Abstract: Subjective loneliness describes people who feel a
disagreeable or unacceptable lack of meaningful social relationships,
both at the quantitative and qualitative level. The studies to be
presented tested an Italian 18-items self-report loneliness measure,
that included items adapted from scales previously developed,
namely a short version of the UCLA (Russell, Peplau and Cutrona,
1980), and the 11-items Loneliness scale by De Jong-Gierveld &
Kamphuis (JGLS; 1985). The studies aimed at testing the developed
scale and at verifying whether loneliness is better conceptualized as a
unidimensional (so-called 'general loneliness') or a bidimensional
construct, namely comprising the distinct facets of social and
emotional loneliness. The loneliness questionnaire included 2 singleitem
criterion measures of sad mood, and social contact, and asked
participants to supply information on a number of socio-demographic
variables. Factorial analyses of responses obtained in two
preliminary studies, with 59 and 143 Italian participants respectively,
showed good factor loadings and subscale reliability and confirmed
that perceived loneliness has clearly two components, a social and an
emotional one, the latter measured by two subscales, a 7-item
'general' loneliness subscale derived from UCLA, and a 6–item
'emotional' scale included in the JGLS. Results further showed that
type and amount of loneliness are related, negatively, to frequency of
social contacts, and, positively, to sad mood. In a third study data
were obtained from a nation-wide sample of 9.097 Italian subjects,
12 to about 70 year-olds, who filled the test on-line, on the Italian
web site of a large-audience magazine, Focus. The results again
confirmed the reliability of the component subscales, namely social,
emotional, and 'general' loneliness, and showed that they were
highly correlated with each other, especially the latter two.
Loneliness scores were significantly predicted by sex, age, education
level, sad mood and social contact, and, less so, by other variables –
e.g., geographical area and profession. The scale validity was
confirmed by the results of a fourth study, with elderly men and
women (N 105) living at home or in residential care units. The three
subscales were significantly related, among others, to depression, and
to various measures of the extension of, and satisfaction with, social
contacts with relatives and friends. Finally, a fifth study with 315
career-starters showed that social and emotional loneliness correlate
with life satisfaction, and with measures of emotional intelligence.
Altogether the results showed a good validity and reliability in the
tested samples of the entire scale, and of its components.
Abstract: The amount of the information being churned out by the field of biology has jumped manifold and now requires the extensive use of computer techniques for the management of this information. The predominance of biological information such as protein sequence similarity in the biological information sea is key information for detecting protein evolutionary relationship. Protein sequence similarity typically implies homology, which in turn may imply structural and functional similarities. In this work, we propose, a learning method for detecting remote protein homology. The proposed method uses a transformation that converts protein sequence into fixed-dimensional representative feature vectors. Each feature vector records the sensitivity of a protein sequence to a set of amino acids substrings generated from the protein sequences of interest. These features are then used in conjunction with support vector machines for the detection of the protein remote homology. The proposed method is tested and evaluated on two different benchmark protein datasets and it-s able to deliver improvements over most of the existing homology detection methods.
Abstract: The vast amount of information hidden in huge
databases has created tremendous interests in the field of data
mining. This paper examines the possibility of using data clustering
techniques in oral medicine to identify functional relationships
between different attributes and classification of similar patient
examinations. Commonly used data clustering algorithms have been
reviewed and as a result several interesting results have been
gathered.
Abstract: Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a procedure tool of environmental management for identifying, predicting, evaluating and mitigating the adverse effects of development proposals. EIA reports usually analyze how the amounts or concentrations of pollutants obey the relevant standards. Actually, many analytical tools can deepen the analysis of environmental impacts in EIA reports, such as life cycle assessment (LCA) and environmental risk assessment (ERA). Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is one of steps in LCA to introduce the causal relationships among environmental hazards and damage. Incorporating the LCIA concept into ERA as an integrated tool for EIA can extend the focus of the regulatory compliance of environmental impacts to determine of the significance of environmental impacts. Sometimes, when using integrated tools, it is necessary to consider fuzzy situations due to insufficient information; therefore, ERA should be generalized to fuzzy risk assessment (FRA). Finally, the use of the proposed methodology is demonstrated through the study case of the expansion plan of the world-s largest plastics processing factory.
Abstract: One of object oriented software developing problem
is the difficulty of searching the appropriate and suitable objects for
starting the system. In this work, ontologies appear in the part of
supporting the object discovering in the initial of object oriented
software developing. There are many researches try to demonstrate
that there is a great potential between object model and ontologies.
Constructing ontology from object model is called ontology
engineering can be done; On the other hand, this research is aiming to
support the idea of building object model from ontology is also
promising and practical. Ontology classes are available online in any
specific areas, which can be searched by semantic search engine.
There are also many helping tools to do so; one of them which are
used in this research is Protégé ontology editor and Visual Paradigm.
To put them together give a great outcome. This research will be
shown how it works efficiently with the real case study by using
ontology classes in travel/tourism domain area. It needs to combine
classes, properties, and relationships from more than two ontologies
in order to generate the object model. In this paper presents a simple
methodology framework which explains the process of discovering
objects. The results show that this framework has great value while
there is possible for expansion. Reusing of existing ontologies offers
a much cheaper alternative than building new ones from scratch.
More ontologies are becoming available on the web, and online
ontologies libraries for storing and indexing ontologies are increasing
in number and demand. Semantic and Ontologies search engines have
also started to appear, to facilitate search and retrieval of online
ontologies.
Abstract: The aim of the study is to determine the effects of
perceived organizational support on organizational identification. In
accordance with this purpose was applied on 131 family physicians in
Konya. The data obtained by means of the survey method were
analyzed. According to the results of correlation analysis, while
positive relationship between perceived organizational support,
organizational identification and supervisor support was revealed.
Also, with the scope of the research, relationships between these
variables and certain demographic variables were detected.
According to difference analysis results of the research, significant
differences between organizational identification and gender variable
were determined. However, significant differences were not
determined between demographic variables and perceived
organizational support.
Abstract: This study aims at investigating the empirical
relationships between risk preference, internet preference, and
internet knowledge which are known as user characteristics, in
addition to perceived risk of the customers on the internet purchase
intention. In order to test the relationships between the variables of
model 174, a questionnaire was collected from the students with
previous online experience. For the purpose of data analysis,
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation model
(SEM) was used.
Test results show that the perceived risk affects the internet
purchase intention, and increase or decrease of perceived risk
influences the purchase intention when the customer does the internet
shopping. Other factors such as internet preference, knowledge of the
internet, and risk preference affect the internet purchase intention.
Abstract: Many studies have been conducted for derivation of
attenuation relationships worldwide, however few relationships have
been developed to use for the seismic region of Iranian plateau and
only few of these studies have been conducted for derivation of
attenuation relationships for parameters such as uniform duration.
Uniform duration is the total time during which the acceleration is
larger than a given threshold value (default is 5% of PGA). In this
study, the database was same as that used previously by Ghodrati
Amiri et al. (2007) with same correction methods for earthquake
records in Iran. However in this study, records from earthquakes with
MS< 4.0 were excluded from this database, each record has
individually filtered afterward, and therefore the dataset has been
expanded. These new set of attenuation relationships for Iran are
derived based on tectonic conditions with soil classification into rock
and soil. Earthquake parameters were chosen to be
hypocentral distance and magnitude in order to make it easier to use
the relationships for seismic hazard analysis. Tehran is the capital
city of Iran wit ha large number of important structures. In this study,
a probabilistic approach has been utilized for seismic hazard
assessment of this city. The resulting uniform duration against return
period diagrams are suggested to be used in any projects in the area.
Abstract: This paper studies, maps and explains the interactions between downloaders and uploaders pertaining to the Internet film piracy. This study also covers several motivational factors that influence users to upload or download movies, and thus to engage in film piracy over the Internet. The essay also proposes a model that describes user behavior including their relationships and influences. Moreover, proposed theoretical interactions and motivational factors are applied to the real world scenario, using examples of a data storage webpage server Ulozto.net and webpage Piratebay.org gathering information about downloadable BitTorrents. Moreover, the theory is further supported by description of behavior of real Internet uploaders.
Abstract: Helical milling operations are used to generate or
enlarge boreholes by means of a milling tool. The bore diameter can be
adjusted through the diameter of the helical path. The kinematics of
helical milling on a three axis machine tool is analysed firstly. The
relationships between processing parameters, cutting tool geometry
characters with machined hole feature are formulated. The feed motion
of the cutting tool has been decomposed to plane circular feed and
axial linear motion. In this paper, the time varying cutting forces acted
on the side cutting edges and end cutting edges of the flat end cylinder
miller is analysed using a discrete method separately. These two
components then are combined to produce the cutting force model
considering the complicated interaction between the cutters and
workpiece. The time varying cutting force model describes the
instantaneous cutting force during processing. This model could be
used to predict cutting force, calculate statics deflection of cutter and
workpiece, and also could be the foundation of dynamics model and
predicting chatter limitation of the helical milling operations.
Abstract: The purpose of this investigation is to relate the rain
power and the overland flow power to soil erodibility to assess the
effects of both parameters on soil erosion using variable rainfall
intensity on remoulded agricultural soil. Six rainfall intensities were
used to simulate the natural rainfall and are as follows: 12.4mm/h,
20.3mm/h, 28.6mm/h, 52mm/h, 73.5mm/h and 103mm/h. The results
have shown that the relationship between overland flow power and
rain power is best represented by a linear function (R2=0.99). As
regards the relationships between soil erodibility factor and rain and
overland flow powers, the evolution of both parameters with the
erodibility factor follow a polynomial function with high coefficient
of determination. From their coefficients of determination (R2=0.95)
for rain power and (R2=0.96) for overland flow power, we can
conclude that the flow has more power to detach particles than rain.
This could be explained by the fact that the presence of particles,
already detached by rain and transported by the flow, give the flow
more weight and then contribute to the detachment of particles by
collision.
Abstract: Components of a software system may be related in a
wide variety of ways. These relationships need to be represented in
software architecture in order develop quality software. In practice, software architecture is immensely challenging, strikingly
multifaceted, extravagantly domain based, perpetually changing,
rarely cost-effective, and deceptively ambiguous. This paper analyses
relations among the major components of software systems and
argues for using several broad categories for software architecture for
assessment purposes: strongly adequate, weakly adequate and
functionally adequate software architectures among other categories.
These categories are intended for formative assessments of
architectural designs.
Abstract: Calcium is a vital second messenger used in signal transduction. Calcium controls secretion, cell movement, muscular contraction, cell differentiation, ciliary beating and so on. Two theories have been used to simplify the system of reaction-diffusion equations of calcium into a single equation. One is excess buffer approximation (EBA) which assumes that mobile buffer is present in excess and cannot be saturated. The other is rapid buffer approximation (RBA), which assumes that calcium binding to buffer is rapid compared to calcium diffusion rate. In the present work, attempt has been made to develop a model for calcium diffusion under excess buffer approximation in neuron cells. This model incorporates the effect of [Na+] influx on [Ca2+] diffusion,variable calcium and sodium sources, sodium-calcium exchange protein, Sarcolemmal Calcium ATPase pump, sodium and calcium channels. The proposed mathematical model leads to a system of partial differential equations which have been solved numerically using Forward Time Centered Space (FTCS) approach. The numerical results have been used to study the relationships among different types of parameters such as buffer concentration, association rate, calcium permeability.
Abstract: The draft Auckland Unitary Plan outlines the future land used for new housing and businesses with Auckland population growth over the next thirty years. According to Auckland Unitary Plan, over the next 30 years, the population of Auckland is projected to increase by one million, and up to 70% of total new dwellings occur within the existing urban area. Intensification will not only increase the number of median or higher density houses such as terrace house, apartment building, etc. within the existing urban area but also change mean housing design data that can impact building thermal performance under the local climate. Based on mean energy consumption and building design data, and their relationships of a number of Auckland sample houses, this study is to estimate the future mean housing energy consumption associated with the change of mean housing design data and evaluate housing energy efficiency with the Auckland Unitary Plan.
Abstract: 115 samples of Labeo calbasu ranged 8.0-17.9cm
length with mean11.90±1.96 and 4.9-68.5g weight with mean
22.25±12.54 from the River Chenab, Southern Punjab, Pakistan were
analyzed to investigate length-weight relationships (LWR) of fish in
relation to condition factor (K). Standard length (SL), fork length
(FL), head length (HL) head width (HW), body girth (BG), dorsal fin
length (DFL), dorsal fin base (DFB), pectoral fin length (PcFL),
pelvic fin length (PvFL) and anal fin length (AFL) are found to be
highly correlated with increasing total length and wet body weight (r
> 0.500). Wet body weight has positive (r=0.540) and total length
has no correlation (r=0.344) with calculated Condition factor (K).
The slope “b" in the relationship is 3.27 and intercepts -2.2258.
Abstract: This work concerns the topological optimization
problem for determining the optimal petroleum refinery
configuration. We are interested in further investigating and
hopefully advancing the existing optimization approaches and
strategies employing logic propositions to conceptual process
synthesis problems. In particular, we seek to contribute to this
increasingly exciting area of chemical process modeling by
addressing the following potentially important issues: (a) how the
formulation of design specifications in a mixed-logical-and-integer
optimization model can be employed in a synthesis problem to enrich
the problem representation by incorporating past design experience,
engineering knowledge, and heuristics; and (b) how structural
specifications on the interconnectivity relationships by space (states)
and by function (tasks) in a superstructure should be properly
formulated within a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP)
model. The proposed modeling technique is illustrated on a case
study involving the alternative processing routes of naphtha, in which
significant improvement in the solution quality is obtained.
Abstract: Unlike its conventional counterpart, Islamic principles
forbid Islamic banks to take any interest-related income and thus
makes deposits from depositors as an important source of fund for its
operational and financing. Consequently, the risk of deposit
withdrawal by depositors is an important aspect that should be wellmanaged
in Islamic banking. This paper aims to investigate factors
that influence depositors- withdrawal behavior in Islamic banks,
particularly in Malaysia, using the framework of theory of reasoned
action. A total of 368 respondents from Klang valley are involved in
the analysis. The paper finds that all the constructs variable i.e.
normative beliefs, subjective norms, behavioral beliefs, and attitude
towards behavior are perceived to be distinct by the respondents. In
addition, the structural equation model is able to verify the structural
relationships between subjective norms, attitude towards behavior
and behavioral intention. Subjective norms gives more influence to
depositors- decision on deposit withdrawal compared to attitude
towards behavior.
Abstract: In Supply Chain Management (SCM), strengthening partnerships with suppliers is a significant factor for enhancing competitiveness. Hence, firms increasingly emphasize supplier evaluation processes. Supplier evaluation systems are basically developed in terms of criteria such as quality, cost, delivery, and flexibility. Because there are many variables to be analyzed, this process becomes hard to execute and needs expertise. On this account, this study aims to develop an expert system on supplier evaluation process by designing Artificial Neural Network (ANN) that is supported with Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The methods are applied on the data of 24 suppliers, which have longterm relationships with a medium sized company from German Iron and Steel Industry. The data of suppliers consists of variables such as material quality (MQ), discount of amount (DOA), discount of cash (DOC), payment term (PT), delivery time (DT) and annual revenue (AR). Meanwhile, the efficiency that is generated by using DEA is added to the supplier evaluation system in order to use them as system outputs.
Abstract: In this paper we present semantic assistant agent
(SAA), an open source digital library agent which takes user query
for finding information in the digital library and takes resources-
metadata and stores it semantically. SAA uses Semantic Web to
improve browsing and searching for resources in digital library. All
metadata stored in the library are available in RDF format for
querying and processing by SemanSreach which is a part of SAA
architecture. The architecture includes a generic RDF-based model
that represents relationships among objects and their components.
Queries against these relationships are supported by an RDF triple
store.
Abstract: Modeling of the dynamic behavior and motion are
renewed interest in the improved tractive performance of an
intelligent air-cushion tracked vehicle (IACTV). This paper presents
a new dynamical model for the forces on the developed small scale
intelligent air-cushion tracked vehicle moving over swamp peat. The
air cushion system partially supports the 25 % of vehicle total weight
in order to make the vehicle ground contact pressure 7 kN/m2. As the
air-cushion support system can adjust automatically on the terrain, so
the vehicle can move over the terrain without any risks. The springdamper
system is used with the vehicle body to control the aircushion
support system on any undulating terrain by making the
system sinusoidal form. Experiments have been carried out to
investigate the relationships among tractive efficiency, slippage,
traction coefficient, load distribution ratio, tractive effort, motion
resistance and power consumption in given terrain conditions.
Experiment and simulation results show that air-cushion system
improves the vehicle performance by keeping traction coefficient of
71% and tractive efficiency of 62% and the developed model can
meet the demand of transport efficiency with the optimal power
consumption.