Abstract: Tablet computers and Multifunctional Hardcopy Devices (MHDs) are common devices in daily life. Though, many scientific studies have not been published. The tablet computers are straightforward to use whereas the MHDs are comparatively difficult to use. Thus, to assist different levels of users, we propose combining these two devices to achieve straightforward intelligent user interface (UI) and versatile What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) document management and production. Our approach to this issue is to design an intelligent user dependent UI for a MHD applying a tablet computer. Furthermore, we propose hardware interconnection and versatile intelligent software between these two devices. In this study, we first provide a state-of-the-art survey on MHDs and tablet computers, and their interconnections. Secondly we provide a comparative UI survey on two state-of-the-art MHDs with a proposal of a novel UI for the MHDs using Jakob Nielsen-s Ten Usability Heuristics Evaluation.
Abstract: The adoption of building information modeling (BIM)
is increasing in the construction industry. However, quantity
surveyors are slow in adoption compared to other professions due to
lack of awareness of the BIM’s potential in their profession. It is still
unclear on how BIM application can enhance quantity surveyors’
work performance and project performance. The aim of this research
is to identify the capabilities of BIM in quantity surveying practices
and examine the relationship between BIM capabilities and project
performance. Questionnaire survey and interviews were adopted for
data collection. Literature reviews identified there are eleven BIM
capabilities in quantity surveying practice. Questionnaire results
showed that there are several BIM capabilities significantly
correlated with project performance in time, cost and quality aspects
and the results were validated through interviews. These findings
show that BIM has the capabilities to enhance quantity surveyors’
performances and subsequently improved project performance.
Abstract: Knowledge management is a critical component of
competitive success in service organizations. Knowledge
management centers on creating new knowledge and utilizing
existing knowledge. While utilizing existing knowledge relates to
input and control and can lead to a reduction in costs; creating new
knowledge relates to output and growth and can lead to an increase in
revenue. Therefore managers must ensure that they can successfully
optimize the knowledge and talent in their organizations. To do this
they and must try to develop an environment that promotes the
generation, acquisition, transfer and use of valuable knowledge in
creative ways. However knowledge management is complex and
diverse. Research suggests that organizations in general and SMEs in
particular are finding it difficult to implement successful knowledge
management initiatives. Our research attempts to understand whether
organizations are adopting best practice initiatives in their
organizations. This paper presents findings from an exploratory study
of 139 SMEs operating in the tourism sector across Europe. The
goals of the survey is to assess the level of awareness of knowledge
and talent management strategies and methodologies and to
determine whether the responding companies implement best practice
knowledge management initiatives in their organizations Analysis of
the findings from the study are presented and discussed.
Abstract: The temperature distribution and the heat transfer
rates through a multi-layer door of a furnace were investigated. The
inside of the door was in contact with hot air and the other side of the
door was in contact with room air. Radiation heat transfer from the
walls of the furnace to the door and the door to the surrounding area
was included in the problem. This work is a two dimensional steady
state problem. The Churchill and Chu correlation was used to find
local convection heat transfer coefficients at the surfaces of the
furnace door. The thermophysical properties of air were the functions
of the temperatures. Polynomial curve fitting for the fluid properties
were carried out. Finite difference method was used to discretize for
conduction heat transfer within the furnace door. The Gauss-Seidel
Iteration was employed to compute the temperature distribution in
the door.
The temperature distribution in the horizontal mid plane of the
furnace door in a two dimensional problem agrees with the one
dimensional problem. The local convection heat transfer coefficients
at the inside and outside surfaces of the furnace door are exhibited.
Abstract: A finite element analysis was conducted to determine
the effect of moisture diffusion and hygroscopic swelling in rice. A
parallel simple stochastic modeling was performed to predict the
number of grains cracked as a result of moisture absorption and
hygroscopic swelling. Rice grains were soaked in thermally (25 oC)
controlled water and then tested for compressive stress. The
destructive compressive stress tests revealed through compressive
stress calculation that the peak force required to cause cracking in
grains soaked in water reduced with time as soaking duration was
extended. Results of the experiment showed that several grains had
their value of the predicted compressive stress below the von Mises
stress and were interpreted as grains which become cracked and/or
broke during soaking. The technique developed in this experiment
will facilitate the approximation of the number of grains which will
crack during soaking.
Abstract: Highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 viruses have created demand for a cost-effective vaccine to prevent a pandemic of the disease. Here, we report that Trichoplusia ni (T. ni) larvae can act as a cost-effective bioreactor to produce recombinant HA5 (rH5HA) proteins as an potential effective vaccine for chickens. To facilitate the recombinant virus identification, virus titer determination and access the infected larvae, we employed the internal ribosome entry site (IRES) derived from Perina nuda virus (PnV, belongs to insect picorna like Iflavirus genus) to construct a bi-cistronic baculovirus expression vector that can express the rH5HA protein and enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) simultaneously. Western blot analysis revealed that the 70 kDa rH5HA protein and partially cleaved products (40 kDa H5HA1) were generated in T. ni larvae infected with recombinant baculovirus carrying the H5HA gene. These data suggest that the baculovirus-larvae recombinant protein expression system could be a cost-effective platform for H5N1 vaccine production.
Abstract: A new decomposition form is introduced in this report
to establish a criterion for the bi-partite separability of Bell diagonal
states. A such criterion takes a quadratic inequality of the coefficients
of a given Bell diagonal states and can be derived via a simple
algorithmic calculation of its invariants. In addition, the criterion can
be extended to a quantum system of higher dimension.
Abstract: Extraction of lactic acid by emulsion liquid membrane technology (ELM) using n-trioctyl amine (TOA) in n-heptane as carrier within the organic membrane along with sodium carbonate as acceptor phase was optimized by using response surface methodology (RSM). A three level Box-Behnken design was employed for experimental design, analysis of the results and to depict the combined effect of five independent variables, vizlactic acid concentration in aqueous phase (cl), sodium carbonate concentration in stripping phase (cs), carrier concentration in membrane phase (ψ), treat ratio, and batch extraction time (τ)
with equal volume of organic and external aqueous phase on lactic acid extraction efficiency. The maximum lactic acid extraction efficiency (ηext) of 98.21%from aqueous phase in a batch reactor using ELM was found at the optimized values for test variables, cl, cs, ψ, and τ as 0.06 [M], 0.18 [M], 4.72 (%,v/v), 1.98 (v/v) and 13.36 min respectively.
Abstract: Sign language is used by the deaf and hard of hearing people for communication. Automatic sign language recognition is a challenging research area since sign language often is the only way of communication for the deaf people. Sign language includes different components of visual actions made by the signer using the hands, the face, and the torso, to convey his/her meaning. To use different aspects of signs, we combine the different groups of features which have been extracted from the image frames recorded directly by a stationary camera. We combine the features in two levels by employing three techniques. At the feature level, an early feature combination can be performed by concatenating and weighting different feature groups, or by concatenating feature groups over time and using LDA to choose the most discriminant elements. At the model level, a late fusion of differently trained models can be carried out by a log-linear model combination. In this paper, we investigate these three combination techniques in an automatic sign language recognition system and show that the recognition rate can be significantly improved.
Abstract: The objective of this work is to produce heterotrophic
microalgal lipid in flask-batch fermentation. Chlorella sp. KKU-S2
supported maximum values of 0.374 g/L/d, 0.478 g lipid/g cells, and
0.112 g/L/d for volumetric lipid production rate, and specific yield of
lipid, and specific rate of lipid production, respectively when culture
was performed on BG-11 medium supplemented with 50g/L glucose.
Among the carbon sources tested, maximum cell yield coefficient
(YX/S, g/L), maximum specific yield of lipid (YP/X, g lipid/g cells) and
volumetric lipid production rate (QP, g/L/d) were found of 0.728,
0.237, and 0.619, respectively, using sugarcane molasses as carbon
source. The main components of fatty acid from extracted lipid were
palmitic acid, stearic acid, oleic acid and linoleic acid which similar
to vegetable oils and suitable for biodiesel production.
Abstract: The usual method of river flow diversion involves construction of tunnels and cofferdams. Given the fact that the cost of diversion works could be as high as 10-20% of the total dam construction cost, due attention should be paid to optimum design of the diversion works. The cost of diversion works depends, on factors, such as: the tunnel dimensions and the intended tunneling support measures during and after excavation; quality and characterizes of the rock through which the tunnel should be excavated; the dimensions of the upstream (and downstream) cofferdams; and the magnitude of river flood the system is designed to divert. In this paper by use of the cost of unit prices for tunnel excavation, tunnel lining, tunnel support (rock bolt + shotcrete) and cofferdam fill the cost function was determined. The function is then minimized by the aid of PSO Algorithm (particle swarm optimization). It is found that the optimum diameter and the total diversion cost are directly related to the river flood discharge (Q). It has also shown that in addition to optimum diameter design discharge (Q), river length, tunnel length, is mainly a function of the ratios (not the absolute values) of the unit prices and does not depend on the overall price levels in the respective country. The results of optimization use in some of the case study lead us to significant changes in the cost.
Abstract: Social, mobility and information aggregation inside
business environment need to converge to reach the next step of
collaboration to enhance interaction and innovation. The following
article is based on the “Assemblage" concept seen as a framework to
formalize new user interfaces and applications. The area of research
is the Energy Social Business Environment, especially the Energy
Smart Grids, which are considered as functional and technical
foundations of the revolution of the Energy Sector of tomorrow. The
assemblages are modelized by means of mereology and simplicial
complexes. Its objective is to offer new central attention and
decision-making tools to end-users.
Abstract: Study fluid flow and heat transfer characteristics of
microchannel in a primary Cross-corrugated(CC) surface recuperators
with corrugations and without corrugations, using CFD method. The
pitch-over-height ratios P/H of Cross-corrugated (CC) surface is from
1.5 to 4.0, included angles β=75º. The study was performed using CFD
software FLUENT to create unit model and simulate fluid
temperature, velocity, heat transfer coefficient and other parameters.
The results from these simulations were compared to experimental
data. It is concluded that, when the Reynolds number is constant, if
increase P/H, j/f will decrease, also the decreasing trend will become
weak. Under the condition of P/H=2.2, if increase the inlet velocity j/f
will decrease; in addition, the heat transfer performance in surface
with corrugation will increase 10% compared to that without
corrugation. The study results can provide the basis to optimize the
design, select the type of heat transfer surface, the scale structure, and
heat-transfer surface arrangement for recuperators.
Abstract: The paper presents the design concept of a unitselection
text-to-speech synthesis system for the Slovenian language.
Due to its modular and upgradable architecture, the system can be
used in a variety of speech user interface applications, ranging from
server carrier-grade voice portal applications, desktop user interfaces
to specialized embedded devices.
Since memory and processing power requirements are important
factors for a possible implementation in embedded devices, lexica
and speech corpora need to be reduced. We describe a simple and
efficient implementation of a greedy subset selection algorithm that
extracts a compact subset of high coverage text sentences. The
experiment on a reference text corpus showed that the subset
selection algorithm produced a compact sentence subset with a small
redundancy.
The adequacy of the spoken output was evaluated by several
subjective tests as they are recommended by the International
Telecommunication Union ITU.
Abstract: In the present work, a comparative study on the
microstructure and mechanical properties of as cast, cast aged and
forged aged A356 alloy has been investigated. The study reveals that
mechanical properties of A356 alloy are highly influenced by melt
treatment and solid state processing. Cast aged alloys achieve highest
strength and hardness compared to as cast and forge aged ones. Ones
treated with combined addition of grain refiners and modifiers
achieve maximum strength and hardness. Cast aged A356 alloy
possesses higher wear resistance compared to as cast and forge aged
ones. Forging improves both strength and ductility of alloys over as
cast ones. However, the improvement in ductility is perceptible only
for properly grain refined and modified alloys. Ones refined with
0.65% Al-3Ti shows highest improvement in ductility while ones
treated with 0.20% Al-10Sr exhibits less improvement in ductility.
Abstract: Climate change is a cumulative change in weather
patterns over a period of time. Trend analysis using non-parametric
Mann-Kendall test may help to determine the existence and
magnitude of any statistically significant trend in the climatic data.
Another index called Sen slope may be used to quantify the
magnitude of such trends. A toolbar extension to ESRI ArcGIS
named Arc Trends has been developed in this study for performing
the above mentioned tasks. To study the temporal trend of
meteorological parameters, 32 years (1971-2002) monthly
meteorological data were collected for 133 selected stations over
different agro-ecological regions of India. Both the maximum and
minimum temperatures were found to be rising. A significant
increasing trend in the relative humidity and a consistent significant
decreasing trend in the wind speed all over the country were found.
However, a general increase in rainfall was not found in recent years.
Abstract: Memory forensic is important in digital investigation.
The forensic is based on the data stored in physical memory that
involve memory management and processing time. However, the
current forensic tools do not consider the efficiency in terms of
storage management and the processing time. This paper shows the
high redundancy of data found in the physical memory that cause
inefficiency in processing time and memory management. The
experiment is done using Borland C compiler on Windows XP with
512 MB of physical memory.
Abstract: H.264/AVC offers a considerably higher improvement
in coding efficiency compared to other compression standards such
as MPEG-2, but computational complexity is increased significantly.
In this paper, we propose selective mode decision schemes for fast
intra prediction mode selection. The objective is to reduce the
computational complexity of the H.264/AVC encoder without
significant rate-distortion performance degradation. In our proposed
schemes, the intra prediction complexity is reduced by limiting the
luma and chroma prediction modes using the directional information
of the 16×16 prediction mode. Experimental results are presented to
show that the proposed schemes reduce the complexity by up to 78%
maintaining the similar PSNR quality with about 1.46% bit rate
increase in average.
Abstract: Construction projects can be implemented under various contractual and organizational systems. They can be divided into two groups: systems without the managing company where the Client manages the process, and systems with the managing company, where management is entrusted to an external company. In the public sector of the Polish market there are two ways of delivery of construction projects with the participation of the manager: one is to assign operations to another party, the so called Project Supervisor, whilst the other results from the application of FIDIC conditions of contract, which entail appointment of the Engineer. The decision is to be made by the Client and depends on various factors. On the public procurement market in Poland the selection of construction project manager boils down to awarding the contract for such a service. The selection can be done by one of eight public procurement procedures identified by the procurement law. The paper provides the analysis of 96 contracts for services awarded in 2011, which employed construction management. The study aimed to investigate the methods and criteria for selecting managers, applied in practice by the Polish public Clients.
Abstract: Using DNA microarrays the comparative analysis of a
gene expression profiles is carried out in a liver and kidneys of pigs.
The hypothesis of a cross hybridization of one probe with different
cDNA sites of the same gene or different genes is checked up, and it
is shown, that cross hybridization can be a source of essential errors
at revealing of a key genes in organ-specific transcriptome. It is
reveald that distinctions in profiles of a gene expression are well coordinated
with function, morphology, biochemistry and histology of
these organs.