Abstract: The demands of an ever changing and complex higher education environment, along with the profile of modern learners challenge current approaches to assessment and feedback. More learners enter the education system every year. The younger generation expects immediate feedback. At the same time, feedback should be meaningful. The assessment of practical activities in programming poses a particular problem, since both lecturers and learners in the information and computer science discipline acknowledge that paper-based assessment for programming subjects lacks meaningful real-life testing. At the same time, feedback lacks promptness, consistency, comprehensiveness and individualisation. Most of these aspects may be addressed by modern, technology-assisted assessment. The focus of this paper is the continuous development of an artefact that is used to assist the lecturer in the assessment and feedback of practical programming activities in a senior database programming class. The artefact was developed using three Design Science Research cycles. The first implementation allowed one programming activity submission per assessment intervention. This pilot provided valuable insight into the obstacles regarding the implementation of this type of assessment tool. A second implementation improved the initial version to allow multiple programming activity submissions per assessment. The focus of this version is on providing scaffold feedback to the learner – allowing improvement with each subsequent submission. It also has a built-in capability to provide the lecturer with information regarding the key problem areas of each assessment intervention.
Abstract: Manganese oxide is being recently used as electrode material for rechargeable batteries. In this study, Al incorporated Mn2O3 compositions were synthesized to study the effect of Al doping on electrochemical performance of host material. Structural studies were carried out using X-ray diffraction analysis to confirm the phase stability and explore the lattice parameters, crystallite size, lattice strain, density and cell volume. Morphology and composition were analyzed using field emission scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, respectively. Dynamic light scattering analysis was performed to observe the average particle size of the compositions. FTIR measurements exhibit the O-Al-O and O-Mn-O and Al-O bonding and with increasing the concentration of Al, the vibrational peaks of Mn-O become sharper. An enhanced electrochemical performance was observed in compositions with higher Al content.
Abstract: This paper presents the refinement method for two beams formation of wideband smart antenna. The refinement method for weighting coefficients is based on Fully Spatial Signal Processing by taking Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform (IDFT), and its simulation results are presented using MATLAB. The radiation pattern is created by multiplying the incoming signal with real weights and then summing them together. These real weighting coefficients are computed by IDFT method; however, the range of weight values is relatively wide. Therefore, for reducing this range, the refinement method is used. The radiation pattern concerns with five input parameters to control. These parameters are maximum weighting coefficient, wideband signal, direction of mainbeam, beamwidth, and maximum of minor lobe level. Comparison of the obtained simulation results between using refinement method and taking only IDFT shows that the refinement method works well for wideband two beams formation.
Abstract: There have recently been many studies and investments in developed and developing countries regarding the possibility of recycling construction waste, which are still ongoing. Since the term 'construction waste' covers a vast spectrum of materials in constructing buildings, roads and etc., many investigations are required to measure their technical performance in use as well as their time and place of use. Concrete is among the major and fundamental materials used in current construction industry. Along with the rise of population in developing countries, it is desperately required to meet the people's primary need in construction industry and on the other hand, dispose existing wastes for reducing the amount of environmental pollutants. Restrictions of natural resources and environmental pollution are the most important problems encountered by civil engineers. Reusing construction waste is an important and economic approach that not only assists the preservation of environment but also, provides us with primary raw materials. In line with consistent municipal development in disposal and reuse of construction waste, several approaches including, management of construction waste and materials, materials recycling and innovation and new inventions in materials have been predicted. This article has accordingly attempted to study the activities related to recycling of construction wastes and then, stated the economic, quantitative, qualitative and environmental results obtained.
Abstract: In present era, development of digital circuits, signal processors and other integrated circuits, magnitude comparators are challenged by large area and more power consumption. Comparator is most basic circuit that performs comparison. This paper presents a technique to design a two bit comparator which consumes less area and power. DSCH and MICROWIND version 3 are used to design the schematic and design the layout of the schematic, observe the performance parameters at different nanometer technologies respectively.
Abstract: This paper presents a method for steering velocity bounded mobile robots in environments with partially known stationary obstacles. The exact location of obstacles is unknown and only a probability distribution associated with the location of the obstacles is known. Kinematic model of a 2-wheeled differential drive robot is used as the model of mobile robot. The presented control strategy uses the Artificial Potential Field (APF) method for devising a desired direction of movement for the robot at each instant of time while the Constrained Directions Control (CDC) uses the generated direction to produce the control signals required for steering the robot. The location of each obstacle is considered to be the mean value of the 2D probability distribution and similarly, the magnitude of the electric charge in the APF is set as the trace of covariance matrix of the location probability distribution. The method not only captures the challenges of planning the path (i.e. probabilistic nature of the location of unknown obstacles), but it also addresses the output saturation which is considered to be an important issue from the control perspective. Moreover, velocity of the robot can be controlled during the steering. For example, the velocity of robot can be reduced in close vicinity of obstacles and target to ensure safety. Finally, the control strategy is simulated for different scenarios to show how the method can be put into practice.
Abstract: An aspect of client expenditure management that requires attention is the level of accuracy achievable in design-stage elemental cost planning. This has been a major concern for construction clients and practitioners in New Zealand (NZ). Pre-tender estimating inaccuracies are significantly influenced by the level of risk information available to estimators. Proper cost planning activities should ensure the production of a project’s likely construction costs (initial and final), and subsequent cost control activities should prevent unpleasant consequences of cost overruns, disputes and project abandonment. If risks were properly identified and priced at the design stage, observed variance between design-stage elemental cost plans (ECPs) and final tender sums (FTS) (initial contract sums) could be reduced. This study investigates the variations between design-stage ECPs and FTS of construction projects, with a view to identifying risk factors that are responsible for the observed variance. Data were sourced through interviews, and risk factors were identified by using thematic analysis. Access was obtained to project files from the records of study participants (consultant quantity surveyors), and document analysis was employed in complementing the responses from the interviews. Study findings revealed the discrepancies between ECPs and FTS in the region of -14% and +16%. It is opined in this study that the identified risk factors were responsible for the variability observed. The values obtained from the analysis would enable greater accuracy in the forecast of FTS by Quantity Surveyors. Further, whilst inherent risks in construction project developments are observed globally, these findings have important ramifications for construction projects by expanding existing knowledge on what is needed for reasonable budgetary performance and successful delivery of construction projects. The findings contribute significantly to the study by providing quantitative confirmation to justify the theoretical conclusions generated in the literature from around the world. This therefore adds to and consolidates existing knowledge.
Abstract: Change requirement traceability in object oriented software systems is one of the challenging areas in research. We know that the traces between links of different artifacts are to be automated or semi-automated in the software development life cycle (SDLC). The aim of this paper is discussing and implementing aspects of dynamically linking the artifacts such as requirements, high level design, code and test cases through the Extensible Markup Language (XML) or by dynamically generating Object Oriented (OO) metrics. Also, non-functional requirements (NFR) aspects such as stability, completeness, clarity, validity, feasibility and precision are discussed. We discuss this as a Fifth Taxonomy, which is a system vulnerability concern.
Abstract: Snails are considered as suitable diagnostic organisms for heavy metal–contaminated sites. Biomphalaria alexandrina snails are used in this work as pollution bioindicators after exposure to chemical mixtures consisted of heavy metals (HM); zinc (Zn), copper (Cu) and lead (Pb); and persistent organic pollutants; Decabromodiphenyl ether 98% (D) and Aroclor 1254 (A). The impacts of these tested chemicals, individual and mixtures, on liver and kidney functions, antioxidant enzymes, complete blood picture, and tissue histology were studied. Results showed that Cu was proved to be the highly toxic against snails than Zn and Pb where LC50 values were 1.362, 213.198 and 277.396 ppm, respectively. Also, B. alexandrina snails exposed to the mixture of HM (¼ LC5 Cu, Pb and Zn) showed the highest bioaccumulation of Cu and Zn in their whole tissue, the most significant increase in AST, ALT & ALP activities and the highest significant levels of total protein, albumin and globulin. Results showed significant alterations in CAT activity in snail tissue extracts while snail samples exposed to most experimental tests showed significant increase in GST activity. Snail samples that exposed to HM mixtures showed a significant decrease in total hemocytes count while snail samples that exposed to mixtures containing A & D showed a significant increase in total hemocytes and Hyalinocytes. Histopathological alterations in snail samples exposed to individual HM and their mixtures for 4 weeks showed degeneration, edema, hyper trophy and vaculation in head-foot muscle, degeneration and necrotic changes in the digestive gland and accumulation in most tested organs. Also, the hermaphrodite gland showed mature ova with irregular shape and reduction in sperm number. In conclusion, the resulted damage and alterations in B. alexandrina studied parameters can be used as bioindicators to the presence of pollutants in its habitats.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with the development of a
fully implicit and purely Eulerian fluid-structure interaction method
tailored for the modeling of the large deformations of elastic
membranes in a surrounding Newtonian fluid. We consider a
simplified model for the mechanical properties of the membrane, in
which the surface strain energy depends on the membrane stretching.
The fully Eulerian description is based on the advection of a modified
surface tension tensor, and the deformations of the membrane are
tracked using a level set strategy. The resulting nonlinear problem
is solved by a Newton-Raphson method, featuring a quadratic
convergence behavior. A monolithic solver is implemented, and we
report several numerical experiments aimed at model validation and
illustrating the accuracy of the presented method. We show that
stability is maintained for significantly larger time steps.
Abstract: Digital Watermarking is a procedure to prevent the unauthorized access and modification of personal data. It assures that the communication between two parties remains secure and their communication should be undetected. This paper investigates the consequence of the watermark strength of the grayscale image using a Discrete Wavelet Transformation (DWT) additive technique. In this method, the gray scale host image is divided into four sub bands: LL (Low-Low), HL (High-Low), LH (Low-High), HH (High-High) and the watermark is inserted in an LL sub band using DWT technique. As the image is divided into four sub bands, a watermark of equal size of the LL sub band has been inserted and the results are discussed. LL represents the average component of the host image which contains the maximum information of the image. Two kinds of experiments are performed. In the first, the same watermark is embedded in different images and in the later on the strength of the watermark varies by a factor of s i.e. (s=10, 20, 30, 40, 50) and it is inserted in the same image.
Abstract: In the last few decades, due to their advanced properties, there has been an increasing interest in hybrid composite materials. In this study, the effect of different stacking sequences of jute and carbon fabric plies on dynamic mechanical properties of composite laminates were investigated. Vacuum bagging system was used to fabricate the composite samples. Each composite laminate was reinforced with two plies of jute fabric and two plies of carbon fabric by varying the position of layers. Dynamic mechanical analyzer (DMA) was used to examine the dynamic mechanical properties of composite laminates with increasing temperature. Results showed that the composite sample, which has carbon fabric at the outer layers, has the highest storage and loss modulus. Besides, it was observed that glass transition temperature (Tg) of samples are close to each other and at about 75 °C.
Abstract: Military interventions have an important place in the Turkish Political History. Military interventions are commonly called coup in the society. By coup we mean that the armed forces seize political power either by a group of officer in the army or by chain of command. Coups not only weaken but also suspend the democracy in a country. All periods of coup created its own victims. Two military coups which took place in May 27, 1960 and September 12, 1980 are the most important ones in terms of political and social effect in the Turkish Political History. Apart these, March 12, 1971, February 28, 1997 and April 27, 2007 e-memorandum are the periods when Army submitted a memorandum and intervened the political government indirectly. Beside the memorandums and coups there were also many coup attempts that have been experienced in the Turkish Political History. In this study, we examined the coup attempted by FETO’s military members in the evening of July 15, 2016 from the point of the Turkish Press. Cumhuriyet, Haber Türk, Hürriyet, Milliyet, Sabah, Star, Yeni Akit and Yeni Şafak Newspapers which have different publication policies were examined within the scope of the study. The first pages of the newspapers dated July 16, 2016 were examined using content analysis method. The headlines, news, news headlines and the visual materials used for news were examined and the collected data were analysed.
Abstract: Solvability of the model matching problem for
input/output switched asynchronous sequential machines is discussed
in this paper. The control objective is to determine the existence
condition and design algorithm for a corrective controller that can
match the stable-state behavior of the closed-loop system to that of
a reference model. Switching operations and correction procedures
are incorporated using output feedback so that the controlled
switched machine can show the desired input/output behavior. A
matrix expression is presented to address reachability of switched
asynchronous sequential machines with output equivalence with
respect to a model. The presented reachability condition for the
controller design is validated in a simple example.
Abstract: Endothelial Progenitor Cell (EPC) based therapies continue to be of interest to treat ischemic events based on their proven role to promote blood vessel formation and thus tissue re-vascularisation. Current strategies for the production of clinical-grade EPCs requires the in vitro isolation of EPCs from peripheral blood followed by cell expansion to provide sufficient quantities EPCs for cell therapy. This study aims to examine the use of different biomolecules to significantly improve the current strategy of EPC capture and expansion on collagen type I (Col I). In this study, four different biomolecules were immobilised on a surface and then investigated for their capacity to support EPC capture and proliferation. First, a cell microarray platform was fabricated by coating a glass surface with epoxy functional allyl glycidyl ether plasma polymer (AGEpp) to mediate biomolecule binding. The four candidate biomolecules tested were Col I, collagen type II (Col II), collagen type IV (Col IV) and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A), which were arrayed on the epoxy-functionalised surface using a non-contact printer. The surrounding area between the printed biomolecules was passivated with polyethylene glycol-bisamine (A-PEG) to prevent non-specific cell attachment. EPCs were seeded onto the microarray platform and cell numbers quantified after 1 h (to determine capture) and 72 h (to determine proliferation). All of the extracellular matrix (ECM) biomolecules printed demonstrated an ability to capture EPCs within 1 h of cell seeding with Col II exhibiting the highest level of attachment when compared to the other biomolecules. Interestingly, Col IV exhibited the highest increase in EPC expansion after 72 h when compared to Col I, Col II and VEGF-A. These results provide information for significant improvement in the capture and expansion of human EPC for further application.
Abstract: Bendiocarb is a known toxic xenobiotic that presents acute and chronic risks for freshwater invertebrates and estuarine and marine biota; thus, the treatment of water contaminated with the insecticide is of concern. In this paper, a bacterial community with the capacity to grow in bendiocarb as its sole carbon and nitrogen source was isolated by enrichment techniques in batch culture, from samples of a composting plant located in the northeast of Mexico City. Eight cultivable bacteria were isolated from the microbial community, by PCR amplification of 16 rDNA; Pseudoxanthomonas spadix (NC_016147.2, 98%), Ochrobacterium anthropi (NC_009668.1, 97%), Staphylococcus capitis (NZ_CP007601.1, 99%), Bosea thiooxidans. (NZ_LMAR01000067.1, 99%), Pseudomonas denitrificans. (NC_020829.1, 99%), Agromyces sp. (NZ_LMKQ01000001.1, 98%), Bacillus thuringiensis. (NC_022873.1, 97%), Pseudomonas alkylphenolia (NZ_CP009048.1, 98%). NCBI accession numbers and percentage of similarity are indicated in parentheses. These bacteria were regarded as the isolated species for having the best similarity matches. The ability to degrade bendiocarb by the immobilized bacterial community in a packed bed biofilm reactor, using as support volcanic stone fragments (tezontle), was evaluated. The reactor system was operated in batch using mineral salts medium and 30 mg/L of bendiocarb as carbon and nitrogen source. With this system, an overall removal efficiency (ηbend) rounding 90%, was reached.
Abstract: We assume that conscious functions are implemented
automatically. In other words that consciousness as well as the
non-consciousness aspect of human thought, planning and perception,
are produced by biologically adaptive algorithms. We propose that
the mechanisms of consciousness can be produced using similar
adaptive algorithms to those executed by the mechanism. In this
paper, we present a computational model of consciousness, the
”Global Abstraction Workspace” which is an internal environmental
modelling perceived as a multi-agent system. This system is able to
evolve and generate new data and processes as well as actions in the
environment.
Abstract: There is a growing emphasis on generic skills in higher education to match the changing skill-set requirements of the labour market. However, researchers and policy makers have not arrived at a consensus on the generic skills that actually contribute towards workplace employability and performance that complement and/or underpin discipline-specific graduate attributes. In order to strengthen the qualifications framework, a range of ‘generic’ learning outcomes have been considered for students undergoing higher education programs and among them it is necessary to have the fundamental generic skills such as literacy and numeracy at a level appropriate to the qualification type. This warrants for curriculum design approaches to contextualise the form and scope of these fundamental generic skills for supporting both students’ learning engagement in the course, as well as the graduate attributes required for employability and to progress within their chosen profession. Little research is reported in integrating such generic skills into discipline-specific learning outcomes. This paper explores the literature of the generic skills required for graduates from the discipline of Information Technology (IT) in relation to an Australian higher education institution. The paper presents the rationale of a proposed Bachelor of IT curriculum designed to contextualize the learning of these generic skills within the students’ discipline studies.
Abstract: Out of all methods for ground improvement, stone column became more popular these days due to its simple construction and economic consideration. Installation of stone column especially in loose fine graded soil causes increasing in load bearing capacity and settlement reduction. Encased granular stone columns (EGCs) are commonly subjected to vertical load. However, they may also be subjected to significant amount of shear loading. In this study, three-dimensional finite element (FE) analyses were conducted to estimate the shear load capacity of EGCs in sandy soil. Two types of different cases, stone column and geosynthetic encased stone column were studied at different normal pressures varying from 15 kPa to 75 kPa. Also, the effect of diameter in two cases was considered. A close agreement between the experimental and numerical curves of shear stress - horizontal displacement trend line is observed. The obtained result showed that, by increasing the normal pressure and diameter of stone column, higher shear strength is mobilized by soil; however, in the case of encased stone column, increasing the diameter had more dominated effect in mobilized shear strength.
Abstract: This article is an attempt to present a numerically study of the behaviour of an eccentrically loaded circular footing resting on sand to determine its ultimate bearing capacity. A surface circular footing of diameter 12 cm (D) was used as shallow foundation. For this purpose, three dimensional models consist of foundation, and medium sandy soil was modelled by ABAQUS software. Bearing capacity of footing was evaluated and the effects of the load eccentricity on bearing capacity, its settlement, and modulus of subgrade reaction were studied. Three different values of load eccentricity with equal space from inside the core on the core boundary and outside the core boundary, which were respectively e=0.75, 1.5, and 2.25 cm, were considered. The results show that by increasing the load eccentricity, the ultimate load and the modulus of subgrade reaction decreased.