Abstract: Nowadays, the importance of energy saving is clearance to everyone. By attention to increasing price of fuels and also the problems of environment pollutions, there are the most efforts for using fuels littler and more optimum in everywhere. This essay studies optimizing of gas consumption in gas-burner space heaters. In oven of each gas-burner space heaters there is two snags to prevent the hot air (the result of combustion of natural gas) to go out of oven of the gas-burner space heaters directly without delivering its heat to the space of favorite environment like a room. These snags cause a excess circulating that helps hot air deliver its heat to the space of favorite environment. It means the exhaust air temperature will be decreased then when there are no snags. This is the aim of this essay to use maximum potential energy of the natural gas to make heat. In this study, by the help of a finite volume software (FLUENT) consumption of the gas-burner space heaters is simulated and optimized. At the end of this writing, by comparing the results of software and experimental results, it will be proved the authenticity of this method.
Abstract: For improving the efficiency of human 3D tracking, we
present an algorithm to track 3D Arm Motion. First, the Hierarchy
Limb Model (HLM) is proposed based on the human 3D skeleton
model. Second, via graph decomposition, the arm motion state space,
modeled by HLM, can be discomposed into two low dimension
subspaces: root nodes and leaf nodes. Finally, Rao-Blackwellised
Particle Filter is used to estimate the 3D arm motion. The result of
experiment shows that our algorithm can advance the computation
efficiency.
Abstract: This paper analyzes the effect of a single uniform accounting rule on reporting quality by investigating the influence of IFRS on earnings management. This paper examines whether earnings management is reduced after IFRS adoption through the use of “loss avoidance thresholds”, a method that has been verified in earlier studies. This paper concentrates on two European countries: one that represents the continental code law tradition with weak protection of investors (France) and one that represents the Anglo-American common law tradition, which typically implies a strong enforcement system (the United Kingdom).
The research investigates a sample of 526 companies (6822 firm-year observations) during the years 2000 – 2013. The results are different for the two jurisdictions. This study demonstrates that a single set of accounting standards contributes to better reporting quality and reduces the pervasiveness of earnings management in France. In contrast, there is no evidence that a reduction in earnings management followed the implementation of IFRS in the United Kingdom. Due to the fact that IFRS benefit France but not the United Kingdom, other political and economic factors, such legal system or capital market strength, must play a significant role in influencing the comparability and transparency cross-border companies’ financial statements. Overall, the result suggests that IFRS moderately contribute to the accounting quality of reported financial statements and bring benefit for stakeholders, though the role played by other economic factors cannot be discounted.
Abstract: In this work, the effects of scale on thermal behavior of the slab in a walking-beam type reheating furnace is studied by considering scale formation and growth in a furnace environment. Also, mathematical heat transfer model to predict the thermal radiation in a complex shaped reheating furnace with slab and skid buttons is developed with combined nongray WSGGM and blocked-off solution procedure. The model can attack the heat flux distribution within the furnace and the temperature distribution in the slab throughout the reheating furnace process by considering the heat exchange between the slab and its surroundings, including the radiant heat transfer among the slabs, the skids, the hot combustion gases and the furnace wall as well as the gas convective heat transfer in the furnace. With the introduction of the mathematical formulations validation of the present numerical model is conducted by calculating two example problems of blocked-off and nongray gas radiative heat transfer. After discussing the formation and growth of the scale on the slab surface, slab heating characteristics with scale is investigated in terms of temperature rise with time.
Abstract: Service life of existing reinforced concrete (RC)
structures in coastal towns of Sabah has been affected very much.
Concrete crack, spalling of concrete cover and reinforcement rusting
of RC buildings are seen even within 5 years of construction in
Sabah. Hence, in this study a new mix design of concrete grout was
developed using locally available materials and investigated under
two curing conditions and workability, compressive strength,
Accelerated Mortar Bar Test (AMBT), water absorption, volume of
permeable voids (VPV), Sorptivity and 90-days salt ponding test
were conducted. The compressive strength of concrete grout at the
age 90 days was found to be 44.49 N/mm2 under water curing. It was
observed that the percentage of mortar bar length change was below
1% for developed concrete grout. The water absorption of the
concrete grout was in between the range of 0.88 % to 3.60 % under
two different curing up to the age 90 days. It was also observed that
the VPV of concrete was in the range of 0 % to 9.75 and 2.44% to
13.05% under water curing and site curing respectively. It was found
that the Sorptivity of the concrete grout under water curing at the age
of 28 days is 0.211mm/√min and at the age 90 day are 0.067
mm/√min. The chloride content decreased greatly, 90% after a depth
of 15 mm. It was noticed that the site cured samples showed higher
chloride contents near surface compared to water cured samples.
This investigation suggested that the developed mix design of
concrete grout using locally available construction materials can be
used for crack repairing of existing RC structures in Sabah.
Abstract: Cryo-electron microscopy (CEM) in combination with
single particle analysis (SPA) is a widely used technique for
elucidating structural details of macromolecular assemblies at closeto-
atomic resolutions. However, development of automated software
for SPA processing is still vital since thousands to millions of
individual particle images need to be processed. Here, we present our
workflow for automated particle picking. Our approach integrates
peak shape analysis to the classical correlation and an iterative
approach to separate macromolecules and background by
classification. This particle selection workflow furthermore provides
a robust means for SPA with little user interaction. Processing
simulated and experimental data assesses performance of the
presented tools.
Abstract: A plausible architecture of an ancient genetic code is derived from an extended base triplet vector space over the Galois field of the extended base alphabet {D, G, A, U, C}, where the letter D represent one or more hypothetical bases with unspecific pairing. We hypothesized that the high degeneration of a primeval genetic code with five bases and the gradual origin and improvements of a primitive DNA repair system could make possible the transition from the ancient to the modern genetic code. Our results suggest that the Watson-Crick base pairing and the non-specific base pairing of the hypothetical ancestral base D used to define the sum and product operations are enough features to determine the coding constraints of the primeval and the modern genetic code, as well as the transition from the former to the later. Geometrical and algebraic properties of this vector space reveal that the present codon assignment of the standard genetic code could be induced from a primeval codon assignment. Besides, the Fourier spectrum of the extended DNA genome sequences derived from the multiple sequence alignment suggests that the called period-3 property of the present coding DNA sequences could also exist in the ancient coding DNA sequences.
Abstract: Efficient storage, transmission and use of video information are key requirements in many multimedia applications currently being addressed by MPEG-4. To fulfill these requirements, a new approach for representing video information which relies on an object-based representation, has been adopted. Therefore, objectbased watermarking schemes are needed for copyright protection. This paper proposes a novel blind object watermarking scheme for images and video using the in place lifting shape adaptive-discrete wavelet transform (SA-DWT). In order to make the watermark robust and transparent, the watermark is embedded in the average of wavelet blocks using the visual model based on the human visual system. Wavelet coefficients n least significant bits (LSBs) are adjusted in concert with the average. Simulation results shows that the proposed watermarking scheme is perceptually invisible and robust against many attacks such as lossy image/video compression (e.g. JPEG, JPEG2000 and MPEG-4), scaling, adding noise, filtering, etc.
Abstract: Spam mails are unwanted mails sent to large number
of users. Spam mails not only consume the network resources, but
cause security threats as well. This paper proposes an efficient
technique to detect, and to prevent spam mail in the sender side rather
than the receiver side. This technique is based on a counter set on the
sender server. When a mail is transmitted to the server, the mail server
checks the number of the recipients based on its counter policy. The
counter policy performed by the mail server is based on some
pre-defined criteria. When the number of recipients exceeds the
counter policy, the mail server discontinues the rest of the process, and
sends a failure mail to sender of the mail; otherwise the mail is
transmitted through the network. By using this technique, the usage of
network resources such as bandwidth, and memory is preserved. The
simulation results in real network show that when the counter is set on
the sender side, the time required for spam mail detection is 100 times
faster than the time the counter is set on the receiver side, and the
network resources are preserved largely compared with other
anti-spam mail techniques in the receiver side.
Abstract: Mobile agents are a powerful approach to develop distributed systems since they migrate to hosts on which they have the resources to execute individual tasks. In a dynamic environment like a peer-to-peer network, Agents have to be generated frequently and dispatched to the network. Thus they will certainly consume a certain amount of bandwidth of each link in the network if there are too many agents migration through one or several links at the same time, they will introduce too much transferring overhead to the links eventually, these links will be busy and indirectly block the network traffic, therefore, there is a need of developing routing algorithms that consider about traffic load. In this paper we seek to create cooperation between a probabilistic manner according to the quality measure of the network traffic situation and the agent's migration decision making to the next hop based on decision tree learning algorithms.
Abstract: Nayak et al have discussed in detail the inertial forces
such as Gravitational, Coriolis-Lense-Thirring and Centrifugal forces
in the Kerr-Newman Space-time in the Kerr-Newman Space-time.
The main theme of this paper is to study the Gravitational and
Centrifugal forces in the NUT-Kerr-Newman Space-time.
Abstract: A new tool path planning method for 5-axis flank
milling of a globoidal indexing cam is developed in this paper. The
globoidal indexing cam is a practical transmission mechanism due
to its high transmission speed, accuracy and dynamic performance.
Machining the cam profile is a complex and precise task. The profile
surface of the globoidal cam is generated by the conjugate contact
motion of the roller. The generated complex profile surface is usually
machined by 5-axis point-milling method. The point-milling method
is time-consuming compared with flank milling. The tool path for
5-axis flank milling of globoidal cam is developed to improve the
cutting efficiency. The flank milling tool path is globally optimized
according to the minimum zone criterion, and high accuracy is
guaranteed. The computational example and cutting simulation finally
validate the developed method.
Abstract: Phytophthora cinnamomi (P. c) is a plant pathogenic
oomycete that is capable of damaging plants in commercial production
systems and natural ecosystems worldwide. The most common
methods for the detection and diagnosis of P. c infection are
expensive, elaborate and time consuming. This study was carried out
to examine whether species specific and life cycle specific volatile
organic compounds (VOCs) can be absorbed by solid-phase
microextraction fibers and detected by gas chromatography that are
produced by P. c and another oomycete Pythium dissotocum. A
headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) together with gas
chromatography (GC) method was developed and optimized for the
identification of the VOCs released by P. c. The optimized parameters
included type of fiber, exposure time, desorption temperature and
desorption time. Optimization was achieved with the analytes of P.
c+V8A and V8A alone. To perform the HS-SPME, six types of fiber
were assayed and compared: 7μm Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS),
100μm Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), 50/30μm
Divinylbenzene/CarboxenTM/Polydimethylsiloxane
DVB/CAR/PDMS), 65μm Polydimethylsiloxane/Divinylbenzene
(PDMS/DVB), 85μm Polyacrylate (PA) fibre and 85μm CarboxenTM/
Polydimethylsiloxane (Carboxen™/PDMS). In a comparison of the
efficacy of the fibers, the bipolar fiber DVB/CAR/PDMS had a higher
extraction efficiency than the other fibers. An exposure time of 16h
with DVB/CAR/PDMS fiber in the sample headspace was enough to
reach the maximum extraction efficiency. A desorption time of 3min
in the GC injector with the desorption temperature of 250°C was
enough for the fiber to desorb the compounds of interest. The chromatograms and morphology study confirmed that the VOCs from
P. c+V8A had distinct differences from V8A alone, as did different
life cycle stages of P. c and different taxa such as Pythium dissotocum.
The study proved that P. c has species and life cycle specific VOCs,
which in turn demonstrated the feasibility of this method as means of
Abstract: This study was conducted using the data collected at the mouth of Jen-Gen River to investigate and analyze chromium (Cr) contained in the sediments, and to evaluate the accumulation of Cr and the degree of its potential risk. The results show that samples collected at all monitoring stations near the mouth of Jen-Gen River contain 92–567 mg/kg of Cr with average of 366±166 mg/kg. The spatial distribution of Cr reveals that the Cr concentration is relatively high in the river mouth region, and gradually diminishes toward the harbor region. This indicates that upstream industrial and municipal wastewater discharges along the river bank are major sources of pollution. The accumulation factor and potential ecological risk index indicate that the sedimentation at Jen-Gen River mouth has the most serious degree of Cr accumulation and the highest ecological potential risk.
Abstract: In this paper, a novel multipurpose audio watermarking
algorithm is proposed based on Vector Quantization (VQ) in Discrete
Cosine Transform (DCT) domain using the codeword labeling and
index-bit constrained method. By using this algorithm, it can fulfill the
requirements of both the copyright protection and content integrity
authentication at the same time for the multimedia artworks. The
robust watermark is embedded in the middle frequency coefficients of
the DCT transform during the labeled codeword vector quantization
procedure. The fragile watermark is embedded into the indices of the
high frequency coefficients of the DCT transform by using the
constrained index vector quantization method for the purpose of
integrity authentication of the original audio signals. Both the robust
and the fragile watermarks can be extracted without the original audio
signals, and the simulation results show that our algorithm is effective
with regard to the transparency, robustness and the authentication
requirements
Abstract: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) performing their
operations for a long time have been attracting much attention in
military and civil aviation industries for the past decade. The
applicable field of UAV is changing from the military purpose only to
the civil one. Because of their low operation cost, high reliability and
the necessity of various application areas, numerous development
programs have been initiated around the world. To obtain the optimal
solutions of the design variable (i.e., sectional airfoil profile, wing
taper ratio and sweep) for high performance of UAVs, both the lift and
lift-to-drag ratio are maximized whereas the pitching moment should
be minimized, simultaneously. It is found that the lift force and
lift-to-drag ratio are linearly dependent and a unique and dominant
solution are existed. However, a trade-off phenomenon is observed
between the lift-to-drag ratio and pitching moment. As the result of
optimization, sixty-five (65) non-dominated Pareto individuals at the
cutting edge of design spaces that are decided by airfoil shapes can be
obtained.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel approach for the design of
microwave circuits using Adaptive Network Fuzzy Inference
Optimizer (ANFIO). The method takes advantage of direct synthesis
of subsections of the amplifier using very fast and accurate ANFIO
models based on exact simulations using ADS. A mapping from
course space to fine space known as space mapping is also used. The
proposed synthesis approach takes into account the noise and
scattering parameters due to parasitic elements to achieve optimal
results. The overall ANFIO system is capable of designing different
LNAs at different noise and scattering criteria. This approach offers
significantly reduced time in the design of microwave amplifiers
within the validity range of the ANFIO system. The method has been
proven to work efficiently for a 2.4GHz LNA example. The S21 of
10.1 dB and noise figure (NF) of 2.7 dB achieved for ANFIO while
S21 of 9.05 dB and NF of 2.6 dB achieved for ANN.
Abstract: Interpolated contour maps drawn for aluminum,
copper and molybdenum in downstream monitoring boreholes of
water dam in Miduk Copper Complex and the values of pH, redox
potential (Eh) and distance from water dam indicate different trends
of variation and behavior of these three elements in downward
groundwater resources. As these maps exhibit, aluminum is dominant
in the most alkaline (pH = 9-11) borehole (MB5) to water dam. The
highest concentration of molybdenum is found in the nearest
borehole (MB6) to water dam. Main concentration of copper is
observed in the most oxidized borehole (MB3 with Eh=293.2mV).
The spatial difference among sampling stations can be attributed to
the existence of faults and diaclases in the geologic structure of
Miduk region which causes the groundwater sampling sites to be
impressed by different contamination sources (toe seepage and upper
seepage water originated from different zones of tailings dump).
Abstract: Server provisioning is one of the most attractive topics in virtualization systems. Virtualization is a method of running multiple independent virtual operating systems on a single physical computer. It is a way of maximizing physical resources to maximize the investment in hardware. Additionally, it can help to consolidate servers, improve hardware utilization and reduce the consumption of power and physical space in the data center. However, management of heterogeneous workloads, especially for resource utilization of the server, or so called provisioning becomes a challenge. In this paper, a new concept for managing workloads based on user behavior is presented. The experimental results show that user behaviors are different in each type of service workload and time. Understanding user behaviors may improve the efficiency of management in provisioning concept. This preliminary study may be an approach to improve management of data centers running heterogeneous workloads for provisioning in virtualization system.
Abstract: Skin color can provide a useful and robust cue
for human-related image analysis, such as face detection,
pornographic image filtering, hand detection and tracking,
people retrieval in databases and Internet, etc. The major
problem of such kinds of skin color detection algorithms is
that it is time consuming and hence cannot be applied to a real
time system. To overcome this problem, we introduce a new
fast technique for skin detection which can be applied in a real
time system. In this technique, instead of testing each image
pixel to label it as skin or non-skin (as in classic techniques),
we skip a set of pixels. The reason of the skipping process is
the high probability that neighbors of the skin color pixels are
also skin pixels, especially in adult images and vise versa. The
proposed method can rapidly detect skin and non-skin color
pixels, which in turn dramatically reduce the CPU time
required for the protection process. Since many fast detection
techniques are based on image resizing, we apply our
proposed pixel skipping technique with image resizing to
obtain better results. The performance evaluation of the
proposed skipping and hybrid techniques in terms of the
measured CPU time is presented. Experimental results
demonstrate that the proposed methods achieve better result
than the relevant classic method.