Abstract: This work presents a robot called Conceptual Robotic Cube, CR-Cube. The robot can be used as an educational tool for children from the age of three. It has a cube shape attached with a camera colours sensor. In addition, it contains four wheels to move smoothly. The researchers prepared a questionnaire to measure the efficiency of the robot. The design and the questionnaire was presented to 11 experts who agreed that the robot is appropriate for learning numbering and colours for preschool children.
Abstract: Reversible logic as a new favorable design domain can be used for various fields especially creating quantum computers because of its speed and intangible power consumption. However, its susceptibility to a variety of environmental effects may lead to yield the incorrect results. In this paper, because of the importance of multiplication operation in various computing systems, some novel reversible logic array multipliers are proposed with error detection capability by incorporating the parity-preserving gates. The new designs are presented for two main parts of array multipliers, partial product generation and multi-operand addition, by exploiting the new arrangements of existing gates, which results in two signed parity-preserving array multipliers. The experimental results reveal that the best proposed 4×4 multiplier in this paper reaches 12%, 24%, and 26% enhancements in the number of constant inputs, number of required gates, and quantum cost, respectively, compared to previous design. Moreover, the best proposed design is generalized for n×n multipliers with general formulations to estimate the main reversible logic criteria as the functions of the multiplier size.
Abstract: Traditionally process planning, scheduling and due date assignment are performed sequentially and separately. High interrelation between these functions makes integration very useful. Although there are numerous works on integrated process planning and scheduling and many works on scheduling with due date assignment, there are only a few works on the integration of these three functions. Here we tested the different integration levels of these three functions and found a fully integrated version as the best. We applied genetic search and random search and genetic search was found better compared to the random search. We penalized all earliness, tardiness and due date related costs. Since all these three terms are all undesired, it is better to penalize all of them.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to evaluate the microbiological quality and safety of meatball obtained from five different manufacturers around Payakumbuh City, West Sumatra, Indonesia. Microbiological analysis of meatball sample resulted in aerobic plate count range from 7 log CFU/gr to 8.623 log CFU/gr, respectively. Total coliform ranges from 1.041 log Most Probable Number (MPN)/gr to 3.380 log MPN/gr, respectively. Chemical analysis of meatball sample consisted of borax and formalin content. The result of qualitative detection of borax and formalin content on all meatball samples were not detected. Thus, it remains essential to include the significance of effective hygiene practices as an important safety measure in consumer education programmes.
Abstract: Present investigation is performed to evaluate the effects of foliar application of salicylic acid, glycine betaine, ascorbic acid, nano-silica, and nano-titanium dioxide on sunflower. Results showed that the first two principal components were sufficient to create a two-dimensional treatment by trait biplot, and such biplot accounted percentages of 49% and 19%, respectively of the interaction between traits and treatments. The vertex treatments of polygon were ascorbic acid, glycine betaine, nano-TiO2, and control indicated that high performance in some important traits consists of number of days to seed maturity, number of seeds per head, number heads per single plant, hundred seed weight, seed length, seed yield performance, and oil content. Treatments suitable for obtaining the high seed yield were identified in the vector-view function of biplot and displayed nano-silica and nano titanium dioxide as the best treatments suitable for obtaining of high seed yield.
Abstract: In the paper we make linear and non-linear stability
analyses of Rayleigh-Bénard convection of a Newtonian nanoliquid
in a rotating medium (called as Rayleigh-Bénard-Taylor convection).
Rigid-rigid isothermal boundaries are considered for investigation.
Khanafer-Vafai-Lightstone single phase model is used for studying
instabilities in nanoliquids. Various thermophysical properties of
nanoliquid are obtained using phenomenological laws and mixture
theory. The eigen boundary value problem is solved for the Rayleigh
number using an analytical method by considering trigonometric
eigen functions. We observe that the critical nanoliquid Rayleigh
number is less than that of the base liquid. Thus the onset of
convection is advanced due to the addition of nanoparticles. So,
increase in volume fraction leads to advanced onset and thereby
increase in heat transport. The amplitudes of convective modes
required for estimating the heat transport are determined analytically.
The tri-modal standard Lorenz model is derived for the steady state
assuming small scale convective motions. The effect of rotation on
the onset of convection and on heat transport is investigated and
depicted graphically. It is observed that the onset of convection is
delayed due to rotation and hence leads to decrease in heat transport.
Hence, rotation has a stabilizing effect on the system. This is due to
the fact that the energy of the system is used to create the component
V. We observe that the amount of heat transport is less in the case
of rigid-rigid isothermal boundaries compared to free-free isothermal
boundaries.
Abstract: The curriculum of architecture department in Prince Sultan University includes ‘Building Surveying’ course which is usually a part of civil engineering courses. As a fundamental requirement of the course, it requires a strong background in mathematics and physics, which are not usually preferred subjects to the architecture students and many of them are not giving the required and necessary attention to these courses during their preparation year before commencing their architectural study. This paper introduces the concept and the methodology of the student-centered learning approach in the course of building surveying for architects. One of the major outcomes is the improvement in the students’ involvement in the course and how this will cover and strength their analytical weak points and improve their mathematical skills. The study is conducted through three semesters with a total number of 99 students. The effectiveness of the student-centered learning approach is studied using the student survey at the end of each semester and teacher observations. This survey showed great acceptance of the students for these methods. Also, the teachers observed a great improvement in the students’ mathematical abilities and how keener they became in attending the classes which were clearly reflected on the low absence record.
Abstract: The median problem is significantly applied to derive
the most reasonable rearrangement phylogenetic tree for many
species. More specifically, the problem is concerned with finding
a permutation that minimizes the sum of distances between itself
and a set of three signed permutations. Genomes with equal number
of genes but different order can be represented as permutations.
In this paper, an algorithm, namely BeamGA median, is proposed
that combines a heuristic search approach (local beam) as an
initialization step to generate a number of solutions, and then a
Genetic Algorithm (GA) is applied in order to refine the solutions,
aiming to achieve a better median with the smallest possible reversal
distance from the three original permutations. In this approach,
any genome rearrangement distance can be applied. In this paper,
we use the reversal distance. To the best of our knowledge, the
proposed approach was not applied before for solving the median
problem. Our approach considers true biological evolution scenario
by applying the concept of common intervals during the GA
optimization process. This allows us to imitate a true biological
behavior and enhance genetic approach time convergence. We were
able to handle permutations with a large number of genes, within
an acceptable time performance and with same or better accuracy as
compared to existing algorithms.
Abstract: Historically, wetlands in the United States have been lost due to agriculture, anthropogenic activities, and rapid urbanization along the coast. Such losses of wetlands have resulted in high flooding risk for coastal communities over the period of time. In addition, alteration of wetlands via the Section 404 Clean Water Act permits can increase the flooding risk to future hurricane events, as the cumulative impact of this program is poorly understood and under-accounted. Further, recovery after hurricane events is acting as an encouragement for new development and reconstruction activities by converting wetlands under the wetland alteration permitting program. This study investigates the degree to which hurricane recovery activities in coastal communities are undermining the ability of these places to absorb the impacts of future storm events. Specifically, this work explores how and to what extent wetlands are being affected by the federal permitting program post-Hurricane Ike in 2008. Wetland alteration patterns are examined across three counties (Harris, Galveston, and Chambers County) along the Texas Gulf Coast over a 10-year time period, from 2004-2013 (five years before and after Hurricane Ike) by conducting descriptive spatial analyses. Results indicate that after Hurricane Ike, the number of permits substantially increased in Harris and Chambers County. The vast majority of individual and nationwide type permits were issued within the 100-year floodplain, storm surge zones, and areas damaged by Ike flooding, suggesting that recovery after the hurricane is compromising the ecological resiliency on which coastal communities depend. The authors expect that the findings of this study can increase awareness to policy makers and hazard mitigation planners regarding how to manage wetlands during a long-term recovery process to maintain their natural functions for future flood mitigation.
Abstract: In this paper, we study a distributed control algorithm
for the problem of unknown area coverage by a network of robots.
The coverage objective is to locate a set of targets in the area and
to minimize the robots’ energy consumption. The robots have no
prior knowledge about the location and also about the number of the
targets in the area. One efficient approach that can be used to relax
the robots’ lack of knowledge is to incorporate an auxiliary learning
algorithm into the control scheme. A learning algorithm actually
allows the robots to explore and study the unknown environment
and to eventually overcome their lack of knowledge. The control
algorithm itself is modeled based on game theory where the network
of the robots use their collective information to play a non-cooperative
potential game. The algorithm is tested via simulations to verify its
performance and adaptability.
Abstract: Although English is not a second language in Iran, it has become an inseparable part of many Iranian people’s lives and is becoming more and more widespread. This high demand has caused a significant increase in the number of private English language institutes in Iran. Although English is a compulsory course in schools and universities, the majority of Iranian people are unable to communicate easily in English. This paper reviews the current state of teaching and learning English as an international language in Iran. Attitudes and motivations about learning English are reviewed. Five different aspects of using English within the country are analysed, including: English in public domain, English in Media, English in organizations/businesses, English in education, and English in private language institutes. Despite the time and money spent on English language courses in private language institutes, the majority of learners seem to forget what has been learned within months of completing their course. That is, when they are students with the support of the teacher and formal classes, they appear to make progress and use English more or less fluently. When this support is removed, their language skills either stagnant or regress. The findings of this study suggest that a dependant approach to learning is potentially one of the main reasons for English language learning problems and this is encouraged by English course books and approaches to teaching.
Abstract: Weeds are known to interfere seriously with crop growth, thereby affecting the productivity and quality of crops. Crops are also known to compete for natural growth resources if they are not adequately spaced, also affecting the performance of the growing crop. Farmers grow cowpea in mixtures with cereals and this is known to affect its yield. For this reason, a field experiment was conducted at Yobe State College of Agriculture Gujba, Damaturu station in the 2014 and 2015 rainy seasons to determine the appropriate intra row spacing and weeding regime for optimum growth and yield of cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L.) in pure stand in Sudan Savanna ecology. The treatments consist of three levels of spacing within rows (20 cm, 30 cm and 40 cm) and four weeding regimes (none, once at 3 weeks after sowing (WAS), twice at 3 and 6WAS, thrice at 3WAS, 6WAS and 9WAS); arranged in a Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) and replicated three times. The variety used was the local cowpea variety (white, early and spreading) commonly grown by farmers. The growth and yield data were collected and subjected to analysis of variance using SAS software, and the significant means were ranked by Students Newman Keul’s test (SNK). The findings of this study revealed better crop performance in 2015 than in 2014 despite poor soil condition. Intra row spacing significantly influenced vegetative growth especially the number of main branches, leaves and canopy spread at 6WAS and 9WAS with the highest values obtained at wider spacing (40 cm). The values obtained in 2015 doubled those obtained in 2014 in most cases. Spacing also significantly affected the number of pods in 2015, seed weight in both years and grain yield in 2014 with the highest values obtained when the crop was spaced at 30-40 cm. Similarly, weeding regime significantly influenced almost all the growth attributes of cowpea with higher values obtained from where cowpea was weeded three times at 3-week intervals, though statistically similar results were obtained even from where cowpea was weeded twice. Weeding also affected the entire yield and yield components in 2015 with the highest values obtained with increase weeding. Based on these findings, it is recommended that spreading cowpea varieties should be grown at 40 cm (or wider spacing) within rows and be weeded twice at three-week intervals for better crop performance in related ecologies.
Abstract: The biological function of an RNA molecule depends
on its structure. The objective of the alignment is finding the
homology between two or more RNA secondary structures. Knowing
the common functionalities between two RNA structures allows
a better understanding and a discovery of other relationships
between them. Besides, identifying non-coding RNAs -that is not
translated into a protein- is a popular application in which RNA
structural alignment is the first step A few methods for RNA
structure-to-structure alignment have been developed. Most of these
methods are partial structure-to-structure, sequence-to-structure, or
structure-to-sequence alignment. Less attention is given in the
literature to the use of efficient RNA structure representation and the
structure-to-structure alignment methods are lacking. In this paper,
we introduce an O(N2) Component-based Pairwise RNA Structure
Alignment (CompPSA) algorithm, where structures are given as
a component-based representation and where N is the maximum
number of components in the two structures. The proposed algorithm
compares the two RNA secondary structures based on their weighted
component features rather than on their base-pair details. Extensive
experiments are conducted illustrating the efficiency of the CompPSA
algorithm when compared to other approaches and on different real
and simulated datasets. The CompPSA algorithm shows an accurate
similarity measure between components. The algorithm gives the
flexibility for the user to align the two RNA structures based on
their weighted features (position, full length, and/or stem length).
Moreover, the algorithm proves scalability and efficiency in time and
memory performance.
Abstract: This paper presents a Generalized Binary Integer Linear Programming (GBILP) method for optimal allocation of Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs) and to generate Dynamic State Estimation (DSE) solution with complete observability. The GBILP method is formulated with Zero Injection Bus (ZIB) constraints to reduce the number of locations for placement of PMUs in the case of normal and single line contingency. The integration of PMU and conventional measurements is modeled in DSE process to estimate accurate states of the system. To estimate the dynamic behavior of the power system with proposed method, load change up to 40% considered at a bus in the power system network. The proposed DSE method is compared with traditional Weighted Least Squares (WLS) state estimation method in presence of load changes to show the impact of PMU measurements. MATLAB simulations are carried out on IEEE 14, 30, 57, and 118 bus systems to prove the validity of the proposed approach.
Abstract: In the present work response surface methodology (RSM) based central composite design (CCD) is used for analyzing the electrical discharge machining (EDM) process. For experimentation, mild steel is selected as work piece and copper is used as electrode. Three machining parameters namely current (I), spark on time (Ton) and spark off time (Toff) are selected as the input variables. The output or response chosen is material removal rate (MRR) which is to be maximized. To reduce the number of runs face centered central composite design (FCCCD) was used. ANOVA was used to determine the significance of parameter and interactions. The suitability of model is tested using Anderson darling (AD) plot. The results conclude that different parameters considered i.e. current, pulse on and pulse off time; all have dominant effect on the MRR. At last, the optimized parameter setting for maximizing MRR is found through main effect plot analysis.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present the QoE (Quality of Experience) IPTV SDN-based media streaming server enhanced architecture for configuring, controlling, management and provisioning the improved delivery of IPTV service application with low cost, low bandwidth, and high security. Furthermore, it is given a virtual QoE IPTV SDN-based topology to provide an improved IPTV service based on QoE Control and Management of multimedia services functionalities. Inside OpenFlow SDN Controller there are enabled in high flexibility and efficiency Service Load-Balancing Systems; based on the Loading-Balance module and based on GeoIP Service. This two Load-balancing system improve IPTV end-users Quality of Experience (QoE) with optimal management of resources greatly. Through the key functionalities of OpenFlow SDN controller, this approach produced several important features, opportunities for overcoming the critical QoE metrics for IPTV Service like achieving incredible Fast Zapping time (Channel Switching time) < 0.1 seconds. This approach enabled Easy and Powerful Transcoding system via FFMPEG encoder. It has the ability to customize streaming dimensions bitrates, latency management and maximum transfer rates ensuring delivering of IPTV streaming services (Audio and Video) in high flexibility, low bandwidth and required performance. This QoE IPTV SDN-based media streaming architecture unlike other architectures provides the possibility of Channel Exchanging between several IPTV service providers all over the word. This new functionality brings many benefits as increasing the number of TV channels received by end –users with low cost, decreasing stream failure time (Channel Failure time < 0.1 seconds) and improving the quality of streaming services.
Abstract: The flow pattern inside rectangular intake air duct of 300 MW lignite coal-fired power plant is investigated in order to analyze and reduce overall inlet system pressure drop. The system consists of the 45-degree inlet elbow, the flow instrument, the 90-degree mitered elbow and fans, respectively. The energy loss in each section can be determined by Bernoulli’s equation and ASHRAE standard table. Hence, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is used in this study based on Navier-Stroke equation and the standard k-epsilon turbulence modeling. Input boundary condition is 175 kg/s mass flow rate inside the 11-m2 cross sectional duct. According to the inlet air flow rate, the Reynolds number of airstream is 2.7x106 (based on the hydraulic duct diameter), thus the flow behavior is turbulence. The numerical results are validated with the real operation data. It is found that the numerical result agrees well with the operating data, and dominant loss occurs at the flow rate measurement device. Normally, the air flow rate is measured by the airfoil and it gets high pressure drop inside the duct. To overcome this problem, the airfoil is planned to be replaced with the other type measuring instrument, such as the average pitot tube which generates low pressure drop of airstream. The numerical result in case of average pitot tube shows that the pressure drop inside the inlet airstream duct is decreased significantly. It should be noted that the energy consumption of inlet air system is reduced too.
Abstract: The main objective of the present article is to explore the state of mixed convection nanofluid flow of gyrotactic microorganisms from an isothermal vertical wedge in porous medium. In our pioneering investigation, the easiest possible boundary conditions have been employed, in other words when the temperature, the nanofluid and motile microorganisms’ density have been considered to be constant on the wedge wall. Adding motile microorganisms to the nanofluid tends to enhance microscale mixing, mass transfer, and improve the nanofluid stability. Upon the Oberbeck–Boussinesq approximation and non-similarity transmutation, the paradigm of nonlinear equations are obtained and tackled numerically by using the R.K. Gill and shooting methods to obtain the dimensionless velocity, temperature, nanoparticle concentration and motile microorganisms density together with the reduced Sherwood, Nusselt, and numbers. Bioconvection parameters have strong effect upon the motile microorganism, heat, and volume fraction of nanoparticle transport rates. In the case when bioconvection is neglected, the obtained computations were found in very good agreement with the previous published data.
Abstract: The convective and radiative heat transfer performance and entropy generation on forced convection through a direct absorption solar collector (DASC) is investigated numerically. Four different fluids, including Cu-water nanofluid, Al2O3-waternanofluid, TiO2-waternanofluid, and pure water are used as the working fluid. Entropy production has been taken into account in addition to the collector efficiency and heat transfer enhancement. Penalty finite element method with Galerkin’s weighted residual technique is used to solve the governing non-linear partial differential equations. Numerical simulations are performed for the variation of mass flow rate. The outcomes are presented in the form of isotherms, average output temperature, the average Nusselt number, collector efficiency, average entropy generation, and Bejan number. The results present that the rate of heat transfer and collector efficiency enhance significantly for raising the values of m up to a certain range.
Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the excessive use of smartphones. Smartphones have enormous effects on the human body in that some musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) and health problems might evolve. These days, there is a wide use of the smartphones among all age groups of society, thus, the focus on smartphone effects on human behavior and health, especially on the young and elderly people, becomes a crucial issue. This study was conducted in Jordan on smartphone users for different genders and ages, by conducting a survey to collect data related to the symptoms and MSDs that are resulted from the excessive use of smartphones. A total of 357 responses were used in the analysis. The main related symptoms were numbness, fingers pain, and pain in arm, all linked to age and gender for comparative reasons. A statistical analysis was performed to find the effects of extensive usage of a smartphone for long periods of time on the human body. Results show that the significant variables were the vision problems and the time spent when using the smartphone that cause vision problems. Other variables including age of user and ear problems due to the use of the headsets were found to be a border line significant.