Abstract: The Beshar River is one aquatic ecosystem, which is
located next to the city of Yasuj in southern Iran. The Beshar river
has been contaminated by industrial factories such as effluent of
sugar factory, agricultural and other activities in this region such as,
Imam Sajjad hospital, drainage from agricultural farms, Yasuj urban
surface runoff and effluent of wastewater treatment plants ,specially
Yasuj waste water treatment plant. In order to evaluate the effects of
these pollutants on the quality of the Beshar river, five monitoring
stations were selected along its course. The first station is located
upstream of Yasuj near the Dehnow village; stations 2 to 4 are
located east, south and west of city; and the 5th station is located
downstream of Yasuj. Several water quality parameters were
sampled. These include pH, dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen
demand (BOD), temperature, conductivity, turbidity, total dissolved
solids and discharge or flow measurements. Water samples from the
five stations were collected and analyzed to determine the following
physicochemical parameters: EC, pH, T.D.S, T.H, No2, DO, BOD5,
COD during 2008 to 2010. The study shows that the BOD5 value of
station 1 is at a minimum (1.7 ppm) and increases downstream from
stations 2 to 4 to a maximum (11.6 ppm), and then decreases at
station 5. The DO values of station 1 is a maximum (8.45 ppm),
decreases downstream to stations 2 - 4 which are at a minimum (3.1
ppm), before increasing at station 5. The amount of BOD and TDS
are highest at the 4th station and the amount of DO is lowest at this
station, marking the 4th station as more highly polluted than the
other stations .This study shows average amount of the water quality
parameters in first year of sampling (2008) have had a better quality
relation to third year in 2010 because of recent drought in this region
and pollutant increasing .As the Beshar river path after 5th station
goes through the mountain area with more slope and flow velocity
,so the physicochemical parameters improve at the 5th station due to
pollutant degradation and dilution. Finally the point and nonpoint
pollutant sources of Beshar river were determined and compared to
the monitoring results.
Abstract: A new conserving approach in the context of Immersed Boundary Method (IBM) is presented to simulate one dimensional, incompressible flow in a moving boundary problem. The method employs control volume scheme to simulate the flow field. The concept of ghost node is used at the boundaries to conserve the mass and momentum equations. The Present method implements the conservation laws in all cells including boundary control volumes. Application of the method is studied in a test case with moving boundary. Comparison between the results of this new method and a sharp interface (Image Point Method) IBM algorithm shows a well distinguished improvement in both pressure and velocity fields of the present method. Fluctuations in pressure field are fully resolved in this proposed method. This approach expands the IBM capability to simulate flow field for variety of problems by implementing conservation laws in a fully Cartesian grid compared to other conserving methods.
Abstract: The article is devoted to Kazakh repatriates and their
migration to Kazakhstan as historical homeland, and also addresses
the problem of migrants- adaptation in the republic, particularly in
Almaty oblast (region). The authors used up-to-date statictics and
materials of the Department of Migration Committee to analyze the
newcomers- number and features of the repatriate-s location in this
oblast. Having studied this region they were able to identify the main
reasons why Kazakh Diaspora in Central Asia, Iran, Avganistana and
Turkey is eager to come back to their historic homeland along with
repatriates adaptation to the republic.
Abstract: The greenhouse effect and limitations on carbon
dioxide emissions concern engine maker and the future of the
internal combustion engines should go toward substantially and
improved thermal efficiency engine. Homogeneous charge
compression ignition (HCCI) is an alternative high-efficiency
technology for combustion engines to reduce exhaust emissions and
fuel consumption. However, there are still tough challenges in the
successful operation of HCCI engines, such as controlling the
combustion phasing, extending the operating range, and high
unburned hydrocarbon and CO emissions. HCCI and the exploitation
of ethanol as an alternative fuel is one way to explore new frontiers
of internal combustion engines with an eye towards maintaining its
sustainability. This study was done to extend database knowledge
about HCCI with ethanol a fuel.
Abstract: Creating shared value (CSV) is a newly introduced
concept whose essence and expressions, relationship to Corporate
social responsibility (CSR) and implications for the business and
society is now at the core of management and social responsibility
debates of the scientific world. The aim of the paper is to gain clearer
understanding of the CSR and CSV concepts, their implementation
and role in sustainable development of organizations in Latvia. In this
paper the authors discuss and compare the two conceptsand, based on
the results of Sustainability Index (SI) initiative and analysis of
publically available company information, evaluate their
implementation in Latvia and draw conclusions on the development
trends and potential of these approaches in Latvian market.
Abstract: Smoothing or filtering of data is first preprocessing step
for noise suppression in many applications involving data analysis.
Moving average is the most popular method of smoothing the data,
generalization of this led to the development of Savitzky-Golay filter.
Many window smoothing methods were developed by convolving
the data with different window functions for different applications;
most widely used window functions are Gaussian or Kaiser. Function
approximation of the data by polynomial regression or Fourier
expansion or wavelet expansion also gives a smoothed data. Wavelets
also smooth the data to great extent by thresholding the wavelet
coefficients. Almost all smoothing methods destroys the peaks and
flatten them when the support of the window is increased. In certain
applications it is desirable to retain peaks while smoothing the data
as much as possible. In this paper we present a methodology called
as peak-wise smoothing that will smooth the data to any desired level
without losing the major peak features.
Abstract: Antimosy-doped tin oxide (ATO) particles were
prepared via chemical coprecipitation and reverse emulsion. The size
and size distribution of ATO particles were obviously decreased via
reverse microemulsion method. At the relatively high yield the ATO
particles were nearly spherical in shape, meanwhile the crystalline
structure and excellent conductivity were reserved, which could satisfy
the requirement as composite fillers, such as dielectric filler of
polyimide film.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel approach for tuning unified power flow controller (UPFC) based damping controller in order to enhance the damping of power system low frequency oscillations. The design problem of damping controller is formulated as an optimization problem according to the eigenvalue-based objective function which is solved using iteration particle swarm optimization (IPSO). The effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated through eigenvalue analysis and nonlinear time-domain simulation studies under a wide range of loading conditions. The simulation study shows that the designed controller by IPSO performs better than CPSO in finding the solution. Moreover, the system performance analysis under different operating conditions show that the δE based controller is superior to the mB based controller.
Abstract: The development of Internet technology in recent years has led to a more active role of users in creating Web content. This has significant effects both on individual learning and collaborative knowledge building. This paper will present an integrative framework model to describe and explain learning and knowledge building with shared digital artifacts on the basis of Luhmann-s systems theory and Piaget-s model of equilibration. In this model, knowledge progress is based on cognitive conflicts resulting from incongruities between an individual-s prior knowledge and the information which is contained in a digital artifact. Empirical support for the model will be provided by 1) applying it descriptively to texts from Wikipedia, 2) examining knowledge-building processes using a social network analysis, and 3) presenting a survey of a series of experimental laboratory studies.
Abstract: How to coordinate the behaviors of the agents through
learning is a challenging problem within multi-agent domains.
Because of its complexity, recent work has focused on how
coordinated strategies can be learned. Here we are interested in using
reinforcement learning techniques to learn the coordinated actions of a
group of agents, without requiring explicit communication among
them. However, traditional reinforcement learning methods are based
on the assumption that the environment can be modeled as Markov
Decision Process, which usually cannot be satisfied when multiple
agents coexist in the same environment. Moreover, to effectively
coordinate each agent-s behavior so as to achieve the goal, it-s
necessary to augment the state of each agent with the information
about other existing agents. Whereas, as the number of agents in a
multiagent environment increases, the state space of each agent grows
exponentially, which will cause the combinational explosion problem.
Profit sharing is one of the reinforcement learning methods that allow
agents to learn effective behaviors from their experiences even within
non-Markovian environments. In this paper, to remedy the drawback
of the original profit sharing approach that needs much memory to
store each state-action pair during the learning process, we firstly
address a kind of on-line rational profit sharing algorithm. Then, we
integrate the advantages of modular learning architecture with on-line
rational profit sharing algorithm, and propose a new modular
reinforcement learning model. The effectiveness of the technique is
demonstrated using the pursuit problem.
Abstract: In this paper we considered the Neumann problem for
the fourth order differential equation. First we define the weighted Sobolev space
2 Wα and generalized solution for this equation. Then we consider the existence and uniqueness of the generalized solution,
as well as give the description of the spectrum and of the domain of definition of the corresponding operator.
Abstract: Higher-order Statistics (HOS), also known as
cumulants, cross moments and their frequency domain counterparts,
known as poly spectra have emerged as a powerful signal processing
tool for the synthesis and analysis of signals and systems. Algorithms
used for the computation of cross moments are computationally
intensive and require high computational speed for real-time
applications. For efficiency and high speed, it is often advantageous
to realize computation intensive algorithms in hardware. A promising
solution that combines high flexibility together with the speed of a
traditional hardware is Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). In
this paper, we present FPGA-based parallel architecture for the
computation of third-order cross moments. The proposed design is
coded in Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) Hardware
Description Language (VHDL) and functionally verified by
implementing it on Xilinx Spartan-3 XC3S2000FG900-4 FPGA.
Implementation results are presented and it shows that the proposed
design can operate at a maximum frequency of 86.618 MHz.
Abstract: With the development of virtual communities, there is
an increase in the number of members in Virtual Communities (VCs).
Many join VCs with the objective of sharing their knowledge and
seeking knowledge from others. Despite the eagerness of sharing
knowledge and receiving knowledge through VCs, there is no
standard of assessing ones knowledge sharing capabilities and
prospects of knowledge sharing. This paper developed a vector space
model to assess the knowledge sharing prospect of VC users.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of
market share and diversification on the nonlife insurers- performance.
The underlying relationships have been investigated in different
industries and different disciplines (economics, management...), still,
no consistency exists either in the magnitude or statistical
significance of the relationship between market share (and
diversification as well) on one side and companies- performance on
the other side. Moreover, the direction of the relationship is also
somewhat questionable. While some authors find this relationship to
be positive, the others reveal its negative association. In order to test
the influence of market share and diversification on companies-
performance in Croatian nonlife insurance industry for the period
from 1999 to 2009, we designed an empirical model in which we
included the following independent variables: firms- profitability
from previous years, market share, diversification and control
variables (i.e. ownership, industrial concentration, GDP per capita,
inflation). Using the two-step generalized method of moments
(GMM) estimator we found evidence of a positive and statistically
significant influence of both, market share and diversification, on
insurers- profitability.
Abstract: This paper describes a method of modeling to model
shadow play puppet using sophisticated computer graphics techniques
available in OpenGL in order to allow interactive play in real-time
environment as well as producing realistic animation. This paper
proposes a novel real-time method is proposed for modeling of puppet
and its shadow image that allows interactive play of virtual shadow
play using texture mapping and blending techniques. Special effects
such as lighting and blurring effects for virtual shadow play
environment are also developed. Moreover, the use of geometric
transformations and hierarchical modeling facilitates interaction
among the different parts of the puppet during animation. Based on the
experiments and the survey that were carried out, the respondents
involved are very satisfied with the outcomes of these techniques.
Abstract: This research paper presents some methods to assess the performance of Wigner Ville Distribution for Time-Frequency representation of non-stationary signals, in comparison with the other representations like STFT, Spectrogram etc. The simultaneous timefrequency resolution of WVD is one of the important properties which makes it preferable for analysis and detection of linear FM and transient signals. There are two algorithms proposed here to assess the resolution and to compare the performance of signal detection. First method is based on the measurement of area under timefrequency plot; in case of a linear FM signal analysis. A second method is based on the instantaneous power calculation and is used in case of transient, non-stationary signals. The implementation is explained briefly for both methods with suitable diagrams. The accuracy of the measurements is validated to show the better performance of WVD representation in comparison with STFT and Spectrograms.
Abstract: The study was a case study analysis about Thai Asia
Pacific Brewery Company. The purpose was to analyze the
company’s marketing objective, marketing strategy at company level,
and marketing mix before liquor liberalization in 2000. Methods used
in this study were qualitative and descriptive research approach
which demonstrated the following results of the study demonstrated
as follows: (1) Marketing objective was to increase market share of
Heineken and Amtel, (2) the company’s marketing strategies were
brand building strategy and distribution strategy. Additionally, the
company also conducted marketing mix strategy as follows. Product
strategy: The company added more beer brands namely Amstel and
Tiger to provide additional choice to consumers, product and
marketing research, and product development. Price strategy: the
company had taken the following into consideration: cost,
competitor, market, economic situation and tax. Promotion strategy:
the company conducted sales promotion and advertising. Distribution
strategy: the company extended channels its channels of distribution
into food shops, pubs and various entertainment places. This strategy
benefited interested persons and people who were engaged in the beer
business.
Abstract: This paper proposes a hybrid method for eyes localization
in facial images. The novelty is in combining techniques
that utilise colour, edge and illumination cues to improve accuracy.
The method is based on the observation that eye regions have dark
colour, high density of edges and low illumination as compared
to other parts of face. The first step in the method is to extract
connected regions from facial images using colour, edge density and
illumination cues separately. Some of the regions are then removed
by applying rules that are based on the general geometry and shape
of eyes. The remaining connected regions obtained through these
three cues are then combined in a systematic way to enhance the
identification of the candidate regions for the eyes. The geometry
and shape based rules are then applied again to further remove the
false eye regions. The proposed method was tested using images from
the PICS facial images database. The proposed method has 93.7%
and 87% accuracies for initial blobs extraction and final eye detection
respectively.
Abstract: A framework to estimate the state of dynamically
varying environment where data are generated from heterogeneous
sources possessing partial knowledge about the environment is presented.
This is entirely derived within Dempster-Shafer and Evidence
Filtering frameworks. The belief about the current state is expressed
as belief and plausibility functions. An addition to Single Input
Single Output Evidence Filter, Multiple Input Single Output Evidence
Filtering approach is introduced. Variety of applications such as
situational estimation of an emergency environment can be developed
within the framework successfully. Fire propagation scenario is used
to justify the proposed framework, simulation results are presented.
Abstract: Carbon disulfide is widely used for the production of
viscose rayon, rubber, and other organic materials and it is a
feedstock for the synthesis of sulfuric acid. The objective of this
paper is to analyze possibilities for efficient production of CS2 from
sour natural gas reformation (H2SMR) (2H2S+CH4 =CS2 +4H2) .
Also, the effect of H2S to CH4 feed ratio and reaction temperature on
carbon disulfide production is investigated numerically in a
reforming reactor. The chemical reaction model is based on an
assumed Probability Density Function (PDF) parameterized by the
mean and variance of mixture fraction and β-PDF shape. The results
show that the major factors influencing CS2 production are reactor
temperature. The yield of carbon disulfide increases with increasing
H2S to CH4 feed gas ratio (H2S/CH4≤4). Also the yield of C(s)
increases with increasing temperature until the temperature reaches
to 1000°K, and then due to increase of CS2 production and
consumption of C(s), yield of C(s) drops with further increase in the
temperature. The predicted CH4 and H2S conversion and yield of
carbon disulfide are in good agreement with result of Huang and TRaissi.