Abstract: This paper proposes a low-voltage and low-power
fully integrated digitally tuned continuous-time channel selection
filter for WiMAX applications. A 5th-order elliptic low-pass filter is
realized in a Gm-C topology. The bandwidth of the fully differential
filter is reconfigurable from 2.5MHz to 20MHz (8x) for different
requirements in WiMAX applications. The filter is simulated in a
standard 90nm CMOS process. Simulation results show the THD
(@Vout =100mVpp) is less than -66dB. The in-band ripple of the
filter is about 0.15dB. The filter consumes 1.5mW from a supply
voltage of 0.9V.
Abstract: The dynamics of the Autonomous Underwater
Vehicles (AUVs) are highly nonlinear and time varying and the hydrodynamic coefficients of vehicles are difficult to estimate
accurately because of the variations of these coefficients with
different navigation conditions and external disturbances. This study presents the on-line system identification of AUV dynamics to obtain
the coupled nonlinear dynamic model of AUV as a black box. This black box has an input-output relationship based upon on-line
adaptive fuzzy model and adaptive neural fuzzy network (ANFN)
model techniques to overcome the uncertain external disturbance and
the difficulties of modelling the hydrodynamic forces of the AUVs instead of using the mathematical model with hydrodynamic parameters estimation. The models- parameters are adapted according
to the back propagation algorithm based upon the error between the
identified model and the actual output of the plant. The proposed
ANFN model adopts a functional link neural network (FLNN) as the
consequent part of the fuzzy rules. Thus, the consequent part of the
ANFN model is a nonlinear combination of input variables. Fuzzy
control system is applied to guide and control the AUV using both
adaptive models and mathematical model. Simulation results show
the superiority of the proposed adaptive neural fuzzy network
(ANFN) model in tracking of the behavior of the AUV accurately
even in the presence of noise and disturbance.
Abstract: Financial forecasting using machine learning techniques has received great efforts in the last decide . In this ongoing work, we show how machine learning of graphical models will be able to infer a visualized causal interactions between different banks in the Saudi equities market. One important discovery from such learned causal graphs is how companies influence each other and to what extend. In this work, a set of graphical models named Gaussian graphical models with developed ensemble penalized feature selection methods that combine ; filtering method, wrapper method and a regularizer will be shown. A comparison between these different developed ensemble combinations will also be shown. The best ensemble method will be used to infer the causal relationships between banks in Saudi equities market.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to establish the feasibility of a minute incremental exercise testing protocol in young asthma children. Twenty-two children with clinically diagnosed mild to moderate asthma volunteered to participate. The maximum incremental exercise test was performed using a cycle ergometer with an electromagnetic braking. A warm-up unloaded for 2 minutes then the workload was started at 40 watts for 2 minutes, and then stepwise increments of 8 watts per 2 minutes were applied. The pedaling frequency was set at 50 rpm. Ventilation and gas exchange were measured with a breath-by-breath automatic metabolic measurement system. Results showed that this test was well tolerated by all asthmatic children. Most of the children reached the VO2 plateau and satisfied the criteria for maximal respiratory exchange ratio of ≥ 1. This Study demonstrated that this testing protocol was suitable for young asthmatic children.
Abstract: This work deals with problems of tool axis inclination angles in ball-end milling. Tool axis inclination angle contributes to improvement of functional surface properties (surface integrity - surface roughness, residual stress, micro hardness, etc.), decreasing cutting forces and improving production. By milling with ball-end milling tool, using standard way of cutting, when work piece and cutting tool contain right angle, we have zero cutting speed on edge. At this point cutting tool only pushes material into the work piece. Here we can observe the following undesirable effects - chip contraction, increasing of cutting temperature, increasing vibrations or creation of built-up edge. These effects have negative results – low quality of surface and decreasing of tool life (in the worse case even it is pinching out). These effects can be eliminated with the tilt of cutting tool or tilt of work piece.
Abstract: The availability of broadband internet and increased
access to computers has been instrumental in the rise of internet
literacy in Malaysia. This development has led to the adoption of
online shopping by many Malaysians. On another note, the
Government has supported the development and production of local
herbal products. This has resulted in an increase in the production and
diversity of products by SMEs. The purpose of this study is to
evaluate the influence of the Malaysian demographic factors and
selected attitudinal characteristics in relation to the online purchasing
of herbal products. In total, 1054 internet users were interviewed
online and Chi-square analysis was used to determine the relationship
between demographic variables and different aspects of online
shopping for herbal products. The overall results show that the
demographic variables such as age, gender, education level, income
and ethnicity were significant when considering the online shopping
antecedents of trust, quality of herbal products, perceived risks and
perceived benefits.
Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of asymptotic tracking
control of a linear parabolic partial differential equation with indomain
point actuation. As the considered model is a non-standard
partial differential equation, we firstly developed a map that allows
transforming this problem into a standard boundary control problem
to which existing infinite-dimensional system control methods can
be applied. Then, a combination of energy multiplier and differential
flatness methods is used to design an asymptotic tracking controller.
This control scheme consists of stabilizing state-feedback derived
from the energy multiplier method and feed-forward control based
on the flatness property of the system. This approach represents
a systematic procedure to design tracking control laws for a class
of partial differential equations with in-domain point actuation. The
applicability and system performance are assessed by simulation
studies.
Abstract: This work aims to explore the factors that have an incidence in reading comprehension process, with different type of texts. In a recent study with 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade children, it was observed that reading comprehension of narrative texts was better than comprehension of expository texts. Nevertheless it seems that not only the type of text but also other textual factors would account for comprehension depending on the cognitive processing demands posed by the text. In order to explore this assumption, three narrative and three expository texts were elaborated with different degree of complexity. A group of 40 fourth grade Spanish-speaking children took part in the study. Children were asked to read the texts and answer orally three literal and three inferential questions for each text. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of children responses showed that children had difficulties in both, narrative and expository texts. The problem was to answer those questions that involved establishing complex relationships among information units that were present in the text or that should be activated from children’s previous knowledge to make an inference. Considering the data analysis, it could be concluded that there is some interaction between the type of text and the cognitive processing load of a specific text.
Abstract: Using a set of confidence intervals, we develop a
common approach, to construct a fuzzy set as an estimator for
unknown parameters in statistical models. We investigate a method
to derive the explicit and unique membership function of such fuzzy
estimators. The proposed method has been used to derive the fuzzy
estimators of the parameters of a Normal distribution and some
functions of parameters of two Normal distributions, as well as the
parameters of the Exponential and Poisson distributions.
Abstract: In sport, human resources management gives special
attention to method of applying volunteers, their maintenance, and
participation of volunteers with each other and management
approaches for better operation of events celebrants. The recognition
of volunteers- characteristics and motives is important to notice,
because it makes the basis of their participation and commitment at
sport environment. The motivation and commitment of 281
volunteers were assessed using the organizational commitment scale,
motivation scale and personal characteristics questionnaire.The
descriptive results showed that; 64% of volunteers were women with
age average 21/24 years old. They were physical education student,
single (71/9%), without occupation (53%) and with average of 5
years sport experience. Their most important motivation was career
factor and the most important commitment factor was normative
factor. The results of examining the hypothesized showed that; age,
sport experience and education are effective in the amount of
volunteers- commitment. And the motive factors such as career,
material, purposive and protective factors also have the power to
predict the amount of sports volunteers- commitment value.
Therefore it is recommended to provide possible opportunities for
volunteers and carrying out appropriate instructional courses by
events executive managers.
Abstract: In this paper, a method to detect multiple ellipses is presented. The technique is efficient and robust against incomplete ellipses due to partial occlusion, noise or missing edges and outliers. It is an iterative technique that finds and removes the best ellipse until no reasonable ellipse is found. At each run, the best ellipse is extracted from randomly selected edge patches, its fitness calculated and compared to a fitness threshold. RANSAC algorithm is applied as a sampling process together with the Direct Least Square fitting of ellipses (DLS) as the fitting algorithm. In our experiment, the method performs very well and is robust against noise and spurious edges on both synthetic and real-world image data.
Abstract: The efficient knowledge management system (KMS)
is one of the important strategies to help firms to achieve sustainable
competitive advantages, but little research has been conducted to
understand what contributes to the KMS success. This study thus set
to investigate the determinants of KMS success in the context of Thai
banking industry. A questionnaire survey was conducted in four
major Thai Banks to test the proposed KMS Success model.
The result of this study shows that KMS use and user satisfaction
relate significantly to the success of KMS, and knowledge quality,
service quality and trust lead to system use, and knowledge quality,
system quality and trust lead to user satisfaction. However, this
research focuses only on system and user-related factors. Future
research thus can extend to study factors such as management support
and organization readiness.
Abstract: The growing outsourcing of logistics services
resulting from the ongoing current in firms of costs
reduction/increased efficiency means that it is becoming more and
more important for the companies doing the outsourcing to carry out
a proper evaluation.
The multiple definitions and measures of logistics service
performance found in research on the topic create a certain degree of
confusion and do not clear the way towards the proper measurement
of their performance. Do a model and a specific set of indicators exist
that can be considered appropriate for measuring the performance of
logistics services outsourcing in industrial environments? Are said
indicators in keeping with the objectives pursued by outsourcing? We
aim to answer these and other research questions in the study we have
initiated in the field within the framework of the international High
Performance Manufacturing (HPM) project of which this paper
forms part.
As the first stage of this research, this paper reviews articles
dealing with the topic published in the last 15 years with the aim of
detecting the models most used to make this measurement and
determining which performance indicators are proposed as part of
said models and which are most used. The first steps are also taken in
determining whether these indicators, financial and operational, cover
the aims that are being pursued when outsourcing logistics services.
The findings show there is a wide variety of both models and
indicators used. This would seem to testify to the need to continue
with our research in order to try to propose a model and a set of
indicators for measuring the performance of logistics services
outsourcing in industrial environments.
Abstract: A novel method of learning complex fuzzy decision regions in the n-dimensional feature space is proposed. Through the fuzzy decision regions, a given pattern's class membership value of every class is determined instead of the conventional crisp class the pattern belongs to. The n-dimensional fuzzy decision region is approximated by union of hyperellipsoids. By explicitly parameterizing these hyperellipsoids, the decision regions are determined by estimating the parameters of each hyperellipsoid.Genetic Algorithm is applied to estimate the parameters of each region component. With the global optimization ability of GA, the learned decision region can be arbitrarily complex.
Abstract: Recent financial international scandals around the world have led to a number of investigations into the effectiveness of corporate governance practices and audit quality. Although evidence of corporate governance practices and audit quality exists from developed economies, very scanty studies have been conducted in Egypt where corporate governance is just evolving. Therefore, this study provides evidence on the effectiveness of corporate governance practices and audit quality from a developing country. The data for analysis are gathered from the top 50 most active companies in the Egyptian Stock Exchange, covering the three year period 2007-2009. Logistic regression was used in investigating the questions that were raised in the study. Findings from the study show that board independence; CEO duality and audit committees significantly have relationship with audit quality. The results also, indicate that institutional investor and managerial ownership have no significantly relationship with audit quality. Evidence also exist that size of the company; complexity and business leverage are important factors in audit quality for companies quoted on the Egypt Stock Exchange.
Abstract: Scale defects are common surface defects in hot steel rolling. The modelling of such defects is problematic and their causes are not straightforward. In this study, we investigated genetic algorithms in search for a mathematical solution to scale formation. For this research, a high-dimensional data set from hot steel rolling process was gathered. The synchronisation of the variables as well as the allocation of the measurements made on the steel strip were solved before the modelling phase.
Abstract: Encryption protects communication partners from
disclosure of their secret messages but cannot prevent traffic analysis
and the leakage of information about “who communicates with
whom". In the presence of collaborating adversaries, this linkability
of actions can danger anonymity. However, reliably providing
anonymity is crucial in many applications. Especially in contextaware
mobile business, where mobile users equipped with PDAs
request and receive services from service providers, providing
anonymous communication is mission-critical and challenging at the
same time. Firstly, the limited performance of mobile devices does
not allow for heavy use of expensive public-key operations which are
commonly used in anonymity protocols. Moreover, the demands for
security depend on the application (e.g., mobile dating vs. pizza
delivery service), but different users (e.g., a celebrity vs. a normal
person) may even require different security levels for the same
application. Considering both hardware limitations of mobile devices
and different sensitivity of users, we propose an anonymity
framework that is dynamically configurable according to user and
application preferences. Our framework is based on Chaum-s mixnet.
We explain the proposed framework, its configuration
parameters for the dynamic behavior and the algorithm to enforce
dynamic anonymity.
Abstract: It has been shown that in most accidents the driver is responsible due to being distracted or misjudging the situation. In order to solve such problems research has been dedicated to developing driver assistance systems that are able to monitor the traffic situation around the vehicle. This paper presents methods for recognizing several circumstances on a road. The methods use both the in-vehicle warning systems and the roadside infrastructure. Preliminary evaluation results for fog and ice-on-road detection are presented. The ice detection results are based on data recorded in a test track dedicated to tyre friction testing. The achieved results anticipate that ice detection could work at a performance of 70% detection with the right setup, which is a good foundation for implementation. However, the full benefit of the presented cooperative system is achieved by fusing the outputs of multiple data sources, which is the key point of discussion behind this publication.
Abstract: The birdhouses and dovecotes, which are the indicator
of naturalness and human-animal relationship, are one of the
traditional cultural values of Turkey. With their structures compatible
with nature and respectful to humans the bird houses and dovecotes,
which have an important position in local urbanization models as a
representative of the civil architecture with their unique form and
function are important subjects that should be evaluated in a wide
frame comprising from architecture to urbanism, from ecologic
agriculture to globalization. The traditional bird houses and
dovecotes are disregarded due to the insensitivity affecting the city
life and the change in the public sense of art. In this study, the
characteristic properties of traditional dovecotes and birdhouses,
started in 13th century and ended in 19th century in Anatolia, are
tried to be defined for the sustainability of the tradition and for giving
a new direction to the designers.
Abstract: Pearson-s correlation coefficient and sequential path
analysis has been used for determining the interrelationship among
yield, yield components, soil minerals and aroma of Khao Dawk Mali
(KDML) 105 rice grown in the area of Tungkularonghai in Roi-Et
province, located in the northeast of Thailand. Pearson-s correlation
coefficient in this study showed that the number of panicles was the
only factor that had positive significant (0.790**) effect on grain
yield. Sequential path analysis revealed that the number of panicles
followed by the number of fertile spikelets and 100-grain weight
were the first-order factors which had positive direct effects on grain
yield. Whereas, other factors analyzed had indirect effects
influencing grain yield. This study also indicated that no significant
relationship was found between the aroma level and any of the
factors analyzed.