Abstract: Dengue fever is prevalent in Malaysia with numerous
cases including mortality recorded over the years. Public education
on the prevention of the desease through various means has been
carried out besides the enforcement of legal means to eradicate
Aedes mosquitoes, the dengue vector breeding ground. Hence, other
means need to be explored, such as predicting the seasonal peak
period of the dengue outbreak and identifying related climate factors
contributing to the increase in the number of mosquitoes. Simulation
model can be employed for this purpose. In this study, we created a
simulation of system dynamic to predict the spread of dengue
outbreak in Hulu Langat, Selangor Malaysia. The prototype was
developed using STELLA 9.1.2 software. The main data input are
rainfall, temperature and denggue cases. Data analysis from the graph
showed that denggue cases can be predicted accurately using these
two main variables- rainfall and temperature. However, the model
will be further tested over a longer time period to ensure its
accuracy, reliability and efficiency as a prediction tool for dengue
outbreak.
Abstract: Much time series data is generally from continuous dynamic system. Firstly, this paper studies the detection of the nonlinearity of time series from continuous dynamics systems by applying the Phase-randomized surrogate algorithm. Then, the Delay Vector Variance (DVV) method is introduced into nonlinearity test. The results show that under the different sampling conditions, the opposite detection of nonlinearity is obtained via using traditional test statistics methods, which include the third-order autocovariance and the asymmetry due to time reversal. Whereas the DVV method can perform well on determining nonlinear of Lorenz signal. It indicates that the proposed method can describe the continuous dynamics signal effectively.
Abstract: The aerodynamic noise radiation from a side view mirror (SVM) in the high-speed airflow is calculated by the combination of unsteady incompressible fluid flow analysis and acoustic analysis. The transient flow past the generic SVM is simulated with variable turbulence model, namely DES Detached Eddy Simulation and LES (Large Eddy Simulation). Detailed velocity vectors and contour plots of the time-varying velocity and pressure fields are presented along cut planes in the flow-field. Mean and transient pressure are also monitored at several points in the flow field and compared to corresponding experimentally data published in literature. The acoustic predictions made using the Ffowcs-Williams-Hawkins acoustic analogy (FW-H) and the boundary element (BEM).
Abstract: Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in mathematical education is a very active field of research and innovation, where learning is understood to be meaningful and grasping multiple linked representation rather than rote memorization, a great amount of literature offering a wide range of theories, learning approaches, methodologies and interpretations, are generally stressing the potentialities for teaching and learning using ICT. Despite the utilization of new learning approaches with ICT, students experience difficulties in learning concepts relevant to understanding mathematics, much remains unclear about the relationship between the computer environment, the activities it might support, and the knowledge that might emerge from such activities. Many questions that might arise in this regard: to what extent does the use of ICT help students in the process of understanding and solving tasks or problems? Is it possible to identify what aspects or features of students' mathematical learning can be enhanced by the use of technology? This paper will highlight the interest of the integration of information and communication technologies (ICT) into the teaching and learning of mathematics (quadratic functions), it aims to investigate the effect of four instructional methods on students- mathematical understanding and problem solving. Quantitative and qualitative methods are used to report about 43 students in middle school. Results showed that mathematical thinking and problem solving evolves as students engage with ICT activities and learn cooperatively.
Abstract: Residue Number System (RNS) is a modular representation and is proved to be an instrumental tool in many digital signal processing (DSP) applications which require high-speed computations. RNS is an integer and non weighted number system; it can support parallel, carry-free, high-speed and low power arithmetic. A very interesting correspondence exists between the concepts of Multiple Valued Logic (MVL) and Residue Number Arithmetic. If the number of levels used to represent MVL signals is chosen to be consistent with the moduli which create the finite rings in the RNS, MVL becomes a very natural representation for the RNS. There are two concerns related to the application of this Number System: reaching the most possible speed and the largest dynamic range. There is a conflict when one wants to resolve both these problem. That is augmenting the dynamic range results in reducing the speed in the same time. For achieving the most performance a method is considere named “One-Hot Residue Number System" in this implementation the propagation is only equal to one transistor delay. The problem with this method is the huge increase in the number of transistors they are increased in order m2 . In real application this is practically impossible. In this paper combining the Multiple Valued Logic and One-Hot Residue Number System we represent a new method to resolve both of these two problems. In this paper we represent a novel design of an OHRNS-based adder circuit. This circuit is useable for Multiple Valued Logic moduli, in comparison to other RNS design; this circuit has considerably improved the number of transistors and power consumption.
Abstract: Due to the high percentage of induction motors in industrial market, there exist a large opportunity for energy savings. Replacement of working induction motors with more efficient ones can be an important resource for energy savings. A calculation of energy savings and payback periods, as a result of such a replacement, based on nameplate motor efficiency or manufacture-s data can lead to large errors [1]. Efficiency of induction motors (IMs) can be extracted using some procedures that use the no-load test results. In the cases that we must estimate the efficiency on-line, some of these procedures can-t be efficient. In some cases the efficiency estimates using the rating values of the motor, but these procedures can have errors due to the different working condition of the motor. In this paper the efficiency of an IM estimated by using the genetic algorithm. The results are compared with the measured values of the torque and power. The results show smaller errors for this procedure compared with the conventional classical procedures, hence the cost of the equipments is reduced and on-line estimation of the efficiency can be made.
Abstract: In this paper, the application of neural networks to study the design of short-term temperature forecasting (STTF) Systems for Kermanshah city, west of Iran was explored. One important architecture of neural networks named Multi-Layer Perceptron (MLP) to model STTF systems is used. Our study based on MLP was trained and tested using ten years (1996-2006) meteorological data. The results show that MLP network has the minimum forecasting error and can be considered as a good method to model the STTF systems.
Abstract: A new low-voltage floating gate MOSFET (FGMOS)
based squarer using square law characteristic of the FGMOS is
proposed in this paper. The major advantages of the squarer are simplicity,
rail-to-rail input dynamic range, low total harmonic distortion,
and low power consumption. The proposed circuit is biased without
body effect. The circuit is designed and simulated using SPICE in
0.25μm CMOS technology. The squarer is operated at the supply
voltages of ±0.75V . The total harmonic distortion (THD) for the
input signal 0.75Vpp at 25 KHz, and maximum power consumption
were found to be less than 1% and 319μW respectively.
Abstract: The use of radar in Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) for radar-rainfall measurement is significantly beneficial. Radar has advantages in terms of high spatial and temporal condition in rainfall measurement and also forecasting. In Malaysia, radar application in QPE is still new and needs to be explored. This paper focuses on the Z/R derivation works of radarrainfall estimation based on rainfall classification. The works developed new Z/R relationships for Klang River Basin in Selangor area for three different general classes of rain events, namely low (10mm/hr, 30mm/hr) and also on more specific rain types during monsoon seasons. Looking at the high potential of Doppler radar in QPE, the newly formulated Z/R equations will be useful in improving the measurement of rainfall for any hydrological application, especially for flood forecasting.
Abstract: The recent global financial problem urges government
to play role in stimulating the economy due to the fact that private
sector has little ability to purchase during the recession. A concerned
question is whether the increased government spending crowds out
private consumption and whether it helps stimulate the economy. If
the government spending policy is effective; the private consumption
is expected to increase and can compensate the recent extra
government expense. In this study, the government spending is
categorized into government consumption spending and government
capital spending. The study firstly examines consumer consumption
along the line with the demand function in microeconomic theory.
Three categories of private consumption are used in the study. Those
are food consumption, non food consumption, and services
consumption. The dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System of the three
categories of the private consumption is estimated using the Vector
Error Correction Mechanism model. The estimated model indicates
the substituting effects (negative impacts) of the government
consumption spending on budget shares of private non food
consumption and of the government capital spending on budget share
of private food consumption, respectively. Nevertheless the result
does not necessarily indicate whether the negative effects of changes
in the budget shares of the non food and the food consumption means
fallen total private consumption. Microeconomic consumer demand
analysis clearly indicates changes in component structure of
aggregate expenditure in the economy as a result of the government
spending policy. The macroeconomic concept of aggregate demand
comprising consumption, investment, government spending (the
government consumption spending and the government capital
spending), export, and import are used to estimate for their
relationship using the Vector Error Correction Mechanism model.
The macroeconomic study found no effect of the government capital
spending on either the private consumption or the growth of GDP
while the government consumption spending has negative effect on
the growth of GDP. Therefore no crowding out effect of the
government spending is found on the private consumption but it is
ineffective and even inefficient expenditure as found reducing growth
of the GDP in the context of Thailand.
Abstract: Future space vehicles will require the use of non-toxic, cryogenic propellants, because of the performance advantages over the toxic hypergolic propellants and also because of the environmental and handling concerns. A prototypical capillary flow liquid acquisition device (LAD) for cryogenic propellants was fabricated with a mesh screen, covering a rectangular flow channel with a cylindrical outlet tube, and was tested with liquid oxygen (LOX). In order to better understand the performance in various gravity environments and orientations with different submersion depths of the LAD, a series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of LOX flow through the LAD screen channel, including horizontally and vertically submersions of the LAD channel assembly at normal gravity environment was conducted. Gravity effects on the flow field in LAD channel are inspected and analyzed through comparing the simulations.
Abstract: The hot deformation behavior of high strength low
alloy (HSLA) steels with different chemical compositions under hot
working conditions in the temperature range of 900 to 1100℃ and
strain rate range from 0.1 to 10 s-1 has been studied by performing a
series of hot compression tests. The dynamic materials model has been
employed for developing the processing maps, which show variation
of the efficiency of power dissipation with temperature and strain rate.
Also the Kumar-s model has been used for developing the instability
map, which shows variation of the instability for plastic deformation
with temperature and strain rate. The efficiency of power dissipation
increased with decreasing strain rate and increasing temperature in the
steel with higher Cr and Ti content. High efficiency of power
dissipation over 20 % was obtained at a finite strain level of 0.1 under
the conditions of strain rate lower than 1 s-1 and temperature higher
than 1050 ℃ . Plastic instability was expected in the regime of
temperatures lower than 1000 ℃ and strain rate lower than 0.3 s-1. Steel
with lower Cr and Ti contents showed high efficiency of power
dissipation at higher strain rate and lower temperature conditions.
Abstract: Fair share is one of the scheduling objectives supported on many production systems. However, fair share has been shown to cause performance problems for some users, especially the users with difficult jobs. This work is focusing on extending goaloriented parallel computer job scheduling policies to cover the fair share objective. Goal-oriented parallel computer job scheduling policies have been shown to achieve good scheduling performances when conflicting objectives are required. Goal-oriented policies achieve such good performance by using anytime combinatorial search techniques to find a good compromised schedule within a time limit. The experimental results show that the proposed goal-oriented parallel computer job scheduling policy (namely Tradeofffs( Tw:avgX)) achieves good scheduling performances and also provides good fair share performance.
Abstract: The halophilic proteinase showed a maximal activity
at 50°C and pH 9~10, in 20% NaCl and was highly stabilized by
NaCl. It was able to hydrolyse natural actomyosin (NAM), collagen
and anchovy protein. For NAM hydrolysis, the myosin heavy chain
was completely digested by halophilic proteinase as evidenced by the
lowest band intensity remaining, but partially hydrolysed actin. The
SR5-3 proteinase was also capable hydrolyzing two major
components of collagen, β- and α-compounds, effectively. The
degree of hydrolysis (DH) of the halophilic proteinase and
commercial proteinases (Novozyme, Neutrase, chymotrypsin and
Flavourzyme) on the anchovy protein, were compared, and it was
found that the proteinase showed a greater degree of hydrolysis
towards anchovy protein than that from commercial proteinases. DH
of halophilic proteinase was sharply enhanced according to the
increase in the concentration of enzyme from 0.035 U to 0.105 U.
The results warranting that the acceleration of the production of fish
sauce with higher quality, may be achieved by adding of the
halophilic proteinase from this bacterium.
Abstract: The dental composites are preferably used as filling
materials due to their esthetic appearances. Nevertheless one of the
major problems, during the application of the dental composites, is
shape change named as “polymerisation shrinkage" affecting clinical
success of the dental restoration while photo-polymerisation.
Polymerisation shrinkage of composites arises basically from the
formation of a polymer due to the monomer transformation which
composes of an organic matrix phase. It was sought, throughout this
study, to detect and evaluate the structural polymerisation shrinkage
of prepared dental composites in order to optimize the effects of
various fillers included in hydroxyapatite (HA)-reinforced dental
composites and hence to find a means to modify the properties of
these dental composites prepared with defined parameters. As a
result, the shrinkage values of the experimental dental composites
were decreased by increasing the filler content of composites and the
composition of different fillers used had effect on the shrinkage of
the prepared composite systems.
Abstract: This paper presents the applicability of artificial
neural networks for 24 hour ahead solar power generation forecasting
of a 20 kW photovoltaic system, the developed forecasting is suitable
for a reliable Microgrid energy management. In total four neural
networks were proposed, namely: multi-layred perceptron, radial
basis function, recurrent and a neural network ensemble consisting in
ensemble of bagged networks. Forecasting reliability of the proposed
neural networks was carried out in terms forecasting error
performance basing on statistical and graphical methods. The
experimental results showed that all the proposed networks achieved
an acceptable forecasting accuracy. In term of comparison the neural
network ensemble gives the highest precision forecasting comparing
to the conventional networks. In fact, each network of the ensemble
over-fits to some extent and leads to a diversity which enhances the
noise tolerance and the forecasting generalization performance
comparing to the conventional networks.
Abstract: Although the World Wide Web is considered the
largest source of information there exists nowadays, due to its
inherent dynamic characteristics, the task of finding useful and
qualified information can become a very frustrating experience. This
study presents a research on the information mining systems in the
Web; and proposes an implementation of these systems by means of
components that can be built using the technology of Web services.
This implies that they can encompass features offered by a services
oriented architecture (SOA) and specific components may be used by
other tools, independent of platforms or programming languages.
Hence, the main objective of this work is to provide an architecture
to Web mining systems, divided into stages, where each step is a
component that will incorporate the characteristics of SOA. The
separation of these steps was designed based upon the existing
literature. Interesting results were obtained and are shown here.
Abstract: For the efficient and safe use of the cable-stayed
bridge, a design based on the detailed local analysis of the cable anchor
system is required. Also, a theoretical design process for the anchor
system should be prepared and reviewed. Generally, the size of the
fixing pipe in the anchor system is decided according to the
specifications prepared by cable-manufacturing companies, and
accordingly, there is difficulty determining the initial inner diameters
of the fixing pipes. As such, there is no choice but to use the products
with the existing sizes. In this study, the existing design process of the
fixing pipe, is a type of guide pipe anchor in the cable anchor system,
is reviewed, a formula determining the thickness of the fixing pipe is
proposed, and the convenience and validity of the suggested equation
is compared with the results of the existing designs to verify its
convenience and validity.
Abstract: Traffic Density provides an indication of the level of
service being provided to the road users. Hence, there is a need to
study the traffic flow characteristics with specific reference to
density in detail. When the length and speed of the vehicles in a
traffic stream vary significantly, the concept of occupancy, rather
than density, is more appropriate to describe traffic concentration.
When the concept of occupancy is applied to heterogeneous traffic
condition, it is necessary to consider the area of the road space and
the area of the vehicles as the bases. Hence, a new concept named,
'area-occupancy' is proposed here. It has been found that the
estimated area-occupancy gives consistent values irrespective of
change in traffic composition.
Abstract: Position based routing protocols are the kinds of
routing protocols, which they use of nodes location information,
instead of links information to routing. In position based routing
protocols, it supposed that the packet source node has position
information of itself and it's neighbors and packet destination node.
Greedy is a very important position based routing protocol. In one of
it's kinds, named MFR (Most Forward Within Radius), source node
or packet forwarder node, sends packet to one of it's neighbors with
most forward progress towards destination node (closest neighbor to
destination). Using distance deciding metric in Greedy to forward
packet to a neighbor node, is not suitable for all conditions. If closest
neighbor to destination node, has high speed, in comparison with
source node or intermediate packet forwarder node speed or has very
low remained battery power, then packet loss probability is
increased. Proposed strategy uses combination of metrics distancevelocity
similarity-power, to deciding about giving the packet to
which neighbor. Simulation results show that the proposed strategy
has lower lost packets average than Greedy, so it has more reliability.