Abstract: The relics of traditional folk culture in Kazakhstan are ceremonies or their fragments - such as weddings, funerals, shamanism. The world of spiritual creatures, spirits-protectors, spirits-helpers, injury spirits, spirits of illnesses, etc., is described in detail in shamanic rites (in Kazakh culture it is called bakslyk). The study of these displays of folk culture, which reflect the peoples` ethnic mentality or notions about the structure, values and hierarchies of the universe, includes collection and recording of the field materials and their interpretation, i.e. reconstruction of those meanings which were initially embodied or “coded" in folklore. A distinctive feature of Kazakh nomadic culture is its self-preservation and actualization, almost untouched the ancient mythologies of the world, in particular, the mythologies connected with music, musical instruments and the creator of music. Within the frameworks of the traditional culture the word and the music keep the sacral meaning. The ritual melodies and what they carry – the holly, and at the same time unexplored, powerful and threatening, uncontrolled by people world – keep on attributing the soul to all, connected with culture.
Abstract: Early supplier involvement (ESI) benefits new
product development projects several ways. Nevertheless, many castuser
companies do not know the advantages of ESI and therefore do
not utilize it. This paper presents reasons why to utilize ESI in
casting industry and how that can be done. Further, this paper
presents advantages and challenges related to ESI in casting industry,
and introduces a Casting-Network Collaboration Model. The model
presents practices for companies to build advantageous collaborative
relationships. More detailed, the model describes three levels for
company-network relationships in casting industry with different
degrees of collaboration, and requirements for operating in each
level. In our research, ESI was found to influence, for example, on
project time, component cost, and quality. In addition, challenges
related to ESI, such as, a lack of mutual trust and unawareness about
the advantages were found. Our research approach was a case study
including four cases.
Abstract: The presence of heavy metals in the environment
could constitute a hazard to food security and public health. These
can be accumulated in aquatic animals such as fish. Samples of four
popular brands of canned fish in the Iranian market (yellowfin tuna,
common Kilka, Kawakawa and longtail tuna) were analyzed for level
of Cr after wet digestion with acids using graphite furnace atomic
absorption spectrophotometry. The mean concentrations for Cr in the
different brands were: 2.57, 3.24, 3.16 and 1.65 μg/g for brands A, B,
C and D respectively. Significant differences were observed in the Cr
levels between all of the different brands of canned fish evaluated in
this study. The Cr concentrations for the varieties of canned fishes
were generally within the FAO/WHO, U.S. FDA and U.S. EPA
recommended limits for fish.
Abstract: Pairwise testing, which requires that every
combination of valid values of each pair of system factors be covered
by at lease one test case, plays an important role in software testing
since many faults are caused by unexpected 2-way interactions among
system factors. Although meta-heuristic strategies like simulated
annealing can generally discover smaller pairwise test suite, they may
cost more time to perform search, compared with greedy algorithms.
We propose a new method, improved Extremal Optimization (EO)
based on the Bak-Sneppen (BS) model of biological evolution, for
constructing pairwise test suites and define fitness function according
to the requirement of improved EO. Experimental results show that
improved EO gives similar size of resulting pairwise test suite and
yields an 85% reduction in solution time over SA.
Abstract: Both software applications and their development environment are becoming more and more distributed. This trend impacts not only the way software computes, but also how it looks. This article proposes a Human Computer Interface (HCI) template from three representative applications we have developed. These applications include a Multi-Agent System based software, a 3D Internet computer game with distributed game world logic, and a programming language environment used in constructing distributed neural network and its visualizations. HCI concepts that are common to these applications are described in abstract terms in the template. These include off-line presentation of global entities, entities inside a hierarchical namespace, communication and languages, reconfiguration of entity references in a graph, impersonation and access right, etc. We believe the metaphor that underlies an HCI concept as well as the relationships between a bunch of HCI concepts are crucial to the design of software systems and vice versa.
Abstract: Sputter deposition processes, especially for sputtering
from metal targets, are well investigated. For practical reasons, i.e.
for industrial processes, energetic considerations for sputter
deposition are useful in order to optimize the sputtering process. In
particular, for substrates at floating conditions it is required to obtain
energetic conditions during film growth that enables sufficient dense
metal films of good quality. The influence of ion energies, energy
density and momentum transfer is thus examined both for sputtering
at the target as well as during film growth. Different regimes
dominated by ion energy, energy density and momentum transfer
were identified by using different plasma sources and by varying
power input, pressure and bias voltage.
Abstract: Continuous-time delta-sigma analog digital converter (ADC) for radio frequency identification (RFID) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) biosensor has been reported. This delta-sigma ADC is suitable for digital conversion of biosensor signal because of small process variation, and variable input range. As the input range of continuous-time switched current delta-sigma ADC (Dynamic range : 50 dB) can be limited by using current reference, amplification of biosensor signal is unnecessary. The input range is switched to wide input range mode or narrow input range mode by command of current reference. When the narrow input range mode, the input range becomes ± 0.8 V. The measured power consumption is 5 mW and chip area is 0.31 mm^2 using 1.2 um standard CMOS process. Additionally, automatic input range detecting system is proposed because of RFID biosensor applications.
Abstract: As the world move to the accomplishment of Performance Based Engineering philosophies in seismic design of Civil Engineering structures, new seismic design provisions require Structural Engineers to perform both static and dynamic analysis for the design of structures. While Linear Equivalent Static Analysis is performed for regular buildings up to 90m height in zone I and II, Dynamic Analysis should be performed for regular and irregular buildings in zone IV and V. Dynamic Analysis can take the form of a dynamic Time History Analysis or a linear Response Spectrum Analysis. In present study, Multi-storey irregular buildings with 20 stories have been modeled using software packages ETABS and SAP 2000 v.15 for seismic zone V in India. This paper also deals with the effect of the variation of the building height on the structural response of the shear wall building. Dynamic responses of building under actual earthquakes, EL-CENTRO 1949 and CHI-CHI Taiwan 1999 have been investigated. This paper highlights the accuracy and exactness of Time History analysis in comparison with the most commonly adopted Response Spectrum Analysis and Equivalent Static Analysis.
Abstract: Considering toxicity of heavy metals and their
accumulation in domestic wastes, immobilization of lead and
cadmium is envisaged inside glass-ceramics. We particularly
focused this work on calcium-rich phases embedded in a
glassy matrix.
Glass-ceramics were synthesized from glasses doped with
12 wt% and 16 wt% of PbO or CdO. They were observed and
analyzed by Electron MicroProbe Analysis (EMPA) and
Analytical Scanning Electron Microscopy (ASEM). Structural
characterization of the samples was performed by powder XRay
Diffraction.
Diopside crystals of CaMgSi2O6 composition are shown to
incorporate significant amounts of cadmium (up to 9 wt% of
CdO). Two new crystalline phases are observed with very
high Cd or Pb contents: about 40 wt% CdO for the cadmiumrich
phase and near 60 wt% PbO for the lead-rich phase. We
present complete chemical and structural characterization of
these phases. They represent a promising way for the
immobilization of toxic elements like Cd or Pb since glass
ceramics are known to propose a “double barrier" protection
(metal-rich crystals embedded in a glass matrix) against metal
release in the environment.
Abstract: The PAX6, a transcription factor, is essential for the morphogenesis of the eyes, brain, pituitary and pancreatic islets. In rodents, the loss of Pax6 function leads to central nervous system defects, anophthalmia, and nasal hypoplasia. The haplo-insufficiency of Pax6 causes microphthalmia, aggression and other behavioral abnormalities. It is also required in brain patterning and neuronal plasticity. In human, heterozygous mutation of Pax6 causes loss of iris [aniridia], mental retardation and glucose intolerance. The 3- deletion in Pax6 leads to autism and aniridia. The phenotypes are variable in peneterance and expressivity. However, mechanism of function and interaction of PAX6 with other proteins during development and associated disease are not clear. It is intended to explore interactors of PAX6 to elucidated biology of PAX6 function in the tissues where it is expressed and also in the central regulatory pathway. This report describes In-silico approaches to explore interacting proteins of PAX6. The models show several possible proteins interacting with PAX6 like MITF, SIX3, SOX2, SOX3, IPO13, TRIM, and OGT. Since the Pax6 is a critical transcriptional regulator and master control gene of eye and brain development it might be interacting with other protein involved in morphogenesis [TGIF, TGF, Ras etc]. It is also presumed that matricelluar proteins [SPARC, thrombospondin-1 and osteonectin etc] are likely to interact during transport and processing of PAX6 and are somewhere its cascade. The proteins involved in cell survival and cell proliferation can also not be ignored.
Abstract: While the form of crises may change, their essence
remains the same (such as a cycle of abundant liquidity, rapid credit
growth, and a low-inflation environment followed by an asset-price
bubble). The current market turbulence began in mid-2000s when the
US economy shifted to imbalanced both internal and external
macroeconomic positions. We see two key causes of these problems
– loose US monetary policy in early 2000s and US government
guarantees issued on the securities by government-sponsored
enterprises what was further fueled by financial innovations such as
structured credit products. We have discovered both negative and
positive lessons deriving from this crisis and divided the negative
lessons into three groups: financial products and valuation, processes
and business models, and strategic issues. Moreover, we address key
risk management lessons and exit strategies derived from the current
crisis and recommend policies that should help diminish the negative
impact of future potential crises.
Abstract: With data centers, end-users can realize the pervasiveness of services that will be one day the cornerstone of our lives. However, data centers are often classified as computing systems that consume the most amounts of power. To circumvent such a problem, we propose a self-adaptive weighted sum methodology that jointly optimizes the performance and power consumption of any given data center. Compared to traditional methodologies for multi-objective optimization problems, the proposed self-adaptive weighted sum technique does not rely on a systematical change of weights during the optimization procedure. The proposed technique is compared with the greedy and LR heuristics for large-scale problems, and the optimal solution for small-scale problems implemented in LINDO. the experimental results revealed that the proposed selfadaptive weighted sum technique outperforms both of the heuristics and projects a competitive performance compared to the optimal solution.
Abstract: This paper reports the tensile fracture location
characterizations of dissimilar friction stir welds between 5754
aluminium alloy and C11000 copper. The welds were produced using
three shoulder diameter tools; namely, 15, 18 and 25 mm by varying
the process parameters. The rotational speeds considered were 600,
950 and 1200 rpm while the feed rates employed were 50, 150 and
300 mm/min to represent the low, medium and high settings
respectively. The tensile fracture locations were evaluated using the
optical microscope to identify the fracture locations and were
characterized. It was observed that 70% of the tensile samples failed
in the Thermo Mechanically Affected Zone (TMAZ) of copper at the
weld joints. Further evaluation of the fracture surfaces of the pulled
tensile samples revealed that welds with low Ultimate Tensile
Strength either have defects or intermetallics present at their joint
interfaces.
Abstract: To learn about China-s future energy demand, this paper first proposed GM(1,1) model group based on recursive solutions of parameters estimation, setting up a general solving-algorithm of the model group. This method avoided the problems occurred on the past researches that remodeling, loss of information and large amount of calculation. This paper established respectively all-data-GM(1,1), metabolic GM(1,1) and new information GM (1,1)model according to the historical data of energy consumption in China in the year 2005-2010 and the added data of 2011, then modeling, simulating and comparison of accuracies we got the optimal models and to predict. Results showed that the total energy demand of China will be 37.2221 billion tons of equivalent coal in 2012 and 39.7973 billion tons of equivalent coal in 2013, which are as the same as the overall planning of energy demand in The 12th Five-Year Plan.
Abstract: Network reconfiguration in distribution system is realized by changing the status of sectionalizing switches to reduce the power loss in the system. This paper presents a new method which applies an artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) for determining the sectionalizing switch to be operated in order to solve the distribution system loss minimization problem. The ABC algorithm is a new population based metaheuristic approach inspired by intelligent foraging behavior of honeybee swarm. The advantage of ABC algorithm is that it does not require external parameters such as cross over rate and mutation rate as in case of genetic algorithm and differential evolution and it is hard to determine these parameters in prior. The other advantage is that the global search ability in the algorithm is implemented by introducing neighborhood source production mechanism which is a similar to mutation process. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm, computer simulations are carried out on 14, 33, and 119-bus systems and compared with different approaches available in the literature. The proposed method has outperformed the other methods in terms of the quality of solution and computational efficiency.
Abstract: Aloe vera has been used worldwide both for
pharmaceutical, food, and cosmetic industries due to the plethora of
biological activities of some of its metabolites. The aim of this study
was to evaluate the antifungal and antioxidant activities of the leaf
extract. The antifungal activity was determined by the agar-well
diffusion method against plant and human fungal pathogens. The
methanol and ethanol portions of the extracts studied were more
bioactive than ethyl acetate portion. It was also observed that the
activity was more pronounced on plant pathogen than human
pathogen except Candida albicans. This is an indication that the
extract has the potential to treat plant fungal infections. The Aloe
extract showed the significant antioxidant activity by the DPPH
radical scavenging method. Therefore, the Aloe extract provided as
natural antioxidant has been used in health foods for medical and
preservative purposes.
Abstract: Data mining uses a variety of techniques each of which is useful for some particular task. It is important to have a deep understanding of each technique and be able to perform sophisticated analysis. In this article we describe a tool built to simulate a variation of the Kohonen network to perform unsupervised clustering and support the entire data mining process up to results visualization. A graphical representation helps the user to find out a strategy to optmize classification by adding, moving or delete a neuron in order to change the number of classes. The tool is also able to automatically suggest a strategy for number of classes optimization.The tool is used to classify macroeconomic data that report the most developed countries? import and export. It is possible to classify the countries based on their economic behaviour and use an ad hoc tool to characterize the commercial behaviour of a country in a selected class from the analysis of positive and negative features that contribute to classes formation.
Abstract: A Comparison and evaluation of the different
condition monitoring (CM) techniques was applied experimentally
on RC e.g. Dynamic cylinder pressure and crankshaft Instantaneous
Angular Speed (IAS), for the detection and diagnosis of valve faults
in a two - stage reciprocating compressor for a programme of
condition monitoring which can successfully detect and diagnose a
fault in machine. Leakage in the valve plate was introduced
experimentally into a two-stage reciprocating compressor. The effect
of the faults on compressor performance was monitored and the
differences with the normal, healthy performance noted as a fault
signature been used for the detection and diagnosis of faults.
The paper concludes with what is considered to be a unique
approach to condition monitoring. First, each of the two most useful
techniques is used to produce a Truth Table which details the
circumstances in which each method can be used to detect and
diagnose a fault. The two Truth Tables are then combined into a
single Decision Table to provide a unique and reliable method of
detection and diagnosis of each of the individual faults introduced
into the compressor. This gives accurate diagnosis of compressor
faults.
Abstract: 17α-ethynylestradiol (EE2) is a synthetic estrogen
used as a key ingredient in an oral contraceptives pill. EE2 is an
endocrine disrupting compound, high in estrogenic potency.
Although EE2 exhibits low degree of biodegradability with common
microorganisms in wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), this
compound can be biotransformed by ammonia-oxidizing bacteria
(AOB) via a co-metabolism mechanism in WWTPs. This study
aimed to investigate the effect of real wastewater on
biotransformation of EE2 by AOB. A preliminary experiment on the
effect of nitrite and pH levels on abiotic transformation of EE2
suggested that the abiotic transformation occurred at only pH
Abstract: In the past few years there is a change in the view of high performance applications and parallel computing. Initially such applications were targeted towards dedicated parallel machines. Recently trend is changing towards building meta-applications composed of several modules that exploit heterogeneous platforms and employ hybrid forms of parallelism. The aim of this paper is to propose a model of virtual parallel computing. Virtual parallel computing system provides a flexible object oriented software framework that makes it easy for programmers to write various parallel applications.