On Internet Access Technology Specification Model

Internet Access Technologies (IAT) provide a means through which Internet can be accessed. The choice of a suitable Internet technology is increasingly becoming an important issue to ISP clients. Currently, the choice of IAT is based on discretion and intuition of the concerned managers and the reliance on ISPs. In this paper we propose a model and designs algorithms that are used in the Internet access technology specification. In the proposed model, three ranking approaches are introduced; concurrent ranking, stepwise ranking and weighted ranking. The model ranks the IAT based on distance measures computed in ascending order while the global ranking system assigns weights to each IAT according to the position held in each ranking technique, determines the total weight of a particular IAT and ranks them in descending order. The final output is an objective ranking of IAT in descending order.

Long-term Irrigation with Dairy Factory Wastewater Influences Soil Quality

The effects of irrigation with dairy factory wastewater on soil properties were investigated at two sites that had received irrigation for > 60 years. Two adjoining paired sites that had never received DFE were also sampled as well as another seven fields from a wider area around the factory. In comparison with paired sites that had not received effluent, long-term wastewater irrigation resulted in an increase in pH, EC, extractable P, exchangeable Na and K and ESP. These changes were related to the use of phosphoric acid, NaOH and KOH as cleaning agents in the factory. Soil organic C content was unaffected by DFE irrigation but the size (microbial biomass C and N) and activity (basal respiration) of the soil microbial community were increased. These increases were attributed to regular inputs of soluble C (e.g. lactose) present as milk residues in the wastewater. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the soils data from all 11sites confirmed that the main effects of DFE irrigation were an increase in exchangeable Na, extractable P and microbial biomass C, an accumulation of soluble salts and a liming effect. PCA analysis of soil bacterial community structure, using PCR-DGGE of 16S rDNA fragments, generally separated individual sites from one another but did not group them according to irrigation history. Thus, whilst the size and activity of the soil microbial community were increased, the structure and diversity of the bacterial community remained unaffected.

Robust Conversion of Chaos into an Arbitrary Periodic Motion

One of the most attractive and important field of chaos theory is control of chaos. In this paper, we try to present a simple framework for chaotic motion control using the feedback linearization method. Using this approach, we derive a strategy, which can be easily applied to the other chaotic systems. This task presents two novel results: the desired periodic orbit need not be a solution of the original dynamics and the other is the robustness of response against parameter variations. The illustrated simulations show the ability of these. In addition, by a comparison between a conventional state feedback and our proposed method it is demonstrated that the introduced technique is more efficient.

Assessment of Drama Courses from the Preschoolers' Point of View

Creative drama which interconnects with the concepts of play, theatre, animation and role playing is a field which can only be learnt and expressed through experiencing. This study about assessment of the drama teaching in preschools by children was conducted in 3 preschools in Ankara with participation of 12 children of 6 ages who had taken drama learning courses. Qualitative research approach and semi-structured interviewing technique were employed. The results of the study indicated that all of 12 children defined drama as a game and entertainment.

Experiment and Simulation of Laser Effect on Thermal Field of Porcine Liver

In medical therapy, laser has been widely used to conduct cosmetic, tumor and other treatments. During the process of laser irradiation, there may be thermal damage caused by excessive laser exposure. Thus, the establishment of a complete thermal analysis model is clinically helpful to physicians in reference data. In this study, porcine liver in place of tissue was subjected to laser irradiation to set up the experimental data considering the explored impact on surface thermal field and thermal damage region under different conditions of power, laser irradiation time, and distance between laser and porcine liver. In the experimental process, the surface temperature distribution of the porcine lever was measured by the infrared thermal imager. In the part of simulation, the bio heat transfer Pennes-s equation was solved by software SYSWELD applying in welding process. The double ellipsoid function as a laser source term is firstly considered in the prediction for surface thermal field and internal tissue damage. The simulation results are compared with the experimental data to validate the mathematical model established here in.

The Influence of the Fin Set-up to the Cooling Output of the Floor Heating Convector

This article deals with the numerical simulation of the floor heating convector in 3D. Presented convector can operate in two modes – cooling mode and heating mode. This initial numerical simulation is focused on cooling mode of the convector. Models with different temperature of the fins are compared and three various shapes of the fins are examined as well. The objective of the work is to predict air flow and heat transfer inside convector for further optimalization of these devices. For the numerical simulation was used commercial software Ansys Fluent.

Relevance Feedback within CBIR Systems

We present here the results for a comparative study of some techniques, available in the literature, related to the relevance feedback mechanism in the case of a short-term learning. Only one method among those considered here is belonging to the data mining field which is the K-nearest neighbors algorithm (KNN) while the rest of the methods is related purely to the information retrieval field and they fall under the purview of the following three major axes: Shifting query, Feature Weighting and the optimization of the parameters of similarity metric. As a contribution, and in addition to the comparative purpose, we propose a new version of the KNN algorithm referred to as an incremental KNN which is distinct from the original version in the sense that besides the influence of the seeds, the rate of the actual target image is influenced also by the images already rated. The results presented here have been obtained after experiments conducted on the Wang database for one iteration and utilizing color moments on the RGB space. This compact descriptor, Color Moments, is adequate for the efficiency purposes needed in the case of interactive systems. The results obtained allow us to claim that the proposed algorithm proves good results; it even outperforms a wide range of techniques available in the literature.

Bandwidth, Area Efficient and Target Device Independent DDR SDRAM Controller

The application of the synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM) has gone beyond the scope of personal computers for quite a long time. It comes into hand whenever a big amount of low price and still high speed memory is needed. Most of the newly developed stand alone embedded devices in the field of image, video and sound processing take more and more use of it. The big amount of low price memory has its trade off – the speed. In order to take use of the full potential of the memory, an efficient controller is needed. Efficient stands for maximum random accesses to the memory both for reading and writing and less area after implementation. This paper proposes a target device independent DDR SDRAM pipelined controller and provides performance comparison with available solutions.

An Improved Conjugate Gradient Based Learning Algorithm for Back Propagation Neural Networks

The conjugate gradient optimization algorithm is combined with the modified back propagation algorithm to yield a computationally efficient algorithm for training multilayer perceptron (MLP) networks (CGFR/AG). The computational efficiency is enhanced by adaptively modifying initial search direction as described in the following steps: (1) Modification on standard back propagation algorithm by introducing a gain variation term in the activation function, (2) Calculation of the gradient descent of error with respect to the weights and gains values and (3) the determination of a new search direction by using information calculated in step (2). The performance of the proposed method is demonstrated by comparing accuracy and computation time with the conjugate gradient algorithm used in MATLAB neural network toolbox. The results show that the computational efficiency of the proposed method was better than the standard conjugate gradient algorithm.

Analysis of Polymer Surface Modifications due to Discharges Initiated by Water Droplets under High Electric Fields

This paper investigates the influence of various parameters on the behaviour of water droplets on polymeric surfaces under high electric fields. An inclined plane test was carried out to understand the droplet behaviour in strong electric field. Parameters such as water droplet conductivity, droplet volume, polymeric surface roughness and droplet positioning with respect to the electrodes were studied. The flashover voltage is affected by all aforementioned parameters. The droplet positioning is in some cases more vital than the droplet volume. Surface damages were analysed using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) studies and by Energy dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDAX). It is observes that magnitude of discharge have direct influence on amount of surface da

Gesture Recognition by Data Fusion of Time-of-Flight and Color Cameras

In the last years numerous applications of Human- Computer Interaction have exploited the capabilities of Time-of- Flight cameras for achieving more and more comfortable and precise interactions. In particular, gesture recognition is one of the most active fields. This work presents a new method for interacting with a virtual object in a 3D space. Our approach is based on the fusion of depth data, supplied by a ToF camera, with color information, supplied by a HD webcam. The hand detection procedure does not require any learning phase and is able to concurrently manage gestures of two hands. The system is robust to the presence in the scene of other objects or people, thanks to the use of the Kalman filter for maintaining the tracking of the hands.

Shell Closures in Exotic Nuclei

Inspired by the recent experiments [1]-[3] indicating unusual doubly magic nucleus 24O which lies just at the neutron drip-line and encouraged by the success of our relativistic mean-field (RMF) plus state dependent BCS approach for the description of the ground state properties of the drip-line nuclei [23]-[27], we have further employed this approach, across the entire periodic table, to explore the unusual shell closures in exotic nuclei. In our RMF+BCS approach the single particle continuum corresponding to the RMF is replaced by a set of discrete positive energy states for the calculations of pairing energy. Detailed analysis of the single particle spectrum, pairing energies and densities of the nuclei predict the unusual proton shell closures at Z = 6, 14, 16, 34, and unusual neutron shell closures at N = 6, 14, 16, 34, 40, 70, 112.

Application of Magnetic Circuit and Multiple-Coils Array in Induction Heating for Improving Localized Hyperthermia

Aiming the application of localized hyperthermia, a magnetic induction system with new approaches is proposed. The techniques in this system for improving the effectiveness of localized hyperthermia are that using magnetic circuit and the multiple-coil array instead of a giant coil for generating magnetic field. Specially, amorphous metal is adopted as the material of magnetic circuit. Detail design parameters of hardware are well described. Simulation tool is employed for this work and experiment result is reported as well.

The Response of Winter Wheat to Flooding

The effect of flooding can be a serious problem for wheat farmers, even at dry land condition. Amount of flooding damage depends on duration flooding, developmental stage, wheat type and variety. Therefore as a factorial experiment in randomized complete design based on winter bread wheat cultivars (Pishtaz, Marvdasht, Shiraz, Zarin, Shahriar, C-81-4, Sardari, Agosta seed, FGS and Azar2) at stages (Non- flooding stress, flooding at tillering and stem elongation stages for 15 days) carried out in Faculty of Agriculture, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran. During flooding, soil environment of plant roots were water saturated. Analysis of variance showed that flooding had a significant effect on the number of grains per spike, grain weight per spike and a grain weight. Hence flooding reduces the number of grain per spike between 27.1 to 42.5 percent, grain weight per spike between 34.7 to 54.4 percent and single grain weight between 12.1 to 15.1 percent. Effects of flooding at the tillering stage reduced higher than stem elongation stage on studied traits. The result also showed that flooding at tillering stage delayed spikelet primordial and floret. Between wheat cultivars was significant for traits, but were different reactions. "Shiraz", "Zarin" and "Shahriar" had the most no. grain per spike, but "Zarin" and "Sardari" had the most grain weight per spike and single grain weight, respectively. Also, interaction between start of flooding and cultivar was significant.

A Selective Markovianity Approach for Image Segmentation

A new Markovianity approach is introduced in this paper. This approach reduces the response time of classic Markov Random Fields approach. First, one region is determinated by a clustering technique. Then, this region is excluded from the study. The remaining pixel form the study zone and they are selected for a Markovianity segmentation task. With Selective Markovianity approach, segmentation process is faster than classic one.

Multichannel Image Mosaicing of Stem Cells

Image mosaicing techniques are usually employed to offer researchers a wider field of view of microscopic image of biological samples. a mosaic is commonly achieved using automated microscopes and often with one “color" channel, whether it refers to natural or fluorescent analysis. In this work we present a method to achieve three subsequent mosaics of the same part of a stem cell culture analyzed in phase contrast and in fluorescence, with a common non-automated inverted microscope. The mosaics obtained are then merged together to mark, in the original contrast phase images, nuclei and cytoplasm of the cells referring to a mosaic of the culture, rather than to single images. The experiments carried out prove the effectiveness of our approach with cultures of cells stained with calcein (green/cytoplasm and nuclei) and hoechst (blue/nuclei) probes.

Member Investment Willingness in Agricultural Cooperatives in Shaanxi (China)

This study analyzes characteristics determining member’s willingness to invest in cooperatives using ordered logit model. The data were collected in a field survey among 122 cooperative members in north-central China. The descriptive analysis of survey evidence suggests that cooperatives in China generally having poor ability to deliver the processing services related to product package, grading, and storage, performing worse in profitability, inability of providing returns to capital and obtaining agricultural loan. The regression results demonstrate that members’ farm size, their satisfaction with cooperative price preferential services, attitudes toward cooperative operational scale and development potential have statistically significant impact on willingness to invest.

Heat Transfer and Frictional Characteristics in Rectangular Channel with Inclined Perforated Baffles

A numerical study on the turbulent flow and heat transfer characteristics in the rectangular channel with different types of baffles is carried out. The inclined baffles have the width of 19.8 cm, the square diamond type hole having one side length of 2.55 cm, and the inclination angle of 5o. Reynolds number is varied between 23,000 and 57,000. The SST turbulence model is applied in the calculation. The validity of the numerical results is examined by the experimental data. The numerical results of the flow field depict that the flow patterns around the different baffle type are entirely different and these significantly affect the local heat transfer characteristics. The heat transfer and friction factor characteristics are significantly affected by the perforation density of the baffle plate. It is found that the heat transfer enhancement of baffle type II (3 hole baffle) has the best values.

Using Field Indices of Rill and Gully in order to Erosion Estimating and Sediment Analysis (Case Study: Menderjan Watershed in Isfahan Province, Iran)

Today, incorrect use of lands and land use changes, excessive grazing, no suitable using of agricultural farms, plowing on steep slopes, road construct, building construct, mine excavation etc have been caused increasing of soil erosion and sediment yield. For erosion and sediment estimation one can use statistical and empirical methods. This needs to identify land unit map and the map of effective factors. However, these empirical methods are usually time consuming and do not give accurate estimation of erosion. In this study, we applied GIS techniques to estimate erosion and sediment of Menderjan watershed at upstream Zayandehrud river in center of Iran. Erosion faces at each land unit were defined on the basis of land use, geology and land unit map using GIS. The UTM coordinates of each erosion type that showed more erosion amounts such as rills and gullies were inserted in GIS using GPS data. The frequency of erosion indicators at each land unit, land use and their sediment yield of these indices were calculated. Also using tendency analysis of sediment yield changes in watershed outlet (Menderjan hydrometric gauge station), was calculated related parameters and estimation errors. The results of this study according to implemented watershed management projects can be used for more rapid and more accurate estimation of erosion than traditional methods. These results can also be used for regional erosion assessment and can be used for remote sensing image processing.

Prediction of the Characteristics of Transformer Oil under Different Operation Conditions

Power systems and transformer are intrinsic apparatus, therefore its reliability and safe operation is important to determine their operation conditions, and the industry uses quality control tests in the insulation design of oil filled transformers. Hence the service period effect on AC dielectric strength is significant. The effect of aging on transformer oil physical, chemical and electrical properties was studied using the international testing methods for the evaluation of transformer oil quality. The study was carried out on six transformers operate in the field and for monitoring periods over twenty years. The properties which are strongly time dependent were specified and those which have a great impact on the transformer oil acidity, breakdown voltage and dissolved gas analysis were defined. Several tests on the transformers oil were studied to know the time of purifying or changing it, moreover prediction of the characteristics of it under different operation conditions.