.0% Pelletpave additive were investigated at a range of bitumen contents, all by mass of total mix.

Keywords: Modified bitumen, rubberized hot mix asphalt, gyratory compaction, volumetric properties.

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Authors: Yasuomi D. Sato, Yasutaka Kuriya

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We here propose improved version of elastic graph matching (EGM) as a face detector, called the multi-scale EGM (MS-EGM). In this improvement, Gabor wavelet-based pyramid reduces computational complexity for the feature representation often used in the conventional EGM, but preserving a critical amount of information about an image. The MS-EGM gives us higher detection performance than Viola-Jones object detection algorithm of the AdaBoost Haar-like feature cascade. We also show rapid detection speeds of the MS-EGM, comparable to the Viola-Jones method. We find fruitful benefits in the MS-EGM, in terms of topological feature representation for a face.

Keywords: Face detection, Gabor wavelet based pyramid, elastic graph matching, topological preservation, redundancy of computational complexity.

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Authors: P. G. Siddheshwar, B. R. Revathi

Abstract:

The effect of time-periodic oscillations of the Rayleigh- Benard system on the heat transport in dielectric liquids is investigated by weakly nonlinear analysis. We focus on stationary convection using the slow time scale and arrive at the real Ginzburg- Landau equation. Classical fourth order Runge-kutta method is used to solve the Ginzburg-Landau equation which gives the amplitude of convection and this helps in quantifying the heat transfer in dielectric liquids in terms of the Nusselt number. The effect of electrical Rayleigh number and the amplitude of modulation on heat transport is studied.

Keywords: Dielectric liquid, Nusselt number, amplitude equation.

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Authors: Samir A. Emam, Ali El Domiaty

Abstract:

Friction-stir welding has received a huge interest in the last few years. The many advantages of this promising process have led researchers to present different theoretical and experimental explanation of the process. The way to quantitatively and qualitatively control the different parameters of the friction-stir welding process has not been paved. In this study, a refined energybased model that estimates the energy generated due to friction and plastic deformation is presented. The effect of the plastic deformation at low energy levels is significant and hence a scale factor is introduced to control its effect. The predicted heat energy and the obtained maximum temperature using our model are compared to the theoretical and experimental results available in the literature and a good agreement is obtained. The model is applied to AA6000 and AA7000 series.

Keywords: Friction-stir welding, Energy, Aluminum Alloys.

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