Search results for: Cell-centered finite volume method

Authors: Ayat E. Ali, Christeen R. Aziz, Merna A. Helmy, Mohammed M. Malek, Sherif H. El-Gohary

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Goal: Purpose of the project was to make a plastic surgery prediction by using pre-operative images for the plastic surgeries’ patients and to show this prediction on a screen to compare between the current case and the appearance after the surgery. Methods: To this aim, we implemented a software which used data from the internet for facial skin diseases, skin burns, pre-and post-images for plastic surgeries then the post- surgical prediction is done by using K-nearest neighbor (KNN). So we designed and fabricated a smart mirror divided into two parts a screen and a reflective mirror so patient's pre- and post-appearance will be showed at the same time. Results: We worked on some skin diseases like vitiligo, skin burns and wrinkles. We classified the three degrees of burns using KNN classifier with accuracy 60%. We also succeeded in segmenting the area of vitiligo. Our future work will include working on more skin diseases, classify them and give a prediction for the look after the surgery. Also we will go deeper into facial deformities and plastic surgeries like nose reshaping and face slim down. Conclusion: Our project will give a prediction relates strongly to the real look after surgery and decrease different diagnoses among doctors. Significance: The mirror may have broad societal appeal as it will make the distance between patient's satisfaction and the medical standards smaller.

Keywords: K-nearest neighbor, face detection, vitiligo, bone deformity.

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Authors: A.R. Pazoki, A. H. Shirani Rad, D. Habibi, F. Paknejad, S. Kobraee, N. Hadayat

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In the other to Study of drought stress and Selenium spraying effect on superoxide dismotase (SOD) activity of rapeseed (Brassica napus L.) cultivars in Shahr-e-Rey region, an experiment carried out in Split factorial design in the basis of randomized complete blocks with 4 replications in 2006. Irrigation in two levels: Normal irrigation and irrigation with drought stress when the soil electrical conductivity reached to 60 as main factor and rapeseed cultivars in 3 levels Zarfam, Okapi, Opera and selenium spraying at the beginning of flowering stage in 3 levels: 0, 16 and 21 g/ha as sub factor. The results showed that the simple and interaction effect of irrigation, selenium and cultivars on SOD activity had significant difference. In this case Zarfam cultivar with 2010 u.mg-1 protein and Opera with 1454 u.mg-1 protein produced maximum and minimum amounts of SOD activitiy. Interaction effect of irrigation and variety showed that, normal irrigation in Opera with 1115 u.mg-1 protein and drought stress in Zarfam with 2784 u.mg-1 protein conducted to and minimum and maximum amounts of SOD activity. Interaction effect of irrigation, cultivar and selenium on SOD indicated that drought stress condition and 21 gr/ha selenium spraying in Zarfam variety with 3146 u.mg-1 protein gained to highest activities of SOD.

Keywords: Drought stress, Rapeseed, Selenium, Superoxide dismutase.

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Authors: Ayman Abd-Elhamed, Sayed Mahmoud

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The present research work investigates the seismic response of reinforced concrete (RC) frame building considering the effect of modeling masonry infill (MI) walls. The seismic behavior of a residential 6-storey RC frame building, considering and ignoring the effect of masonry, is numerically investigated using response spectrum (RS) analysis. The considered herein building is designed as a moment resisting frame (MRF) system following the Egyptian code (EC) requirements. Two developed models in terms of bare frame and infill walls frame are used in the study. Equivalent diagonal strut methodology is used to represent the behavior of infill walls, whilst the well-known software package ETABS is used for implementing all frame models and performing the analysis. The results of the numerical simulations such as base shear, displacements, and internal forces for the bare frame as well as the infill wall frame are presented in a comparative way. The results of the study indicate that the interaction between infill walls and frames significantly change the responses of buildings during earthquakes compared to the results of bare frame building model. Specifically, the seismic analysis of RC bare frame structure leads to underestimation of base shear and consequently damage or even collapse of buildings may occur under strong shakings. On the other hand, considering infill walls significantly decrease the peak floor displacements and drifts in both X and Y-directions.

Keywords: Masonry infill, bare frame, response spectrum, seismic response.

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Authors: Iau-Teh Wang, Chin-Yu Lee

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The impact force of a rockfall is mainly determined by its moving behavior and velocity, which are contingent on the rock shape, slope gradient, height, and surface roughness of the moving path. It is essential to precisely calculate the moving path of the rockfall in order to effectively minimize and prevent damages caused by the rockfall. By applying the Colorado Rockfall Simulation Program (CRSP) program as the analysis tool, this research studies the influence of three shapes of rock (spherical, cylindrical and discoidal) and surface roughness on the moving path of a single rockfall. As revealed in the analysis, in addition to the slope gradient, the geometry of the falling rock and joint roughness coefficient ( JRC ) of the slope are the main factors affecting the moving behavior of a rockfall. On a single flat slope, both the rock-s bounce height and moving velocity increase as the surface gradient increases, with a critical gradient value of 1:m = 1 . Bouncing behavior and faster moving velocity occur more easily when the rock geometry is more oval. A flat piece tends to cause sliding behavior and is easily influenced by the change of surface undulation. When JRC <1.4 the moving velocity decreases and the bounce height increases as JRC increases. If the gradient is fixed, when JRC is greater, the bounce height will be higher, while the moving velocity will experience a downward trend. Therefore, the best protecting point and facilities can be chosen if the moving paths of rockfalls are precisely estimated.

Keywords: rock shape, surface roughness, moving path.

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Authors: Sony P. Aquino, Helen F. Gavino, Victorino T. Taylan, Teresito G. Aguinaldo

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A simple mobile engine-driven pneumatic paddy collector made of locally available materials using local manufacturing technology was designed, fabricated, and tested for collecting and bagging of paddy dried on concrete pavement. The pneumatic paddy collector had the following major components: radial flat bladed type centrifugal fan, power transmission system, bagging area, frame and the conveyance system. Results showed significant differences on the collecting capacity, noise level, and fuel consumption when rotational speed of the air mover shaft was varied. Other parameters such as collecting efficiency, air velocity, augmented cracked grain percentage, and germination rate were not significantly affected by varying rotational speed of the air mover shaft. The pneumatic paddy collector had a collecting efficiency of 99.33 % with a collecting capacity of 2685.00 kg/h at maximum rotational speed of centrifugal fan shaft of about 4200 rpm. The machine entailed an investment cost of P 62,829.25. The break-even weight of paddy was 510,606.75 kg/yr at a collecting cost of 0.11 P/kg of paddy. Utilizing the machine for 400 hours per year generated an income of P 23,887.73. The projected time needed to recover cost of the machine based on 2685 kg/h collecting capacity was 2.63 year.

Keywords: Mobile engine-driven pneumatic paddy collector, collecting capacity and efficiency, simple cost analysis.

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Authors: Kwok W. Mui, Ling T. Wong, F. Xiao, Chin T. Cheung, Ho C. Yu

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This study addresses a concept of the Sustainable Building Environmental Model (SBEM) developed to optimize energy consumption in air conditioning and ventilation (ACV) systems without any deterioration of indoor environmental quality (IEQ). The SBEM incorporates two main components: an adaptive comfort temperature control module (ACT) and a new carbon dioxide demand control module (nDCV). These two modules take an innovative approach to maintain satisfaction of the Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) with optimum energy consumption; they provide a rational basis of effective control. A total of 2133 sets of measurement data of indoor air temperature (Ta), relative humidity (Rh) and carbon dioxide concentration (CO2) were conducted in some Hong Kong offices to investigate the potential of integrating the SBEM. A simulation was used to evaluate the dynamic performance of the energy and air conditioning system with the integration of the SBEM in an air-conditioned building. It allows us make a clear picture of the control strategies and performed any pre-tuned of controllers before utilized in real systems. With the integration of SBEM, it was able to save up to 12.3% in simulation of overall electricity consumption, and maintain the average carbon dioxide concentration within 1000ppm and occupant dissatisfaction in 20%. 

Keywords: —Sustainable building environmental model (SBEM), adaptive comfort temperature (ACT), new demand control ventilation (nDCV), energy saving.

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Authors: P. Pečlin, J. Rozman

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In this paper we present the modeling, design, and experimental testing of a nerve cuff multi-electrode system for diameter-selective vagus nerve stimulation. The multi-electrode system contained ninety-nine platinum electrodes embedded within a self-curling spiral silicone sheet. The electrodes were organized in a matrix having nine parallel groups, each containing eleven electrodes. Preliminary testing of the nerve cuff was performed in an isolated segment of a swinish left cervical vagus nerve. For selective vagus nerve stimulation, precisely defined current quasitrapezoidal, asymmetric and biphasic stimulating pulses were applied to preselected locations along the left vagus segment via appointed group of three electrodes within the cuff. Selective stimulation was obtained by anodal block. However, these pulses may not be safe for a long-term application because of a frequently used high imbalance between the cathodic and anodic part of the stimulating pulse. Preliminary results show that the cuff was capable of exciting A and B-fibres, and, that for a certain range of parameters used in stimulating pulses, the contribution of A-fibres to the CAP was slightly reduced and the contribution of B-fibres was slightly larger. Results also showed that measured CAPs are not greatly influenced by the imbalance between a charge Qc injected in cathodic and Qa in anodic phase of quasitrapezoidal, asymmetric and biphasic pulses.

Keywords: Vagus nerve stimulation, multi-electrode nerve cuff.

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Authors: Su Ying-Ming

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High density of high rise buildings in urban areas lead to a deteriorative Urban Heat Island Effect, gradually. This study focuses on discussing the relationship between urban layout and ventilation comfort in street canyons. This study takes Songjiang Nanjing Rd. area of Taipei, Taiwan as an example to evaluate the wind environment comfort index by field measurement and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to improve both the quality and quantity of the environment. In this study, different factors including street blocks size, the width of buildings, street width ratio and the direction of the wind were used to discuss the potential of ventilation. The environmental wind field was measured by the environmental testing equipment, Testo 480. Evaluation of blocks sizes, the width of buildings, street width ratio and the direction of the wind was made under the condition of constant floor area with the help of Stimulation CFD to adjust research methods for optimizing regional wind environment. The results of this study showed the width of buildings influences the efficiency of outdoor ventilation; improvement of the efficiency of ventilation with large street width was also shown. The study found that Block width and H/D value and PR value has a close relationship. Furthermore, this study showed a significant relationship between the alteration of street block geometry and outdoor comfortableness.

Keywords: Urban ventilation path, ventilation efficiency indices, CFD, building layout.

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Authors: G. La Scalia, M. Enea, R. Micale, O. Corona, L. Settanni

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The quality and condition of perishable products delivered to the market and their subsequent selling prices are directly affected by the care taken during harvesting and handling. Mechanical injury, in fact, occurs at all stages, from pre-harvest operations through post-harvest handling, packing and transport to the market. The main implications of this damage are the reduction of the product’s quality and economical losses related to the shelf life diminution. For most perishable products, the shelf life is relatively short and it is typically dictated by microbial growth related to the application of dynamic and static loads during transportation. This paper presents the correlation between vibration levels and microbiological growth on strawberries and woodland strawberries and detects the presence of volatile organic compounds (VOC) in order to develop an intelligent logistic unit capable of monitoring VOCs using a specific sensor system. Fresh fruits were exposed to vibrations by means of a vibrating table in a temperature-controlled environment. Microbiological analyses were conducted on samples, taken at different positions along the column of the crates. The values obtained were compared with control samples not exposed to vibrations and the results show that different positions along the column influence the development of bacteria, yeasts and filamentous fungi.

Keywords: Microbiological analysis, shelf life, transport damage, volatile organic compounds.

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Authors: Shirin Shafaei, James R. Bolton, Mohamed Gamal El Din

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Ultraviolet (UV) disinfection causes damage to the DNA or RNA of microorganisms, but many microorganisms can repair this damage after exposure to near-UV or visible wavelengths (310–480 nm) by a mechanism called photoreactivation. Photoreactivation is gaining more attention because it can reduce the efficiency of UV disinfection of wastewater several hours after treatment. The focus of many photoreactivation research activities on the single species has caused a considerable lack in knowledge about complex natural communities of microorganisms and their response to UV treatment. In this research, photoreactivation experiments were carried out on the influent of the UV disinfection unit at a municipal wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in Edmonton, Alberta after exposure to a Medium-Pressure (MP) UV lamp system to evaluate the effect of environmental factors on photoreactivation of microorganisms in the actual municipal wastewater. The effect of reactivation fluence, temperature, and river water on photoreactivation of total coliforms was examined under indoor conditions. The results showed that higher effective reactivation fluence values (up to 20 J/cm²) and higher temperatures (up to 25 °C) increased the photoreactivation of total coliforms. However, increasing the percentage of river in the mixtures of the effluent and river water decreased the photoreactivation of the mixtures. The results of this research can help the municipal wastewater treatment industry to examine the environmental effects of discharging their effluents into receiving waters.

Keywords: Photoreactivation, reactivation fluence, river water, temperature, ultraviolet disinfection, wastewater effluent.

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Authors: Seokbeen Lim, Gilwon Yoon

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The readiness potential in brain waves is a brain activity related with an intention whose potential arises even before its conscious intention. This study was carried out in order to understand the generation and mechanism of the readiness potential more. The experiment with two subjects was conducted in two ways following the Oddball task protocol. Firstly, auditory stimuli were randomly presented to the subjects. The subject was allowed to press the keyboard with the right index finger only when the subject heard the target stimulus but not the standard stimulus. Secondly, unlike the first one, the auditory stimuli were randomly presented, and the subjects pressed the keyboard in the same manner, but at the same time with grasping action of the left hand. The readiness potential showed up for both of these experiments. In the first Oddball experiment, the readiness potential was detected only when the target stimulus was presented. However, in the second Oddball experiment with the left hand action of grasping something, the readiness potential was detected at the presentation of for both standard and target stimuli. However, detected readiness potentials with the target stimuli were larger than those of the standard stimuli. We found an interesting phenomenon that the readiness potential was able to be detected even the standard stimulus. This indicates that motor-related readiness potentials can be generated only by the intention to move. These results present a new perspective in psychology and brain engineering since subconscious brain action may be prior to conscious recognition of the intention.

Keywords: Readiness potential, auditory stimuli, event-related potential, electroencephalography, oddball task.

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Authors: Sophia Hayes, Kenny L. Liang, Sahil Sharma, Austin Shema, Mahmoud Bader, Mohamed Elbarkouky

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Despite being one of the most significant economic contributors of the country, Canada’s construction industry is lagging behind other sectors when it comes to labor productivity improvements. The construction industry is very collaborative as a general contractor, will hire trade contractors to perform most of a project’s work; meaning low productivity from one contractor can have a domino effect on the shared success of a project. To address this issue and encourage trade contractors to improve their productivity tracking methods, an investigative study was done on the productivity views and tracking methods of various trade contractors. Additionally, an in-depth review was done on four standard tracking methods used in the construction industry: cost codes, benchmarking, the job productivity measurement (JPM) standard, and WorkFace Planning (WFP). The four tracking methods were used as a baseline in comparing the trade contractors’ responses, determining gaps within their current tracking methods, and for making improvement recommendations. 15 interviews were conducted with different trades to analyze how contractors value productivity. The results of these analyses indicated that there seem to be gaps within the construction industry when it comes to an understanding of the purpose and value in productivity tracking. The trade contractors also shared their current productivity tracking systems; which were then compared to the four standard tracking methods used in the construction industry. Gaps were identified in their various tracking methods and using a framework; recommendations were made based on the type of trade on how to improve how they track productivity.

Keywords: Trade contractors’ productivity, productivity tracking, cost codes, benchmarking, job productivity measurement, JPM, workface planning WFP.

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Authors: Arshad Javaid, Syeda F. Naqvi

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Macrophomina phaseolina is a devastating soil-borne fungal plant pathogen that causes charcoal rot disease in many economically important crops worldwide. So far, no registered fungicide is available against this plant pathogen. This study was planned to examine the antifungal activity of an allelopathic grass Cenchrus pennisetiformis (Hochst. & Steud.) Wipff. for the management of M. phaseolina isolated from cowpea [Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp.] plants suffering from charcoal rot disease. Different parts of the plants viz. inflorescence, shoot and root were extracted in methanol. Laboratory bioassays were carried out using different concentrations (0, 0.5, 1.0, …, 3.0 g mL-1) of methanolic extracts of the test allelopathic grass species to assess the antifungal activity against the pathogen. In general, extracts of all parts of the grass exhibited antifungal activity. All the concentrations of methanolic extracts of shoot and root significantly reduced fungal biomass by 20–73% and 40–80%, respectively. Methanolic shoot extract was fractionated using n-hexane, chloroform, ethyl acetate and n-butanol. Different concentrations of these fractions (3.125, 6.25, …, 200 mg mL-1) were analyzed for their antifungal activity. All the concentrations of n-hexane fraction significantly reduced fungal biomass by 15–96% over corresponding control treatments. Higher concentrations (12.5–200 mg mL-1) of chloroform, ethyl acetate and n-butanol also reduced the fungal biomass significantly by 29–100%, 46–100% and 24–100%, respectively.

Keywords: Antifungal activity, Cenchrus pennisetiformis, Macrophomina phaseolina, natural fungicides

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Authors: Jong-Moon Chung, Hyung-Weon Cho, Ki-Yong Jin, Min-Hee Cho

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In this paper, we present an analytical framework for the evaluation of the uplink performance of multihop cellular networks based on dynamic time division duplex (TDD). New wireless broadband protocols, such as WiMAX, WiBro, and 3G-LTE apply TDD, and mobile communication protocols under standardization (e.g., IEEE802.16j) are investigating mobile multihop relay (MMR) as a future technology. In this paper a novel MMR TDD scheme is presented, where the dynamic range of the frame is shared to traffic resources of asymmetric nature and multihop relaying. The mobile communication channel interference model comprises of inner and co-channel interference (CCI). The performance analysis focuses on the uplink due to the fact that the effects of dynamic resource allocation show significant performance degradation only in the uplink compared to time division multiple access (TDMA) schemes due to CCI [1-3], where the downlink results to be the same or better.The analysis was based on the signal to interference power ratio (SIR) outage probability of dynamic TDD (D-TDD) and TDMA systems,which are the most widespread mobile communication multi-user control techniques. This paper presents the uplink SIR outage probability with multihop results and shows that the dynamic TDD scheme applying MMR can provide a performance improvement compared to single hop applications if executed properly.

Keywords: Co-Channel Interference, Dynamic TDD, MobileMultihop Reply, Cellular Network, Time Division Multiple Access.

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Authors: Robin Lok-Wang

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate how engineering students’ motivation and interests are maintained through a project-based course in their lifelong learning journeys. In recent years, different pedagogies of teaching including entrepreneurship, experiential and lifelong learnings as well as dream builder, etc., have been widely used for education purpose. University advocates hands-on practice, learning by experiencing and experimenting throughout different courses. Students are not limited to gain knowledge via traditional lectures, laboratory demonstration, tutorial and so on. The capabilities to identify both complex problems and its corresponding solutions in daily lives are one of the criteria/skill sets required for graduates to obtain their careers at professional organizations and companies. A project-based course, namely Mechatronic Design and Prototyping, was developed for students to design and build a physical prototype for solving existing problems in their daily lives, thereby encouraging them as an entrepreneur to explore further possibilities to commercialize their designed prototypes and launch it to the market. Feedbacks from students show that they are keen to propose their own ideas freely with guidance from instructor instead of using either suggested or assigned topics. Proposed ideas of the prototypes reflect that if students’ interests are maintained, they acquire the knowledges and skills they need, including essential communication, logical thinking and more importantly problem solving for their lifelong learning journey.

Keywords: Problem solving, lifelong learning, entrepreneurship, mechanical engineering.

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Authors: Revaz Chigladze

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The purpose of the research is to investigate the surfaces of Jupiter's Galilean moons (satellites), namely to identify which moon has the most uniform surface among them, what is the difference between the front (in the direction of motion) and the back sides of each moon's surface, as well as the temporal variations of the moons. Since 1981, the E. Kharadze Georgian National Astrophysical Observatory has been conducting polarimetric (P) and photometric (M) observations of Jupiter's Galilean moons with telescopes of different diameters (40-cm and 125-cm), as well as polarimeter Automatic Scanning Electron Polarimeter (ASEP)-78, the latest generation photometer with polarimeter and modern light receiver Santana Barbara Instrument Group (SBIG). As it turns out from the analysis of the observed material, parameters P and M depend on: α, the phase angle of the moon (satellite); L, the orbital latitude of the moon (satellite); λ, the wavelength, and t, the period of observation, i.e., P = P (α, L, λ, t), and similarly: M = M (α, L, λ, t). Based on the analysis of the obtained results, we get: The magnitude of the degree of polarization of Jupiter's Galilean moons near the opposition significantly differs from zero. Europa appears to have the most uniform surface, and Callisto has the least. Time variations are most characteristic of Io, which confirms the presence of volcanic activity on its surface. Based on the observed materials, it can be seen that the intensity of light reflected from the front hemisphere of the first three moons: Io, Europa, and Ganymede, is less than the intensity of light reflected from the rear hemisphere, while the picture with Callisto is opposite. The paper provides an explanation of this fact.

Keywords: Galilean moons, polarization, degree of polarization, photometry, front and rear hemispheres.

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Authors: Reza Meimandi Parizi, Abdul Azim Abdul Ghani

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The ever-growing usage of aspect-oriented development methodology in the field of software engineering requires tool support for both research environments and industry. So far, tool support for many activities in aspect-oriented software development has been proposed, to automate and facilitate their development. For instance, the AJaTS provides a transformation system to support aspect-oriented development and refactoring. In particular, it is well established that the abstract interpretation of programs, in any paradigm, pursued in static analysis is best served by a high-level programs representation, such as Control Flow Graph (CFG). This is why such analysis can more easily locate common programmatic idioms for which helpful transformation are already known as well as, association between the input program and intermediate representation can be more closely maintained. However, although the current researches define the good concepts and foundations, to some extent, for control flow analysis of aspectoriented programs but they do not provide a concrete tool that can solely construct the CFG of these programs. Furthermore, most of these works focus on addressing the other issues regarding Aspect- Oriented Software Development (AOSD) such as testing or data flow analysis rather than CFG itself. Therefore, this study is dedicated to build an aspect-oriented control flow graph construction tool called AJcFgraph Builder. The given tool can be applied in many software engineering tasks in the context of AOSD such as, software testing, software metrics, and so forth.

Keywords: Aspect-Oriented Software Development, AspectJ, Control Flow Graph, Data Flow Analysis

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Authors: Botshelo R. Sebola

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Unintended pregnancy often results in pregnancy termination. Most countries have legalised the termination of a pregnancy and pregnant adolescents can visit designated clinics without their parents’ consent. In most African and Asian countries, certain cultural practices are performed following any form of childbirth, including abortion, and such practices are ingrained in societies. The aim of this paper was to understand how women who terminated a pregnancy during adolescence coped by embracing cultural practices. A descriptive multiple case study design was adopted for the study. In-depth, semi-structured interviews and reflective diaries were used for data collection. Participants were 13 women aged 20 to 35 years who had terminated a pregnancy in adolescence. Three women kept their soiled sanitary pads, burned them to ash and waited for the rainy season to scatter the ash in a flowing stream. This ritual was performed to appease the ancestors, ask them for forgiveness and as a send-off for the aborted foetus. Five women secretly consulted Sangoma (traditional healers) to perform certain rituals. Three women isolated themselves to perform herbal cleansings, and the last two chose not to engage in any sexual activity for one year, which led to the loss of their partners. This study offers a unique contribution to understanding the solitary journey of women who terminate a pregnancy. The study challenges healthcare professionals who work in clinics that offer pregnancy termination services to look beyond releasing the foetus to advocating and providing women with the necessary care and support in performing cultural practices.

Keywords: Adolescence, case study, cultural rituals, pregnancy.

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Authors: Ali Fadhil Naser, Wang Zonglin

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The main objectives of this study are to inspect and identify any damage of jaimusi highway prestressed concrete bridge after repair and strengthening of damaged structural members and to evaluate the performance of the bridge structural members by adopting static load test. Inspection program after repair and strengthening includes identifying and evaluating the structural members of bridge such as T-shape cantilever structure, hanging beams, corbels, external tendons, anchor beams, sticking steel plate, and piers. The results of inspection show that the overall state of the bridge structural member after repair and strengthening is good. The results of rebound test of concrete strength show that the average strength of concrete is 46.31Mpa. Whereas, the average value of concrete strength of anchor beam is 49.82Mpa. According to the results of static load test, the experimental values are less than theoretical values of internal forces, deflection, and strain, indicating that the stiffness of the experimental structure, overall deformation and integrity satisfy the designed standard and the working performance is good, and the undertaking capacity has a certain surplus. There is not visible change in the length and width of cracks and there are not new cracks under experimental load.

Keywords: Jiamusi Bridge, Damage inspection, deflection, strain.

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Authors: Almutasim Billa A. Alanazi, Hal S. Tharp

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Safe performance and efficient energy consumption are essential factors for designing a control system. This paper presents a reinforcement learning (RL) model that can be applied to control applications to improve safety and reduce energy consumption. As hardware constraints and environmental disturbances are imprecise and unpredictable, conventional control methods may not always be effective in optimizing control designs. However, RL has demonstrated its value in several artificial intelligence (AI) applications, especially in the field of control systems. The proposed model intelligently monitors a system's success by observing the rewards from the environment, with positive rewards counting as a success when the controlled reference is within the desired operating zone. Thus, the model can determine whether the system is safe to continue operating based on the designer/user specifications, which can be adjusted as needed. Additionally, the controller keeps track of energy consumption to improve energy efficiency by enabling the idle mode when the controlled reference is within the desired operating zone, thus reducing the system energy consumption during the controlling operation. Water temperature control for a hydroponic system is taken as a case study for the RL model, adjusting the variance of disturbances to show the model’s robustness and efficiency. On average, the model showed safety improvement by up to 15% and energy efficiency improvements by 35%-40% compared to a traditional RL model.

Keywords: Control system, hydroponics, machine learning, reinforcement learning.

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Authors: Nattapong Techarattanased

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The purposes of this research are to make comparisons in respect of the behaviors on the use of the services of metered taxi classified by the demographic factor and to study the influence of the recognition on service quality having the effect on usage behaviors of metered taxi services of consumers in Bangkok Metropolitan Areas. The samples used in this research were 400 metered taxi service users in Bangkok Metropolitan Areas and questionnaire was used as the tool for collecting the data. Analysis statistics are mean and multiple regression analysis. Results of the research revealed that the consumers recognize the overall quality of services in each aspect include tangible aspects of the service, responses to customers, assurance on the confidence, understanding and knowing of customers which is rated at the moderate level except the aspect of the assurance on the confidence and trustworthiness which are rated at a high level. For the result of hypothetical test, it is found that the quality in providing the services on the aspect of the assurance given to the customers has the effect on the usage behaviors of metered taxi services and the aspect of the frequency on the use of the services per month which in this connection. Such variable can forecast at one point nine percent (1.9%). In addition, quality in providing the services and the aspect of the responses to customers have the effect on the behaviors on the use of metered taxi services on the aspect of the expenses on the use of services per month which in this connection, such variable can forecast at two point one percent (2.1%).

Keywords: Consumer behavior, metered taxi, satisfaction, service quality.

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Authors: Martin Leroux, Sylvain Brisebois

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Eating a meal is among the Activities of Daily Living, but it takes a lot of time and effort for people with physical or functional limitations. Dedicated technologies are cumbersome and not portable, while general-purpose assistive robots such as wheelchair-based manipulators are too hard to control for elaborate continuous motion like eating. Eating with such devices has not previously been automated, since there existed no description of a feeding motion for uncontrolled environments. In this paper, we introduce a feeding mode for assistive manipulators, including a mathematical description of trajectories for motions that are difficult to perform manually such as gathering and scooping food at a defined/desired pace. We implement these trajectories in a sequence of movements for a semi-automated feeding mode which can be controlled with a very simple 3-button interface, allowing the user to have control over the feeding pace. Finally, we demonstrate the feeding mode with a JACO robotic arm and compare the eating speed, measured in bites per minute of three eating methods: a healthy person eating unaided, a person with upper limb limitations or disability using JACO with manual control, and a person with limitations using JACO with the feeding mode. We found that the feeding mode allows eating about 5 bites per minute, which should be sufficient to eat a meal under 30min.

Keywords: Assistive robotics, Automated feeding, Elderly care, Trajectory design, Human-Robot Interaction.

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Authors: Sandor Levai, Valentin Juhasz, Miklos Gasz

Abstract:

Rising damp is an extremely complex phenomenon that is of great practical interest to the field of building conservation due to the irreversible damages it can make to old and historic structures. The electrical effects occurring in damp masonry have been scarcely researched and are a largely unknown aspect of rising damp. Present paper describes the typical electrical patterns occurring in porous brickwork during a wetting and drying cycle. It has been found that in contrast with dry masonry, where electrical phenomena are virtually non-existent, damp masonry exhibits a wide array of electrical effects. Long-term real-time measurements performed in the lab on small-scale brick structures, using an array of embedded micro-sensors, revealed significant voltage, current, capacitance and resistance variations which can be linked to the movement of moisture inside porous materials. The same measurements performed on actual old buildings revealed a similar behaviour, the electrical effects being more significant in areas of the brickwork affected by rising damp. Understanding these electrical phenomena contributes to a better understanding of the driving mechanisms of rising damp, potentially opening new avenues of dealing with it in a less invasive manner.

Keywords: Brick masonry, electrical phenomena in damp brickwork, porous building materials, rising damp, spontaneous electrical potential, wetting-drying cycle.

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Authors: Yamini Raju, Parminder S. Kang, Adam Moroz, Ross Clement, Ashley Hopwell, Alistair Duffy

Abstract:

Accurate forecasting of fresh produce demand is one the challenges faced by Small Medium Enterprise (SME) wholesalers. This paper is an attempt to understand the cause for the high level of variability such as weather, holidays etc., in demand of SME wholesalers. Therefore, understanding the significance of unidentified factors may improve the forecasting accuracy. This paper presents the current literature on the factors used to predict demand and the existing forecasting techniques of short shelf life products. It then investigates a variety of internal and external possible factors, some of which is not used by other researchers in the demand prediction process. The results presented in this paper are further analysed using a number of techniques to minimize noise in the data. For the analysis past sales data (January 2009 to May 2014) from a UK based SME wholesaler is used and the results presented are limited to product ‘Milk’ focused on café’s in derby. The correlation analysis is done to check the dependencies of variability factor on the actual demand. Further PCA analysis is done to understand the significance of factors identified using correlation. The PCA results suggest that the cloud cover, weather summary and temperature are the most significant factors that can be used in forecasting the demand. The correlation of the above three factors increased relative to monthly and becomes more stable compared to the weekly and daily demand.

Keywords: Demand Forecasting, Deteriorating Products, Food Wholesalers, Principal Component Analysis and Variability Factors.

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Authors: M. Pisol B Mat Isa, Asmak Ab Rahman, Hezlina Bt M Hashim, Abd Mutalib B Embong

Abstract:

Al-Murabahah is an Islamic financing facility used in asset financing, the profit rate of the contract is determined by components which are also being used in the conventional banking. Such are cost of fund, overhead cost, risk premium cost and bank-s profit margin. At the same time, the profit rate determined by Islamic banking system also refers to Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) in London as a benchmark. This practice has risen arguments among Muslim scholars in term of its validity of the contract; whether the contract maintains the Shariah compliance or not. This paper aims to explore the view of Shariah towards the above components practiced by Islamic Banking in determining the profit rate of al-murabahah asset financing in Malaysia. This is a comparative research which applied the views of Muslim scholars from all major mazahibs in Islamic jurisprudence and examined the practices by Islamic banks in Malaysia for the above components. The study found that the shariah accepts all the components with conditions. The cost of fund is accepted as a portion of al-mudarabah-s profit, the overhead cost is accepted as a cost of product, risk premium cost consist of business risk and mitigation risk are accepted through the concept of alta-awun and bank-s profit margin is accepted as a right of bank after venturing in risky investment.

Keywords: Islamic banking, Islamic finance, al-murabahah and asset financing

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Authors: R. Hocine, K. Belkacemi, A. Boukortt, A. Boudjemai

Abstract:

When designing satellites, one of the major issues aside for designing its primary subsystems is to devise its thermal. The thermal management of satellites requires solving different sets of issues with regards to modelling. If the satellite is well conditioned all other parts of the satellite will have higher temperature no matter what. The main issue of thermal modelling for satellite design is really making sure that all the other points of the satellite will be within the temperature limits they are designed. The insertion of power electronics in aerospace technologies is becoming widespread and the modern electronic systems used in space must be reliable and efficient with thermal management unaffected by outer space constraints. Many advanced thermal management techniques have been developed in recent years that have application in high power electronic systems. This paper presents a Three-Dimensional Modal Transmission Line Matrix (3D-TLM) implementation of transient heat flow in space power electronics. In such kind of components heat dissipation and good thermal management are essential. Simulation provides the cheapest tool to investigate all aspects of power handling. The 3DTLM has been successful in modeling heat diffusion problems and has proven to be efficient in terms of stability and complex geometry. The results show a three-dimensional visualisation of self-heating phenomena in the device affected by outer space constraints, and will presents possible approaches for increasing the heat dissipation capability of the power modules.

Keywords: Thermal management, conduction, heat dissipation, CTE, ceramic, heat spreader, nodes, 3D-TLM.

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Authors: Nahla H. Alaswadko, Rayya A. Hassan, Bayar N. Mohammed

Abstract:

Empirical deterministic models have been developed to predict roughness progression of heavy duty spray sealed pavements for a dataset representing rural arterial roads. The dataset provides a good representation of the relevant network and covers a wide range of operating and environmental conditions. A sample with a large size of historical time series data for many pavement sections has been collected and prepared for use in multilevel regression analysis. The modelling parameters include road roughness as performance parameter and traffic loading, time, initial pavement strength, reactivity level of subgrade soil, climate condition, and condition of drainage system as predictor parameters. The purpose of this paper is to report the approaches adopted for models development and validation. The study presents multilevel models that can account for the correlation among time series data of the same section and to capture the effect of unobserved variables. Study results show that the models fit the data very well. The contribution and significance of relevant influencing factors in predicting roughness progression are presented and explained. The paper concludes that the analysis approach used for developing the models confirmed their accuracy and reliability by well-fitting to the validation data.

Keywords: Roughness progression, empirical model, pavement performance, heavy duty pavement.

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Authors: R. N. Begum, Ambalika Sharma, G. K. Singh

Abstract:

Identity theft has serious ramifications beyond data and personal information loss. This necessitates the implementation of robust and efficient user identification systems. Therefore, automatic biometric recognition systems are the need of the hour, and electrocardiogram (ECG)-based systems are unquestionably the best choice due to their appealing inherent characteristics. The Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) are the recent state-of-the-art techniques for ECG-based user identification systems. However, the results obtained are significantly below standards, and the situation worsens as the number of users and types of heartbeats in the dataset grows. As a result, this study proposes a highly accurate and resilient ECG-based person identification system using CNN's dense learning framework. The proposed research explores explicitly the caliber of dense CNNs in the field of ECG-based human recognition. The study tests four different configurations of dense CNN which are trained on a dataset of recordings collected from eight popular ECG databases. With the highest False Acceptance Rate (FAR)  of 0.04% and the highest False Rejection Rate (FRR)  of 5%, the best performing network achieved an identification accuracy of 99.94%. The best network is also tested with various train/test split ratios. The findings show that DenseNets are not only extremely reliable, but also highly efficient. Thus, they might also be implemented in real-time ECG-based human recognition systems.

Keywords: Biometrics, dense networks, identification rate, train/test split ratio.

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Authors: Mohammad Hossein Hojjati , Fardin Boustani

Abstract:

Groundwater is one of the most important water resources in Fars province. Based on this study, 95 percent of the total annual water consumption in Fars is used for agriculture, whereas the percentages for domestic and industrial uses are 4 and 1 percent, respectively. Population growth, urban and industrial growth, and agricultural development in Fars have created a condition of water stress. In this province, farmers and other users are pumping groundwater faster than its natural replenishment rate, causing a continuous drop in groundwater tables and depletion of this resource. In this research variation of groundwater level , their effects and ways to help control groundwater levels in some plains of Fars were evaluated .Excessive exploitation of groundwater in Darab, Jahrom, Estahban, Arsanjan, Khir and Niriz plains of Fars caused the groundwater levels fall too fast or to unacceptable levels. The average drawdown of the water table in Arsanjan, Khir. Estahban and Niriz plain plains were 12,8, 9 and 6 meters during 16,11,11 and 13 years ago respectively. This not only reduces available water resources and well yields but also can saline water intrusion, reductions in river flow and in wetland areas , drying springs, and ground subsidence, considerable increase in pumping costs and a significant decline in crop yields as a result of the increasing salinity. Finally based on situation and condition of the aquifer some suggestions are recommended.

Keywords: Fars province , ground water overdraft , water table

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Authors: Sheng Teng Huang, Shigeru Yoshida

Abstract:

Strategic alliances generally mean the cooperation or collaboration between firms which pursue for a synergy that each member hopes the benefits from the alliances would be much more than those from individual efforts. Past researches provide us sufficient theories and considerations for alliance forming in liner shipping market. This research reviews important academic journals for the past decade regarding to the most important reasons to form the alliances. We would explain the motive of alliances and details of shipping cooperation in literature review. The paper also empirically investigates the key service quality requirements improved through alliances by using quality function deployment (QFD). Moreover, the research investigates famous shipping reports, shipping consultant websites and most recent shipping publications to find out the executive-s viewpoint of several leading carriers among top 20 to assess current shipping strategic alliance on Asia/Europe route. These comments provide meaningful managerial reasons to consider alliance formations and search if there is any gap between the theories and industrial practice. Analysis of the empirical investigation and top management-s perspective on current market situation will contribute us some meaningful managerial suggestions to evaluate these theories applied to current strategic alliances.

Keywords: Liner shipping, Strategic alliances, quality function deployment, service quality.

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