Abstract: Financial literacy is one of the key factors needed in making informed financial decisions. As businesses continue to be more profit driven, more financial and economic intrigues arise that continue to put individuals at the risk of spending more and more without considering the short term and long term effects. We conducted a study to assess financial literacy and financial decision making among Emiratis. Our results show that financial literacy is lacking among Emiratis. Also, almost half of respondents owe loans to other peoples and 1/5 of them have bank loans. We expect that the outcome of this research will be useful for designing educational programs and policies to promote financial planning and security among Emiratis. We also posit that deeper and more informed understanding of this problem is a precursor for developing effective financial education programs with the aim of improving financial decision- making among Emiratis.
Abstract: This paper investigates and compares performance of
various conventional and fuzzy logic based controllers at generator
locations for oscillation damping. Performance of combination of
conventional and fuzzy logic based controllers also studied by
comparing overshoot on the active power deviation response for a
small disturbance and damping ratio of the critical mode. Fuzzy logic
based controllers can not be modeled in the state space form to get
the eigenvalues and corresponding damping ratios of various modes
of generators and controllers. Hence, a new method based on tracing
envelop of time domain waveform is also presented and used in the
paper for comparing performance of controllers. The paper also
shows that if the fuzzy based controllers designed separately
combining them could not lead to a better performance.
Abstract: This paper addresses the stability of the switched systems with discrete and distributed time delays. By applying Lyapunov functional and function method, we show that, if the norm of system matrices Bi is small enough, the asymptotic stability is always achieved. Finally, a example is provided to verify technically feasibility and operability of the developed results.
Abstract: The microbiological and physicochemical
characteristics of wetland soils in Eket Local Government Area were
studied between May 2001 and June 2003. Total heterotrophic
bacterial counts (THBC), total fungal counts (TFC), and total
actinomycetes counts (TAC) were determined from soil samples
taken from four locations at two depths in the wet and dry seasons.
Microbial isolates were characterized and identified. Particle size and
chemical parameters were also determined using standard methods.
THBC ranged from 5.2 (+0.17) x106 to 1.7 (+0.18) x107 cfu/g and
from 2.4 (+0.02) x106 to 1.4 (+0.04) x107cfu/g in the wet and dry
seasons, respectively. TFC ranged from 1.8 (+0.03) x106 to 6.6 (+
0.18) x106 cfu/g and from 1.0 (+0.04) x106 to 4.2 (+ 0.01) x106 cfu/g
in the wet and dry seasons, respectively .TAC ranged from 1.2
(+0.53) x106 to 6.0 (+0.05) x106 cfu/g and from 0.6 (+0.01) x106 to
3.2 (+ 0.12) x106 cfu/g in the wet and dry season, respectively.
Acinetobacter, Alcaligenes, Arthrobacter, Bacillus, Beijerinckja,
Enterobacter, Micrococcus, Flavobacterium, Serratia, Enterococcus,
and Pseudomonas species were predominant bacteria while
Aspergillus, Fusarium, Mucor, Penicillium, and Rhizopus were the
dominant fungal genera isolated. Streptomyces and Norcadia were
the actinomycetes genera isolated. The particle size analysis showed
high sand fraction but low silt and clay. The pH and % organic
matter were generally acidic and low, respectively at all locations.
Calcium dominated the exchangeable bases with low electrical
conductivity and micronutrients. These results provide the baseline
data of Eket wetland soils for its management for sustainable
agriculture.
Abstract: This paper proposes a technique to block adult images displayed in websites. The filter is designed so as to perform even in exceptional cases such as, where face detection is not possible or improper face visibility. This is achieved by using an alternative phase to extract the MFC (Most Frequent Color) from the Human Body regions estimated using a biometric of anthropometric distances between fixed rigidly connected body locations. The logical results generated can be protected from overriding by a firewall or intrusion, by encrypting the result in a SSH data packet.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of the development of Szuchung Creek take for the cause of the critical success factors, This research is to use the depth interviews, document analysis and Modified-Delphi technique survey of nine depth interviews with experts and 14 experts of Modified-Delphi technique questionnaire and inviting as the research object, Szuchung Creek Hot Springs for the scope of the study. The results show, Szuchung Creek Hot Springs development take for career success factors for the following reasons: 1. Government. 2. Opportunities. 3. Factors of production. 4. Demand conditions. 5. Corporate structure and the degree of competition. 6. Related and supporting industries. Furthermore, Szuchung Creek hot springs, itself already has a number of critical success factors. Contingent less than or inadequacies by Szuchung Creek take for the enterprise development to take for the cause of the critical success factors as the basis for correcting, planning out for local use improvement strategies to achieve the objective of sustainable management.
Abstract: Thermoelastic temperature, displacement, and
stress in heat transfer during laser surface hardening are solved
in Eulerian formulation. In Eulerian formulations the heat flux
is fixed in space and the workpiece is moved through a control
volume. In the case of uniform velocity and uniform heat flux
distribution, the Eulerian formulations leads to a steady-state
problem, while the Lagrangian formulations remains transient.
In Eulerian formulations the reduction to a steady-state
problem increases the computational efficiency. In this study
also an analytical solution is developed for an uncoupled
transient heat conduction equation in which a plane slab is
heated by a laser beam. The thermal result of the numerical
model is compared with the result of this analytical model.
Comparing the results shows numerical solution for uncoupled
equations are in good agreement with the analytical solution.
Abstract: The stochastic nature of tool life using conventional discrete-wear data from experimental tests usually exists due to many individual and interacting parameters. It is a common practice in batch production to continually use the same tool to machine different parts, using disparate machining parameters. In such an environment, the optimal points at which tools have to be changed, while achieving minimum production cost and maximum production rate within the surface roughness specifications, have not been adequately studied. In the current study, two relevant aspects are investigated using coated and uncoated inserts in turning operations: (i) the accuracy of using machinability information, from fixed parameters testing procedures, when variable parameters situations are emerged, and (ii) the credibility of tool life machinability data from prior discrete testing procedures in a non-stop machining. A novel technique is proposed and verified to normalize the conventional fixed parameters machinability data to suit the cases when parameters have to be changed for the same tool. Also, an experimental investigation has been established to evaluate the error in the tool life assessment when machinability from discrete testing procedures is employed in uninterrupted practical machining.
Abstract: Phase-Contrast MR imaging methods are widely used
for measurement of blood flow velocity components. Also there are
some other tools such as CT and Ultrasound for velocity map
detection in intravascular studies. These data are used in deriving
flow characteristics. Some clinical applications are investigated
which use pressure distribution in diagnosis of intravascular disorders
such as vascular stenosis. In this paper an approach to the problem of
measurement of intravascular pressure field by using velocity field
obtained from flow images is proposed. The method presented in this
paper uses an algorithm to calculate nonlinear equations of Navier-
Stokes, assuming blood as an incompressible and Newtonian fluid.
Flow images usually suffer the lack of spatial resolution. Our
attempt is to consider the effect of spatial resolution on the pressure
distribution estimated from this method. In order to achieve this aim,
velocity map of a numerical phantom is derived at six different
spatial resolutions. To determine the effects of vascular stenoses on
pressure distribution, a stenotic phantom geometry is considered. A
comparison between the pressure distribution obtained from the
phantom and the pressure resulted from the algorithm is presented. In
this regard we also compared the effects of collocated and staggered
computational grids on the pressure distribution resulted from this
algorithm.
Abstract: The production of a plant can be measured in terms of
seeds. The generation of seeds plays a critical role in our social and
daily life. The fruit production which generates seeds, depends on the
various parameters of the plant, such as shoot length, leaf number,
root length, root number, etc When the plant is growing, some leaves
may be lost and some new leaves may appear. It is very difficult to
use the number of leaves of the tree to calculate the growth of the
plant.. It is also cumbersome to measure the number of roots and
length of growth of root in several time instances continuously after
certain initial period of time, because roots grow deeper and deeper
under ground in course of time. On the contrary, the shoot length of
the tree grows in course of time which can be measured in different
time instances. So the growth of the plant can be measured using the
data of shoot length which are measured at different time instances
after plantation. The environmental parameters like temperature, rain
fall, humidity and pollution are also play some role in production of
yield. The soil, crop and distance management are taken care to
produce maximum amount of yields of plant. The data of the growth
of shoot length of some mustard plant at the initial stage (7,14,21 &
28 days after plantation) is available from the statistical survey by a
group of scientists under the supervision of Prof. Dilip De. In this
paper, initial shoot length of Ken( one type of mustard plant) has
been used as an initial data. The statistical models, the methods of
fuzzy logic and neural network have been tested on this mustard
plant and based on error analysis (calculation of average error) that
model with minimum error has been selected and can be used for the
assessment of shoot length at maturity. Finally, all these methods
have been tested with other type of mustard plants and the particular
soft computing model with the minimum error of all types has been
selected for calculating the predicted data of growth of shoot length.
The shoot length at the stage of maturity of all types of mustard
plants has been calculated using the statistical method on the
predicted data of shoot length.
Abstract: The present study presents a new approach to automatic
data clustering and classification problems in large and complex
databases and, at the same time, derives specific types of explicit rules
describing each cluster. The method works well in both sparse and
dense multidimensional data spaces. The members of the data space
can be of the same nature or represent different classes. A number
of N-dimensional ellipsoids are used for enclosing the data clouds.
Due to the geometry of an ellipsoid and its free rotation in space
the detection of clusters becomes very efficient. The method is based
on genetic algorithms that are used for the optimization of location,
orientation and geometric characteristics of the hyper-ellipsoids. The
proposed approach can serve as a basis for the development of
general knowledge systems for discovering hidden knowledge and
unexpected patterns and rules in various large databases.
Abstract: This paper presents a new heuristic algorithm useful
for long-term planning of survivable WDM networks. A multi-period
model is formulated that combines network topology design and
capacity expansion. The ability to determine network expansion
schedules of this type becomes increasingly important to the
telecommunications industry and to its customers. The solution
technique consists of a Genetic Algorithm that allows generating
several network alternatives for each time period simultaneously and
shortest-path techniques to deduce from these alternatives a least-cost
network expansion plan over all time periods. The multi-period
planning approach is illustrated on a realistic network example.
Extensive simulations on a wide range of problem instances are
carried out to assess the cost savings that can be expected by
choosing a multi-period planning approach instead of an iterative
network expansion design method.
Abstract: Speech corpus is one of the major components in a
Speech Processing System where one of the primary requirements
is to recognize an input sample. The quality and details captured
in speech corpus directly affects the precision of recognition. The
current work proposes a platform for speech corpus generation using
an adaptive LMS filter and LPC cepstrum, as a part of an ANN
based Speech Recognition System which is exclusively designed to
recognize isolated numerals of Assamese language- a major language
in the North Eastern part of India. The work focuses on designing an
optimal feature extraction block and a few ANN based cooperative
architectures so that the performance of the Speech Recognition
System can be improved.
Abstract: This paper investigates the problem of designing a robust state-feedback controller for a class of uncertain Markovian jump nonlinear systems that guarantees the L2-gain from an exogenous input to a regulated output is less than or equal to a prescribed value. First, we approximate this class of uncertain Markovian jump nonlinear systems by a class of uncertain Takagi-Sugeno fuzzy models with Markovian jumps. Then, based on an LMI approach, LMI-based sufficient conditions for the uncertain Markovian jump nonlinear systems to have an H performance are derived. An illustrative example is used to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed design techniques.
Abstract: Quantitative measurements of tumor in general and tumor volume in particular, become more realistic with the use of Magnetic Resonance imaging, especially when the tumor morphological changes become irregular and difficult to assess by clinical examination. However, tumor volume estimation strongly depends on the image segmentation, which is fuzzy by nature. In this paper a fuzzy approach is presented for tumor volume segmentation based on the fuzzy connectedness algorithm. The fuzzy affinity matrix resulting from segmentation is then used to estimate a fuzzy volume based on a certainty parameter, an Alpha Cut, defined by the user. The proposed method was shown to highly affect treatment decisions. A statistical analysis was performed in this study to validate the results based on a manual method for volume estimation and the importance of using the Alpha Cut is further explained.
Abstract: ISO 9000 is the most popular and widely adopted meta-standard for quality and operational improvements. However, only limited empirical research has been conducted to examine the impact of ISO 9000 on operational performance based on objective and longitudinal data. To reveal any causal relationship between the adoption of ISO 9000 and operational performance, we examined the timing and magnitude of change in time-based performance as a result of ISO 9000 adoption. We analyzed the changes in operating cycle, inventory days, and account receivable days prior and after the implementation of ISO 9000 in 695 publicly listed manufacturing firms. We found that ISO 9000 certified firms shortened their operating cycle time by 5.28 days one year after the implementation of ISO 9000. In the long-run (3 years after certification), certified firms showed continuous improvement in time-based efficiency, and experienced a shorter operating cycle time of 11 days than that of non-certified firms. There was an average of 6.5% improvement in operating cycle time for ISO 9000 certified firms. Both inventory days and account receivable days showed similar significant improvements after the implementation of ISO 9000, too.
Abstract: Market competition and a desire to gain advantages on globalized market, drives companies towards innovation efforts. Project overload is an unpleasant phenomenon, which is happening for employees inside those organizations trying to make the most efficient use of their resources to be innovative. But what are the impacts of project overload on organization-s innovation capabilities? Advanced engineering teams (AE) inside a major heavy equipment manufacturer are suffering from project overload in their quest for innovation. In this paper, Agent-based modeling (ABM) is used to examine the current reality of the company context, and of the AE team, where the opportunities and challenges for reducing the risk of project overload and moving towards innovation were identified. Project overload is more likely to stifle innovation and creativity inside teams. On the other hand, motivations on proper challenging goals are more likely to help individual to alleviate the negative aspects of low level of project overload.
Abstract: Maintenance is one of the most important activities in
the shipyard industry. However, sometimes it is not supported by
adequate services from the shipyard, where inaccuracy in estimating
the duration of the ship maintenance is still common. This makes
estimation of ship maintenance duration is crucial. This study uses
Data Mining approach, i.e., CART (Classification and Regression
Tree) to estimate the duration of ship maintenance that is limited to
dock works or which is known as dry docking. By using the volume
of dock works as an input to estimate the maintenance duration, 4
classes of dry docking duration were obtained with different linear
model and job criteria for each class. These linear models can then be
used to estimate the duration of dry docking based on job criteria.
Abstract: Grid environments include aggregation of
geographical distributed resources. Grid is put forward in three types
of computational, data and storage. This paper presents a research on
data grid. Data grid is used for covering and securing accessibility to
data from among many heterogeneous sources. Users are not worry
on the place where data is located in it, provided that, they should get
access to the data. Metadata is used for getting access to data in data
grid. Presently, application metadata catalogue and SRB middle-ware
package are used in data grids for management of metadata. At this
paper, possibility of updating, streamlining and searching is provided
simultaneously and rapidly through classified table of preserving
metadata and conversion of each table to numerous tables.
Meanwhile, with regard to the specific application, the most
appropriate and best division is set and determined. Concurrency of
implementation of some of requests and execution of pipeline is
adaptability as a result of this technique.
Abstract: An alarming emergence of multidrug-resistant strains
of the tuberculosis pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis and
continuing high worldwide incidence of tuberculosis has invigorated
the search for novel drug targets. The enzyme glutamate racemase
(MurI) in bacteria catalyzes the stereoconversion of L-glutamate to
D-glutamate which is a component of the peptidoglycan cell wall of
the bacterium. The inhibitors targeted against MurI from several
bacterial species have been patented and are advocated as promising
antibacterial agents. However there are none available against MurI
from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, due to the lack of its threedimensional
structure. This work accomplished two major objectives.
First, the tertiary structure of MtMurI was deduced computationally
through homology modeling using the templates from bacterial
homologues. It is speculated that like in other Gram-positive bacteria,
MtMurI exists as a dimer and many of the protein interactions at the
dimer interface are also conserved. Second, potent candidate
inhibitors against MtMurI were identified through docking against
already known inhibitors in other organisms.