Search results for: multilane free flow.

Authors: M. S. Al-Qurashi

Abstract:

This work examines thermal convection in two porous layers. Flow in the upper layer is governed by Brinkman-s equations model and in the lower layer is governed by Darcy-s model. Legendre polynomials are used to obtain numerical solution when the lower layer is heated from below.

Keywords: Brinkman's law, Darcy's law, porous layers, Legendre polynomials, the Oberbeck-Boussineq approximation.

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Authors: Ruta Galoburda, Zanda Kruma, Karina Ruse

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Dill contains range of phytochemicals, such as vitamin C and polyphenols, which significantly contribute to their total antioxidant activity. The aim of the current research was to determine the best blanching method for processing of dill prior to microwave vacuum drying based on the content of phenolic compounds, vitamin C and free radical scavenging activity. Two blanching mediums were used – water and steam, and for part of the samples microwave pretreatment was additionally used. Evaluation of vitamin C, phenolic contents and scavenging of DPPH˙ radical in dried dill was performed. Blanching had an effect on all tested parameters and the blanching conditions are very important. After evaluation of the results, as the best method for dill pretreatment was established blanching at 90 °C for 30 seconds.

Keywords: blanching, microwave vacuum drying, TPC, vitamin C.

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Authors: Jian-hua Yeh, Shi-yi Kuo

Abstract:

This paper discusses the classification process for medical data. In this paper, we use the data from ACM KDDCup 2008 to demonstrate our classification process based on latent topic discovery. In this data set, the target set and outliers are quite different in their nature: target set is only 0.6% size in total, while the outliers consist of 99.4% of the data set. We use this data set as an example to show how we dealt with this extremely biased data set with latent topic discovery and noise reduction techniques. Our experiment faces two major challenge: (1) extremely distributed outliers, and (2) positive samples are far smaller than negative ones. We try to propose a suitable process flow to deal with these issues and get a best AUC result of 0.98.

Keywords: classification, latent topics, outlier adjustment, feature scaling

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Authors: M. Aghajani Haghighi, H. Emdad, K. Jafarpur, A. N. Ziaei

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The effect of a uniform magnetic field on the formation of drops of specific size has been investigated numerically in a T-shaped microchannel. Previous researches indicated that the drop sizes of secondary stream decreases, with increasing main stream flow rate and decreasing interfacial tension. In the present study the effect of a uniform magnetic field on the main stream is considered, and it is proposed that by increasing the Hartmann number, the size of the drops of the secondary stream will be decreased.

Keywords: Drop formation, Magnetohydrodynamics, Microchannel, Volume-of-Fluid

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Authors: Illyani Ibrahim, Azizan Abu Samah, Rosmadi Fauzi

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Land surface temperature (LST) is an important parameter to study in urban climate. The understanding of the influence of biophysical factors could improve the establishment of modeling urban thermal landscape. It is well established that climate hold a great influence on the urban landscape. However, it has been recognize that climate has a low priority in urban planning process, due to the complex nature of its influence. This study will focus on the relatively cloud free Landsat Thematic Mapper image of the study area, acquired on the 2nd March 2006. Correlation analyses were conducted to identify the relationship of LST to the biophysical factors; vegetation indices, impervious surface, and albedo to investigate the variation of LST. We suggest that the results can be considered by the stackholders during decision-making process to create a cooler and comfortable environment in the urban landscape for city dwellers.

Keywords: Biophysical factors, land surface temperature, urban planning.

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Authors: Jochen Nelles, Susanne Kohns, Julia Spies, Friederike Schmitz-Buhl, Roland Thietje, Christopher Brandl, Alexander Mertens, Christopher M. Schlick

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Industrial robots as part of highly automated manufacturing are recently developed to cooperative (light-weight) robots. This offers the opportunity of using them as assistance robots and to improve the participation in professional life of disabled or handicapped people such as tetraplegics. Robots under development are located within a cooperation area together with the working person at the same workplace. This cooperation area is an area where the robot and the working person can perform tasks at the same time. Thus, working people and robots are operating in the immediate proximity. Considering the physical restrictions and the limited mobility of tetraplegics, a hands-free robot control could be an appropriate approach for a cooperative assistance robot. To meet these requirements, the research project MeRoSy (human-robot synergy) develops methods for cooperative assistance robots based on the measurement of head movements of the working person. One research objective is to improve the participation in professional life of people with disabilities and, in particular, mobility impaired persons (e.g. wheelchair users or tetraplegics), whose participation in a self-determined working life is denied. This raises the research question, how a human-robot cooperation workplace can be designed for hands-free robot control. Here, the example of a library scenario is demonstrated. In this paper, an empirical study that focuses on the impact of head movement related stress is presented. 12 test subjects with tetraplegia participated in the study. Tetraplegia also known as quadriplegia is the worst type of spinal cord injury. In the experiment, three various basic head movements were examined. Data of the head posture were collected by a motion capture system; muscle activity was measured via surface electromyography and the subjective mental stress was assessed via a mental effort questionnaire. The muscle activity was measured for the sternocleidomastoid (SCM), the upper trapezius (UT) or trapezius pars descendens, and the splenius capitis (SPL) muscle. For this purpose, six non-invasive surface electromyography sensors were mounted on the head and neck area. An analysis of variance shows differentiated muscular strains depending on the type of head movement. Systematically investigating the influence of different basic head movements on the resulting strain is an important issue to relate the research results to other scenarios. At the end of this paper, a conclusion will be drawn and an outlook of future work will be presented.

Keywords: Assistance robot, human-robot-interaction, motion capture, stress-strain-concept, surface electromyography, tetraplegia.

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Authors: Saadoudi Mouni, Hamebaba Leila, Abdeddaim Mohamed

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In Algeria, some fruit trees produce fruits in free nature. Such trees are Celtis australis, Crataegus azarolus, Crataegus monogyna and Zizyphus lotus. In spite of their appreciable consumption, their nutritional value remains unknown. The objective of this study is the determination of sugars in the pulpe and almond of the above fruits. The biochemical analysis shows that these fruits present interesting contents of soluble sugars which confers significant caloric intakes to them. As well as significant fibres which give them therapeutic and industrial benefits? The analysis of the almonds shows that it contains considerable contents of sugars which enable them to be an energetic food.

Keywords: Celtis australis, Crataegus azarolus, Crataegus monogyna, Zizyphus lotus, Fibres, Soluble sugars.

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Authors: Abdulrahman Alsuhaibani, Martin Macken

Abstract:

FACTS devices have great influence on the grid stability and power markets price. Recently, there is intent to integrate a large scale of renewable energy sources to the power system which in turn pushes the power system to operate closer to the security limits. This paper discusses the power system stability and reliability improvement that could be achieved by using FACTS. There is a comparison between FACTS devices to evaluate their performance for different functions. A case study has also been made about its effect on reducing generation cost and minimizing transmission losses which have good impact on efficient and economic operation of electricity markets.

Keywords: FACTS, grid stability, spot price, Optimal Power Flow.

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Authors: Karrar Raoof Kareem Kamoona, Enas Fathi Taher AlHares, Zeynep Isik

Abstract:

The various disciplines in the construction industry and the co-existence of the people in the various disciplines are what builds well-developed, closely-knit interpersonal skills at various hierarchical levels thus leading to a varied way of leadership. The varied decision making aspects during the lifecycle of a project include: autocratic, participatory and last but not least, free-rein. We can classify some of the decision makers in the construction industry in a hierarchical manner as follows: project executive, project manager, superintendent, office engineer and finally the field engineer. This survey looked at how decisions are made during the construction period by the key stakeholders in the project. From the paper it is evident that the three decision making aspects can be used at different times or at times together in order to bring out the best leadership decision. A blend of different leadership styles should be used to enhance the success rate during the project lifecycle.

Keywords: Leadership style, construction, decision-making, built environment.

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Authors: Snehasis Kundu, Koeli Ghoshal

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In this paper, based on flume experimental data, the velocity distribution in open channel flows is re-investigated. From the analysis, it is proposed that the wake layer in outer region may be divided into two regions, the relatively weak outer region and the relatively strong outer region. Combining the log law for inner region and the parabolic law for relatively strong outer region, an explicit equation for mean velocity distribution of steady and uniform turbulent flow through straight open channels is proposed and verified with the experimental data. It is found that the sediment concentration has significant effect on velocity distribution in the relatively weak outer region.

Keywords: Inner and outer region, Log law, Parabolic law, Richardson number.

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Authors: M. Kito, M. Takezaki, T. Shakouchi, K. Tsujimoto, T. Ando

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Impinging jets are widely used in industrial cooling systems for their high heat transfer characteristics at stagnation points. However, the heat transfer characteristics are low in the downstream direction. In order to improve the heat transfer coefficient further downstream, investigations introducing ribs on jet-cooled flat plates have been conducted. Most studies regarding the heat-transfer enhancement using a rib-roughened wall have dealt with the rib pitch. In this paper, we focused on the rib spacing and demonstrated that the rib spacing must be more than 6 times the nozzle width to improve heat transfer at Reynolds number Re=5.0×103 because it is necessary to have enough space to allow reattachment of flow behind the first rib.

Keywords: Forced convection, heat transfer, impinging jet cooling, rib roughened wall

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Authors: Mostafa Ghayour, Mohammad Sadegh Golabi

Abstract:

In the recent years, functionally gradient materials (FGMs) have gained considerable attention in the high temperature environment applications. In this paper, free vibration of thin functionally graded cylindrical shell with hole composed of stainless steel and zirconia is studied. The mechanical properties vary smoothly and continuously from one surface to the other according to a volume fraction power-law distribution. The Influence of shell geometrical parameters, variations of volume fractions and boundary conditions on natural frequency is considered. The equations of motion are based on strains-displacement relations from Love-s shell theory and Rayleigh method. The results have been obtained for natural frequencies of cylindrical shell with holes for different shape, number and location in this paper.

Keywords: Functionally gradient material, Vibration, various boundary conditions, cylindrical shells.

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Authors: I. Jafari, A. Ershadi, E. Najafpour, N. Hedayat

Abstract:

Energy and exergy study of air-water combined solar collector which is called dual purpose solar collector (DPSC) is investigated. The method of ε - NTU is used. Analysis is performed for triangle channels. Parameters like the air flow rate and water inlet temperature are studied. Results are shown that DPSC has better energy and exergy efficiency than single collector. In addition, the triangle passage with water inlet temperature of 60O C has shown better exergy and energy efficiency.

Keywords: Efficiency, Exergy, Irreversibility, Solar collector.

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Authors: P. Pongsumpun

Abstract:

Leptospirosis occurs worldwide (except the poles of the earth), urban and rural areas, developed and developing countries, especially in Thailand. It can be transmitted to the human by rats through direct and indirect ways. Human can be infected by either touching the infected rats or contacting with water, soil containing urine from the infected rats through skin, eyes and nose. The data of the people who are infected with this disease indicates that most of the patients are adults. The transmission of this disease is studied through mathematical model. The population is separated into human and rat. The human is divided into two classes, namely juvenile and adult. The model equation is constructed for each class. The standard dynamical modeling method is then used for analyzing the behaviours of solutions. In addition, the conditions of the parameters for the disease free and endemic states are obtained. Numerical solutions are shown to support the theoretical predictions. The results of this study guide the way to decrease the disease outbreak.

Keywords: Adult human, juvenile human, leptospirosis, mathematical model.

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Authors: Shu-Lu Hsu, Jeffrey C. F. Tai, Yi-Han Wang

Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to understand how consumers react to a company's promotional offers with mobile applications (APP) as premiums. This paper presents the results of an experimental study where five features of APP were involved: the cost (free/discounted) for earning APP, the relationship between APP and the promoted product, the perceived usefulness, the perceived ease of use, and the perceived playfulness of APP in the context of light foods purchase. The results support that the above features, except perceived ease of use, have substantial influences on consumers' intention to adopt the APP. Among the five features, the cost for earning APP has the most impact on the adopting intention of APP. The study also found a positive influence of adopting intention of APP on the consumer's purchase intention of the promoted product. Thus, APP-based premiums may enhance the consumer's purchase intention of a company's promoted products.

Keywords: Mobile Application, Premium, Sales Promotion, TAM.

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Authors: Pradip Deb

Abstract:

Quantitative radiobiological models can be used to assess the optimum clinical outcome from sophisticated therapeutic modalities by calculating tumor control probability (TCP) and normal tissue complication probability (NTCP). In this study two 3D-CRT and an IMRT treatment plans were developed with an initial prescription dose of 60 Gy in 2 Gy/fraction to prostate. Sensitivity of TCP and Complication free tumor control probability (P+) to the different values of α/β ratio was investigated for various prescription doses planned to be delivered in either a fixed number of fractions (I) or in a fixed dose per fraction (II) in each of the three different treatment plans. High dose/fraction and high α/β value result in comparatively smaller P+ and IMRT plans resulted in the highest P+, mainly due to the decrease in NTCP. If α/β is lower than expected, better tumor control can be achieved by increasing dose/fraction but decreasing the number of fractions.

Keywords: Linear Quadratic Model, TCP, NTCP, α/β ratio.

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Authors: Mohammed Saleem Tariq

Abstract:

The enthusiasm for gluten avoidance in a growing market is met by improvements in sensitive detection methods for analysing gluten content. Paradoxically, manufacturers employ no such systems in the production process but continue to market their product as gluten free, a significant risk posed to an undetermined coeliac population. This paper resonates with an immunological response that causes gastrointestinal scarring and villous atrophy with the conventional description of personal injury. This thesis divulges into evaluating potential inadequacies of gluten labelling laws which not only present a diagnostic challenge for general practitioners in the UK but it also exposes a less than adequate form of available legal protection to those who suffer adverse reactions as a result of gluten digestion. Central to this discussion is whether a claim brought in misrepresentation, negligence and/or under the Consumer Protection Act 1987 could be sustained. An interesting comparison is then made with the legal regimes of neighboring jurisdictions furthering the theme of a legally un-catered for gluten kingdom.

Keywords: Coeliac, litigation, misrepresentation, negligence.

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Authors: Muhammad Y.K. Barozai, Ifthikhar A. Baloch, M. Din

Abstract:

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small, non-coding and regulatory RNAs about 20 to 24 nucleotides long. Their conserved nature among the various organisms makes them a good source of new miRNAs discovery by comparative genomics approach. The study resulted in 21 miRNAs of 20 pre-miRNAs belonging to 16 families (miR156, 157, 158, 164, 165, 168, 169, 172, 319, 390, 393, 394, 395, 400, 472 and 861) in evergreen spruce tree (Picea). The miRNA families; miR 157, 158, 164, 165, 168, 169, 319, 390, 393, 394, 400, 472 and 861 are reported for the first time in the Picea. All 20 miRNA precursors form stable minimum free energy stem-loop structure as their orthologues form in Arabidopsis and the mature miRNA reside in the stem portion of the stem loop structure. Sixteen (16) miRNAs are from Picea glauca and five (5) belong to Picea sitchensis. Their targets consist of transcription factors, growth related, stressed related and hypothetical proteins.

Keywords: BLAST, Comparative Genomics, Micro-RNAs, Spruce

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Authors: T. Magrakvelidze, N. Bantsadze, N. Lekveishvili, Kh. Lomidze

Abstract:

The results of an experimental study of the process of convective and boiling heat transfer in the vessel with stirrer for smooth and rough ring-shaped pipes are presented. It is established that creation of two-dimensional artificial roughness on the heated surface causes the essential (~100%) intensification of convective heat transfer. In case of boiling the influence of roughness appears on the initial stage of boiling and in case of fully developed nucleate boiling there was no intensification of heat transfer. The similitude equation for calculating convective heat transfer coefficient, which generalizes well experimental data both for the smooth and the rough surfaces is proposed.

Keywords: boiling, heat transfer, roughness.

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Authors: Anjan Sil, Rajni Sharma, Subrata Ray

Abstract:

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: Demet Yavuz

Abstract:

Freeze-thaw cycles are one of the greatest threats to concrete durability. Lately, protection against this threat excites scientists’ attention. Air-entraining admixtures have been widely used to produce freeze-thaw resistant at concretes. The use of air-entraining agents (AEAs) enhances not only freeze-thaw endurance but also the properties of fresh concrete such as segregation, bleeding and flow ability. This paper examines the effects of air-entraining on compressive strength of concrete. Air-entraining is used between 0.05% and 0.4% by weight of cement. One control and four fiber reinforced concrete mixes are prepared and three specimens are tested for each mix. It is concluded from the test results that when air entraining is increased the compressive strength of concrete reduces for all mixes with AEAs.

Keywords: Concrete, air-entraining, compressive strength, mechanical properties.

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Authors: K. L. Verma

Abstract:

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: S. Etaig, R. Hasan, N. Perera

Abstract:

This paper analyses the heat transfer performance and fluid flow using different nanofluids in a square enclosure. The energy equation and Navier-Stokes equation are solved numerically using finite volume scheme. The effect of volume fraction concentration on the enhancement of heat transfer has been studied icorporating the Brownian motion; the influence of effective thermal conductivity on the enhancement was also investigated for a range of volume fraction concentration. The velocity profile for different Rayleigh number. Water-Cu, water AL2O3 and water-TiO2 were tested.

Keywords: Computational fluid Dynamics, Natural convection, Nanofluid and Thermal conductivity.

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Authors: Nemat Abazari, Ilgin Sager

Abstract:

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: Vaclav Dvorak

Abstract:

The article deals with experimental and numerical investigation of axi-symmetric subsonic air to air ejector with diffuser adapted for boundary layer suction. The diffuser, which is placed behind the mixing chamber of the ejector, has high divergence angle and therefore low efficiency. To increase the efficiency, the diffuser is equipped with slot enabling boundary layer suction. The effect of boundary layer suction on flow in ejector, static pressure distribution on the mixing chamber wall and characteristic were measured and studied numerically. Both diffuser and ejector efficiency were evaluated. The diffuser efficiency was increased, however, the efficiency of ejector itself remained low.

Keywords: Air ejector, boundary layer suction, CFD, diffuser.

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Authors: Eng. Alaa K. Satti Salih

Abstract:

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: U. Rubins, Z. Marcinkevics, K.Volceka

Abstract:

The cardiovascular system has become the most important subject of clinical research, particularly measurement of arterial blood flow. Therefore correct determination of arterial diameter is crucial. We propose a novel, semi-automatic method for artery lumen detection. The method is based on Gaussian probability function. Usability of our proposed method was assessed by analyzing ultrasound B-mode CFA video sequences acquired from eleven healthy volunteers. The correlation coefficient between the manual and semi-automatic measurement of arterial diameter was 0.996. Our proposed method for detecting artery boundary is novel and accurate enough for the measurement of artery diameter.

Keywords: Ultrasound, boundary detection, artery diameter, curve fitting.

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

Abstract:

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: Moghadazadeh Zahra, Towfighi Jafar, Mofarahi Masoud

Abstract:

This article is presented an experimental and modeling study of a four-bed pressure swing adsorption process using zeolite13X to provide oxygen-enriched air. The binary mixture N2/O2 (79/21 vol %) was used as a feed stream. The effects of purge/feed ratio (P/F), adsorption pressure, cyclic time and product flow rate on product purity and recovery under nonisothermal condition were studied. The adsorption dynamics of process were determined using a mathematical model incorporated mass and energy balances. A Mathlab code using finite difference method was developed to solve the set of coupled differential-algebraic equations, and the simulation results are agreed well with experimental results.

Keywords: Pressure swing adsorption (PSA), Oxygen, Zeolite 13X.

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

Abstract:

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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