Abstract: As a result of the high cost of housing, the increasing population is forced to live in substandard housing and unhealthy conditions giving rise to poor residential neighborhoods. The paper examines the causes and characteristics of poor residential neighborhood. The paper finds the problems that have influence poor neighborhoods to; poverty, growth of informal sector and housing shortage. The paper asserts that poor residential neighborhoods have adverse effects on the people.
The secondary data was obtained from books, journals and seminar papers while primary data relating to building and environmental quality from structured questionnaire administered on sample of 500 household heads, from sampling frame of 5000 housing units.
The study reveals that majority of the respondents are poor and employed in informal sector. The paper suggests urban renewal and slum upgrading programs as methods in dealing with the situation and an improvement in the socio-economic circumstances of the inhabitants.
Abstract: Particulate matter (PM) in ambient air is responsible
for adverse health effects in adults and children. Relatively little is
known about the concentrations, sources and health effects of PM in
indoor air. A monitoring study was conducted in Ankara by three
campaigns in order to measure PM levels in indoor and outdoor
environments to identify and quantify associations between sources
and concentrations. Approximately 82 homes (1st campaign for 42,
2nd campaign for 12, and 3rd campaign for 28), three rooms (living
room, baby-s room and living room used as a baby-s room) and
outdoor ambient at each home were sampled with Grimm
Environmental Dust Monitoring (EDM) 107, during different
seasonal periods of 2011 and 2012. In this study, the relationship
between indoor and outdoor PM levels for particulate matter less than
10 micrometer (.m) (PM10), particulate matter less than 2.5.m
(PM2.5) and particulate matter less than 1.0.m (PM1) were
investigated. The mean concentration of PM10, PM2.5, and PM1.0 at
living room used as baby-s room is higher than living and baby-s
room (or bedroom) for three sampling campaigns. It is concluded that
the household activities and environmental conditions are very
important for PM concentrations in the indoor environments during
the sampling periods. The amount of smokers, being near a main
street and/or construction activities increased the PM concentration.
This study is based on the assessment the relationship between indoor
and outdoor PM levels and the household activities and
environmental conditions
Abstract: This research aimed to study employees- perceptions and expectations toward their organization-s corporate social responsibility (CSR), to study the differences between employees- personal factors and level of perceptions and expectations toward CSR, and to study the relationship between employees- perceptions and expectations toward CSR. Purposive sampling and questionnaire were applied to collect information from 400 private company employees in Bangkok metropolitan area. The results revealed that employees had “high" level of perceptions and expectations toward CSR, of which the highest level were given on the area of “corporate governance and transparency". It was found that there was different level of expectations of employees with different period of employment, position and employment (by listed and non-listed companies). Employees of different age and period of employment also had different level of expectations. Employees- perceptions were correlated with their expectations toward CSR.
Abstract: A novel three-phase active power filter (APF) circuit with photovoltaic (PV) system to improve the quality of service and to reduce the capacity of energy storage capacitor is presented. The energy balance concept and sampling technique were used to simplify the calculation algorithm for the required utility source current and to control the voltage of the energy storage capacitor. The feasibility was verified by using the Pspice simulations and experiments. When the APF mode was used during non-operational period, not only the utilization rate, power factor and power quality could be improved, but also the capacity of energy storage capacitor could sparing. As the results, the advantages of the APF circuit are simplicity of control circuits, low cost, and good transient response.
Abstract: This study compared socio-economic status attainment between the Muslim and Santal couples in rural Bangladesh. For this we hypothesized that socio-economic status attainment (occupation, education and income) of the Muslim couples was higher than the Santal ones in rural Bangladesh. In order to examine the hypothesis 288 couples (145 couples for Muslim and 143 couples for Santal) selected by cluster random sampling from Kalna village, Bangladesh were individually interviewed with semistructured questionnaire method. The results of Pearson Chi-Squire test suggest that there were significant differences in socio-economic status attainment between the two communities- couples. In addition, Pearson correlation coefficients also suggest that there were significant associations between the socio-economic statuses attained by the two communities- couples in rural Bangladesh. Further crosscultural study should conduct on how inter-community relations in rural social structure of Bangladesh influence the differences among the couples- socio-economic status attainment
Abstract: Nowadays, without the awareness of consumer
behavior and correct understanding of it, it is not possible for organizations to take appropriate measures to meet the consumer
needs and demands. The aim of this paper is the identification and
prioritization of the factors affecting the consumer behavior based on
the product value. The population of the study includes all the
consumers of furniture producing firms in East Azarbaijan province,
Iran. The research sample includes 93 people selected by the sampling formula in unlimited population. The data collection
instrument was a questionnaire, the validity of which was confirmed
through face validity and the reliability of which was determined,
using Cronbach's alpha coefficient. The Kolmogorov-Smironov test
was used to test data normality, the t-test for identification of factors
affecting the product value, and Friedman test for prioritizing the
factors. The results show that quality, satisfaction, styling, price, finishing operation, performance, safety, worth, shape, use, and
excellence are placed from 1 to 11 priorities, respectively.
Abstract: Calibration estimation is a method of adjusting the
original design weights to improve the survey estimates by using
auxiliary information such as the known population total (or mean)
of the auxiliary variables. A calibration estimator uses calibrated
weights that are determined to minimize a given distance measure to
the original design weights while satisfying a set of constraints
related to the auxiliary information. In this paper, we propose a new
multivariate calibration estimator for the population mean in the
stratified sampling design, which incorporates information available
for more than one auxiliary variable. The problem of determining the
optimum calibrated weights is formulated as a Mathematical
Programming Problem (MPP) that is solved using the Lagrange
multiplier technique.
Abstract: This paper presents an indirect adaptive stabilization
scheme for first-order continuous-time systems under saturated input
which is described by a sigmoidal function. The singularities are
avoided through a modification scheme for the estimated plant
parameter vector so that its associated Sylvester matrix is guaranteed
to be non-singular and then the estimated plant model is controllable.
The modification mechanism involves the use of a hysteresis
switching function. An alternative hybrid scheme, whose estimated
parameters are updated at sampling instants is also given to solve a
similar adaptive stabilization problem. Such a scheme also uses
hysteresis switching for modification of the parameter estimates so as
to ensure the controllability of the estimated plant model.
Abstract: In this paper, a novel copyright protection scheme for digital images based on Visual Cryptography and Statistics is proposed. In our scheme, the theories and properties of sampling distribution of means and visual cryptography are employed to achieve the requirements of robustness and security. Our method does not need to alter the original image and can identify the ownership without resorting to the original image. Besides, our method allows multiple watermarks to be registered for a single host image without causing any damage to other hidden watermarks. Moreover, it is also possible for our scheme to cast a larger watermark into a smaller host image. Finally, experimental results will show the robustness of our scheme against several common attacks.
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to characterize the spontaneous Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals of four different motor imagery tasks and to show hereby a possible solution for the present binary communication between the brain and a machine ora Brain-Computer Interface (BCI). The processing technique used in this paper was the fractal analysis evaluated by the Critical Exponent Method (CEM). The EEG signal was registered in 5 healthy subjects,sampling 15 measuring channels at 1024 Hz.Each channel was preprocessed by the Laplacian space ltering so as to reduce the space blur and therefore increase the spaceresolution. The EEG of each channel was segmented and its Fractaldimension (FD) calculated. The FD was evaluated in the time interval corresponding to the motor imagery and averaged out for all the subjects (each channel). In order to characterize the FD distribution,the linear regression curves of FD over the electrodes position were applied. The differences FD between the proposed mental tasks are quantied and evaluated for each experimental subject. The obtained results of the proposed method are a substantial fractal dimension in the EEG signal of motor imagery tasks and can be considerably utilized as the multiple-states BCI applications.
Abstract: This paper presents an adaptive technique for generation
of data required for construction of artificial neural network-based
performance model of nano-scale CMOS inverter circuit. The training
data are generated from the samples through SPICE simulation. The
proposed algorithm has been compared to standard progressive sampling
algorithms like arithmetic sampling and geometric sampling.
The advantages of the present approach over the others have been
demonstrated. The ANN predicted results have been compared with
actual SPICE results. A very good accuracy has been obtained.
Abstract: This paper develops an unscented grid-based filter
and a smoother for accurate nonlinear modeling and analysis
of time series. The filter uses unscented deterministic sampling
during both the time and measurement updating phases, to approximate
directly the distributions of the latent state variable. A
complementary grid smoother is also made to enable computing
of the likelihood. This helps us to formulate an expectation
maximisation algorithm for maximum likelihood estimation of
the state noise and the observation noise. Empirical investigations
show that the proposed unscented grid filter/smoother compares
favourably to other similar filters on nonlinear estimation tasks.
Abstract: Computed tomography and laminography are heavily investigated in a compressive sensing based image reconstruction framework to reduce the dose to the patients as well as to the radiosensitive devices such as multilayer microelectronic circuit boards. Nowadays researchers are actively working on optimizing the compressive sensing based iterative image reconstruction algorithm to obtain better quality images. However, the effects of the sampled data’s properties on reconstructed the image’s quality, particularly in an insufficient sampled data conditions have not been explored in computed laminography. In this paper, we investigated the effects of two data properties i.e. sampling density and data incoherence on the reconstructed image obtained by conventional computed laminography and a recently proposed method called spherical sinusoidal scanning scheme. We have found that in a compressive sensing based image reconstruction framework, the image quality mainly depends upon the data incoherence when the data is uniformly sampled.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to develop models that would enable predicting student success. These models could improve allocation of students among colleges and optimize the newly introduced model of government subsidies for higher education. For the purpose of collecting data, an anonymous survey was carried out in the last year of undergraduate degree student population using random sampling method. Decision trees were created of which two have been chosen that were most successful in predicting student success based on two criteria: Grade Point Average (GPA) and time that a student needs to finish the undergraduate program (time-to-degree). Decision trees have been shown as a good method of classification student success and they could be even more improved by increasing survey sample and developing specialized decision trees for each type of college. These types of methods have a big potential for use in decision support systems.
Abstract: Air quality in Setapak district of Kuala Lumpur was
studied by analysing the rainwater chemical composition using ion
chromatography method. Twelve sampling sites were selected and
120 rainwater samples were collected in the period of 10 weeks. The
results of this study were compared to the earlier published data and
the evaluation showed that the NO3
- ion concentration increased from
0.41 to 3.32 ppm, while SO4
2- ion concentration increased from 0.39
to 3.26 ppm over the past two decades that is mostly due to rapid
urban development of the city. However, it was found that the
chemical composition for both residential and industrial areas does
not have significant difference. Most of the rainwater samples
showed alkaline pH (pH > 5.6). The possible factors for such alkaline
pH in rainwater samples are assumed to be the marine sources,
biomass burning and alkaline character of soil particles.
Abstract: Age at first marriage is a basic temporal term that is
culturally constructed for marriage relationship between an adult
male and an adult female intended to have sex, to reproduce and to
adapt to environment from one generation to another around the
world. Cross-cultural evidences suggest that age at first marriage for
both male and female not only varies across the cultures, but also
varies among the subcultures of the same society. The purpose of the
study was to compare age at first marriage for husband and wife
including age differences between them between Muslim and Santal
communities in rural Bangladesh. For this we hypothesized that (1)
there were significant differences in age at first marriage and age
interval between husband and wife between Muslim and Santal
communities in rural Bangladesh. In so doing, 288 couples (145 pairs
of couples for Muslim and 143 pairs of couples for Santal) were
selected by cluster random sampling from the Kalna village situated
in the Tanore Upazila of Rajshahi district, Bangladesh, whose
current mean age range was 36.59 years for husband and 28.85 years
for wife for the Muslim and 31.74 years for husband and 25.21 years
for wife for the Santal respectively. The results of Independent
Sample t test showed that mean age at first marriage for the Muslim
samples was 23.05 years for husbands and 15.11 years for wives,
while mean age at first marriage for the Santal samples was 20.71
years for husbands and 14.34 years for wives respectively that were
significantly different at p0.05) among the selected husbands
and wives between the two communities. This study recommends
that further cross-cultural researches should be done on the causeeffect
relationships between socio-cultural factors and age at
marriage between the two communities in Bangladesh.
Abstract: Many works have been carried out to compare the
efficiency of several goodness of fit procedures for identifying
whether or not a particular distribution could adequately explain a
data set. In this paper a study is conducted to investigate the power
of several goodness of fit tests such as Kolmogorov Smirnov (KS),
Anderson-Darling(AD), Cramer- von- Mises (CV) and a proposed
modification of Kolmogorov-Smirnov goodness of fit test which
incorporates a variance stabilizing transformation (FKS). The
performances of these selected tests are studied under simple
random sampling (SRS) and Ranked Set Sampling (RSS). This
study shows that, in general, the Anderson-Darling (AD) test
performs better than other GOF tests. However, there are some
cases where the proposed test can perform as equally good as the
AD test.
Abstract: The frequency contents of the non-stationary
signals vary with time. For proper characterization of such
signals, a smart time-frequency representation is necessary.
Classically, the STFT (short-time Fourier transform) is
employed for this purpose. Its limitation is the fixed timefrequency
resolution. To overcome this drawback an enhanced
STFT version is devised. It is based on the signal driven
sampling scheme, which is named as the cross-level sampling.
It can adapt the sampling frequency and the window function
(length plus shape) by following the input signal local
variations. This adaptation results into the proposed technique
appealing features, which are the adaptive time-frequency
resolution and the computational efficiency.
Abstract: In power systems, protective relays must filter their
inputs to remove undesirable quantities and retain signal quantities of
interest. This job must be performed accurate and fast. A new
method for filtering the undesirable components such as DC and
harmonic components associated with the fundamental system
signals. The method is s based on a dynamic filtering algorithm. The
filtering algorithm has many advantages over some other classical
methods. It can be used as dynamic on-line filter without the need of
parameters readjusting as in the case of classic filters. The proposed
filter is tested using different signals. Effects of number of samples
and sampling window size are discussed. Results obtained are
presented and discussed to show the algorithm capabilities.
Abstract: The main purpose of this study is to analyze the
feelings of tourists for the service quality of the bikeway. In addition,
this study also analyzed the causal relationship between service
quality and satisfaction to visitor-s lane loyalty. In this study, the Ya
Tam San bikeway visitor-s subjects, using the designated convenience
sampling carried out the survey, a total of 651 questionnaires were
validly. Valid questionnaires after statistical analysis, the following
findings: 1. Visitor-s lane highest quality of service project: the routes
through the region weather pleasant. Lane "with health and sports," the
highest satisfaction various factors of service quality and satisfaction,
loyal between correlations exist. 4. Guided tours of bikeways, the
quality of the environment, and modeling imagery can effectively
predict visitor satisfaction. 5. Quality of bikeway, public facilities,
guided tours, and modeling imagery can effectively predict visitor
loyalty. According to the above results, the study not only makes
recommendations to the government units and the bicycle industry,
also asked the research direction for future researchers.