Abstract: Sediment formation and its transport along the river course is considered as important hydraulic consideration in river engineering. Their impact on the morphology of rivers on one hand and important considerations of which in the design and construction of the hydraulic structures on the other has attracted the attention of experts in arid and semi-arid regions. Under certain conditions where the momentum energy of the flow stream reaches a specific rate, the sediment materials start to be transported with the flow. This can usually be analyzed in two different categories of suspended and bed load materials. Sedimentation phenomenon along the waterways and the conveyance of vast volume of materials into the canal networks can potentially influence water abstraction in the intake structures. This can pose a serious threat to operational sustainability and water delivery performance in the canal networks. The situation is serious where ineffective watershed management (poor vegetation cover in the water basin) is the underlying cause of soil erosion which feeds the materials into the waterways that intern would necessitate comprehensive study. The present paper aims to present an analytical investigation of the sediment process in the waterways on one hand and estimation of the sediment load transport into the lined canals using the SHARC software on the other. For this reason, the paper focuses on the comparative analysis of the hydraulic behaviors of the Sabilli main canal that feeds the pumping station with that of the Western canal in the Greater Dezful region to identify effective factors in sedimentation and ways of mitigating their impact on water abstraction in the canal systems. The method involved use of observational data available in the Dezful Dastmashoon hydrometric station along a 6 km waterway of the Sabilli main canal using the SHARC software to estimate the suspended load concentration and bed load materials. Results showed the transport of a significant volume of sediment loads from the waterways into the canal system which is assumed to have arisen from the absence of stilling basin on one hand and the gravity flow on the other has caused serious challenges. This is contrary to what occurs in the Sabilli canal, where the design feature which incorporates a settling basin just before the pumping station is the major cause of reduced sediment load transport into the canal system.Results showed that modification of the present design features by constructing a settling basin just upstream of the western intake structure can considerably reduce the entry of sediment materials into the canal system. Not only this can result in the sustainability of the hydraulic structures but can also improve operational performance of water conveyance and distribution system, all of which are the pre-requisite to secure reliable and equitable water delivery regime for the command area.
Abstract: The C3 plants are frequently suffering from exposure
to high temperature stress which limits the growth and yield of these
plants. This study seeks to clarify the physiological mechanisms of
heat tolerance in relation to oxidative stress in C3 species. Fifteen C3
species were exposed to prolonged moderately high temperature
stress 36/30°C for 40 days in a growth chamber. Chlorophyll
fluorescence (Fv/Fm) showed great difference among species at 40
days of the stress. The species showed decreases in Fv/Fm and
increases in malondialdehyde (MDA) content under stress condition
as well as negative correlation between Fv/Fm and MDA (r = -0.61*)
at 40 days of the stress. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) content before
and after stress in addition to its response under stress showed great
differences among species. The results suggest that the difference in
heat tolerance among C3 species is closely associated with the ability
to suppress oxidative damage but not with the content of reactive
oxygen species (ROS) which is regulated by complex network.
Abstract: Laser soldering is based on applying some soldering material (albumin) onto the approximated edges of the cut and heating the solder (and the underlying tissues) by a laser beam. Endogenous and exogenous materials such as indocyanine green (ICG) are often added to solders to enhance light absorption. Gold nanoshells are new materials which have an optical response dictated by the plasmon resonance. The wavelength at which the resonance occurs depends on the core and shell sizes, allowing nanoshells to be tailored for particular applications. The purposes of this study was use combination of ICG and different concentration of gold nanoshells for skin tissue soldering and also to examine the effect of laser soldering parameters on the properties of repaired skin. Two mixtures of albumin solder and different combinations of ICG and gold nanoshells were prepared. A full thickness incision of 2×20 mm2 was made on the surface and after addition of mixtures it was irradiated by an 810nm diode laser at different power densities. The changes of tensile strength σt due to temperature rise, number of scan (Ns), and scan velocity (Vs) were investigated. The results showed at constant laser power density (I), σt of repaired incisions increases by increasing the concentration of gold nanoshells in solder, Ns and decreasing Vs. It is therefore important to consider the tradeoff between the scan velocity and the surface temperature for achieving an optimum operating condition. In our case this corresponds to σt =1800 gr/cm2 at I~ 47 Wcm-2, T ~ 85ºC, Ns =10 and Vs=0.3mms-1.
Abstract: Mechanical design of the thin-film solar framed
module and mounting system is important to enhance module
reliability and to increase areas of applications. The stress induced by
different mounting positions played a main role controlling the
stability of the whole mechanical structure. From the finite element
method, under the pressure from the back of module, the stress at Lc
(center point of the Long frame) increased and the stresses at Center,
Corner and Sc (center point of the Short frame) decreased while the
mounting position was away from the center of the module. In addition,
not only the stress of the glass but also the stress of the frame
decreased. Accordingly it was safer to mount in the position away
from the center of the module. The emphasis of designing frame
system of the module was on the upper support of the Short frame.
Strength of the overall structure and design of the corner were also
important due to the complexity of the stress in the Long frame.
Abstract: Named Entity Recognition (NER) aims to classify each word of a document into predefined target named entity classes and is now-a-days considered to be fundamental for many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks such as information retrieval, machine translation, information extraction, question answering systems and others. This paper reports about the development of a NER system for Bengali and Hindi using Support Vector Machine (SVM). Though this state of the art machine learning technique has been widely applied to NER in several well-studied languages, the use of this technique to Indian languages (ILs) is very new. The system makes use of the different contextual information of the words along with the variety of features that are helpful in predicting the four different named (NE) classes, such as Person name, Location name, Organization name and Miscellaneous name. We have used the annotated corpora of 122,467 tokens of Bengali and 502,974 tokens of Hindi tagged with the twelve different NE classes 1, defined as part of the IJCNLP-08 NER Shared Task for South and South East Asian Languages (SSEAL) 2. In addition, we have manually annotated 150K wordforms of the Bengali news corpus, developed from the web-archive of a leading Bengali newspaper. We have also developed an unsupervised algorithm in order to generate the lexical context patterns from a part of the unlabeled Bengali news corpus. Lexical patterns have been used as the features of SVM in order to improve the system performance. The NER system has been tested with the gold standard test sets of 35K, and 60K tokens for Bengali, and Hindi, respectively. Evaluation results have demonstrated the recall, precision, and f-score values of 88.61%, 80.12%, and 84.15%, respectively, for Bengali and 80.23%, 74.34%, and 77.17%, respectively, for Hindi. Results show the improvement in the f-score by 5.13% with the use of context patterns. Statistical analysis, ANOVA is also performed to compare the performance of the proposed NER system with that of the existing HMM based system for both the languages.
Abstract: The present study was done primarily to address two major research gaps: firstly, development of an empirical measure of life meaningfulness for substance users and secondly, to determine the psychosocial determinants of life meaningfulness among the substance users. The study is classified into two phases: the first phase which dealt with development of Life Meaningfulness Scale and the second phase which examined the relationship between life meaningfulness and social support, abstinence self efficacy and depression. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used for framing items. A Principal Component Analysis yielded three components: Overall Goal Directedness, Striving for healthy lifestyle and Concern for loved ones which collectively accounted for 42.06% of the total variance. The scale and its subscales were also found to be highly reliable. Multiple regression analyses in the second phase of the study revealed that social support and abstinence self efficacy significantly predicted life meaningfulness among 48 recovering inmates of a de-addiction center while level of depression failed to predict life meaningfulness.
Abstract: Surface metrology with image processing is a challenging task having wide applications in industry. Surface roughness can be evaluated using texture classification approach. Important aspect here is appropriate selection of features that characterize the surface. We propose an effective combination of features for multi-scale and multi-directional analysis of engineering surfaces. The features include standard deviation, kurtosis and the Canny edge detector. We apply the method by analyzing the surfaces with Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and Dual-Tree Complex Wavelet Transform (DT-CWT). We used Canberra distance metric for similarity comparison between the surface classes. Our database includes the surface textures manufactured by three machining processes namely Milling, Casting and Shaping. The comparative study shows that DT-CWT outperforms DWT giving correct classification performance of 91.27% with Canberra distance metric.
Abstract: To satisfy the need of outfield tests of star sensors, a
method is put forward to construct the reference attitude benchmark.
Firstly, its basic principle is introduced; Then, all the separate
conversion matrixes are deduced, which include: the conversion
matrix responsible for the transformation from the Earth Centered
Inertial frame i to the Earth-centered Earth-fixed frame w according to
the time of an atomic clock, the conversion matrix from frame w to the
geographic frame t, and the matrix from frame t to the platform frame
p, so the attitude matrix of the benchmark platform relative to the
frame i can be obtained using all the three matrixes as the
multiplicative factors; Next, the attitude matrix of the star sensor
relative to frame i is got when the mounting matrix from frame p to the
star sensor frame s is calibrated, and the reference attitude angles for
star sensor outfield tests can be calculated from the transformation
from frame i to frame s; Finally, the computer program is finished to
solve the reference attitudes, and the error curves are drawn about the
three axis attitude angles whose absolute maximum error is just 0.25ÔÇ│.
The analysis on each loop and the final simulating results manifest that
the method by precise timing to acquire the absolute reference attitude
is feasible for star sensor outfield tests.
Abstract: This research is aimed to compare the percentages of correct classification of Empirical Bayes method (EB) to Classical method when data are constructed as near normal, short-tailed and long-tailed symmetric, short-tailed and long-tailed asymmetric. The study is performed using conjugate prior, normal distribution with known mean and unknown variance. The estimated hyper-parameters obtained from EB method are replaced in the posterior predictive probability and used to predict new observations. Data are generated, consisting of training set and test set with the sample sizes 100, 200 and 500 for the binary classification. The results showed that EB method exhibited an improved performance over Classical method in all situations under study.
Abstract: Planning community has been long discussing emerging paradigms within the planning theory in the face of the changing conditions of the world order. The paradigm shift concept was introduced by Thomas Kuhn, in 1960, who claimed the necessity of shifting within scientific knowledge boundaries; and following him in 1970 Imre Loktas also gave priority to the emergence of multi-paradigm societies [24]. Multi-paradigm is changing our predetermined lifeworld through uncertainties. Those uncertainties are reflected in two sides, the first one is uncertainty as a concept of possibility and creativity in public sphere and the second one is uncertainty as a risk. Therefore, it is necessary to apply a resilience planning approach to be more dynamic in controlling uncertainties which have the potential to transfigure present time and space definitions. In this way, stability of system can be achieved. Uncertainty is not only an outcome of worldwide changes but also a place-specific issue, i.e. it changes from continent to continent, a country to country; a region to region. Therefore, applying strategic spatial planning with respect to resilience principle contributes to: control, grasp and internalize uncertainties through place-specific strategies. In today-s fast changing world, planning system should follow strategic spatial projects to control multi-paradigm societies with adaptability capacities. Here, we have selected two alternatives to demonstrate; these are; 1.Tehran (Iran) from the Middle East 2.Bath (United Kingdom) from Europe. The study elaborates uncertainties and particularities in their strategic spatial planning processes in a comparative manner. Through the comparison, the study aims at assessing place-specific priorities in strategic planning. The approach is to a two-way stream, where the case cities from the extreme end of the spectrum can learn from each other. The structure of this paper is to firstly compare semi-periphery (Tehran) and coreperiphery (Bath) cities, with the focus to reveal how they equip to face with uncertainties according to their geographical locations and local particularities. Secondly, the key message to address is “Each locality requires its own strategic planning approach to be resilient.--
Abstract: When choosing marketing strategies for international markets, one of the factors that should be considered is the cultural differences that exist among consumers in different countries. If the branding strategy has to be contextual and in tune with the culture, then the brand positioning variables has to interact, adapt and respond to the cultural variables in which the brand is operating. This study provides an overview of the relevance of culture in the development of an effective branding strategy in the international business environment. Hence, the main objective of this study is to provide a managerial framework for developing strategies for cross cultural brand management. The framework is useful because it incorporates the variables that are important in the competitiveness of fast food enterprises irrespective of their size. It provides practical, proactive and result oriented analysis that will help fast food firms augment their strategies in the international fast food markets. The proposed framework will enable managers understand the intricacies involved in branding in the global fast food industry and decrease the use of 'trial and error' when entering into unfamiliar markets.
Abstract: The purpose of the present study is to determine the level of reading habit of future classroom teachers, to discuss the obtained results according to their socio-demographic features and to define the factors which are influential on taking up reading in the context of future teachers experiences. The target population of the study consists of the fourth grade students at 62 faculties of education, department of classroom teaching from Turkish state universities. The sampling of the study consists of the fourth grade students from seven faculties of education, department of classroom teaching from each region. In the study, in the first and the second aspects, there will be a questionnaire to be developed concerning the measurement of future teachers level of reading habits and their socio-demographic features. The questionnaire was applied to all the students in the sample.
Abstract: Biometrics methods include recognition techniques
such as fingerprint, iris, hand geometry, voice, face, ears and gait. The gait recognition approach has some advantages, for example it
does not need the prior concern of the observed subject and it can
record many biometric features in order to make deeper analysis, but
most of the research proposals use high computational cost. This
paper shows a gait recognition system with feature subtraction on a
bundle rectangle drawn over the observed person. Statistical results
within a database of 500 videos are shown.
Abstract: The intermittent nature of solar energy and the energy
requirements of buildings necessitate the storage of thermal energy.
In this paper a hybrid system of storing solar energy has been
analyzed. Adding a LHS medium to a commercial solar water heater,
the required energy for heating a small room was obtained in
addition to preparing hot water. In other words, the suggested hybrid
storage system consists of two tanks: a water tank as a SHS medium;
and a paraffin tank as a LHS medium. A computing program was
used to find the optimized time schedule of charging the storage
tanks during each day, according to the solar radiation conditions.
The results show that the use of such system can improve the
capability of energy gathering comparing to the individual water
storage tank during the cold months of the year. Of course, because
of the solar radiation angles and shorten daylight in December &
January, the performance will be the same as the simple solar water
heaters (in the northern hemisphere). But the extra energy stored in
November, February, March & April, can be useful for heating a
small room for 3 hours during the cold days.
Abstract: This article presents new current-mode oscillator circuits using CDTAs which is designed from block diagram. The proposed circuits consist of two CDTAs and two grounded capacitors. The condition of oscillation and the frequency of oscillation can be adjusted by electronic method. The circuits have high output impedance and use only grounded capacitors without any external resistor which is very appropriate to future development into an integrated circuit. The results of PSPICE simulation program are corresponding to the theoretical analysis.
Abstract: A 7-step method (with 25 sub-steps) to assess risk of
air pollutants is introduced. These steps are: pre-considerations,
sampling, statistical analysis, exposure matrix and likelihood, doseresponse
matrix and likelihood, total risk evaluation, and discussion
of findings. All mentioned words and expressions are wellunderstood;
however, almost all steps have been modified, improved,
and coupled in such a way that a comprehensive method has been
prepared. Accordingly, the SADRA (Statistical Analysis-Driven Risk
Assessment) emphasizes extensive and ongoing application of
analytical statistics in traditional risk assessment models. A Sulfur
Dioxide case study validates the claim and provides a good
illustration for this method.
Abstract: A new paradigm for software design and development models software by its business process, translates the model into a process execution language, and has it run by a supporting execution engine. This process-oriented paradigm promotes modeling of software by less technical users or business analysts as well as rapid development. Since business process models may be shared by different organizations and sometimes even by different business domains, it is interesting to apply a technique used in traditional software component technology to design reusable business processes. This paper discusses an approach to apply a technique for software component fabrication to the design of process-oriented software units, called process components. These process components result from decomposing a business process of a particular application domain into subprocesses with an aim that the process components can be reusable in different process-based software models. The approach is quantitative because the quality of process component design is measured from technical features of the process components. The approach is also strategic because the measured quality is determined against business-oriented component management goals. A software tool has been developed to measure how good a process component design is, according to the required managerial goals and comparing to other designs. We also discuss how we benefit from reusable process components.
Abstract: Intelligent systems based on machine learning
techniques, such as classification, clustering, are gaining wide spread
popularity in real world applications. This paper presents work on
developing a software system for predicting crop yield, for example
oil-palm yield, from climate and plantation data. At the core of our
system is a method for unsupervised partitioning of data for finding
spatio-temporal patterns in climate data using kernel methods which
offer strength to deal with complex data. This work gets inspiration
from the notion that a non-linear data transformation into some high
dimensional feature space increases the possibility of linear
separability of the patterns in the transformed space. Therefore, it
simplifies exploration of the associated structure in the data. Kernel
methods implicitly perform a non-linear mapping of the input data
into a high dimensional feature space by replacing the inner products
with an appropriate positive definite function. In this paper we
present a robust weighted kernel k-means algorithm incorporating
spatial constraints for clustering the data. The proposed algorithm
can effectively handle noise, outliers and auto-correlation in the
spatial data, for effective and efficient data analysis by exploring
patterns and structures in the data, and thus can be used for
predicting oil-palm yield by analyzing various factors affecting the
yield.
Abstract: This article presents the analysis of experimental values regarding cracking pattern, specific strains and deformability for reinforced high strength concrete beams. The beams have the concrete class C80/95 and a longitudinal reinforcement ratio of 2.01%, respectively 3.39%. The elements were subjected to flexure under static short-term and long-term loading. The experimental values are compared with calculation values using the design relationships according to Eurocode 2.
Abstract: Temperature dependence of force of gravitation is one
of the fundamental problems of physics. This problem has got special
value in connection with that the general theory of relativity,
supposing the weakest positive influence of a body temperature on its
weight, actually rejects an opportunity of measurement of negative
influence of temperature on gravity in laboratory conditions. Really,
the recognition of negative temperature dependence of gravitation,
for example, means basic impossibility of achievement of a
singularity («a black hole») at a gravitational collapse. Laboratory
experiments with exact weighing the heated up metal samples,
indicating negative influence temperatures of bodies on their physical
weight are described. Influence of mistakes of measurements is
analyzed. Calculations of distribution of temperature in volume of the
bar, agreed with experimental data of time dependence of weight of
samples are executed. The physical substantiation of negative
temperature dependence of weight of the bodies, based on correlation
of acceleration at thermal movement of micro-particles of a body and
its absolute temperature, are given.