Abstract: This paper describes an ongoing study into the quality of service provided by the Irish Revenue Commisioners- online tax filing and collection system. The Irish Revenue On-Line Service (ROS) site has won several awards. In this study, a version of the widely use SERVQUAL measuring instrument, adapted for use with online services, has been modified for the specific case of ROS. In this paper, the theory behind this instrument is set out, the particular problems of evaluating revenue collecting online are examined and the rationale for this approach is explained.
Abstract: In this paper we present a novel technique for data
hiding in binary document images. We use the concept of entropy in
order to identify document specific least distortive areas throughout
the binary document image. The document image is treated as any
other image and the proposed method utilizes the standard document
characteristics for the embedding process. Proposed method
minimizes perceptual distortion due to embedding and allows
watermark extraction without the requirement of any side information
at the decoder end.
Abstract: A model of a system concerning one species of demersal
(inshore) fish and one of pelagic (offshore) fish undergoing fishing
restricted by marine protected areas is proposed in this paper. This
setup was based on the FISH-BE model applied to the Tabina fishery
in Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines. The components of the model
equations have been adapted from widely-accepted mechanisms in
population dynamics. The model employs Gompertz-s law of growth
and interaction on each type of protected and unprotected subpopulation.
Exchange coefficients between protected and unprotected
areas were assumed to be proportional to the relative area of the
entry region. Fishing harvests were assumed to be proportional to
both the number of fishers and the number of unprotected fish. An
extra term was included for the pelagic population to allow for the
exchange between the unprotected area and the outside environment.
The systems were found to be bounded for all parameter values. The
equations for the steady state were unsolvable analytically but the
existence and uniqueness of non-zero steady states can be proven.
Plots also show that an MPA size yielding the maximum steady state
of the unprotected population can be found. All steady states were
found to be globally asymptotically stable for the entire range of
parameter values.
Abstract: In this paper, parallel interface for microprocessor
trainer was implemented. A programmable parallel–port device such
as the IC 8255A is initialized for simple input or output and for
handshake input or output by choosing kinds of modes. The hardware
connections and the programs can be used to interface
microprocessor trainer and a personal computer by using IC 8255A.
The assembly programs edited on PC-s editor can be downloaded to
the trainer.
Abstract: This paper examines the relationship between financial
risks and profitability of the conventional and Islamic banks in
Malaysia for the period between 1996 and 2005. The measures of
profitability that have been used in the study are the return on equity
(ROE) and return on assets (ROA) while the financial risks are credit
risk, interest rate risk and liquidity risks. This study employs panel
data regression analysis of Generalised Least Squares of fixed effects
and random effects models. It was found that credit risk has a
significant impact on ROA and ROE for the conventional as well as
the Islamic banks. The relationship between interest rate risk and ROE
were found to be weakly significant for the conventional banks and
insignificant for the Islamic banks. The effect of interest rate risk on
ROA is significant for the conventional banks. Liquidity risk was
found to have an insignificant impact on both profitability measures.
Abstract: The problem discussed in this paper involves packing fresh fish fileet of the northern Cod into a standard square container. The fish is first cleaned and split and then collected on a belt ready to be stacked in a container. The aim of our work is to pack the fish into the container with constraints on the amount of overlap allowed for the fileets. The current focus is to design a packing cell that can be real-time and of practical use, while finding the optimal solution to the degree of overlap and minimise the unused space of the container.
Abstract: As a learning theory tries to borrow from science a framework to found its method, it shows paradoxes and paralysing contraddictions. This results, on one hand, from adopting a learning/teaching model as it were a mere “transfer of data" (mechanical learning approach), and on the other hand from borrowing the complexity theory (an indeterministic and non-linear model), that risks to vanish every educational effort. This work is aimed at describing existing criticism, unveiling the antinomic nature of such paradoxes, focussing on a view where neither the mechanical learning perspective nor the chaotic and nonlinear model can threaten and jeopardize the educational work. Author intends to go back over the steps that led to these paradoxes and to unveil their antinomic nature. Actually this could serve the purpose to explain some current misunderstandings about the real usefulness of Ict within the youth-s learning process and growth.
Abstract: With the advent of DSL services, high data rates are now available over phone lines, yet higher rates are in demand. In this paper, we optimize the transmit filters that can be used over wireline channels. Results showing the bit error rates when optimized filters are used, and with a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) employed in the receiver, are given. We then show that significantly higher throughput can be achieved by modeling the channel as a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channel. A receiver that employs a MIMO-DFE that deals jointly with several users is proposed and shown to provide significant improvement over the conventional DFE.
Abstract: The numerical simulation of the slip effect via
vicoelastic fluid for 4:1 contraction problem is investigated with
regard to kinematic behaviors of streamlines and stress tensor by
models of the Navier-Stokes and Oldroyd-B equations. Twodimensional
spatial reference system of incompressible creeping flow
with and without slip velocity is determined and the finite element
method of a semi-implicit Taylor-Galerkin pressure-correction is
applied to compute the problem of this Cartesian coordinate system
including the schemes of velocity gradient recovery method and the
streamline-Upwind / Petrov-Galerkin procedure. The slip effect at
channel wall is added to calculate after each time step in order to
intend the alteration of flow path. The result of stress values and the
vortices are reduced by the optimum slip coefficient of 0.1 with near
the outcome of analytical solution.
Abstract: A laboratory set-up was designed to survey the
effectiveness of UV/O3 advanced oxidation process (AOP) for the
removal of Carbaryl from polluted water in batch reactor. The study
was carried out by UV/O3 process for water samples containing 1 to
20 mg/L of Carbaryl in distilled water. Also the range of drinking
water resources adjusted in synthetic water and effects of contact
time, pH and Carbaryl concentration were studied. The residual
pesticide concentration was determined by applying high
performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results indicated
that increasing of retention time and pH, enhances pesticide removal
efficiency. The removal efficiency has been affected by pesticide
initial concentration. Samples with low pesticide concentration
showed a remarkable removal efficiency compared to the samples
with high pesticide concentration. AOP method showed the removal
efficiencies of 80% to 100%. Although process showed high
performance for removal of pesticide from water samples, this
process has different disadvantages including complication,
intolerability, difficulty of maintenance and equipmental and
structural requirements.
Abstract: Column leach test has been performed to examine the
behavior of leaching of sodium, calcium and potassium in landfills.
In the column leach apparatus, two different layers of contaminated
and uncontaminated soils of different height ratios (ratio of depth of
contaminated soil to the depth of uncontaminated soil) are taken.
Water is poured from an overhead tank at a particular flowrate to the
inlet of the soil column for a certain ponding depth over the
contaminated soil. Subsequent infiltration causes leaching and the
leachates are collected from the bottom of the column. The
concentrations of Na, Ca and K in the leachate are measured using
flame photometry. The experiments are further extended by changing
the rates of flow from the overhead tank to the inlet of the column in
achieving the same ponding depth. The experiments are performed
for different scenarios in which the height ratios are altered and the
variations of concentrations of Na, Ca, and K are observed. The study
brings an estimation of leaching in landfill sites for different heights
and precipitation intensity where a ponding depth is maintained over
the landfill. It has been observed that the leaching behavior of Na,
Ca, and K are not similar. Calcium exhibits highest amount of
leaching compared to Sodium and Potassium under similar
experimental conditions.
Abstract: There is currently intensive debate in Alberta,
Canada, regarding rural to urban water reallocation. This paper
explores the demographic and attitudinal influences that are
associated with the acceptance of water reallocation policies and
whether such acceptance differs between urban and rural residents.
We investigate three policy orientations in regards to water policies:
i) government intervention; ii) environmental protection; and iii)
protecting irrigators- water rights. We find that urban dwellers are
more likely to favour government intervention while rural dwellers
are more likely to support policies that aim at protecting irrigators-
water rights. While urban dwellers are also more likely to favour
environmental protection, the difference is not statistically
significant. We also find that other factors have a significant impact
on policy choice irrespective of residence such as demographic and
socioeconomic factors as well as the values people hold toward water
and the environment.
Abstract: Walking and sit to stand are activities carried out by
all the people many times during the day, but physical disabilities due
to age and diseases create needs of assistive devices to help elderly
people during their daily life. This study aims to study the different
types and mechanisms of the assistive devices. We will analyze the
limitations and the challenges faced by the researchers in this field.
We will introduce the Assistive Device developed at the Egypt-Japan
University of Science and Technology, named E-JUST Assistive
Device (EJAD). EJAD will be a low cost intelligent assistive device
to help elders in walking and sit-to-stand activities.
Abstract: In the present study, Convective heat transfer
coefficient and pressure drop of Al2O3/water nanofluid in laminar
flow regime under constant heat flux conditions inside a circular tube
were experimentally investigated. Al2O3/water nanofluid with 0.5%
and 1% volume concentrations with 15 nm diameter nanoparticles
were used as working fluid. The effect of different volume
concentrations on convective heat transfer coefficient and friction
factor was studied. The results emphasize that increasing of particle
volume concentration leads to enhance convective heat transfer
coefficient. Measurements show the average heat transfer coefficient
enhanced about 11-20% with 0.5% volume concentration and
increased about 16-27% with 1% volume concentration compared to
distilled water. In addition, the convective heat transfer coefficient of
nanofluid enhances with increase in heat flux. From the results, the
average ratio of (fnf/fbf) was about 1.10 for 0.5% volume
concentration. Therefore, there is no significant increase in friction
factor for nanofluids.
Abstract: This paper proposes a new decision making structure
to determine the appropriate product delivery strategy for different products in a manufacturing system among make-to-stock, make-toorder,
and hybrid strategy. Given product delivery strategies for all products in the manufacturing system, the position of the Order
Penetrating Point (OPP) can be located regarding the delivery strategies among which location of OPP in hybrid strategy is a
cumbersome task. In this regard, we employ analytic network process, because there are varieties of interrelated driving factors
involved in choosing the right location. Moreover, the proposed structure is augmented with fuzzy sets theory in order to cope with
the uncertainty of judgments. Finally, applicability of the proposed structure is proven in practice through a real industrial case company.
The numerical results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed decision making structure in order partitioning and OPP location.
Abstract: Sustainable energy usage has been recognized as one
of the important measure to increase the competitiveness of the
nation globally. Many strong emphases were given in the Ninth
Malaysia Plan (RMK9) to improve energy efficient especially to
government buildings. With this in view, a project to investigate the
potential of energy saving in selected building in Universiti Tun
Hussein Onn Malaysia (UTHM) was carried out. In this project, a
case study involving electric energy consumption of the academic
staff office building was conducted. The scope of the study include to
identify energy consumption in a selected building, to study energy
saving opportunities, to analyse cost investment in term of economic
and to identify users attitude with respect to energy usage. The
MS1525:2001, Malaysian Standard -Code of practice on energy
efficiency and use of renewable energy for non-residential buildings
was used as reference. Several energy efficient measures were
considered and their merits and priority were compared. Improving
human behavior can reduce energy consumption by 6% while
technical measure can reduce energy consumption by 44%. Two
economic analysis evaluation methods were applied; they are the
payback period method and net present value method.
Abstract: In recent five decades, textured yarns of polyester fiber produced by false twist method are the most
important and mass-produced manmade fibers. There are
many parameters of cross section which affect the physical and mechanical properties of textured yarns. These parameters
are surface area, perimeter, equivalent diameter, large
diameter, small diameter, convexity, stiffness, eccentricity, and hydraulic diameter. These parameters were evaluated by
digital image processing techniques. To find trends between production criteria and evaluated parameters of cross section, three criteria of production line have been adjusted and different types of yarns were produced. These criteria are
temperature, drafting ratio, and D/Y ratio. Finally the relations between production criteria and cross section parameters were
considered. The results showed that the presented technique can recognize and measure the parameters of fiber cross section in acceptable accuracy. Also, the optimum condition
of adjustments has been estimated from results of image analysis evaluation.
Abstract: This paper deals with the application for contentbased
image retrieval to extract color feature from natural images
stored in the image database by segmenting the image through
clustering. We employ a class of nonparametric techniques in which
the data points are regarded as samples from an unknown probability
density. Explicit computation of the density is avoided by using the
mean shift procedure, a robust clustering technique, which does not
require prior knowledge of the number of clusters, and does not
constrain the shape of the clusters. A non-parametric technique for
the recovery of significant image features is presented and
segmentation module is developed using the mean shift algorithm to
segment each image. In these algorithms, the only user set parameter
is the resolution of the analysis and either gray level or color images
are accepted as inputs. Extensive experimental results illustrate
excellent performance.
Abstract: Automatic keyphrase extraction is useful in efficiently
locating specific documents in online databases. While several
techniques have been introduced over the years, improvement on
accuracy rate is minimal. This research examines attribute scores for
author-supplied keyphrases to better understand how the scores affect
the accuracy rate of automatic keyphrase extraction. Five attributes
are chosen for examination: Term Frequency, First Occurrence, Last
Occurrence, Phrase Position in Sentences, and Term Cohesion
Degree. The results show that First Occurrence is the most reliable
attribute. Term Frequency, Last Occurrence and Term Cohesion
Degree display a wide range of variation but are still usable with
suggested tweaks. Only Phrase Position in Sentences shows a totally
unpredictable pattern. The results imply that the commonly used
ranking approach which directly extracts top ranked potential phrases
from candidate keyphrase list as the keyphrases may not be reliable.
Abstract: This paper present a circular patch microstrip array antenna operate in KU-band (10.9GHz – 17.25GHz). The proposed circular patch array antenna will be in light weight, flexible, slim and compact unit compare with current antenna used in KU-band. The paper also presents the detail steps of designing the circular patch microstrip array antenna. An Advance Design System (ADS) software is used to compute the gain, power, radiation pattern, and S11 of the antenna. The proposed Circular patch microstrip array antenna basically is a phased array consisting of 'n' elements (circular patch antennas) arranged in a rectangular grid. The size of each element is determined by the operating frequency. The incident wave from satellite arrives at the plane of the antenna with equal phase across the surface of the array. Each 'n' element receives a small amount of power in phase with the others. There are feed network connects each element to the microstrip lines with an equal length, thus the signals reaching the circular patches are all combined in phase and the voltages add up. The significant difference of the circular patch array antenna is not come in the phase across the surface but in the magnitude distribution.