Search results for: qualitative and quantitative methods

Authors: Şemsettin Şahin, Ahmet Oğuz Aktürk, İsmail Çelik

Abstract:

This study investigated the views of teachers, students and their parents on the FATIH (Movement of Enhancing Opportunities and Improving Technology) Project, which was put into service by the Ministry of National Education in cooperation with the Ministry of Transportation in Turkey in November 2010 for the purpose of increasing students’ success and planned to be completed within 5 years. The study group consisted of teachers employed in a pilot school in the province of Karaman in central Turkey included within the scope of the FATIH Project, students attending this school and parents whose children are students in that school. The research data were collected through forms developed by the researchers to determine the views of teachers, students and parents on the FATIH Project. The descriptive analysis method, one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. An analysis of the data revealed that a large majority of the teachers and the students believed that if computers were used to serve their set purpose, then they could make considerable contributions to education. A large majority of the parents, on the other hand, regard the use of computers in education as a great opportunity for the students. The views of the teachers, students and parents on the FATIH Project usually overlap. Most of the participants in the study pointed out that the FATIH Project was intended to use technology effectively in education. Moreover, each individual participant described their role in the FATIH Project in accordance with their relative position and stated that they could perform whatever was expected of them for the effective and efficient use and progress of the Project. The views of the participants regarding the FATIH Project vary according to the kind of the participants.

Keywords: Education, FATIH Project, technology.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1559

Authors: N. Chetty, K. Singh

Abstract:

In this work, the relationship between the melanin content in a tissue and subsequent absorption of light through that tissue was determined using a digital camera. This technique proved to be simple, cost effective, efficient and reliable. Tissue phantom samples were created using milk and soy sauce to simulate the optical properties of melanin content in human tissue. Increasing the concentration of soy sauce in the milk correlated to an increase in melanin content of an individual. Two methods were employed to measure the light transmitted through the sample. The first was direct measurement of the transmitted intensity using a conventional lux meter. The second method involved correctly calibrating an ordinary digital camera and using image analysis software to calculate the transmitted intensity through the phantom. The results from these methods were then graphically compared to the theoretical relationship between the intensity of transmitted light and the concentration of absorbers in the sample. Conclusions were then drawn about the effectiveness and efficiency of these low cost methods.

Keywords: Tissue phantoms, scattering coefficient, albedo, low-cost method.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1267

Authors: Jafar Hashemi, Reza Tabatabaekoloor, Toshinori Kimura

Abstract:

The study of interaction among the grain, moisture, and the surrounding space (air) is key to understanding the graindrying process. In Iran, rice (mostly Indica type) is dried by flat bed type dryer until the final MC reaches to 6 to 8%. The experiments were conducted to examine the effect of application of discharge fan with different heights of paddy on the drying efficiency. Experiments were designed based on two different configurations of the drying methods; with and without discharge fan with three different heights of paddy including; 5, 10, and 15 cm. The humid heated air will be going out immediately by the suction of discharge fan. The drying time is established upon the average final MC to achieve about 8%. To save energy and reduce the drying time, the distribution of temperature between layers should be fast and uniform with minimum difference; otherwise the difference of MC gradient between layers will be high and will induce grain breakage. The difference of final MC between layers in the two methods was 48-73%. The steady state of temperature between the two methods has saved time in the range of 10-20%, and the efficiency of temperature distribution increased 17-26% by the use of discharge fan.

Keywords: FBT Dryer, Final MC, Discharge Fan.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1724

Authors: Ali Gholami

Abstract:

In this research the Preparation of Land use map of scanner LISS III satellite data, belonging to the IRS in the Aghche region in Isfahan province, is studied carefully. For this purpose, the IRS satellite images of August 2008 and various land preparation uses in region including rangelands, irrigation farming, dry farming, gardens and urban areas were separated and identified. Therefore, the GPS and Erdas Imaging software were used and three methods of Maximum Likelihood, Mahalanobis Distance and Minimum Distance were analyzed. In each of these methods, matrix error and Kappa index were calculated and accuracy of each method, based on percentages: 53.13, 56.64 and 48.44, were obtained respectively. Considering the low accuracy of these methods in separation of land preparation use, the visual interpretation of the map was used. Finally, regional visits of 150 points were noted at random and no error was observed. It shows that the map prepared by visual interpretation is in high accuracy. Although the probable errors due to visual interpretation and geometric correction might happen but the desired accuracy of the map which is more than 85 percent is reliable.

Keywords: Land use map, Aghche Region, Erdas Imagine, satellite images

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1521

Authors: Nandini N., Srikanta Murthy K., G. Hemantha Kumar

Abstract:

This paper includes two novel techniques for skew estimation of binary document images. These algorithms are based on connected component analysis and Hough transform. Both these methods focus on reducing the amount of input data provided to Hough transform. In the first method, referred as word centroid approach, the centroids of selected words are used for skew detection. In the second method, referred as dilate & thin approach, the selected characters are blocked and dilated to get word blocks and later thinning is applied. The final image fed to Hough transform has the thinned coordinates of word blocks in the image. The methods have been successful in reducing the computational complexity of Hough transform based skew estimation algorithms. Promising experimental results are also provided to prove the effectiveness of the proposed methods.

Keywords: Dilation, Document processing, Hough transform, Optical Character Recognition, Skew estimation, and Thinning.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3235

Authors: Sundararajan Sangeetha, Joseph Jesu Christopher, Swaminathan Ramakrishnan

Abstract:

In this work, the primary compressive strength components of human femur trabecular bone are qualitatively assessed using image processing and wavelet analysis. The Primary Compressive (PC) component in planar radiographic femur trabecular images (N=50) is delineated by semi-automatic image processing procedure. Auto threshold binarization algorithm is employed to recognize the presence of mineralization in the digitized images. The qualitative parameters such as apparent mineralization and total area associated with the PC region are derived for normal and abnormal images.The two-dimensional discrete wavelet transforms are utilized to obtain appropriate features that quantify texture changes in medical images .The normal and abnormal samples of the human femur are comprehensively analyzed using Harr wavelet.The six statistical parameters such as mean, median, mode, standard deviation, mean absolute deviation and median absolute deviation are derived at level 4 decomposition for both approximation and horizontal wavelet coefficients. The correlation coefficient of various wavelet derived parameters with normal and abnormal for both approximated and horizontal coefficients are estimated. It is seen that in almost all cases the abnormal show higher degree of correlation than normals. Further the parameters derived from approximation coefficient show more correlation than those derived from the horizontal coefficients. The parameters mean and median computed at the output of level 4 Harr wavelet channel was found to be a useful predictor to delineate the normal and the abnormal groups.

Keywords: Image processing, planar radiographs, trabecular bone and wavelet analysis.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1458

Authors: Gurmeet Kaur, Jyoti Pruthi

Abstract:

Agile Software development approaches and techniques are being considered as efficient, effective, and popular methods to the development of software. Agile software developments are useful for developing high-quality software that completes client requirements with zero defects, and in short delivery period. In agile software development methodology, quality is related to coding, which means quality, is managed through the use of approaches like refactoring, pair programming, test-driven development, behavior-driven development, acceptance test-driven development, and demand-driven development. The quality of software is measured using metrics like the number of defects during the development and improvement of the software. Usage of the above-mentioned methods or approaches reduces the possibilities of defects in developed software, and hence improves quality. This paper focuses on the study of agile-based quality methods or approaches for software development that ensures improved quality of software as well as reduced cost, and customer satisfaction.

Keywords: Agile software development, ASD, Acceptance test-driven development, ATDD, Behavior-driven development, BDD, Demand-driven development. DDD, Test-driven development, TDD.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 611

Authors: Pathan Imran Khan, Bhandari Anil, Kumar Amit

Abstract:

The present investigation was aimed to develop methodology for the standardization of Marichyadi Vati and its raw materials. Standardization was carried using systematic Pharmacognostical and physicochemical parameters as per WHO guidelines. The detailed standardization of Marichyadi Vati, it is concluded that there are no major differences prevailed in the quality of marketed products and laboratory samples of Marichyadi Vati. However, market samples showed slightly better amount of Piperine than the laboratory sample by both methods. This is the first attempt to generate complete set of standards required for the Marichyadi Vati.

Keywords: Marichyadi Vati, Standardization, Piperine.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2383

Authors: M. Rodionov, Z. Dedovets

Abstract:

The article analyses the composition and structure of the motivationally oriented methodological system of teaching mathematics (purpose, content, methods, forms, and means of teaching), viewed through the prism of the student as the subject of the learning process. Particular attention is paid to the problem of methods of teaching mathematics, which are represented in the form of an ordered triad of attributes corresponding to the selected characteristics. A systematic analysis of possible options and their methodological interpretation enriched existing ideas about known methods and technologies of training, and significantly expanded their nomenclature by including previously unstudied combinations of characteristics. In addition, examples outlined in this article illustrate the possibilities of enhancing the motivational capacity of a particular method or technology in the real learning practice of teaching mathematics through more free goal-setting and varying the conditions of the problem situations. The authors recommend the implementation of different strategies according to their characteristics in teaching and learning mathematics in secondary schools.

Keywords: Education, methodological system, teaching of mathematics, teachers, lesson, students motivation, secondary school.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 802

Authors: N. Gopalakrishna Kini, Ranjana Paleppady, Akshata K. Naik

Abstract:

Password authentication is one of the widely used methods to achieve authentication for legal users of computers and defense against attackers. There are many different ways to authenticate users of a system and there are many password cracking methods also developed. This paper proposes how best password cracking can be performed on a CPU-GPGPU based system. The main objective of this work is to project how quickly a password can be cracked with some knowledge about the computer security and password cracking if sufficient security is not incorporated to the system.

Keywords: GPGPU, password cracking, secret key, user authentication.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2574

Authors: Manvjeet Kaur, Mukhwinder Singh, Akshay Girdhar, Parvinder S. Sandhu

Abstract:

Most fingerprint recognition techniques are based on minutiae matching and have been well studied. However, this technology still suffers from problems associated with the handling of poor quality impressions. One problem besetting fingerprint matching is distortion. Distortion changes both geometric position and orientation, and leads to difficulties in establishing a match among multiple impressions acquired from the same finger tip. Marking all the minutiae accurately as well as rejecting false minutiae is another issue still under research. Our work has combined many methods to build a minutia extractor and a minutia matcher. The combination of multiple methods comes from a wide investigation into research papers. Also some novel changes like segmentation using Morphological operations, improved thinning, false minutiae removal methods, minutia marking with special considering the triple branch counting, minutia unification by decomposing a branch into three terminations, and matching in the unified x-y coordinate system after a two-step transformation are used in the work.

Keywords: Biometrics, Minutiae, Crossing number, False Accept Rate (FAR), False Reject Rate (FRR).

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 6518

Authors: Xiaohua Liu, Juan F. Beltran, Nishant Mohanchandra, Godfried T. Toussaint

Abstract:

Support vector machines (SVMs) are considered to be the best machine learning algorithms for minimizing the predictive probability of misclassification. However, their drawback is that for large data sets the computation of the optimal decision boundary is a time consuming function of the size of the training set. Hence several methods have been proposed to speed up the SVM algorithm. Here three methods used to speed up the computation of the SVM classifiers are compared experimentally using a musical genre classification problem. The simplest method pre-selects a random sample of the data before the application of the SVM algorithm. Two additional methods use proximity graphs to pre-select data that are near the decision boundary. One uses k-Nearest Neighbor graphs and the other Relative Neighborhood Graphs to accomplish the task.

Keywords: Machine learning, data mining, support vector machines, proximity graphs, relative-neighborhood graphs, k-nearestneighbor graphs, random sampling, training data condensation.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1881

Authors: Pongthep Bunrueng

Abstract:

This action research accentuates the outcome of a development in English pronunciation, using principles of phonetics for English major students at Loei Rajabhat University. The research is split into 5 separate modules: 1) Organs of Speech and How to Produce Sounds, 2) Monopthongs, 3) Diphthongs, 4) Consonant sounds, and 5) Suprasegmental Features. Each module followed a 4 step action research process, 1) Planning, 2) Acting, 3) Observing, and 4) Reflecting. The research targeted 2nd year students who were majoring in English Education at Loei Rajabhat University during the academic year of 2011. A mixed methodology employing both quantitative and qualitative research was used, which put theory into action, taking segmental features up to suprasegmental features. Multiple tools were employed which included the following documents: pre-test and post-test papers, evaluation and assessment papers, group work assessment forms, a presentation grading form, an observation of participants form and a participant self-reflection form.

All 5 modules for the target group showed that results from the post-tests were higher than those of the pre-tests, with 0.01 statistical significance. All target groups attained results ranging from low to moderate and from moderate to high performance. The participants who attained low to moderate results had to re-sit the second round. During the first development stage, participants attended classes with group participation, in which they addressed planning through mutual co-operation and sharing of responsibility. Analytic induction of strong points for this operation illustrated that learner cognition, comprehension, application, and group practices were all present whereas the participants with weak results could be attributed to biological differences, differences in life and learning, or individual differences in responsiveness and self-discipline.

Participants who were required to be re-treated in Spiral 2 received the same treatment again. Results of tests from the 5 modules after the 2^nd treatment were that the participants attained higher scores than those attained in the pre-test. Their assessment and development stages also showed improved results. They showed greater confidence at participating in activities, produced higher quality work, and correctly followed instructions for each activity. Analytic induction of strong and weak points for this operation remains the same as for Spiral 1, though there were improvements to problems which existed prior to undertaking the second treatment.

Keywords: Action research, English pronunciation, phonetics, segmental features, suprasegmental features.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2808

Authors: Reza Dinarvand, Mahdi Sadeghian, Somaye Sadeghian

Abstract:

Prediction of the ultimate bearing capacity of piles (Qu) is one of the basic issues in geotechnical engineering. So far, several methods have been used to estimate Qu, including the recently developed artificial intelligence methods. In recent years, optimization algorithms have been used to minimize artificial network errors, such as colony algorithms, genetic algorithms, imperialist competitive algorithms, and so on. In the present research, artificial neural networks based on colonial competition algorithm (ANN-ICA) were used, and their results were compared with other methods. The results of laboratory tests of short piles in clayey soils with parameters such as pile diameter, pile buried length, eccentricity of load and undrained shear resistance of soil were used for modeling and evaluation. The results showed that ICA-based artificial neural networks predicted lateral bearing capacity of short piles with a correlation coefficient of 0.9865 for training data and 0.975 for test data. Furthermore, the results of the model indicated the superiority of ICA-based artificial neural networks compared to back-propagation artificial neural networks as well as the Broms and Hansen methods.

Keywords: Lateral bearing capacity, short pile, clayey soil, artificial neural network, Imperialist competition algorithm.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 871

Authors: Ernst D. Schmitter

Abstract:

Monitoring lightning electromagnetic pulses (sferics) and other terrestrial as well as extraterrestrial transient radiation signals is of considerable interest for practical and theoretical purposes in astro- and geophysics as well as meteorology. Managing a continuous flow of data, automation of the analysis and classification process is important. Features based on a combination of wavelet and statistical methods proved efficient for this task and serve as input into a radial basis function network that is trained to discriminate transient shapes from pulse like to wave like. We concentrate on signals in the Very Low Frequency (VLF, 3 -30 kHz) range in this paper, but the developed methods are independent of this specific choice.

Keywords: Transient signals, statistics, wavelets, neural networks

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1843

Authors: Amir Sattari

Abstract:

For newly produced houses and energy renovations, an energy calculation needs to be conducted. This is done to verify whether the energy consumption criteria of the house -to reach the energy targets by 2020 and 2050- are in-line with the norms. The main purpose of this study is to confirm whether easy to use energy calculation software or hand calculations used by small companies or individuals give logical results compared to advanced energy simulation program used by researchers or bigger companies. There are different methods for calculating energy consumption. In this paper, two energy calculation programs are used and the relation of energy consumption with solar radiation is compared. A hand calculation is also done to validate whether the hand calculations are still reasonable. The two computer programs which have been used are TMF Energi (the easy energy calculation variant used by small companies or individuals) and IDA ICE - Indoor Climate and Energy (the advanced energy simulation program used by researchers or larger companies). The calculations are done for a standard house from the Swedish house supplier Fiskarhedenvillan. The method is based on having the same conditions and inputs in the different calculation forms so that the results can be compared and verified. The house has been faced differently to see how the orientation affects energy consumption in different methods. The results for the simulations are close to each other and the hand calculation differs from the computer programs by only 5%. Even if solar factors differ due to the orientation of the house, energy calculation results from different computer programs and even hand calculation methods are in line with each other.

Keywords: Energy calculation, energy consumption, energy simulation, IDA ICE, TMF Energi.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 994

Authors: C. T. Cheung, R. K. P. Ng, T. Y. Lo, Zhou Jinyun

Abstract:

This paper aims at manipulating loop alignment in knitting a three-dimensional (3D) shape by its geometry. Two loop alignment methods are introduced to handle a surface with positive Gaussian curvature. As weft knitting is a two-dimensional (2D) knitting mechanism that the knitting cam carrying the feeders moves in two directions only, left and right, the knitted fabric generated grows in width and length but not in depth. Therefore, a 3D shape is required to be flattened to a 2D plane with surface area preserved for knitting. On this flattened plane, dimensional measurements are taken for loop alignment. The way these measurements being taken derived two different loop alignment methods. In this paper, only plain knitted structure was considered. Each knitted loop was taken as a basic unit for loop alignment in order to achieve the required geometric dimensions, without the inclusion of other stitches which give textural dimensions to the fabric. Two loop alignment methods were experimented and compared. Only one of these two can successfully preserve the dimensions of the shape.

Keywords: 3D knitting, 3D shape, loop alignment, positive Gaussian curvature.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1517

Authors: Gee-Cheol Kim, Joo-Won Kang

Abstract:

A theoretical study of the rigidities of slabs with circular voids oriented in the longitudinal and in the transverse direction is discussed. Equations are presented for predicting the bending and torsional rigidities of the voided slabs. This paper summarizes the results of an extensive literature search and initial review of the current methods of analyzing voided slab. The various methods of calculating the equivalent plate parameters, which are necessary for two-dimensional analysis, are also reviewed. Static deflections on voided slabs are shown to be in good agreement with proposed equation.

Keywords: voided slab, bending rigidity, torsional rigidity, orthotropic plate

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 3808

Authors: K. Praraththajariya

Abstract:

The main purpose of this research was to study how to communicate the identity of the Amphawa district, Samut Songkram province for sustainable tourism. The qualitative data was collected through studying related materials, exploring the area, in-depth interviews with three groups of people: three directly responsible officers who were key informants of the district, twenty foreign tourists and five Thai tourist guides. A content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The two main findings of the study were as follows: 1. The identity of the Amphawa District, Samut Songkram province is the area controlled by Amphawa sub district (submunicipality). The working unit which runs and looks after Amphawa sub district administration is known as the Amphawa mayor. This establishment was built to be a resort for normal people and tourists visiting the Amphawa district near the Maekong River consisting of rest accommodations. Along the river there is a restaurant where food and drinks are served, rich mangrove forests, a learning center, fireflies and cork trees. The Amphawa district was built to honor and commemorate King Rama II and is where the greatest number of fireflies and cork trees can be seen in Thailand from May to October each year. 2. The communication of the identity of Amphawa District, Samut Songkram Province which the researcher could find and design to present in English materials can be summed up in 5 items: 1) The history of the Amphawa District, Samut Songkram province 2) The history of King Rama II Memorial Park 3) The identity of Amphawa Floating Market 4) The Learning center of Ecosystem: Fireflies and Cork Trees 5) How to keep Amphawa District, Samut Songkram Province for sustainable tourism.

Keywords: Foreigner tourists, signified, semiotics, sustainable tourism.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1754

Authors: Oksana G. Cherednichenko, Anastasia L. Pilyugina, Sergey N.Lukashenko, Elena G. Gubitskaya

Abstract:

The estimation of accumulated radiation doses in people professionally exposed to ionizing radiation was performed using methods of biological (chromosomal aberrations frequency in lymphocytes) and physical (radionuclides analysis in urine, whole-body radiation meter, individual thermoluminescent dosimeters) dosimetry. A group of 84 "A" category employees after their work in the territory of former Semipalatinsk test site (Kazakhstan) was investigated. The dose rate in some funnels exceeds 40 μSv/h. After radionuclides determination in urine using radiochemical and WBC methods, it was shown that the total effective dose of personnel internal exposure did not exceed 0.2 mSv/year, while an acceptable dose limit for staff is 20 mSv/year. The range of external radiation doses measured with individual thermo-luminescent dosimeters was 0.3-1.406 µSv. The cytogenetic examination showed that chromosomal aberrations frequency in staff was 4.27±0.22%, which is significantly higher than at the people from non-polluting settlement Tausugur (0.87±0.1%) (р ≤ 0.01) and citizens of Almaty (1.6±0.12%) (р≤ 0.01). Chromosomal type aberrations accounted for 2.32±0.16%, 0.27±0.06% of which were dicentrics and centric rings. The cytogenetic analysis of different types group radiosensitivity among «professionals» (age, sex, ethnic group, epidemiological data) revealed no significant differences between the compared values. Using various techniques by frequency of dicentrics and centric rings, the average cumulative radiation dose for group was calculated, and that was 0.084-0.143 Gy. To perform comparative individual dosimetry using physical and biological methods of dose assessment, calibration curves (including own ones) and regression equations based on general frequency of chromosomal aberrations obtained after irradiation of blood samples by gamma-radiation with the dose rate of 0,1 Gy/min were used. Herewith, on the assumption of individual variation of chromosomal aberrations frequency (1–10%), the accumulated dose of radiation varied 0-0.3 Gy. The main problem in the interpretation of individual dosimetry results is reduced to different reaction of the objects to irradiation - radiosensitivity, which dictates the need of quantitative definition of this individual reaction and its consideration in the calculation of the received radiation dose. The entire examined contingent was assigned to a group based on the received dose and detected cytogenetic aberrations. Radiosensitive individuals, at the lowest received dose in a year, showed the highest frequency of chromosomal aberrations (5.72%). In opposite, radioresistant individuals showed the lowest frequency of chromosomal aberrations (2.8%). The cohort correlation according to the criterion of radio-sensitivity in our research was distributed as follows: radio-sensitive (26.2%) — medium radio-sensitivity (57.1%), radioresistant (16.7%). Herewith, the dispersion for radioresistant individuals is 2.3; for the group with medium radio-sensitivity — 3.3; and for radio-sensitive group — 9. These data indicate the highest variation of characteristic (reactions to radiation effect) in the group of radio-sensitive individuals. People with medium radio-sensitivity show significant long-term correlation (0.66; n=48, β ≥ 0.999) between the values of doses defined according to the results of cytogenetic analysis and dose of external radiation obtained with the help of thermoluminescent dosimeters. Mathematical models based on the type of violation of the radiation dose according to the professionals radiosensitivity level were offered.

Keywords: Biodosimetry, chromosomal aberrations, ionizing radiation, radiosensitivity.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 893

Authors: J. D. Marinaccio, I. Mabbett, C. Glover, D. Worsley

Abstract:

Through use of novel modern/rapid processing techniques such as screen printing and Near-Infrared (NIR) radiative curing, process time for the sintering of sintered nickel plaques, applicable to alkaline nickel battery chemistries, has been drastically reduced from in excess of 200 minutes with conventional convection methods to below 2 minutes using NIR curing methods. Steps have also been taken to remove the need for forming gas as a reducing agent by implementing carbon as an in-situ reducing agent, within the ink formulation.

Keywords: Batteries, energy, iron, nickel, storage.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2308

Authors: Vanda Lucia Zammuner

Abstract:

Subjective loneliness describes people who feel a disagreeable or unacceptable lack of meaningful social relationships, both at the quantitative and qualitative level. The studies to be presented tested an Italian 18-items self-report loneliness measure, that included items adapted from scales previously developed, namely a short version of the UCLA (Russell, Peplau and Cutrona, 1980), and the 11-items Loneliness scale by De Jong-Gierveld & Kamphuis (JGLS; 1985). The studies aimed at testing the developed scale and at verifying whether loneliness is better conceptualized as a unidimensional (so-called 'general loneliness') or a bidimensional construct, namely comprising the distinct facets of social and emotional loneliness. The loneliness questionnaire included 2 singleitem criterion measures of sad mood, and social contact, and asked participants to supply information on a number of socio-demographic variables. Factorial analyses of responses obtained in two preliminary studies, with 59 and 143 Italian participants respectively, showed good factor loadings and subscale reliability and confirmed that perceived loneliness has clearly two components, a social and an emotional one, the latter measured by two subscales, a 7-item 'general' loneliness subscale derived from UCLA, and a 6–item 'emotional' scale included in the JGLS. Results further showed that type and amount of loneliness are related, negatively, to frequency of social contacts, and, positively, to sad mood. In a third study data were obtained from a nation-wide sample of 9.097 Italian subjects, 12 to about 70 year-olds, who filled the test on-line, on the Italian web site of a large-audience magazine, Focus. The results again confirmed the reliability of the component subscales, namely social, emotional, and 'general' loneliness, and showed that they were highly correlated with each other, especially the latter two. Loneliness scores were significantly predicted by sex, age, education level, sad mood and social contact, and, less so, by other variables – e.g., geographical area and profession. The scale validity was confirmed by the results of a fourth study, with elderly men and women (N 105) living at home or in residential care units. The three subscales were significantly related, among others, to depression, and to various measures of the extension of, and satisfaction with, social contacts with relatives and friends. Finally, a fifth study with 315 career-starters showed that social and emotional loneliness correlate with life satisfaction, and with measures of emotional intelligence. Altogether the results showed a good validity and reliability in the tested samples of the entire scale, and of its components.

Keywords: Emotional loneliness, social loneliness, scale development and testing, life span and cultural differences.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2937

Authors: H. J. Wattimanela, U. S. Passaribu, N. T. Puspito, S. W. Indratno

Abstract:

Molluca Collision Zone is located at the junction of the Eurasian, Australian, Pacific and the Philippines plates. Between the Sangihe arc, west of the collision zone, and to the east of Halmahera arc is active collision and convex toward the Molluca Sea. This research will analyze the behavior of earthquake occurrence in Molluca Collision Zone related to the distributions of an earthquake in each partition regions, determining the type of distribution of a occurrence earthquake of partition regions, and the mean occurence of earthquakes each partition regions, and the correlation between the partitions region. We calculate number of earthquakes using partition method and its behavioral using conventional statistical methods. In this research, we used data of shallow earthquakes type and its magnitudes ≥4 SR (period 1964-2013). From the results, we can classify partitioned regions based on the correlation into two classes: strong and very strong. This classification can be used for early warning system in disaster management.

Keywords: Molluca Collision Zone, partition regions, conventional statistical methods, Earthquakes, classifications, disaster management.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1941

Authors: J. Menčík

Abstract:

Actual load, material characteristics and other quantities often differ from the design values. This can cause worse function, shorter life or failure of a civil engineering structure, a machine, vehicle or another appliance. The paper shows main causes of the uncertainties and deviations and presents a systematic approach and efficient tools for their elimination or mitigation of consequences. Emphasis is put on the design stage, which is most important for reliability ensuring. Principles of robust design and important tools are explained, including FMEA, sensitivity analysis and probabilistic simulation methods. The lifetime prediction of long-life objects can be improved by long-term monitoring of the load response and damage accumulation in operation. The condition evaluation of engineering structures, such as bridges, is often based on visual inspection and verbal description. Here, methods based on fuzzy logic can reduce the subjective influences.

Keywords: Design, fuzzy methods, Monte Carlo, reliability, robust design, sensitivity analysis, simulation, uncertainties.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1775

Authors: S. B. Kotsiantis, P. E. Pintelas

Abstract:

Bagging and boosting are among the most popular resampling ensemble methods that generate and combine a diversity of classifiers using the same learning algorithm for the base-classifiers. Boosting algorithms are considered stronger than bagging on noisefree data. However, there are strong empirical indications that bagging is much more robust than boosting in noisy settings. For this reason, in this work we built an ensemble using a voting methodology of bagging and boosting ensembles with 10 subclassifiers in each one. We performed a comparison with simple bagging and boosting ensembles with 25 sub-classifiers, as well as other well known combining methods, on standard benchmark datasets and the proposed technique was the most accurate.

Keywords: data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2507

Authors: Yu Zhao, Min Zhang, Yuanqian Wang, Qiuyu Yu

Abstract:

The prediction of aesthetics of apparel is helpful for the development of a new type of apparel. This study is to build the quantitative relationship between the aesthetics and its design parameters. In particular, women’s pants have been preliminarily studied. This aforementioned relationship has been carried out by statistical analysis. The contributions of this study include the development of a more personalized apparel design mechanism and the provision of some empirical knowledge for the development of other products in the aspect of aesthetics.

Keywords: Aesthetics, crease line, cropped straight leg pants, knee width.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 735

Authors: Osama Yusuf Ababneh

Abstract:

For the last years, the variants of the Newton-s method with cubic convergence have become popular iterative methods to find approximate solutions to the roots of non-linear equations. These methods both enjoy cubic convergence at simple roots and do not require the evaluation of second order derivatives. In this paper, we present a new Newton-s method based on contra harmonic mean with cubically convergent. Numerical examples show that the new method can compete with the classical Newton's method.

Keywords: Third-order convergence, non-linear equations, root finding, iterative method.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2918

Authors: Holger Keitel

Abstract:

The prediction of long-term deformations of concrete and reinforced concrete structures has been a field of extensive research and several different creep models have been developed so far. Most of the models were developed for constant concrete stresses, thus, in case of varying stresses a specific superposition principle or time-integration, respectively, is necessary. Nowadays, when modeling concrete creep the engineering focus is rather on the application of sophisticated time-integration methods than choosing the more appropriate creep model. For this reason, this paper presents a method to quantify the uncertainties of creep prediction originating from the selection of creep models or from the time-integration methods. By adapting variance based global sensitivity analysis, a methodology is developed to quantify the influence of creep model selection or choice of time-integration method. Applying the developed method, general recommendations how to model creep behavior for varying stresses are given.

Keywords: Concrete creep models, time-integration methods, sensitivity analysis, prediction uncertainty.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1508

Authors: Mohammad Shoyaib, M. Abdullah-Al-Wadud, Oksam Chae

Abstract:

Proteomics is one of the largest areas of research for bioinformatics and medical science. An ambitious goal of proteomics is to elucidate the structure, interactions and functions of all proteins within cells and organisms. Predicting Protein-Protein Interaction (PPI) is one of the crucial and decisive problems in current research. Genomic data offer a great opportunity and at the same time a lot of challenges for the identification of these interactions. Many methods have already been proposed in this regard. In case of in-silico identification, most of the methods require both positive and negative examples of protein interaction and the perfection of these examples are very much crucial for the final prediction accuracy. Positive examples are relatively easy to obtain from well known databases. But the generation of negative examples is not a trivial task. Current PPI identification methods generate negative examples based on some assumptions, which are likely to affect their prediction accuracy. Hence, if more reliable negative examples are used, the PPI prediction methods may achieve even more accuracy. Focusing on this issue, a graph based negative example generation method is proposed, which is simple and more accurate than the existing approaches. An interaction graph of the protein sequences is created. The basic assumption is that the longer the shortest path between two protein-sequences in the interaction graph, the less is the possibility of their interaction. A well established PPI detection algorithm is employed with our negative examples and in most cases it increases the accuracy more than 10% in comparison with the negative pair selection method in that paper.

Keywords: Interaction graph, Negative training data, Protein-Protein interaction, Support vector machine.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 1666

Authors: A. Saghaei, R. Ghasemi

Abstract:

Through 1980s, management accounting researchers described the increasing irrelevance of traditional control and performance measurement systems. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is a critical business tool for a lot of organizations. It is a performance measurement system which translates mission and strategy into objectives. Strategy map approach is a development variant of BSC in which some necessary causal relations must be established. To recognize these relations, experts usually use experience. It is also possible to utilize regression for the same purpose. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), which is one of the most powerful methods of multivariate data analysis, obtains more appropriate results than traditional methods such as regression. In the present paper, we propose SEM for the first time to identify the relations between objectives in the strategy map, and a test to measure the importance of relations. In SEM, factor analysis and test of hypotheses are done in the same analysis. SEM is known to be better than other techniques at supporting analysis and reporting. Our approach provides a framework which permits the experts to design the strategy map by applying a comprehensive and scientific method together with their experience. Therefore this scheme is a more reliable method in comparison with the previously established methods.

Keywords: BSC, SEM, Strategy map.

Procedia APA BibTeX Chicago EndNote Harvard JSON MLA RIS XML ISO 690 PDF Downloads 2667