Abstract: The sonochemical decolorization and degradation of azo dye Methyl violet using Fenton-s reagent in the presence of a high-frequency acoustic field has been investigated. Dyeing and textile effluents are the major sources of azo dyes, and are most troublesome among industrial wastewaters, causing imbalance in the eco-system. The effect of various operating conditions (initial concentration of dye, liquid-phase temperature, ultrasonic power and frequency and process time) on sonochemical degradation was investigated. Conversion was found to increase with increase in initial concentration, temperature, power level and frequency. Both horntype and tank-type sonicators were used, at various power levels (250W, 400W and 500W) for frequencies ranging from 20 kHz - 1000 kHz. A 'Process Intensification' parameter PI, was defined to quantify the enhancement of the degradation reaction by ultrasound when compared to control (i.e., without ultrasound). The present work clearly demonstrates that a high-frequency ultrasonic bath can be used to achieve higher process throughput and energy efficiency at a larger scale of operation.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of computer–based instructional designs, namely modality and redundancy principles on the attitude and learning of music theory among primary pupils of different Music Intelligence levels. The lesson of music theory was developed in three different modes, audio and image (AI), text with image (TI) and audio with image and text (AIT). The independent variables were the three modes of courseware. The moderator variable was music intelligence. The dependent variables were the post test score. ANOVA was used to determine the significant differences of the pretest scores among the three groups. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) and Post hoc were carried out to examine the main effects as well as the interaction effects of the independent variables on the dependent variables. High music intelligence pupils performed significantly better than low music intelligence pupils in all the three treatment modes. The AI mode was found to help pupils with low music intelligence significantly more than the TI and AIT modes.
Abstract: The antioxidant capability of beverage blends made from cocoa, zobo and ginger with standard antioxidant assay procedures was investigated. The DPPH (2,2-diphenyl-1- picrylhydrazyl) scavenging capacity ranged from 21.2-25.8% in comparison with GSH of 37.1%. The ferric reducing ability was highest in the zobo drink and lowest in ginger. The superoxide scavenging capacity was also highest in the zobo drink followed by the drink with alkalized cocoa. The metal chelating power decreased as the level of zobo in the blends decreases. The chelating power of zobo and ginger were significantly lower than the natural and alkalized cocoa. The 100% zobo drink inhibited linoleic acid till the fifth day while natural and alkalized cocoa as well as the blend with 50% alkalized cocoa inhibited linoleic acid greatly till the sixth day. The finding describes the potential health benefit of the phytochemical antioxidants of cocoa:zobo:ginger beverage blends.
Abstract: This study mainly aims at assessing the level of
microbial pollution of the water used in the chair system in dental
clinics. For this purpose 36 samples have been randomly collected
from a number of dental surgeries in the city of Tripoli in Libya.
However, 32 of the samples have tested positive to microbial
pollution including 13 of the samples, which have tested positives to
Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Based on the results of the test a further
investigation of the biofilms incorporated within the dental chair
system has been conducted. The laboratory tests of biofilms with
similar design to those found in dental chairs have proved that
bacterial pollution takes place through saliva of the patients who use
the chairs, and that this saliva is rich with nutrients which provides a
suitable breeding ground for all types of bacteria.
Abstract: This paper introduces the foundations of Bayesian probability theory and Bayesian decision method. The main goal of Bayesian decision theory is to minimize the expected loss of a decision or minimize the expected risk. The purposes of this study are to review the decision process on the issue of flood occurrences and to suggest possible process for decision improvement. This study examines the problem structure of flood occurrences and theoretically explicates the decision-analytic approach based on Bayesian decision theory and application to flood occurrences in Environmental Engineering. In this study, we will discuss about the flood occurrences upon an annual maximum water level in cm, 43-year record available from 1965 to 2007 at the gauging station of Sagaing on the Ayeyarwady River with the drainage area - 120193 sq km by using Bayesian decision method. As a result, we will discuss the loss and risk of vast areas of agricultural land whether which will be inundated or not in the coming year based on the two standard maximum water levels during 43 years. And also we forecast about that lands will be safe from flood water during the next 10 years.
Abstract: Our objectives were to evaluate the effects of sire
breed, type of protein supplement, level of supplementation and sex
on wool spinning fineness (SF), its correlations with other wool
characteristics and prediction accuracy in F1 Merino crossbred lambs.
Texel, Coopworth, White Suffolk, East Friesian and Dorset rams
were mated with 500 purebred Merino dams at a ratio of 1:100 in
separate paddocks within a single management system. The F1
progeny were raised on ryegrass pasture until weaning, before forty
lambs were randomly allocated to treatments in a 5 x 2 x 2 x 2
factorial experimental design representing 5 sire breeds, 2
supplementary feeds (canola or lupins), 2 levels of supplementation
(1% or 2% of liveweight) and sex (wethers or ewes). Lambs were
supplemented for six weeks after an initial three weeks of adjustment,
wool sampled at the commencement and conclusion of the feeding
trial and analyzed for SF, mean fibre diameter (FD), coefficient of
variation (CV), standard deviation, comfort factor (CF), fibre
curvature (CURV), and clean fleece yield. Data were analyzed using
mixed linear model procedures with sire fitted as a random effect,
and sire breed, sex, supplementary feed type, level of
supplementation and their second-order interactions as fixed effects.
Sire breed (P
Abstract: A fast settling multipath CMOS OTA for high speed
switched capacitor applications is presented here. With the basic
topology similar to folded-cascode, bandwidth and DC gain of the
OTA are enhanced by adding extra paths for signal from input to
output. Designed circuit is simulated with HSPICE using level 49
parameters (BSIM 3v3) in 0.35mm standard CMOS technology. DC
gain achieved is 56.7dB and Unity Gain Bandwidth (UGB) obtained
is 1.15GHz. These results confirm that adding extra paths for signal
can improve DC gain and UGB of folded-cascode significantly.
Abstract: Student-s movements have been going increasing in
last decades. International students can have different psychological
and sociological problems in their adaptation process. Depression is
one of the most important problems in this procedure. This research
purposed to reveal level of foreign students- depression, kinds of
interpersonal communication networks (host/ethnic interpersonal
communication) and media usage (host/ethnic media usage).
Additionally study aimed to display the relationship between
depression and communication (host/ethnic interpersonal
communication and host/ethnic media usage) among foreign
university students. A field research was performed among 283
foreign university students who have been attending 8 different
universities in Turkey. A purposeful sampling technique was used in
this research cause of data collect facilities. Results indicated that
58.3% of foreign students- depression stage was “intermediate" while
33.2% of foreign students- depression level was “low". Add to this,
host interpersonal communication behaviors and Turkish web sites
usages were negatively and significantly correlated with depression.
Abstract: The passive electrical properties of a tissue depends
on the intrinsic constituents and its structure, therefore by measuring
the complex electrical impedance of the tissue it might be possible to
obtain indicators of the tissue state or physiological activity [1].
Complete bio-impedance information relative to physiology and
pathology of a human body and functional states of the body tissue or
organs can be extracted by using a technique containing a fourelectrode
measurement setup. This work presents the estimation
measurement setup based on the four-electrode technique. First, the
complex impedance is estimated by three different estimation
techniques: Fourier, Sine Correlation and Digital De-convolution and
then estimation errors for the magnitude, phase, reactance and
resistance are calculated and analyzed for different levels of
disturbances in the observations. The absolute values of relative
errors are plotted and the graphical performance of each technique is
compared.
Abstract: Lateral expansion is a factor defining the level of
confinement in reinforced concrete columns. Therefore, predicting
the lateral strain relationship with axial strain becomes an important
issue. Measuring lateral strains in experiments is difficult and only
few report experimental lateral strains. Among the existing analytical
formulations, two recent models are compared with available test
results in this paper with shortcomings highlighted. A new analytical
model is proposed here for lateral strain axial strain relationship and
is based on the supposition that the concrete behaves linear elastic in
the early stages of loading and then nonlinear hardening up to the
peak stress and then volumetric expansion. The proposal for the
lateral strain axial strain relationship after the peak stress is mainly
based on the hypothesis that the plastic lateral strain varies linearly
with the plastic axial strain and it is shown that this is related to the
lateral confinement level.
Abstract: Given a bivariate normal sample of correlated variables,
(Xi, Yi), i = 1, . . . , n, an alternative estimator of Pearson’s correlation
coefficient is obtained in terms of the ranges, |Xi − Yi|.
An approximate confidence interval for ρX,Y is then derived, and
a simulation study reveals that the resulting coverage probabilities
are in close agreement with the set confidence levels. As well, a
new approximant is provided for the density function of R, the
sample correlation coefficient. A mixture involving the proposed
approximate density of R, denoted by hR(r), and a density function
determined from a known approximation due to R. A. Fisher is shown
to accurately approximate the distribution of R. Finally, nearly exact
density approximants are obtained on adjusting hR(r) by a 7th degree
polynomial.
Abstract: In this paper three basic approaches and different
methods under each of them for extracting region of interest (ROI)
from stationary images are explored. The results obtained for each of
the proposed methods are shown, and it is demonstrated where each
method outperforms the other. Two main problems in ROI
extraction: the channel selection problem and the saliency reversal
problem are discussed and how best these two are addressed by
various methods is also seen. The basic approaches are 1) Saliency
based approach 2) Wavelet based approach 3) Clustering based
approach. The saliency approach performs well on images containing
objects of high saturation and brightness. The wavelet based
approach performs well on natural scene images that contain regions
of distinct textures. The mean shift clustering approach partitions the
image into regions according to the density distribution of pixel
intensities. The experimental results of various methodologies show
that each technique performs at different acceptable levels for
various types of images.
Abstract: Entrepreneurship has become an important and
extensively researched concept in business studies. Research on
foreign direct investment (FDI) has become widespread due to the
growth of FDI and its importance in globalization. Most
entrepreneurship studies examined the importance and influence of
entrepreneurial orientation in a micro-level context. On the other
hand, studies and research concerning FDI used statistical techniques
to analyze the effect, determinants, and motives of FDI on a
macroeconomic level, ignoring empirical studies on other noneconomic
determinants. In order to bridge the gap between the theory
and empirical evidence on FDI and the theory and research on
entrepreneurship, this study examines the impact of entrepreneurship
on inward foreign direct investment. The relationship between
entrepreneurship and foreign direct investment is investigated
through regression analysis of pooled time-series and cross-sectional
data. The results suggest that entrepreneurship has a significant effect
on FDI.
Abstract: This paper describes the design concepts and
implementation of a 5-Joint mechanical arm for a rescue robot named
CEO Mission II. The multi-joint arm is a five degree of freedom
mechanical arm with a four bar linkage, which can be stretched to
125 cm. long. It is controlled by a teleoperator via the user-friendly
control and monitoring GUI program. With Inverse Kinematics
principle, we developed the method to control the servo angles of all
arm joints to get the desired tip position. By clicking the determined
tip position or dragging the tip of the mechanical arm on the
computer screen to the desired target point, the robot will compute
and move its multi-joint arm to the pose as seen on the GUI screen.
The angles of each joint are calculated and sent to all joint servos
simultaneously in order to move the mechanical arm to the desired
pose at once. The operator can also use a joystick to control the
movement of this mechanical arm and the locomotion of the robot.
Many sensors are installed at the tip of this mechanical arm for
surveillance from the high level and getting the vital signs of victims
easier and faster in the urban search and rescue tasks. It works very
effectively and easy to control. This mechanical arm and its software
were developed as a part of the CEO Mission II Rescue Robot that
won the First Runner Up award and the Best Technique award from
the Thailand Rescue Robot Championship 2006. It is a low cost,
simple, but functioning 5-Jiont mechanical arm which is built from
scratch, and controlled via wireless LAN 802.11b/g. This 5-Jiont
mechanical arm hardware concept and its software can also be used
as the basic mechatronics to many real applications.
Abstract: In this work we study the effect of several covariates X on a censored response variable T with unknown probability distribution. In this context, most of the studies in the literature can be located in two possible general classes of regression models: models that study the effect the covariates have on the hazard function; and models that study the effect the covariates have on the censored response variable. Proposals in this paper are in the second class of models and, more specifically, on least squares based model approach. Thus, using the bootstrap estimate of the bias, we try to improve the estimation of the regression parameters by reducing their bias, for small sample sizes. Simulation results presented in the paper show that, for reasonable sample sizes and censoring levels, the bias is always smaller for the new proposals.
Abstract: The present study was conducted to observe the effect
of Plantago psyllium on blood glucose and cholesterol levels in
normal and alloxan induced diabetic rats. To investigate the effect of
Plantago psyllium 40 rats were included in this study divided into
four groups of ten rats in each group. One group A was normal,
second group B was diabetic, third group C was non diabetic and
hypercholesterolemic and fourth group D was diabetic and
hypercholesterolemic. Two groups B and D were made diabetic by
intraperitonial injection of alloxan dissolved in 1mL distilled water at
a dose of 125mg/Kg of body weight. Two groups C and D were
made hypercholesterolemic by oral administration of powder
cholesterol (1g/Kg of body weight). The blood samples from all the
rats were collected from coccygial vein on 1st day, then on 21st and
42nd day respectively. All the samples were analyzed for blood
glucose and cholesterol level by using enzymatic kits. The blood
glucose and cholesterol levels of treated groups of rats showed
significant reduction after 7 weeks of treatment with Plantago
psyllium. By statistical analysis of results it was found that Plantago
psyllium has anti-diabetic and hypocholesterolemic activity in
diabetic and hypercholesterolemic albino rats.
Abstract: This study investigated the relationship between urban
and rural ozone concentrations and quantified the extent to which
ambient rural conditions and the concentrations of other pollutants
can be used to predict urban ozone concentrations. The study
describes the variations of ozone in weekday and weekends as well as
the daily maximum recorded at selected monitoring stations. The
results showed that Putrajaya station had the highest concentrations
of O3 on weekend due the titration of NO during the weekday.
Additionally, Jerantut had the lowest average concentration with a
reading value high on Wednesdays. The comparisons of average and
maximum concentrations of ozone for the three stations showed that
the strongest significant correlation is recorded in Jerantut station
with the value R2= 0.769. Ozone concentrations originating from a
neighbouring urban site form a better predictor to the urban ozone
concentrations than widespread rural ozone at some levels of
temporal averaging. It is found that in urban and rural of Malaysian
peninsular, the concentration of ozone depends on the concentration
of NOx and seasonal meteorological factors. The HYSPLIT Model
(the northeast monsoon) showed that the wind direction can also
influence the concentration of ozone in the atmosphere in the studied
areas.
Abstract: The purposes of this study are 1) to identify
learning styles of university students in Bangkok, and 2) to study
the frequency of the relevant instructional context of the identified
learning styles. Learning Styles employed in this study are those of
Honey and Mumford, which include 1) Reflectors, 2) Theorists, 3)
Pragmatists, and 4) Activists. The population comprises 1383
students and 5 lecturers. Research tools are 2 questionnaires – one
used for identifying students- learning styles, and the other used for
identifying the frequency of the relevant instructional context of
the identified learning styles.
The research findings reveal that 32.30 percent - are Activists,
while 28.10 percent are Theorists, 20.10 are Reflectors, and 19.50
are Pragmatists. In terms of the relevant instructional context of the
identified 4 learning styles, it is found that the frequency level of
the instructional context is totally in high level. Moreover, 2 lists of
the context being conducted most frequently are 'Lead'in activity
to review background knowledge,- and 'Information retrieval
report.' And these two activities serve the learning styles of
theorists and activists. It is, therefore, suggested that more
instructional context supporting the activists, the majority of the
population, learning best by doing, as well as emotional learning
situation should be added.
Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to provide an efficient tool for delineating brain tumors in three-dimensional magnetic resonance images. To achieve this goal, we use basically a level-sets approach to delineating three-dimensional brain tumors. Then we introduce a compression plan of 3D brain structures based for the meshes simplification, adapted for time to the specific needs of the telemedicine and to the capacities restricted by network communication. We present here the main stages of our system, and preliminary results which are very encouraging for clinical practice.
Abstract: This study uses simulated meta-analysis to assess the effects of publication bias on meta-analysis estimates and to evaluate the efficacy of the trim and fill method in adjusting for these biases. The estimated effect sizes and the standard error were evaluated in terms of the statistical bias and the coverage probability. The results demonstrate that if publication bias is not adjusted it could lead to up to 40% bias in the treatment effect estimates. Utilization of the trim and fill method could reduce the bias in the overall estimate by more than half. The method is optimum in presence of moderate underlying bias but has minimal effects in presence of low and severe publication bias. Additionally, the trim and fill method improves the coverage probability by more than half when subjected to the same level of publication bias as those of the unadjusted data. The method however tends to produce false positive results and will incorrectly adjust the data for publication bias up to 45 % of the time. Nonetheless, the bias introduced into the estimates due to this adjustment is minimal