Search results for: phase correlation

Authors: Christopher Deekia Nwimae, Nigel Simms, Liyun Lao

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Erosion in a pipe bends caused by particles is a major concern in the oil and gas fields and might cause breakdown to production equipment. This work investigates the effect of sand particle transport in an elbow using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) approach. Two-way coupled Euler-Lagrange and discrete phase model is employed to calculate the air/solid particle flow in the elbow. Generic erosion model in Ansys fluent and three particle rebound models are used to predict the erosion rate on the 90° elbows. The model result is compared with experimental data from the open literature validating the CFD-based predictions which reveals that due to the sand particles impinging on the wall of the elbow at high velocity, a point on the pipe elbow were observed to have started turning red due to velocity increase and the maximum erosion locations occur at 48°.

Keywords: Erosion, prediction, elbow, computational fluid dynamics, CFD.

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Authors: Jun Wan, Zehua Chen, Yingwu Chen, Zhidong Bai

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Classification is an interesting problem in functional data analysis (FDA), because many science and application problems end up with classification problems, such as recognition, prediction, control, decision making, management, etc. As the high dimension and high correlation in functional data (FD), it is a key problem to extract features from FD whereas keeping its global characters, which relates to the classification efficiency and precision to heavens. In this paper, a novel automatic method which combined Genetic Algorithm (GA) and classification algorithm to extract classification features is proposed. In this method, the optimal features and classification model are approached via evolutional study step by step. It is proved by theory analysis and experiment test that this method has advantages in improving classification efficiency, precision and robustness whereas using less features and the dimension of extracted classification features can be controlled.

Keywords: Classification, functional data, feature extraction, genetic algorithm, wavelet.

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Authors: T. Chandrasekhar, K. Thangavel, E. N. Sathishkumar

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Microarrays are made it possible to simultaneously monitor the expression profiles of thousands of genes under various experimental conditions. It is used to identify the co-expressed genes in specific cells or tissues that are actively used to make proteins. This method is used to analysis the gene expression, an important task in bioinformatics research. Cluster analysis of gene expression data has proved to be a useful tool for identifying co-expressed genes, biologically relevant groupings of genes and samples. In this work K-Means algorithms has been applied for clustering of Gene Expression Data. Further, rough set based Quick reduct algorithm has been applied for each cluster in order to select the most similar genes having high correlation. Then the ACV measure is used to evaluate the refined clusters and classification is used to evaluate the proposed method. They could identify compact clusters with feature selection method used to genes are selected.

Keywords: Clustering, Feature selection, Gene expression data, Quick reduct.

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Authors: Şebnem Ertaş

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“Architecture” is one component of sustainable cultural tourism. The sustainability of architecture is possible through preservation and restoration activities. In Turkey, which has an important place in the world’s cultural heritage, several studies focused on the sustainability of the cultural heritage were done in terms of the principles of “preserve-use-sustain”. Within the scope of this study, a methodology will be proposed in order to obtain the development of different scenarios supporting sustainable tourism. Sille is an ancient village located on the Spice Road and Silk Road dating back to the Ottoman and Seljuk eras. However, in recent years it is protected as an archeological site. In the “Alternative Project Phase”, the streets and buildings which bring dynamism to trade are determined; among these, 10 major buildings in Hacı Ali Ağa Street are studied.

Keywords: Tourism, cultural tourism, sustainability of architecture, interior design, Sille.

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Authors: Purnomo Yustianto, Robin Doss

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As a process of developing a service system, the term ‘service engineering’ evolves in scope and definition. To achieve an integrated understanding of the process, a general framework and an ontology are required. This paper extends a previously built service engineering framework by exploring metamodels for the framework artefacts based on a foundational ontology and a metamodel landscape. The first part of this paper presents a correlation map between the proposed framework with the ontology as a form of evaluation for the conceptual coverage of the framework. The mapping also serves to characterize the artefacts to be produced for each activity in the framework. The second part describes potential metamodels to be used, from the metamodel landscape, as alternative formats of the framework artefacts. The results suggest that the framework sufficiently covers the ontological concepts, both from general service context and software service context. The metamodel exploration enriches the suggested artefact format from the original eighteen formats to thirty metamodel alternatives.

Keywords: Artefact, framework, service, metamodel.

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Authors: Quy Dang Nguyen, Reza Nakhaie Jazar

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The paper investigates vibration dynamics of tire-road separation for a quarter-car model; this separation model is developed to be close to the real situation considering the tire is able to separate from the ground plane. A set of piecewise linear mathematical models is developed and matches the in-contact and no-contact states to be considered as mother models for further investigations. The bound dynamics are numerically simulated in the time response and phase portraits. The separation analysis may determine which values of suspension parameters can delay and avoid the no-contact phenomenon, which results in improving ride comfort and eliminating the potentially dangerous oscillation. Finally, model verification is carried out in the MSC-ADAMS environment.

Keywords: Quarter-car vibrations, tire-road separation, separation analysis, separation dynamics, ride comfort, ADAMS validation.

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Authors: H. Wakily, M. Mehrali, H. S. C. Metselaar

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Homogeneous composites of alumina and zirconia with a small amount of MgO (<1 wt %) were prepared by colloidal filtration. The object of using ZrO2 (15wt %) was to provide zirconia toughened alumina (ZTA). Suspensions of alumina and Zirconia with various solid loadings and various concentrations of Dolapix CE64 as surfactant were studied. The stability of these suspensions was investigated using rheological measurements. The optimum amount of using Dolapix was 0.8wt% for ZTA containing MgO suspension which gave low apparent viscosity in basic area (100 mPa s at shear rate of 50 s-1). The satisfactory mixtures were made into sample pallets using colloidal filtration. The process was completed with pressureless sintering in suitable temperature. Phase, grain size and qualitative compositional analysis were done using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images. ZTA containing 0.05 wt% MgO shows the lowest grain size for alumina around 0.5 μm. Densification studies show that near full densities (>99%) were obtained for ZTA ceramic containing 0.05 wt% MgO in 1500 °C.

Keywords: Colloidal filtration, Dolapix, MgO, Zirconiatoughened alumina.

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Authors: Nan Jiang, Jian Wang

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Random Oracle Model (ROM) is an effective method for measuring the practical security of cryptograph. In this paper, we try to use it into information hiding system (IHS). Because IHS has its own properties, the ROM must be modified if it is used into IHS. Firstly, we fully discuss why and how to modify each part of ROM respectively. The main changes include: 1) Divide the attacks that IHS may be suffered into two phases and divide the attacks of each phase into several kinds. 2) Distinguish Oracles and Black-boxes clearly. 3) Define Oracle and four Black-boxes that IHS used. 4) Propose the formalized adversary model. And 5) Give the definition of judge. Secondly, based on ROM of IHS, the security against known original cover attack (KOCA-KOCA-security) is defined. Then, we give an actual information hiding scheme and prove that it is KOCA-KOCA-secure. Finally, we conclude the paper and propose the open problems of further research.

Keywords: Attack, Information Hiding, Provable Security, Random Oracle Model.

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Authors: Tristan O'Neill, Trina Myers, Jarrod Trevathan

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The Tropical Data Hub (TDH) is a virtual research environment that provides researchers with an e-research infrastructure to congregate significant tropical data sets for data reuse, integration, searching, and correlation. However, researchers often require data and metadata synthesis across disciplines for crossdomain analyses and knowledge discovery. A triplestore offers a semantic layer to achieve a more intelligent method of search to support the synthesis requirements by automating latent linkages in the data and metadata. Presently, the benchmarks to aid the decision of which triplestore is best suited for use in an application environment like the TDH are limited to performance. This paper describes a new evaluation tool developed to analyze both features and performance. The tool comprises a weighted decision matrix to evaluate the interoperability, functionality, performance, and support availability of a range of integrated and native triplestores to rank them according to requirements of the TDH.

Keywords: Virtual research environment, Semantic Web, performance analysis, tropical data hub.

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Authors: Jocelyn Sackey, Priscilla Boahemaa, Mohammed A. Sanda

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This study explored the relationship between occupational stress and the perceived effectiveness of men and women managers in Ghanaian organizations. The exploration is underlined by attempt to understand the degree to which male and female managers in Ghanaian organizations experience occupational stress at the workplace. The purpose is to examine the sources and extents of occupational stress experienced by male and female managers in Ghana. Data was collected using questionnaires and analyzed using both descriptive statistics and correlation analysis. The results showed that female managers in Ghana are more likely to report of more stress experiences in the workplace than their male counterparts. The female managers are more likely to perceive role conflict and alienation as job stressors while the male managers perceived blocked career as a major source of workplace stress. It is concluded that despite the female managers experiencing enormous level of occupational stress, there was no significant differences between their managerial effectiveness and that of the male.

Keywords: Gender, job stress, managerial effectiveness, organizational environment

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Authors: Tomas Mitkus, Vaida Nedzinskaitė-Mitkė

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The objective of this study is to identify and explore how adequate is modern innovation support mechanism to developed creative industries. We argue that current development and support strategy for creative industries, although acknowledge high correlation between innovation and creativity, do not seek to improve conditions to promote systematic innovation development in the creative sector. Using the Lithuanian animation industry as a case study, this paper will examine innovation contribution to creativity and, for that matter, the competitiveness of animation enterprises. This paper proposes insights that contribute to theoretical and practical discussions on how creative profile companies build national and international competitiveness through innovations. The conclusions suggest that development of creative industries could greatly benefit if policymakers would implement tools that would encourage creative profile enterprises to invest in to development of innovation at a constant rate.

Keywords: Creative industries, animation, innovation, innovation policy, management.

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Authors: K. Abbas, R. Ahmad, I. A. Khan, S. Saleem, U. Ikhlaq

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Nitriding of p-type Si samples by pulsed DC glow discharge is carried out for different Ar concentrations (30% to 90%) in nitrogen-argon plasma whereas the other parameters like pressure (2 mbar), treatment time (4 hr) and power (175 W) are kept constant. The phase identification, crystal structure, crystallinity, chemical composition, surface morphology and topography of the nitrided layer are studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infra-red spectroscopy (FTIR), optical microscopy (OM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) respectively. The XRD patterns reveal the development of different diffraction planes of Si₃N₄ confirming the formation of polycrystalline layer. FTIR spectrum confirms the formation of bond between Si and N. Results reveal that addition of Ar into N₂ plasma plays an important role to enhance the production of active species which facilitate the nitrogen diffusion.

Keywords: Crystallinity, glow discharge, nitriding, sputtering.

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Authors: Siti Khairunniza-Bejo, Yusnida Yusoff, Nik Salwani Nik Yusoff, Idris Abu Seman, Mohamad Izzuddin Anuar

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Most of the oil palm plantations have been threatened by Basal Stem Rot (BSR) disease which causes serious economic impact. This study was conducted to identify the healthy and BSRinfected oil palm tree using thirteen color indices. Multispectral and thermal camera was used to capture 216 images of the leaves taken from frond number 1, 9 and 17. Indices of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), red (R), green (G), blue (B), near infrared (NIR), green – blue (GB), green/blue (G/B), green – red (GR), green/red (G/R), hue (H), saturation (S), intensity (I) and thermal index (T) were used. From this study, it can be concluded that G index taken from frond number 9 is the best index to differentiate between the healthy and BSR-infected oil palm trees. It not only gave high value of correlation coefficient (R=-0.962), but also high value of separation between healthy and BSR-infected oil palm tree. Furthermore, power and S model developed using G index gave the highest R2 value which is 0.985.

Keywords: Oil palm, image processing, disease, leaves.

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Authors: L. Torchane

Abstract:

In this work, our goal is to optimize the nitriding treatment at a low-temperature of the steel 32CrMoV13 using gas mixtures of ammonia, nitrogen and hydrogen to improve the mechanical properties of the surface (good wear resistance, friction and corrosion), and of the diffusion layer of the nitrogen (good resistance to fatigue and good tenacity with heart). By limiting our work to the pure iron and to the alloys iron-chromium and iron-chromium-carbon, we have studied the various parameters which manage the nitriding: flow rate and composition of the gaseous phase, the interaction chromium-nitrogen and chromium-carbon by the help of experiments of nitriding realized in the laboratory by thermogravimetry. The acquired knowledge has been applied by the mastery of the growth of the γ' combination layer on the α diffusion layer in the case of the industrial steel 32CrMoV13.

Keywords: Diffusion of nitrogen, Gaseous nitriding, Layer growth kinetic.

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Authors: Bremananth R, Nithya B, Saipriya R

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The proposed system identifies the species of the wood using the textural features present in its barks. Each species of a wood has its own unique patterns in its bark, which enabled the proposed system to identify it accurately. Automatic wood recognition system has not yet been well established mainly due to lack of research in this area and the difficulty in obtaining the wood database. In our work, a wood recognition system has been designed based on pre-processing techniques, feature extraction and by correlating the features of those wood species for their classification. Texture classification is a problem that has been studied and tested using different methods due to its valuable usage in various pattern recognition problems, such as wood recognition, rock classification. The most popular technique used for the textural classification is Gray-level Co-occurrence Matrices (GLCM). The features from the enhanced images are thus extracted using the GLCM is correlated, which determines the classification between the various wood species. The result thus obtained shows a high rate of recognition accuracy proving that the techniques used in suitable to be implemented for commercial purposes.

Keywords: Correlation, Grey Level Co-Occurrence Matrix, ProbabilityDensity Function, Wood Recognition.

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Authors: Ying-Chen Lin, Ching-Ting Hsu, Wei-Hua Ho

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the kinematic characteristics and differences of the snatch barbell trajectory of 53 kg class female weight lifters. We take the 2014 Taiwan College Cup players as examples, and tend to make kinematic applications through the proven weightlifting barbell track system. The competition videos are taken by consumer camcorder with a tripod which set up at the side of the lifter. The results will be discussed in three parts, the first part is various lifting phase, the second part is the compare lifting between success and unsuccessful, and the third part is to compare the outstanding player with the general. Conclusion through the barbell can be used to observe the trajectories of our players lifting the usual process cannot be observed in the presence of malfunction or habits, so that the coach can find the problem and guide the players more accurately. Our system can be applied in practice and competition to increase the resilience of the lifter on the field.

Keywords: Computer aided sport training, Kinematic, Trajectory, Weightlifting.

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Authors: M. Safa, A. Sabet, S. MacGillivray, M. Davidson, K. Kaczmarczyk, C. T. Haas, G. E. Gibson, D. Rayside

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In order to address construction project requirements and specifications, scholars and practitioners need to establish taxonomy according to a scheme that best fits their need. While existing characterization methods are continuously being improved, new ones are devised to cover project properties which have not been previously addressed. One such method, the Project Definition Rating Index (PDRI), has received limited consideration strictly as a classification scheme. Developed by the Construction Industry Institute (CII) in 1996, the PDRI has been refined over the last two decades as a method for evaluating a project's scope definition completeness during front-end planning (FEP). The main contribution of this study is a review of practical project classification methods, and a discussion of how PDRI can be used to classify projects based on their readiness in the FEP phase. The proposed model has been applied to 59 construction projects in Ontario, and the results are discussed.

Keywords: Project classification, project definition rating index (PDRI), project goals alignment, risk.

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Authors: A. Niknejad, G. H. Liaghat, A. H. Behravesh, H. Moslemi Naeini

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In this paper, a theoretical formula is presented to predict the instantaneous folding force of the first fold creation in a square column under axial loading. Calculations are based on analysis of “Basic Folding Mechanism" introduced by Wierzbicki and Abramowicz. For this purpose, the sum of dissipated energy rate under bending around horizontal and inclined hinge lines and dissipated energy rate under extensional deformations are equated to the work rate of the external force on the structure. Final formula obtained in this research, reasonably predicts the instantaneous folding force of the first fold creation versus folding distance and folding angle and also predicts the instantaneous folding force instead of the average value. Finally, according to the calculated theoretical relation, instantaneous folding force of the first fold creation in a square column was sketched versus folding distance and was compared to the experimental results which showed a good correlation.

Keywords: Instantaneous force, Folding force, Honeycomb, Square column.

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Authors: M. K. Pradhan, C. K. Biswas,

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In the current research, neuro-fuzzy model and regression model was developed to predict Material Removal Rate in Electrical Discharge Machining process for AISI D2 tool steel with copper electrode. Extensive experiments were conducted with various levels of discharge current, pulse duration and duty cycle. The experimental data are split into two sets, one for training and the other for validation of the model. The training data were used to develop the above models and the test data, which was not used earlier to develop these models were used for validation the models. Subsequently, the models are compared. It was found that the predicted and experimental results were in good agreement and the coefficients of correlation were found to be 0.999 and 0.974 for neuro fuzzy and regression model respectively

Keywords: Electrical discharge machining, material removal rate, neuro-fuzzy model, regression model, mountain clustering.

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Authors: Rouzbeh Ramezani, Renzo Di Felice

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Nowadays, removal of CO₂ as one of the major contributors to global warming using alternative solvents with high CO₂ absorption efficiency, is an important industrial operation. In this study, three amines, including 2-methylpiperazine, potassium sarcosinate and potassium lysinate as potential additives, were added to the potassium carbonate solution as a base solvent for CO₂ capture. In order to study the absorption performance of CO₂ in terms of loading capacity of CO₂ and absorption rate, the absorption experiments in a blend of additives with potassium carbonate were carried out using the vapor-liquid equilibrium apparatus at a temperature of 313.15 K, CO₂ partial pressures ranging from 0 to 50 kPa and at mole fractions 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4. Furthermore, the performance of CO₂ absorption in these blend solutions was compared with pure monoethanolamine and with pure potassium carbonate. Finally, a correlation with good accuracy was developed using the nonlinear regression analysis in order to predict CO₂ loading capacity.

Keywords: Absorption rate, carbon dioxide, CO2 capture, global warming, loading capacity.

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Authors: Ugur Akyol, Dinçer Akal, Ahmet Cihan, Kamil Kahveci

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This study is concerned with the investigation of the suitability of several empirical and semi-empirical drying models available in the literature to define drying behavior of viscose yarn bobbins. For this purpose, firstly, experimental drying behaviour of viscose bobbins was determined on an experimental dryer setup which was designed and manufactured based on hot-air bobbin dryers used in textile industry. Afterwards, drying models considered were fitted to the experimentally obtained moisture ratios. Drying parameters were drying temperature and bobbin diameter. The fit was performed by selecting the values for constants in the models in such a way that these values make the sum of the squared differences between the experimental and the model results for moisture ratio minimum. Suitability of fitting was specified as comparing the correlation coefficient, standard error and mean square deviation. The results show that the most appropriate model in describing the drying curves of viscose bobbins is the Page model.

Keywords: Drying, moisture ratio, Page model, viscose

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Authors: P. Ramprasad, H. C. Nagaraj, M. K. Parasuram

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Image registration plays an important role in the diagnosis of dental pathologies such as dental caries, alveolar bone loss and periapical lesions etc. This paper presents a new wavelet based algorithm for registering noisy and poor contrast dental x-rays. Proposed algorithm has two stages. First stage is a preprocessing stage, removes the noise from the x-ray images. Gaussian filter has been used. Second stage is a geometric transformation stage. Proposed work uses two levels of affine transformation. Wavelet coefficients are correlated instead of gray values. Algorithm has been applied on number of pre and post RCT (Root canal treatment) periapical radiographs. Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Correlation coefficients (CC) are used for quantitative evaluation. Proposed technique outperforms conventional Multiresolution strategy based image registration technique and manual registration technique.

Keywords: Diagnostic imaging, geometric transformation, image registration, multiresolution.

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Authors: Y. Obikane , M.Kaneko, K.Kakioka, K.Ogura

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The fine structure of supercavitation in the wake of a symmetrical cylinder is studied with high-speed video cameras. The flow is observed in a cavitation tunnel at the speed of 8m/sec when the sidewall and the wake are partially filled with the massive cavitation bubbles. The present experiment observed that a two-dimensional ripple wave with a wave length of 0.3mm is propagated in a downstream direction, and then abruptly increases to a thicker three-dimensional layer. IR-photography recorded that the wakes originated from the horseshoe vortexes alongside the cylinder. The wake was developed to inside the dead water zone, which absorbed the bubbly wake propelled from the separated vortices at the center of the cylinder. A remote sensing classification technique (maximum most likelihood) determined that the surface porosity was 0.2, and the mean speed in the mixed wake was 7m/sec. To confirm the existence of two-dimensional wave motions in the interface, the experiments were conducted at a very low frequency, and showed similar gravity waves in both the upper and lower interfaces.

Keywords: Supercavitation, density gradient correlation

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Authors: Fahad Alanazi, Andrew Jones

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Digital forensics seeks to achieve the successful investigation of digital crimes through obtaining acceptable evidence from digital devices that can be presented in a court of law. Thus, the digital forensics investigation is normally performed through a number of phases in order to achieve the required level of accuracy in the investigation processes. Since 1984 there have been a number of models and frameworks developed to support the digital investigation processes. In this paper, we review a number of the investigation processes that have been produced throughout the years and introduce a proposed digital forensic model which is based on the scope of the Saudi Arabia investigation process. The proposed model has been integrated with existing models for the investigation processes and produced a new phase to deal with a situation where there is initially insufficient evidence.

Keywords: Digital forensics, Process, Metadata, Traceback, Saudi Arabia.

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Authors: Orkide Donma, Mustafa M. Donma

Abstract:

Obesity is a low-grade inflammatory disease and may lead to health problems such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes. It is also associated with important risk factors for cardiovascular diseases. This requires the detailed evaluation of obesity, particularly in children. The aim of this study is to enlighten the potential associations between lipid ratios and obesity indices and to introduce those with discriminating features among children with obesity and metabolic syndrome (MetS). A total of 408 children (aged between six and eighteen years) participated in the scope of the study. Informed consent forms were taken from the participants and their parents. Ethical Committee approval was obtained. Anthropometric measurements such as weight, height as well as waist, hip, head, neck circumferences and body fat mass were taken. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure values were recorded. Body mass index (BMI), diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index-II (D2 index), waist-to-hip, head-to-neck ratios were calculated. Total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDLChol), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDLChol) analyses were performed in blood samples drawn from 110 children with normal body weight, 164 morbid obese (MO) children and 134 children with MetS. Age- and sex-adjusted BMI percentiles tabulated by World Health Organization were used to classify groups; normal body weight, MO and MetS. 15^th-to-85^th percentiles were used to define normal body weight children. Children, whose values were above the 99th percentile, were described as MO. MetS criteria were defined. Data were evaluated statistically by SPSS Version 20. The degree of statistical significance was accepted as p≤0.05. Mean±standard deviation values of BMI for normal body weight children, MO children and those with MetS were 15.7±1.1, 27.1±3.8 and 29.1±5.3 kg/m², respectively. Corresponding values for the D2 index were calculated as 3.4±0.9, 14.3±4.9 and 16.4±6.7. Both BMI and D2 index were capable of discriminating the groups from one another (p≤0.01). As far as other obesity indices were considered, waist-to hip and head-to-neck ratios did not exhibit any statistically significant difference between MO and MetS groups (p≥0.05). Diagnostic obesity notation model assessment index-II was correlated with the triglycerides-to-HDL-C ratio in normal body weight and MO (r=0.413, p≤0.01 and r=0.261, (p≤0.05, respectively). Total cholesterol-to-HDL-C and LDL-C-to-HDL-C showed statistically significant differences between normal body weight and MO as well as MO and MetS (p≤0.05). The only group in which these two ratios were significantly correlated with waist-to-hip ratio was MetS group (r=0.332 and r=0.334, p≤0.01, respectively). Lack of correlation between the D2 index and the triglycerides-to-HDL-C ratio was another important finding in MetS group. In this study, parameters and ratios, whose associations were defined previously with increased cardiovascular risk or cardiac death have been evaluated along with obesity indices in children with morbid obesity and MetS. Their profiles during childhood have been investigated. Aside from the nature of the correlation between the D2 index and triglycerides-to-HDL-C ratio, total cholesterol-to-HDL-C as well as LDL-C-to- HDL-C ratios along with their correlations with waist-to-hip ratio showed that the combination of obesity-related parameters predicts better than one parameter and appears to be helpful for discriminating MO children from MetS group.

Keywords: Children, lipid ratios, metabolic syndrome, obesity indices.

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Authors: Samiul Kaiser, M. S. Kaiser

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The influence of Mg and Zr addition on mechanical properties such as hardness, tensile strength and impact energy of commercially pure Al are investigated. The microstructure and fracture behavior are also studied by using Optical and Scanning Electron Microscopy. It is observed that magnesium addition improves the mechanical properties of commercially pure Al at the expense of ductility due to formation of β″ (Al₃Mg) and β′ (Al₃Mg₂) phase into the alloy. Zr addition also plays a positive role through grain refinement effect and the formation of metastable L1₂ Al₃Zr precipitates. In addition, it is observed that the fractured surface of Mg added alloy is brittle and higher numbers of dimples are observed in case of Zr added alloy.

Keywords: Al-alloys, hardness, tensile strength, impact energy, microstructure.

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Authors: Ji Hyeong Park, Ji Hye Jeon, Hyo Seon Park

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Environmental pollution problems have been globally main concern in all fields including economy, society and culture into the 21st century. Beginning with the Kyoto Protocol, the reduction on the emissions of greenhouse gas such as CO2 and SOX has been a principal challenge of our day. As most buildings unlike durable goods in other industries have a characteristic and long life cycle, they consume energy in quantity and emit much CO2. Thus, for green building construction, more research is needed to reduce the CO2 emissions at each stage in the life cycle. However, recent studies are focused on the use and maintenance phase. Also, there is a lack of research on the initial design stage, especially the structure design. Therefore, in this study, we propose an optimal design plan considering CO2 emissions and cost in composite buildings simultaneously by applying to the structural design of actual building.

Keywords: Multi-objective optimization, CO2 emissions, structural cost, encased composite structure

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Authors: M. Kalichová

Abstract:

The aim of this study was to analyse the most important parameters determining the quality of the motion structure of the basic classical dance jump – grand jeté.Research sample consisted of 8 students of the Dance Conservatory in Brno. Using the system Simi motion we performed a 3D kinematic analysis of the jump. On the basis of the comparison of structure quality and measured data of the grand jeté, we defined the optimal values of the relevant parameters determining the quality of the performance. The take-off speed should achieve about 2.4 m·s-1, the optimum take-off angle is 28 - 30º. The take-off leg should swing backward at the beginning of the flight phase with the minimum speed of 3.3 m·s-1.If motor abilities of dancers achieve the level necessary for optimal performance of a classical dance jump, there is room for certain variability of the structure of the dance jump.

Keywords: biomechanical analysis, classical dance, grand jeté, jump

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Authors: Mahmoud Elmezain, Ayoub Al-Hamadi, Robert Niese, Bernd Michaelis

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Real-time hand tracking is a challenging task in many computer vision applications such as gesture recognition. This paper proposes a robust method for hand tracking in a complex environment using Mean-shift analysis and Kalman filter in conjunction with 3D depth map. The depth information solve the overlapping problem between hands and face, which is obtained by passive stereo measuring based on cross correlation and the known calibration data of the cameras. Mean-shift analysis uses the gradient of Bhattacharyya coefficient as a similarity function to derive the candidate of the hand that is most similar to a given hand target model. And then, Kalman filter is used to estimate the position of the hand target. The results of hand tracking, tested on various video sequences, are robust to changes in shape as well as partial occlusion.

Keywords: Computer Vision and Image Analysis, Object Tracking, Gesture Recognition.

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Authors: Jan Sedlacek

Abstract:

The paper focuses on the implementation phase of the strategy of the European Union and the national strategy of the Czech Republic to promote academic and research staff with the potential to produce results that provide innovation useful for economic growth. It deals with the use of financial resources of the Operational Program Education for Competitiveness at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. The author presents an example of two strategic projects in the field of human resources – Excellence in Human Resources as a Source of Competitiveness and New Excellence of Human Resources. The subject of this paper is the potential contribution of newly recruited postdoctoral within these projects for the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen and its internal environment.

Keywords: EU funds, public universities, human resources, results of research, funding.

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