Search results for: class cohesion measure

Authors: Nurnadiah Z., Lazim A.

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The design of weight is one of the important parts in fuzzy decision making, as it would have a deep effect on the evaluation results. Entropy is one of the weight measure based on objective evaluation. Non--probabilistic-type entropy measures for fuzzy set and interval type-2 fuzzy sets (IT2FS) have been developed and applied to weight measure. Since the entropy for (IT2FS) for decision making yet to be explored, this paper proposes a new objective weight method by using entropy weight method for multiple attribute decision making (MADM). This paper utilizes the nature of IT2FS concept in the evaluation process to assess the attribute weight based on the credibility of data. An example was presented to demonstrate the feasibility of the new method in decision making. The entropy measure of interval type-2 fuzzy sets yield flexible judgment and could be applied in decision making environment.

Keywords: Objective weight, entropy weight, multiple attributedecision making, type-2 fuzzy sets, interval type-2 fuzzy sets

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Authors: C. Ardil

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The decision to select an unmanned combat aircraft is complicated since several options and conflicting criteria must be considered at simultaneously. When making multiple criteria decision, it is important to consider the selected evaluation criteria, including priceability, payloadability, stealthability, speedability , and survivability. The fundamental goal of the study is to select the best unmanned combat aircraft by taking these evaluation criteria into account. The optimal aircraft was chosen using the fuzzy proximity measure method, which enables decision-makers to designate preferences as standard fuzzy set numbers during the multiple criteria decision-making process. To assess the applicability of the proposed approach, a numerical example is provided. Finally, by comparing determined unmanned combat aircraft, the proposed method produced a successful application, and the best aircraft was selected.

Keywords: standard fuzzy sets (SFS), unmanned combat aircraft selection, multiple criteria decision making (MCDM), multiple criteria group decision making (MCGDM), proximity measure method (PMM)

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Authors: Karen Armstrong

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Group work, projects and discussions are important components of teacher education courses whether they are face-toface, blended or exclusively online formats. This paper examines the varieties of tasks and challenges with this learning format in a face to face class teacher education class providing specific examples of both failure and success from both the student and instructor perspective. The discussion begins with a brief history of collaborative and cooperative learning, moves to an exploration of the promised benefits and then takes a look at some of the challenges which can arise specifically from the use of new technologies. The discussion concludes with guidelines and specific suggestions.

Keywords: collaborative learning, cooperative computersupported collaborative learning (CSCL), e-learning, group dynamics

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Authors: Weifeng Pan

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The stability of a software system is one of the most important quality attributes affecting the maintenance effort. Many techniques have been proposed to support the analysis of software stability at the architecture, file, and class level of software systems, but little effort has been made for that at the feature (i.e., method and attribute) level. And the assumptions the existing techniques based on always do not meet the practice to a certain degree. Considering that, in this paper, we present a novel metric, Stability of Software (SoS), to measure the stability of object-oriented software systems by software change propagation analysis using a simulation way in software dependency networks at feature level. The approach is evaluated by case studies on eight open source Java programs using different software structures (one employs design patterns versus one does not) for the same object-oriented program. The results of the case studies validate the effectiveness of the proposed metric. The approach has been fully automated by a tool written in Java.

Keywords: Software stability, change propagation, design pattern, software maintenance, object-oriented (OO) software.

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Authors: Ozlem Faydasicok, Sabri Arik

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This paper derives some new sufficient conditions for the stability of a class of neutral-type neural networks with discrete time delays by employing a suitable Lyapunov functional. The obtained conditions can be easily verified as they can be expressed in terms of the network parameters only. It is shown that the results presented in this paper for neutral-type delayed neural networks establish a new set of stability criteria, and therefore can be considered as the alternative results to the previously published literature results. A numerical example is also given to demonstrate the applicability of our proposed stability criterion.

Keywords: Stability Analysis, Neutral-Type Neural Networks, Time Delay Systems, Lyapunov Functionals.

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Authors: T. Y. Liu, C. H Lin., Y. M Ferng

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Wind energy is one of the clean renewable energy. However, the low frequency (20-200HZ) noise generated from the wind turbine blades, which bothers the residents, becomes the major problem to be developed. It is useful for predicting the aerodynamic noise by flow field and pressure distribution analysis on the wind turbine blades. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to use different turbulence models to analyze the flow field and pressure distributions of the wing blades.

Three-dimensional Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of the flow field was used to calculate the flow phenomena for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Phase VI horizontal axis wind turbine rotor. Two different flow cases with different wind speeds were investigated: 7m/s with 72rpm and 15m/s with 72rpm.

Four kinds of RANS-based turbulence models, Standard k-ε, Realizable k-ε, SST k-ω, and v2f, were used to predict and analyze the results in the present work. The results show that the predictions on pressure distributions with SST k-ω and v2f turbulence models have good agreements with experimental data.

Keywords: Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine, turbulence model, noise.

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Authors: Rajkumar Verma, Bhu Dev Sharma

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Entropy is a key measure in studies related to information theory and its many applications. Campbell for the first time recognized that the exponential of the Shannon’s entropy is just the size of the sample space, when distribution is uniform. Here is the idea to study exponentials of Shannon’s and those other entropy generalizations that involve logarithmic function for a probability distribution in general. In this paper, we introduce a measure of sample space, called ‘entropic measure of a sample space’, with respect to the underlying distribution. It is shown in both discrete and continuous cases that this new measure depends on the parameters of the distribution on the sample space - same sample space having different ‘entropic measures’ depending on the distributions defined on it. It was noted that Campbell’s idea applied for R`enyi’s parametric entropy of a given order also. Knowing that parameters play a role in providing suitable choices and extended applications, paper studies parametric entropic measures of sample spaces also. Exponential entropies related to Shannon’s and those generalizations that have logarithmic functions, i.e. are additive have been studies for wider understanding and applications. We propose and study exponential entropies corresponding to non additive entropies of type (α, β), which include Havard and Charvˆat entropy as a special case.

Keywords: Sample space, Probability distributions, Shannon’s entropy, R`enyi’s entropy, Non-additive entropies .

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Authors: Benjapol Auprasert, Yachai Limpiyakorn

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Measuring the complexity of software has been an insoluble problem in software engineering. Complexity measures can be used to predict critical information about testability, reliability, and maintainability of software systems from automatic analysis of the source code. During the past few years, many complexity measures have been invented based on the emerging Cognitive Informatics discipline. These software complexity measures, including cognitive functional size, lend themselves to the approach of the total cognitive weights of basic control structures such as loops and branches. This paper shows that the current existing calculation method can generate different results that are algebraically equivalence. However, analysis of the combinatorial meanings of this calculation method shows significant flaw of the measure, which also explains why it does not satisfy Weyuker's properties. Based on the findings, improvement directions, such as measures fusion, and cumulative variable counting scheme are suggested to enhance the effectiveness of cognitive complexity measures.

Keywords: Cognitive Complexity Measure, Cognitive Weight of Basic Control Structure, Counting Rules, Cumulative Variable Counting Scheme.

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Authors: PeiWen Liao, Tsung Hau Jen

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This study was conducted to explore the effects of two countries model comparison program in Taiwan and Singapore in TIMSS database. The researchers used Multi-Group Hierarchical Linear Modeling techniques to compare the effects of two different country models and we tested our hypotheses on 4,046 Taiwan students and 4,599 Singapore students in 2007 at two levels: the class level and student (individual) level. Design quality is a class level variable. Student level variables are achievement and self-confidence. The results challenge the widely held view that retention has a positive impact on self-confidence. Suggestions for future research are discussed.

Keywords: Teaching approach, self-confidence, achievement, multi-group HLM.

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Authors: Ikmal Hisyam Mohamad Paris, Lilly Suriani Affendey, Norwati Mustapha

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In this paper we compare the accuracy of data mining methods to classifying students in order to predicting student-s class grade. These predictions are more useful for identifying weak students and assisting management to take remedial measures at early stages to produce excellent graduate that will graduate at least with second class upper. Firstly we examine single classifiers accuracy on our data set and choose the best one and then ensembles it with a weak classifier to produce simple voting method. We present results show that combining different classifiers outperformed other single classifiers for predicting student performance.

Keywords: Classification, Data Mining, Prediction, Combination of Multiple Classifiers.

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Authors: Tri Prasetyaningrum, Suyoto

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In this paper, we will be present Guidance and Councelling (GC) class action research. The research was done because a fact that some students are still learning ways such as in elementary school. The research objective is to enhance the value of “academic performance report" grade by using ICT as GC Learning Guidance services. The research method was carried out with two cycles. First cycle is applying Learning Guidance services indirectly and not programmed. Second cycle into two implementing Learning Guidance services indirectly, programmed and using ICTs primarily mobile phones and computer media applications i.e. “m-NingBK©: Learning Guidance" and “screen saver: Learning Guidance". A research subject is a class VII student who has the lowest value of “academic performance report". The result is by using an indirect GC services with ICT there were significant changes.

Keywords: ICT, Learning Guidance, action research and Guidance and Councelling

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Authors: Stefan V. Stefanescu

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We intend to point out the differences which exist between the classical Gini concentration coefficient and a proposed bipolarization index defined for an arbitrary random variable which have a finite support. In fact Gini's index measures only the "poverty degree" for the individuals from a given population taking into consideration their wages. The Gini coefficient is not so sensitive to the significant income variations in the "rich people class" . In practice there are multiple interdependent relations between the pauperization and the socio-economical polarization phenomena. The presence of a strong pauperization aspect inside the population induces often a polarization effect in this society. But the pauperization and the polarization phenomena are not identical. For this reason it isn't always adequate to use a Gini type coefficient, based on the Lorenz order, to estimate the bipolarization level of the individuals from the studied population. The present paper emphasizes these ideas by considering two families of random variables which have a linear or a triangular type distributions. In addition, the continuous variation, depending on the parameter "time" of the chosen distributions, could simulate a real dynamical evolution of the population.

Keywords: Bipolarization phenomenon, Gini coefficient, income distribution, poverty measure.

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Authors: Abu Salim Mustafa

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Rv3873 is a relatively large size protein (371 amino acids in length) and its gene is located in the immunodominant genomic region of difference (RD)1 that is present in the genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis but deleted from the genomes of all the vaccine strains of Bacillus Calmette Guerin (BCG) and most other mycobacteria. However, when tested for cellular immune responses using peripheral blood mononuclear cells from tuberculosis patients and BCG-vaccinated healthy subjects, this protein was found to be a major stimulator of cell mediated immune responses in both groups of subjects. In order to further identify the sequence of immunodominant epitopes and explore their Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA)-restriction for epitope recognition, 24 peptides (25-mers overlapping with the neighboring peptides by 10 residues) covering the sequence of Rv3873 were synthesized chemically using fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl chemistry and tested in cell mediated immune responses. The results of these experiments helped in the identification of an immunodominant peptide P9 that was recognized by people expressing varying HLA-DR types. Furthermore, it was also predicted to be a promiscuous binder with multiple epitopes for binding to HLA-DR, HLA-DP and HLA-DQ alleles of HLA-class II molecules that present antigens to T helper cells, and to HLA-class I molecules that present antigens to T cytotoxic cells. In addition, the evaluation of peptide P9 using an immunogenicity predictor server yielded a high score (0.94), which indicated a greater probability of this peptide to elicit a protective cellular immune response. In conclusion, P9, a peptide with multiple epitopes and ability to bind several HLA class I and class II molecules for presentation to cells of the cellular immune response, may be useful as a peptide-based vaccine against tuberculosis.

Keywords: Mycobacterium tuberculosis, Rv3873, peptides, vaccine

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Authors: Ahmed O. Apampa, Yinusa A. Jimoh

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The paper examines the mechanism of pozzolan-soil reactions, using a recent study on the chemical stabilization of a Class A-2-7 (3) lateritic soil, with corn cob ash (CCA) as case study. The objectives are to establish a nexus between cation exchange capacity of the soil, the alkaline forming compounds in CCA and percentage CCA addition to soil beyond which no more improvement in strength properties can be achieved; and to propose feasible chemical reactions to explain the chemical stabilization of the lateritic soil with CCA alone. The lateritic soil, as well as CCA of pozzolanic quality Class C were separately analysed for their metallic oxide composition using the X-Ray Fluorescence technique. The cation exchange capacity (CEC) of the soil and the CCA were computed theoretically using the percentage composition of the base cations Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺ K⁺ and Na²⁺ as 1.48 meq/100 g and 61.67 meq/100 g respectively, thus indicating a ratio of 0.024 or 2.4%. This figure, taken as the theoretical amount required to just fill up the exchangeable sites of the clay molecules, compares well with the laboratory observation of 1.5% for the optimum level of CCA addition to lateritic soil. The paper went on to present chemical reaction equations between the alkaline earth metals in the CCA and the silica in the lateritic soil to form silicates, thereby proposing an extension of the theory of mechanism of soil stabilization to cover chemical stabilization with pozzolanic ash only. The paper concluded by recommending further research on the molecular structure of soils stabilized with pozzolanic waste ash alone, with a view to confirming the chemical equations advanced in the study.

Keywords: Cation exchange capacity, corn cob ash, lateritic soil, soil stabilization.

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Authors: Mona Soliman Habib

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This paper explores the scalability issues associated with solving the Named Entity Recognition (NER) problem using Support Vector Machines (SVM) and high-dimensional features. The performance results of a set of experiments conducted using binary and multi-class SVM with increasing training data sizes are examined. The NER domain chosen for these experiments is the biomedical publications domain, especially selected due to its importance and inherent challenges. A simple machine learning approach is used that eliminates prior language knowledge such as part-of-speech or noun phrase tagging thereby allowing for its applicability across languages. No domain-specific knowledge is included. The accuracy measures achieved are comparable to those obtained using more complex approaches, which constitutes a motivation to investigate ways to improve the scalability of multiclass SVM in order to make the solution more practical and useable. Improving training time of multi-class SVM would make support vector machines a more viable and practical machine learning solution for real-world problems with large datasets. An initial prototype results in great improvement of the training time at the expense of memory requirements.

Keywords: Named entity recognition, support vector machines, language independence, bioinformatics.

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Authors: Kazeem K. Adewole, Joy-Felicia O. Oladejo, Wasiu O. Ajagbe

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The use of low quality concrete has been identified as one of the main causes of the incessant collapse of buildings in Nigeria. Emphasis has been on the use of poor quality aggregates, poor workmanship and the use of lean concrete mix with low cement quantity as the reasons for the low quality of concrete used for building construction in Nigeria. Surveys conducted revealed that in the construction of most privately owned buildings where concrete trial mixes and concrete compressive strength quality assurance tests are not conducted, concretes used for building constructions are produced using the 1:2:4 mix ratio irrespective of the cement grade/strength class. In this paper, the possible role of the use of inappropriate cement grade/strength class as a cause of the incessant collapse of building in Nigeria is investigated. Investigation revealed that the compressive strengths of concrete cubes produced with Portland-limestone cement grade 32.5 using 1:2:4 and 1:1.5:3 mix ratios are less than the 25MPa and 30MPa cube strengths generally recommended for building superstructures and foundations respectively. Conversely, the compressive strengths of concrete cubes produced with Portland-limestone cement grade 42.5 using 1:2:4 and 1:1.5:3 mix ratios exceed the 25MPa and 30MPa generally recommended for building superstructures and foundations respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that the use of inappropriate cement grade (Portland-limestone cement grade 32.5), particularly for the construction of building foundations is a potential cause of the incessant collapse of buildings in Nigeria. It is recommended that the Standards Organisation of Nigeria should embark on creating awareness for Nigerians, particularly, the home owners and the roadside craftsmen that Portland-limestone cement grade 32.5 should not be used for the construction of building load-carrying members, particularly, building foundations in order to reduce the incessant incidence of collapsed building.

Keywords: Cement grades, Concrete strength class, Collapsed building, Concrete mix ratio, Portland-limestone cement.

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Authors: Ehrenstorfer Barbara, Peherstorfer Tanja, Nový Jan

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Urbanization and regionalization are two different approaches when it comes to economical structures and development, infrastructure and mobility, quality of life and living, education, social cohesion and many other topics. At first glance, the structures associated with urbanization and regionalization seems to be contradicting. This paper discusses possibilities of transfer and cooperation between rural and urban structures. An empirical investigation contributed to reveal scenarios of supposable forms of exchange and cooperation of remote rural areas and big cities.

Keywords: Learning Regions, Quality of Life and Living, Regional and Rural Development, Social Innovation.

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Authors: P. Bergl

Abstract:

Numerous divergence measures (spectral distance, cepstral distance, difference of the cepstral coefficients, Kullback-Leibler divergence, distance given by the General Likelihood Ratio, distance defined by the Recursive Bayesian Changepoint Detector and the Mahalanobis measure) are compared in this study. The measures are used for detection of abrupt spectral changes in synthetic AR signals via the sliding window algorithm. Two experiments are performed; the first is focused on detection of single boundary while the second concentrates on detection of a couple of boundaries. Accuracy of detection is judged for each method; the measures are compared according to results of both experiments.

Keywords: Abrupt changes detection, autoregressive model, divergence measure.

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Authors: M. A. Beisenbi, N. M. Kissikova, S. E. Beisembina, S. T. Suleimenova, S. A. Kaliyeva

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The paper proposes a method for constructing a self-organizing control system for unstable and deterministic chaotic processes in the class of catastrophe “hyperbolic umbilic” for objects with m-inputs and n-outputs. The self-organizing control system is investigated by the universal gradient-velocity method of Lyapunov vector-functions. The conditions for self-organization of the control system in the class of catastrophes “hyperbolic umbilic” are shown in the form of a system of algebraic inequalities that characterize the aperiodic robust stability in the stationary states of the system.

Keywords: Gradient-velocity method of Lyapunov vector-functions, hyperbolic umbilic, self-organizing control system, stability.

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Authors: M. K. Bhuyan, P. K. Bora, D. Ghosh

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One very interesting field of research in Pattern Recognition that has gained much attention in recent times is Gesture Recognition. In this paper, we consider a form of dynamic hand gestures that are characterized by total movement of the hand (arm) in space. For these types of gestures, the shape of the hand (palm) during gesturing does not bear any significance. In our work, we propose a model-based method for tracking hand motion in space, thereby estimating the hand motion trajectory. We employ the dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm for time alignment and normalization of spatio-temporal variations that exist among samples belonging to the same gesture class. During training, one template trajectory and one prototype feature vector are generated for every gesture class. Features used in our work include some static and dynamic motion trajectory features. Recognition is accomplished in two stages. In the first stage, all unlikely gesture classes are eliminated by comparing the input gesture trajectory to all the template trajectories. In the next stage, feature vector extracted from the input gesture is compared to all the class prototype feature vectors using a distance classifier. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed trajectory estimator and classifier is suitable for Human Computer Interaction (HCI) platform.

Keywords: Hand gesture, human computer interaction, key video object plane, dynamic time warping.

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Authors: T. Nagata, S. Xaphakdy, P. Souvannavong, P. Chanthamaly, K. Sithavong, C. H. Lee, S. Phommathat, V. Srithilat, P. Sengdala, B. Phetarnousone, B. Siharath, X. Chemcheng, T. Yamaguchi, A. Suenaga, S. Kashima

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National University of Laos (NUOL) requested Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) volunteers to begin a physics experiments class using multi media. However, there are issues. NUOL had no physics experiment class, no space for physics experiments, experiment materials were not used for many years and were scattered in various places, and there is no projector and laptop computer in the unit. This raised the question: How do authors begin the physics experiments class using multimedia? To solve this problem, the JICA took some steps, took stock of what was available and reviewed the syllabus. The JICA then revised the experiment materials to assess what was available and then developed textbooks for experiments using them; however, the question remained, what about the multimedia component of the course? Next, the JICA reviewed Physics teacher Pavy Souvannavong’s YouTube channel, where he and his students upload video reports of their physics classes at NUOL using their smartphones. While they use multi-media, almost all the videos recorded were of class presentations. To improve the multimedia style, authors edited the videos in the style of another YouTube channel, “Science for Lao,” which is a science education group made up of Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) in Laos. They created the channel to enhance science education in Laos, and hold regular monthly meetings in the capital, Vientiane, and at teacher training colleges in the country. They edit the video clips in three parts, which are the materials and procedures part including pictures, practice footage of the experiment part, and then the result and conclusion part. Then students perform experiments and prepare for presentation by following the videos. The revised experiment presentation reports use PowerPoint presentations, material pictures and experiment video clips. As for providing textbooks and submitting reports, the students use the e-Learning system of “Moodle” of the Information Technology Center in Dongdok campus of NUOL. The Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) donated those facilities. The authors have passed the process of the revised materials, developed textbooks, the PowerPoint slides presented by students, downloaded textbooks and uploaded reports, to begin the physics experiments class using multimedia. This is the practice research report for beginning a physics experiments class using multimedia in the physics unit at the Department of Natural Science, Faculty of Education, at the NUOL.

Keywords: NUOL, JICA, KOICA, Physics experiment materials, smart phone, Moodle, IT center, Science for Lao.

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Authors: Jeffrey L. Duffany

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The equivalence class subset algorithm is a powerful tool for solving a wide variety of constraint satisfaction problems and is based on the use of a decision function which has a very high but not perfect accuracy. Perfect accuracy is not required in the decision function as even a suboptimal solution contains valuable information that can be used to help find an optimal solution. In the hardest problems, the decision function can break down leading to a suboptimal solution where there are more equivalence classes than are necessary and which can be viewed as a mixture of good decision and bad decisions. By choosing a subset of the decisions made in reaching a suboptimal solution an iterative technique can lead to an optimal solution, using series of steadily improved suboptimal solutions. The goal is to reach an optimal solution as quickly as possible. Various techniques for choosing the decision subset are evaluated.

Keywords: np-complete, complexity, algorithm.

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Authors: W. Munyoka, F. M. Manzira

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The purpose of this study is to analyze how varying alignment of e-Government policies in four countries in Sub-Saharan Africa Region, namely South Africa, Seychelles, Mauritius and Cape Verde lead to the success or failure of e-Government; and what should be done to ensure positive alignment that lead to e-Government project growth. In addition, the study aims to understand how various governments’ efforts in e-Government awareness campaign strategies, international cooperation, functional literacy and anticipated organizational change can influence implementation.

This study extensively explores contemporary research undertaken in the field of e-Government and explores the actual respective national ICT policies, strategies and implemented e-Government projects for in-depth comprehension of the status core. Data is analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to reach a conclusion.

The study found that resounding successes in strategic e-Government alignment was achieved in Seychelles, Mauritius, South Africa and Cape Verde - (Ranked number 1 to 4 respectively).

The implications of the study is that policy makers in developing countries should put mechanisms in place for constant monitoring and evaluation of project implementation in line with ICT policies to ensure that e-Government projects reach maturity levels and do not die mid-way implementation as often noticed in many countries. The study recommends that countries within the region should make consented collaborative efforts and synergies with the private sector players and international donor agencies to achieve the implementation part of the set ICT policies.

Keywords: E-Government, ICT-Policy Alignment, Implementation, Sub-Saharan Africa.

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Authors: Bireswar Paul, Amitava Datta

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Indoor air environment is a big concern in the last few decades in the developing countries, with increased focus on monitoring the air quality. In this work, an experimental study has been conducted to establish the existence of carbon nanoparticles below the size range of 10 nm in the non-sooting zone of a LPG/air partially premixed flame. Mainly, four optical techniques, UV absorption spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, dynamic light scattering and TEM have been used to characterize and measure the size of carbon nanoparticles in the sampled materials collected from the inner surface of the flame front. The existence of the carbon nanoparticles in the sampled material has been confirmed with the typical nature of the absorption and fluorescence spectra already reported in the literature. The band gap energy shows that the particles are made up of three to six aromatic rings. The size measurement by DLS technique also shows that the particles below the size range of 10 nm. The results of DLS are also corroborated by the TEM image of the same material. 

Keywords: Indoor air, carbon nanoparticles, LPG, partially premixed flame, optical techniques.

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Authors: Shigeaki Sakurai, Ryohei Orihara

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This paper proposes a new method for analyzing textual data. The method deals with items of textual data, where each item is described based on various viewpoints. The method acquires 2- class classification models of the viewpoints by applying an inductive learning method to items with multiple viewpoints. The method infers whether the viewpoints are assigned to the new items or not by using the models. The method extracts expressions from the new items classified into the viewpoints and extracts characteristic expressions corresponding to the viewpoints by comparing the frequency of expressions among the viewpoints. This paper also applies the method to questionnaire data given by guests at a hotel and verifies its effect through numerical experiments.

Keywords: Text mining, Multiple viewpoints, Differential analysis, Questionnaire data

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Authors: Y. Santosa, D. A. Rahman, C. Wulan, A. H. Mustari

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The global demand for long-tailed macaques for medical experimentation has continued to increase. Fulfillment of Indonesian export demands has been mostly from natural habitats, based on a harvesting quota. This quota has been determined according to the total catch for a given year, and not based on consideration of any demographic parameters or physical environmental factors with regard to the animal; hence threatening the sustainability of the various populations. It is therefore necessary to formulate a method for calculating a sustainable harvesting quota, based on population parameters in natural habitats. Considering the possibility of variations in habitat characteristics and population parameters, a time series observation of demographic and physical/biotic parameters, in various habitats, was performed on 13 groups of long-tailed macaques, distributed throughout the West Java, Lampung and Yogyakarta areas of Indonesia. These provinces were selected for comparison of the influence of human/tourism activities. Data on population parameters that was collected included data on life expectancy according to age class, numbers of individuals by sex and age class, and ‘ratio of infants to reproductive females’. The estimation of population growth was based on a population dynamic growth model: the Leslie matrix. The harvesting quota was calculated as being the difference between the actual population size and the MVP (minimum viable population) for each sex and age class. Observation indicated that there were variations within group size (24–106 individuals), gender (sex) ratio (1:1 to 1:1.3), life expectancy value (0.30 to 0.93), and ‘ratio of infants to reproductive females’ (0.23 to 1.56). Results of subsequent calculations showed that sustainable harvesting quotas for each studied group of long-tailed macaques, ranged from 29 to 110 individuals. An estimation model of the MVP for each age class was formulated as Log Y = 0.315 + 0.884 Log Ni (number of individual on ith age class). This study also found that life expectancy for the juvenile age class was affected by the humidity under tree stands, and dietary plants’ density at sapling, pole and tree stages (equation: Y=2.296 – 1.535 RH + 0.002 Kpcg – 0.002 Ktg – 0.001 Kphn, R2 = 89.6% with a significance value of 0.001). By contrast, for the sub-adult-adult age class, life expectancy was significantly affected by slope (equation: Y=0.377 = 0.012 Kml, R2 = 50.4%, with significance level of 0.007). The infant-toreproductive- female ratio was affected by humidity under tree stands, and dietary plant density at sapling and pole stages (equation: Y = - 1.432 + 2.172 RH – 0.004 Kpcg + 0.003 Ktg, R2 = 82.0% with significance level of 0.001). This research confirmed the importance of population parameters in determining the minimum viable population, and that MVP varied according to habitat characteristics (especially food availability). It would be difficult therefore, to formulate a general mathematical equation model for determining a harvesting quota for the species as a whole.

Keywords: Harvesting, long-tailed macaque, population, quota.

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Authors: Masimuddin Mohd Khaled

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This paper subsidizes to the discussion of Six Sigma in the Aerospace Industry. The main aim of this report is to study the literature review of Six Sigma emphasizing on the aerospace industry. The implementation of Six Sigma stages are studied and how the improvement cycle ‘Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control cycle’ (DMAIC) and the design process is ‘Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify cycle’ (DMADV) is used. The focus is also done by studying how the implementation of Six Sigma on an aerospace company has brought a positive effect to the company.

Keywords: Six Sigma, DMAIC, DMADV, aerospace.

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Authors: A. Shebani, C. Pislaru

Abstract:

The wear measuring and wear modelling are fundamental issues in the industrial field, mainly correlated to the economy and safety. Therefore, there is a need to study the wear measurements and wear estimation. Pin-on-disc test is the most common test which is used to study the wear behaviour. In this paper, the pin-on-disc (AEROTECH UNIDEX 11) is used for the investigation of the effects of normal load and hardness of material on the wear under dry and sliding conditions. In the pin-on-disc rig, two specimens were used; one, a pin is made of steel with a tip, positioned perpendicular to the disc, where the disc is made of aluminium. The pin wear and disc wear were measured by using the following instruments: The Talysurf instrument, a digital microscope, and the alicona instrument. The Talysurf profilometer was used to measure the pin/disc wear scar depth, digital microscope was used to measure the diameter and width of wear scar, and the alicona was used to measure the pin wear and disc wear. After that, the Archard model, American Society for Testing and Materials model (ASTM), and neural network model were used for pin/disc wear modelling. Simulation results were implemented by using the Matlab program. This paper focuses on how the alicona can be used for wear measurements and how the neural network can be used for wear estimation.

Keywords: Wear measuring, Wear modelling, Neural Network, Alicona.

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Authors: Yuanjie Zheng, Jie Yang, Yue Zhou

Abstract:

In this paper, we propose an approach of unsupervised segmentation with fuzzy connectedness. Valid seeds are first specified by an unsupervised method based on scale space theory. A region is then extracted for each seed with a relative object extraction method of fuzzy connectedness. Afterwards, regions are merged according to the values between them of an introduced measure. Some theorems and propositions are also provided to show the reasonableness of the measure for doing mergence. Experiment results on a synthetic image, a color image and a large amount of MR images of our method are reported.

Keywords: Image segmentation, unsupervised imagesegmentation, fuzzy connectedness, scale space.

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Authors: Ehi E. Aimiuwu

Abstract:

As of 2017, many online learning professionals, institutions, and journals are still wondering how instructors can keep student engaged in the online learning environment to facilitate active learning effectively. The purpose of this qualitative single-case and narrative research is to explore whether online professors understand their role as mentors and facilitators of students’ academic success by keeping students engaged in active learning based on personalized experience in the field. Data collection tools that were used in the study included an NVivo 12 Plus qualitative software, an interview protocol, a digital audiotape, an observation sheet, and a transcription. Seven online professors in the United States from LinkedIn and residencies were interviewed for this study. Eleven online teaching techniques from previous research were used as the study framework. Data analysis process, member checking, and key themes were used to achieve saturation. About 85.7% of professors agreed on rubric as the preferred online grading technique. About 57.1% agreed on professors logging in daily, students logging in about 2-5 times weekly, knowing students to increase accountability, email as preferred communication tool, and computer access for adequate online learning. About 42.9% agreed on syllabus for clear class expectations, participation to show what has been learned, and energizing students for creativity.

Keywords: Class facilitation, class management, online teaching, online education, pedagogy.

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