Search results for: True positive

Authors: Hoda Waguih

Abstract:

A serious problem on the WWW is finding reliable information. Not everything found on the Web is true and the Semantic Web does not change that in any way. The problem will be even more crucial for the Semantic Web, where agents will be integrating and using information from multiple sources. Thus, if an incorrect premise is used due to a single faulty source, then any conclusions drawn may be in error. Thus, statements published on the Semantic Web have to be seen as claims rather than as facts, and there should be a way to decide which among many possibly inconsistent sources is most reliable. In this work, we propose a trust model for the Semantic Web. The proposed model is inspired by the use trust in human society. Trust is a type of social knowledge and encodes evaluations about which agents can be taken as reliable sources of information or services. Our proposed model allows agents to decide which among different sources of information to trust and thus act rationally on the semantic web.

Keywords: Semantic Web, Trust, Web of Trust, WWW.

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Authors: A. G. Temnikov, O. S. Belova, L. L. Chernensky, T. K. Gerastenok, N. Y. Lysov, A. V. Orlov, D. S. Zhuravkova

Abstract:

Hypothesis of the lightning initiation on the arrays of large hydrometeors are in the consideration. There is no agreement about the form the hydrometeors that could be the best for the lightning initiation from the thundercloud. Artificial charged water aerosol clouds of the positive or negative polarity could help investigate the possible influence of the hydrometeor form on the peculiarities and the probability of the lightning discharge initiation between the thundercloud and the ground. Artificial charged aerosol clouds that could create the electric field strength in the range of 5-6 kV/cm to 16-18 kV/cm have been used in experiments. The array of the model hydrometeors of the volume and plate form has been disposed near the bottom cloud boundary. It was established that the different kinds of the discharge could be initiated in the presence of the model hydrometeors array – from the cloud discharges up to the diffuse and channel discharges between the charged cloud and the ground. It was found that the form of the model hydrometeors could significantly influence the channel discharge initiation from the artificial charged aerosol cloud of the negative or positive polarity correspondingly. Analysis and generalization of the experimental results have shown that the maximal probability of the channel discharge initiation and propagation stimulation has been observed for the artificial charged cloud of the positive polarity when the arrays of the model hydrometeors of the cylinder revolution form have been used. At the same time, for the artificial charged clouds of the negative polarity, application of the model hydrometeor array of the plate rhombus form has provided the maximal probability of the channel discharge formation between the charged cloud and the ground. The established influence of the form of the model hydrometeors on the channel discharge initiation and from the artificial charged water aerosol cloud and its following successful propagation has been related with the different character of the positive and negative streamer and volume leader development on the model hydrometeors array being near the bottom boundary of the charged cloud. The received experimental results have shown the possibly important role of the form of the large hail particles precipitated in thundercloud on the discharge initiation.

Keywords: Cloud and channel discharges, hydrometeor form, lightning initiation, negative and positive artificial charged aerosol cloud.

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Authors: Aly Farag, Ayman El-Baz, Refaat Mohamed

Abstract:

In this paper we present a novel approach for density estimation. The proposed approach is based on using the logistic regression model to get initial density estimation for the given empirical density. The empirical data does not exactly follow the logistic regression model, so, there will be a deviation between the empirical density and the density estimated using logistic regression model. This deviation may be positive and/or negative. In this paper we use a linear combination of Gaussian (LCG) with positive and negative components as a model for this deviation. Also, we will use the expectation maximization (EM) algorithm to estimate the parameters of LCG. Experiments on real images demonstrate the accuracy of our approach.

Keywords: Logistic regression model, Expectationmaximization, Segmentation.

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Authors: Noor Attar

Abstract:

This paper provides an overview of the current situation of HIV/AIDS patients in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and a literature review of the concepts of stigma communication, communication of social support. These concepts provide the basis for the proposed methods, which will include conducting a textual analysis of materials that are currently distributed to family members of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHIV/A) in KSA and creating an educational brochure. The brochure will aim to help families of PLWHIV/A in KSA (1) understand how stigma shapes the experience of PLWHIV/A, (2) realize the role of positive communication as a helpful social support, and (3) develop the ability to provide positive social support for their loved ones.

Keywords: HIV/AIDS, Saudi Arabia, social support, stigma communication.

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Authors: Barzan Hadi Hama Karim

Abstract:

The primary purpose of this paper is to explain the impact of successful classroom management on the academic achievements of students, the importance of positive relationship between teacher and students, among students, between teacher and parents. Effective communication plays an important role to encourage students study hard and learn materials which are covered by the teacher in the class. Friendly relationships among students other than their preferred friends help them to have team working and be socialized. In addition, a well-organized classroom arrangement enhances students learning. As the consequence of successful classroom management students should feel responsibility and need to feel it. The one who is responsible to provide a comfortable environment and help students learn is the manager of the classroom who is named Teacher.

Keywords: Classroom management, positive relationship, effective communication, teacher, student.

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Authors: Yi-Zhong Weng, Chien-Kang Huang, Yu-Feng Huang, Chi-Yuan Yu, Darby Tien-Hao Chang

Abstract:

Search for a tertiary substructure that geometrically matches the 3D pattern of the binding site of a well-studied protein provides a solution to predict protein functions. In our previous work, a web server has been built to predict protein-ligand binding sites based on automatically extracted templates. However, a drawback of such templates is that the web server was prone to resulting in many false positive matches. In this study, we present a sequence-order constraint to reduce the false positive matches of using automatically extracted templates to predict protein-ligand binding sites. The binding site predictor comprises i) an automatically constructed template library and ii) a local structure alignment algorithm for querying the library. The sequence-order constraint is employed to identify the inconsistency between the local regions of the query protein and the templates. Experimental results reveal that the sequence-order constraint can largely reduce the false positive matches and is effective for template-based binding site prediction.

Keywords: Protein structure, binding site, functional prediction

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Authors: Revathi S. Rajan, Pratibha Malik, Nupur Garg, Smitha Avula, Kamini A. Rao

Abstract:

This study aimed to analyse the pregnancy outcomes in patients with TPO positivity after appropriate L-Thyroxin supplementation with close surveillance. All pregnant women attending the antenatal clinic at Milann-The Fertility Center, Bangalore, India- from Aug 2013 to Oct 2014 whose booking TSH was more than 2.5 mIU/L were included along with those pregnant women with prior hypothyroidism who were TPO positive. Those with TPO positive status were vigorously managed with appropriate thyroxin supplementation and the doses were readjusted every 3 to 4 weeks until delivery. Women with recurrent pregnancy loss were also tested for TPO positivity and if tested positive, were monitored serially with TSH and fT4 levels every 3 to 4 weeks and appropriately supplemented with thyroxin when the levels fluctuated. The testing was done after an informed consent in all these women. The statistical software namely SAS 9.2, SPSS 15.0, Stata 10.1, MedCalc 9.0.1, Systat 12.0 and R environment ver.2.11.1 were used for the analysis of the data. 460 pregnant women were screened for thyroid dysfunction at booking of which 52% were hypothyroid. Majority of them (31.08%) were subclinically hypothyroid and the remaining were overt. 25% of the total no. of patients screened were TPO positive. The various pregnancy complications that were observed in the TPO positive women were gestational glucose intolerance [60%], threatened abortion [21%], midtrimester abortion [4.3%], premature rupture of membranes [4.3%], cervical funneling [4.3%] and fetal growth restriction [3.5%]. 95.6% of the patients who followed up till the end delivered beyond 30 weeks. 42.6% of these patients had previous history of recurrent abortions or adverse obstetric outcome and 21.7% of the delivered babies required NICU admission. Obstetric outcomes in our study in terms of midtrimester abortions, placental abruption, and preterm delivery improved for the better after close monitoring of the thyroid hormone [TSH and fT4] levels every 3 to 4 weeks with appropriate dose adjustment throughout pregnancy. Euthyroid women with TPO positive status enrolled in the study incidentally were those with recurrent abortions/infertility and required thyroxin supplements due to elevated Thyroid hormone (TSH, fT4) levels during the course of their pregnancy. Significant associations were found with age>30 years and Hyperhomocysteinemia [p=0.017], recurrent pregnancy loss or previous adverse obstetric outcomes [p=0.067] and APLA [p=0.029]. TPO antibody levels >600 I U/ml were significantly associated with development of gestational hypertension [p=0.041] and fetal growth restriction [p=0.082]. Euthyroid women with TPO positivity were also screened periodically to counter fluctuations of the thyroid hormone levels with appropriate thyroxin supplementation. Thus, early identification along with aggressive management of thyroid dysfunction and stratification of these patients based on their TPO status with appropriate thyroxin supplementation beginning in the first trimester will aid risk modulation and also help avert complications.

Keywords: Antinuclear antibody, Subclinical hypothyroidism, Thyroxin, TPO antibody.

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Authors: Teka Haile, Behailu Hawulte, Solomon Alemayehu

Abstract:

Background: HIV virological failure still remains a problem in HV/AIDS treatment and care. This study aimed to describe the prevalence and identify the factors associated with viral non-suppression among HIV-positive adult patients on antiretroviral therapy in Woliso Town, Oromia, Ethiopia. Methods: A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted among 424 HIV-positive patient’s attending antiretroviral therapy (ART) in Woliso Town during the period from August 25, 2020 to August 30, 2020. Data collected from patient medical records were entered into Epi Info version 2.3.2.1 and exported to SPSS version 21.0 for analysis. Logistic regression analysis was done to identify factors associated with viral load non-suppression, and statistical significance of odds ratios were declared using 95% confidence interval and p-value < 0.05. Results: A total of 424 patients were included in this study. The mean age (± SD) of the study participants was 39.88 (± 9.995) years. The prevalence of HIV viral load non-suppression was 55 (13.0%) with 95% CI (9.9-16.5). Second-line ART treatment regimen (Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) = 8.98, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 2.64, 30.58) and routine viral load testing (AOR = 0.01, 95% CI: 0.001, 0.02) were significantly associated with virological non-suppression. Conclusion: Virological non-suppression was high, which hinders the achievement of the third global 95 target. The second-line regimen and routine viral load testing were significantly associated with virological non-suppression. It suggests the need to assess the effectiveness of antiretroviral drugs for epidemic control. It also clearly shows the need to decentralize third-line ART treatment for those patients in need.

Keywords: Virological non-suppression, HIV-positive, ART, Woliso Town, Ethiopia.

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Authors: Shoji Katagiri

Abstract:

This paper is to clarify the relationship between ICT and income inequality. To do so, we develop the general equilibrium model with ICT investment, obtain the equilibrium solutions, and then simulate the model with these solutions for some OECD countries. As a result, generally, during the corresponding periods we confirm that the relationship between ICT investment and income inequality is positive. In this mode, the increment of the ratio of ICT investment to the aggregated investment in stock enhances the capital’s share of income, and finally leads to income inequality such as the increase of the share of the top decile income. Although we confirm the positive relationship between ICT investment and income inequality, the upward trend for that relationship depends on the values of parameters for the making use of the simulations and these parameters are not deterministic in the magnitudes on the calculated results for the simulations.

Keywords: ICT, inequality, capital accumulation, technology.

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Authors: J. S. Bhullar, Manish Gupta

Abstract:

Classical Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) codes C that contain their dual codes can be used to construct quantum stabilizer codes this chapter studies the properties of such codes. It had been shown that a BCH code of length n which contains its dual code satisfies the bound on weight of any non-zero codeword in C and converse is also true. One impressive difficulty in quantum communication and computation is to protect informationcarrying quantum states against undesired interactions with the environment. To address this difficulty, many good quantum errorcorrecting codes have been derived as binary stabilizer codes. We were able to shed more light on the structure of dual containing BCH codes. These results make it possible to determine the parameters of quantum BCH codes in terms of weight of non-zero dual codeword.

Keywords: Quantum Codes, BCH Codes, Dual BCH Codes, Designed Distance.

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Authors: B. Moldakhmet, G. Nassimova, A. Balapanova, А. Asan

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According to the majority and to stereotypes in a simple everyman religious processes in the world in general, and Kazakhstan in particular, have only negative trends. The main reason for the author's opinion is seen in the fact that the media in the pursuit of ratings and sensation, more inclined to highlight the negative aspects of events in the country and the world of processes forgetting or casually mentioning the positive initiatives and achievements. That is why the article is mainly revealed positive trends in mind that the problems of fanaticism, terrorism and the confrontation of society on various issues, a lot has been written and detailed. This article describes the stages in the development of relations between religion and state, as well as institutionalization, networking and assistance in the correct orientation of religious activities in the country.

Keywords: Islam, Kazakhstan, Organization of Islamic Cooperation, religious activities

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Authors: M. Zarei Mahmoudabadi, M. Sadighi

Abstract:

In the study of honeycomb crushing under quasistatic loading, two parameters are important, the mean crushing stress and the wavelength of the folding mode. The previous theoretical models did not consider the true cylindrical curvature effects and the flow stress in the folding mode of honeycomb material. The present paper introduces a modification on Wierzbicki-s model based on considering two above mentioned parameters in estimating the mean crushing stress and the wavelength through implementation of the energy method. Comparison of the results obtained by the new model and Wierzbicki-s model with existing experimental data shows better prediction by the model presented in this paper.

Keywords: Crush strength, Flow stress, Honeycomb, Quasistatic load.

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Authors: Vai Kuong Sin, Chon Kit Chio

Abstract:

This paper investigates the nature of the development of two-dimensional laminar flow of an incompressible fluid at the reversed stagnation-point. ". In this study, we revisit the problem of reversed stagnation-point flow over a flat plate. Proudman and Johnson (1962) first studied the flow and obtained an asymptotic solution by neglecting the viscous terms. This is no true in neglecting the viscous terms within the total flow field. In particular it is pointed out that for a plate impulsively accelerated from rest to a constant velocity V0 that a similarity solution to the self-similar ODE is obtained which is noteworthy completely analytical.

Keywords: reversed stagnation-point flow, similarity solutions, analytical solution, numerical solution

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Authors: H. Buluthan Cetintas, M. Nejat Ozupek

Abstract:

Communication is an important factor and a prop in directing corporate activities efficiently, in ensuring the flow of knowledge which is necessary for the continuity of the institution, in creating a common language in the institution, in transferring corporate culture and ultimately in corporate success. The idea of transmitting the knowledge among the workers in a healthy manner has revived knowledge communication. Knowledge communication can be defined as the act of mutual creation and communication of intuitions, assessments, experiences and capabilities, as long as maintained effectively, can provide advantages such as corporate continuity, access to corporate objectives and making true administrative decisions. Although the benefits of the knowledge communication to corporations are known, and the necessary worth and care is given, some hardships may arise which makes it difficult or even block it. In this article, difficulties that prevent knowledge communication will be discussed and solutions will be proposed.

Keywords: Corporate knowledge communication, knowledge communication, knowledge communication barriers

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Authors: Daniel Badulescu

Abstract:

Under the difficult access to finance of SMEs, they expect that its relationship with the banks shall constitute a real help to access appropriate financing, at reasonable costs and requirements, given the possibility of mutually beneficial and long lasting relation. The literature, but also the research we have carried on, is centered on such determinants as concentration and the length of the relationship, but at the same time, there is little certainty that banks are responding positively to them. Furthermore, although the trust is considered as being a fundamental element of bank relationship – see the case house bank – SMEs find that the banks finance them looking rather on collaterals and covenants than to trust. Moreover, a positive behavior, such as prompt or advance repayments of loans, doesn-t generate any positive feedback from the banks side. All these show a deep un-satisfaction of the SMEs concerning their relationship banking.

Keywords: Banks' behavior, relationship banking, SMEs.

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Authors: Hezlina Mohd Hashim, Abdul Mutalib Embong, Zullina H. Shaari

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This study analyses the perceptions of secondary school students about the accounting profession in Malaysia. Fifty five form three and form four students who are taking accounting/commerce subjects were met. Individual-s perception data were collected through questionnaires. The results at the secondary school level suggest that the stereotypical negative image of the accountant ends, with students expressing the positive view of the work of an accountant. There were also gender differences in perceiving the accounting profession. Overall, the results of the study suggest that we are now in line in projecting positive and accurate perceptions of the accounting profession to secondary school students.

Keywords: Perceptions, secondary school students, accounting profession, Malaysia.

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Authors: Afonso, S. C., Fernandes, P. O., Monte, A. P.

Abstract:

Modern times call organizations to have an active role in the social arena, through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The objective of this research was to test the hypothesis that there is a positive relation between social performance and economic performance, and if there is a positive correlation between social performance and financial-economic performance. To test these theories a measure of social performance, based on the Green Book of Commission of the European Community, was used in a group of nineteen Portuguese top companies, listed on the PSI 20 index, through a period of five years, since 2005 to 2009. A clusters analysis was applied to group companies by their social performance and to compare and correlate their economic performance. Results indicate that companies that had a better social performance are not the ones who had a better economic performance, and suggest that the middle path might provide a good relation CSR-Economic performance, as a basis to a sustainable development.

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility, Economic Performance, Win-Win relationship

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Authors: Ilona Shiller

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This study examines regional convergence in per capita personal income in the US and Canada. We find that the disparity in real per capita income levels across US states (Canadian provinces) has declined, but income levels are not identical. Income levels become more aligned once costs of living are accounted for in relative per capita income series. US states (Canadian provinces) converge at an annual rate of between 1.3% and 2.04% (between 2.15% and 2.37%). A pattern of σ and β-convergence in per capita personal income across regions evident over the entire sample period, is reversed over 1979-1989 (1976-1990) period. The reversal may be due to sectoral or region-specific shocks that have highly persistent effects. The latter explanation might be true for half of the US and most of Canada.

Keywords: regional convergence, regional disparities, per capita income.

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Authors: Martin Macion

Abstract:

The request for a sustainable development challenges both managers and consumers to rethink habitual practices and activities. While consumers are challenged to develop sustainable consumption patterns, companies are asked to establish managerial systems and structures considering economical, ecological, and social issues. As this is in particular true for housing associations, this paper aims first, at providing an understanding of sustainability strategy in residential trade and industry (RTI) by identifying relevant facets of this construct and second, at conceptually analyzing the impact of sustainability strategy in RTI on operational efficiency and performance of municipal housing companies. The author develops a model of sustainability strategy in RTI and its effects and further, sheds light in priorities for future research.

Keywords: firm performance, sustainability strategy, residentialtrade and industry

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Authors: Abdullah H. Özcan, Dilara Hisar, Yetkin Sayar, Cem Ünsalan

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In this study, an automated building and tree detection method is proposed using DSM data and true orthophoto image. A multiscale matched filtering is used on DSM data. Therefore, first watershed transform is applied. Then, Otsu’s thresholding method is used as an adaptive threshold to segment each watershed region. Detected objects are masked with NDVI to separate buildings and trees. The proposed method is able to detect buildings and trees without entering any elevation threshold. We tested our method on ISPRS semantic labeling dataset and obtained promising results.

Keywords: Building detection, tree detection, matched filtering, multiscale, local maximum filtering, watershed segmentation.

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Authors: Su-Young Jeong, Won-Kee Hong, Seon-Chee Park, Gyun-Taek Lim, Eric Kim

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Researchers investigate arious strategies to develop composite beams and maximize the structural advantages. This study attempted to conduct experiments and analysis of changes in the neutral axis of positive moments of a Green Beam. Strain compatibility analysis was used, and its efficiency was demonstrated by comparing experimental and analytical values. In the comparison of neutral axis, the difference between experimental and analytical values was found to range from 8.8~26.2%. It was determined that strain compatibility analysis can be useful for predicting the behaviors of composite beams, with the ability to predict the behavior of not only the elastic location of the composite member, but also of the plastic location

Keywords: Composite beam, Strain compatibility, Neutral axis, Green Beam

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Authors: Justine Ugochukwu Osuagwu, Sazali Abd Wahab

Abstract:

The performance and operation of NNPC have faced a series of attacks by all stakeholders as many have observed lots of inefficiencies, not only on the part of the management but also the staff. This has raised questions of whether their operations and performance are being seriously affected by lack of transformational leadership, and the political competition prevalent in the country. We applied administrative leadership theory and institutional theory as a guide to this research and empirically relates such theories to the study. The study also utilized the quantitative approach where questionnaires were distributed to 370 participants, and the correctly filled and returned questionnaires were used for the analysis using structural equation modeling. The path coefficient of transformational leadership to performance is strong and positive with β = 0.672; t-value = 14.245; p-value = 0.000. Also, the result found that political competition does not mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and the performance of NNPC (β = -0.008; t-value = -0.600; p- value > 0.05). Furthermore, the indirect paths are all insignificant, indicating that transformational leadership has a direct relationship with corporate performance. The study found that, while political competition does not serve as a mediator in the relationship between transformational leadership and corporate performance, these styles of leadership have a direct and positive impact on corporate performance. The direct relationship between transformational leadership and political competition was not discovered, despite the fact that political competition has a direct and significant impact, both positive and negative, on corporate performance. As a result, both political competition and transformational leadership have the potential to significantly alter corporate performance.

Keywords: Performance, transformational leadership, political competition, corporation performance, Nigeria national petroleum corporation.

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Authors: Mehran Yazdi, Mehdi Seyfi, Amirhossein Rafati, Meghdad Asadi

Abstract:

Detection and tracking of the lip contour is an important issue in speechreading. While there are solutions for lip tracking once a good contour initialization in the first frame is available, the problem of finding such a good initialization is not yet solved automatically, but done manually. We have developed a new tracking solution for lip contour detection using only few landmarks (15 to 25) and applying the well known Active Shape Models (ASM). The proposed method is a new LMS-like adaptive scheme based on an Auto regressive (AR) model that has been fit on the landmark variations in successive video frames. Moreover, we propose an extra motion compensation model to address more general cases in lip tracking. Computer simulations demonstrate a fair match between the true and the estimated spatial pixels. Significant improvements related to the well known LMS approach has been obtained via a defined Frobenius norm index.

Keywords: Lip contour, Tracking, LMS-Like

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Authors: M. Ramezani, S. Ghaderifard, HR. Monsef-Esfahani, S. Nasri

Abstract:

The aim of this study is evaluating the antinociceptive and anti-inflamatory activity of Geum kokanicum. After determination total extract LD50, different doses of extract were chosen for intrapritoneal injections. In inflammation test, male NMRI mice were divided into 6 groups: control (normal saline), positive control (Dexamethasone 15mg/kg), and total extract (0.025, 0.05, 0.1, and 0.2 gr/kg). The inflammation was produced by xyleneinduced edema. In order to evaluate the antinociceptive effect of total extract, formalin test was used. Mice were divided into 6 groups: control, positive control (morphine 10mg/kg), and 4 groups which received total extract. Then they received Formalin. The animals were observed for the reaction to pain. Data were analyzed using One-way ANOVA followed by Tukey-Kramer multiple comparison test. LD50 was 1 gr/kg. Data indicated that 0.5,0.1 and 0.2 gr/kg doses of total extract have particular antinociceptive and antiinflammatory effects in a comparison with control (P<0.001). The most effective dose was 0.2 gr/kg which did not show any significant difference in a comparison with positive control. Results indicated that total extract can inhibit nociception in the first and second phase. The antinociceptive effects in high doses are the same as morphine as a strong analgesic substance. TLC chromatography indicated presence of steroids and triterpenoids in this plant. The effects of extract may be related to presence of these compounds.

Keywords: Anti-inflammatory, Antinociceptive, Geum kokanicum, Mice.

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Authors: Wen-Chi Liu

Abstract:

This study applies a simple and powerful nonlinear unit root test to test the validity of long-run purchasing power parity (PPP)  in a sample of 10 East-Asian countries (i.e., China, Hong Kong,  Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan  and Thailand) over the period of March 1985 to September 2008. The empirical results indicate that PPP holds true for half of these 10  East-Asian countries under study, and the adjustment toward PPP is found to be nonlinear and in an asymmetric way. 

 

Keywords: Purchasing Power Parity, East-Asian Countries, Nonlinear Unit Root Test, Asymmetry.

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Authors: Michael Harre, Terry Bossomaier, Ranqing Chu, Allan Snyder

Abstract:

We introduce a novel approach to measuring how humans learn based on techniques from information theory and apply it to the oriental game of Go. We show that the total amount of information observable in human strategies, called the strategic information, remains constant for populations of players of differing skill levels for well studied patterns of play. This is despite the very large amount of knowledge required to progress from the recreational players at one end of our spectrum to the very best and most experienced players in the world at the other and is in contrast to the idea that having more knowledge might imply more 'certainty' in what move to play next. We show this is true for very local up to medium sized board patterns, across a variety of different moves using 80,000 game records. Consequences for theoretical and practical AI are outlined.

Keywords: Board Games, Cognitive Capacity, Decision Theory, Information Theory.

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Authors: Jaehwan Kang, Haejung Lee

Abstract:

This paper introduces an automatic voice classification system for the diagnosis of individual constitution based on Sasang Constitutional Medicine (SCM) in Traditional Korean Medicine (TKM). For the developing of this algorithm, we used the voices of 309 female speakers and extracted a total of 134 speech features from the voice data consisting of 5 sustained vowels and one sentence. The classification system, based on a rule-based algorithm that is derived from a non parametric statistical method, presents 3 types of decisions: reserved, positive and negative decisions. In conclusion, 71.5% of the voice data were diagnosed by this system, of which 47.7% were correct positive decisions and 69.7% were correct negative decisions.

Keywords: Voice Classifier, Sasang Constitution Medicine, Traditional Korean Medicine, SCM, TKM.

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Authors: Maria Eliophotou Menon

Abstract:

School leadership is commonly considered to have a significant influence on school effectiveness and improvement. Effective school leaders are expected to successfully introduce and support change and innovation at the school unit. Despite an abundance of studies on educational leadership, very few studies have provided evidence on the link between leadership models, and specific educational and school outcomes. This is true of a popular contemporary approach to leadership, namely, distributed leadership. The paper provides an overview of research findings on the effect of distributed leadership on educational outcomes. The theoretical basis for this approach to leadership is presented, with reference to methodological and research limitations. The paper discusses research findings and draws their implications for educational research on school leadership.

Keywords: Distributed leadership, educational outcomes, leadership research.

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Authors: Ahmet Tekcan, Arzu Özkoç

Abstract:

Let D = 1 be a positive non-square integer and let δ = √D or 1+√D 2 be a real quadratic irrational with trace t =δ + δ and norm n = δδ. Let γ = P+δ Q be a quadratic irrational for positive integers P and Q. Given a quadratic irrational γ, there exist a quadratic ideal Iγ = [Q, δ + P] and an indefinite quadratic form Fγ(x, y) = Q(x−γy)(x−γy) of discriminant Δ = t 2−4n. In the first section, we give some preliminaries form binary quadratic forms, quadratic irrationals and quadratic ideals. In the second section, we obtain some results on γ, Iγ and Fγ for some specific values of Q and P.

Keywords: Quadratic irrationals, quadratic ideals, indefinite quadratic forms, extended modular group.

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Authors: Anastasiia Yu. Timofeeva

Abstract:

Two new algorithms for nonparametric estimation of errors-in-variables models are proposed. The first algorithm is based on penalized regression spline. The spline is represented as a piecewise-linear function and for each linear portion orthogonal regression is estimated. This algorithm is iterative. The second algorithm involves locally weighted regression estimation. When the independent variable is measured with error such estimation is a complex nonlinear optimization problem. The simulation results have shown the advantage of the second algorithm under the assumption that true smoothing parameters values are known. Nevertheless the use of some indexes of fit to smoothing parameters selection gives the similar results and has an oversmoothing effect.

Keywords: Grade point average, orthogonal regression, penalized regression spline, locally weighted regression.

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