Abstract: A flow line computational technique based on the D8
method using Mathematica was developed. The technique was
applied to Ron Phibun area, Nakhon Si Thammarat Province. This
area is highly contaminated with arsenic 3 and 5. It was found that
the technique using Mathematica can produce similar results to those
obtained from GRASS v 5.0.2.
Abstract: Vitamin A deficiency is a public health problem in
Zimbabwe. Addressing vitamin A deficiency has the potential of
enhancing resistance to disease and reducing mortality especially in
children less than 5 years. We implemented and adapted vitamin A
outreach supplementation strategy within the National Immunization
Days and Extended Programme of Immunization in a rural district in
Zimbabwe. Despite usual operational challenges faced this approach
enabled the district to increase delivery of supplementation coverage.
This paper describes the outreach strategy that was implemented in
the remote rural district. The strategy covered 63 outreach sites with
2 sites being covered per day and visited once per month for the
whole year. Coverage reached 71% in an area of previous coverage
rates of around less than 50%. We recommend further exploration of
this strategy by others working in similar circumstances. This
strategy can be a potential way for use by Scaling-Up-Nutrition
member states.
Abstract: Acoustic function plays an important role in
aerodynamic mechanical engineering. It can classify the kind of
air-vehicle such as subsonic or supersonic. Acoustic velocity
relates with velocity and Mach number. Mach number relates
again acoustic stability or instability condition. Mach number
plays an important role in growth or decay in energy system.
Acoustic is a function of temperature and temperature is directly
proportional to pressure. If we control the pressure, we can control
acoustic function. To get pressure stability condition, we apply
Navier-Stokes equations.
Abstract: This paper presents an evaluation for a wavelet-based
digital watermarking technique used in estimating the quality of
video sequences transmitted over Additive White Gaussian Noise
(AWGN) channel in terms of a classical objective metric, such as
Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio (PSNR) without the need of the original
video. In this method, a watermark is embedded into the Discrete
Wavelet Transform (DWT) domain of the original video frames
using a quantization method. The degradation of the extracted
watermark can be used to estimate the video quality in terms of
PSNR with good accuracy. We calculated PSNR for video frames
contaminated with AWGN and compared the values with those
estimated using the Watermarking-DWT based approach. It is found
that the calculated and estimated quality measures of the video
frames are highly correlated, suggesting that this method can provide
a good quality measure for video frames transmitted over AWGN
channel without the need of the original video.
Abstract: Buildings are one of the valuable assets to provide
people with shelters for work, leisure and rest. After years of
attacks by weather, buildings will deteriorate which need proper
maintenance in order to fulfill the requirements and satisfaction of
the users. Poorly managed buildings not just give a negative image
to the city itself, but also pose potential risk hazards to the health
and safety of the general public. As a result, the management of
maintenance projects has played an important role in cities like
Hong Kong where the problem of urban decay has drawn much
attention. However, most research has focused on managing new
construction, and little research effort has been put on maintenance
projects. Given the short duration and more diversified nature of
work, repair and maintenance works are found to be more difficult
to monitor and regulate when compared with new works. Project
participants may face with problems in running maintenance
projects which should be investigated so that proper strategies can
be established. This paper aims to provide a thorough analysis on
the problems of running maintenance projects. A review of
literature on the characteristics of building maintenance projects
was firstly conducted, which forms a solid basis for the empirical
study. Results on the problems and difficulties of running
maintenance projects from the viewpoints of industry practitioners
will also be delivered with a view to formulating effective
strategies for managing maintenance projects successfully.
Abstract: Although e-mail is the most efficient and popular communication method, unwanted and mass unsolicited e-mails, also called spam mail, endanger the existence of the mail system. This paper proposes a new algorithm called Dynamic Weighted Majority Concept Drift Detection (DWM-CDD) for content-based filtering. The design purposes of DWM-CDD are first to accurate the performance of the previously proposed algorithms, and second to speed up the time to construct the model. The results show that DWM-CDD can detect both sudden and gradual changes quickly and accurately. Moreover, the time needed for model construction is less than previously proposed algorithms.
Abstract: Surgical site infections (SSIs) are the most common
nosocomial infection in surgical patients resulting in significant
increases in postoperative morbidity and mortality. The commonly
causative bacteria developed resistance to virtually all antibiotics
available. The aim of this study was to isolation and identification the
most common bacteria that cause SSIs in Medical Research Institute,
and to compare their sensitivity to selected group of antibiotics and
natural products (garlic, oregano, olive, and Nigella sativa oils). The
isolated pathogens collected from infected surgical wounds were
identified, and their sensitivities to the antibiotics commonly
available for clinical use, and also to the different concentrations of
the used natural products were investigated. The results indicate to
the potential therapeutic effect of the tested natural products in
treatment of surgical wound infections.
Abstract: The main objective of this study was to determine the effects
of vermicompost and amino acids on the qualitative and quantitative yield of
chamomile. The experiment was conducted during the growing season of
2010 at the Alborz Medical Research Center. The Treatment groups consisted
of vermicompost (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 tons/ha) and the sprays of amino acids
(budding stag, flowering stage, and budding + flowering stage). The
experimental design was a factorial experiment based on Randomized
Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The present results
have shown that the highest plant height, flower head diameter, fresh and dry
flower yield and significant essential oil content were obtained by using 20-
ton vermicompost per hectare. Effects of amino acids were similar to those
seen in vermicompost treatment and all measured traits were seen to be
significant after the spray of amino acids at the budding + flowering stage).
Abstract: Whilst there is growing evidence that activity across
the lifespan is beneficial for improved health, there are also many
changes involved with the aging process and subsequently the
potential for reduced indices of health. The nexus between all forms
of health, physical activity and aging is complex and has raised much
interest in recent times due to the realization that a multifaceted
approached is necessary in order to counteract a growing obesity
epidemic. By investigating age based trends within a population
adherring to competitive sport at older ages, further insight might be
gleaned to assist in understanding one of many factors influencing
this relationship. This study evaluated those sport psychological
constructs of health, physical fitness, mental health states, and social
dimension factors in sport that were associated with factors to
participate in sport and physical activity based on responses from the
2009 World Masters Games in Sydney. The sample consisted of
7846 athletes who competed at the games and who completed a 56
item sports participation survey using a 7-point Likert response (1 -
not important to 7 - very important). Questions focuses on factors
thought to promote participation, such as weight control, living
longer, improving mental health (self-esteem, mood states),
improving physical health and factors related to the athlete-s
competitive perspective. The most significant factors related to
participation with this cohort of masters athletes were the socializing
environment of sport, getting physically fit and improving
competitive personal best performances. Strategies to increase
participation in masters sport should focus on these factors as other
factors such as weight loss, improving mental health and living
longer were not identified as important determinates of sports
participation at the World Masters level.
Abstract: Most of the drugs used for pharmaceutical purposes
are poorly water-soluble drugs. About 40% of all newly discovered
drugs are lipophilic and the numbers of lipophilic drugs seem to
increase more and more. Drug delivery systems such as
nanoparticles, micelles or liposomes are applied to improve their
solubility and thus their bioavailability. Besides various techniques of
solubilization, oil-in-water emulsions are often used to incorporate
lipophilic drugs into the oil phase. To stabilize emulsions surface
active substances (surfactants) are generally used. An alternative
method to avoid the application of surfactants was of great interest.
One possibility is to develop O/W-emulsion without any addition of
surface active agents or the so called “surfactant-free emulsion or
SFE”. The aim of this study was to develop and characterize SFE as a
drug carrier by varying the production conditions. Lidocaine base
was used as a model drug. The injection method was developed.
Effects of ultrasound as well as of temperature on the properties of
the emulsion were studied. Particle sizes and release were
determined. The long-term stability up to 30 days was performed.
The results showed that the surfactant-free O/W emulsions with
pharmaceutical oil as drug carrier can be produced.
Abstract: Today air-core coils (ACC) are a viable alternative to
ferrite-core coils in a range of applications due to their low induction
effect. An analytical study was carried out and the results were used as
a guide to understand the relationship between the magnet-coil
distance and the resulting attractive magnetic force. Four different
ACC models were fabricated for experimental study. The variation in
the models included the dimensions, the number of coil turns and the
current supply to the coil. Comparison between the analytical and
experimental results for all the models shows an average discrepancy
of less than 10%. An optimized ACC design was selected for the
scanner which can provide maximum magnetic force.
Abstract: Dynamic bandwidth allocation in EPONs can be
generally separated into inter-ONU scheduling and intra-ONU scheduling. In our previous work, the active intra-ONU scheduling
(AS) utilizes multiple queue reports (QRs) in each report message to cooperate with the inter-ONU scheduling and makes the granted
bandwidth fully utilized without leaving unused slot remainder (USR).
This scheme successfully solves the USR problem originating from the
inseparability of Ethernet frame. However, without proper setting of
threshold value in AS, the number of QRs constrained by the IEEE
802.3ah standard is not enough, especially in the unbalanced traffic
environment. This limitation may be solved by enlarging the threshold
value. The large threshold implies the large gap between the adjacent QRs, thus resulting in the large difference between the best granted bandwidth and the real granted bandwidth. In this paper, we integrate
AS with a cooperative prediction mechanism and distribute multiple
QRs to reduce the penalty brought by the prediction error.
Furthermore, to improve the QoS and save the usage of queue reports,
the highest priority (EF) traffic which comes during the waiting time is
granted automatically by OLT and is not considered in the requested
bandwidth of ONU. The simulation results show that the proposed
scheme has better performance metrics in terms of bandwidth
utilization and average delay for different classes of packets.
Abstract: In order to study of The Effect of seed inoculation
with Pseudomonas putida+Bacillus lentus on yield and yield
components of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) cultivars, an experiment
was carried out as factorial based on Randomized Complete Block
Design (RCBD) in Agricultural Research Station of Shahrood
University of Technology. Results showed that inoculation with
Pseudomonas putida+Bacillus lentus promoted seed germination.
Also, inoculation with Pseudomonas putida+Bacillus lentus
significantly affected grain yield, Number of spikes per m2,
Number of grain per spike and 1000-seed weight and There was not
statistically significant difference between Chamran and Pishtaz
cultivars . Finally, the dosages of chemical fertilizers currently
applied in commercial wheat field in Iran (Shahrood region) could be
reduced through proper combination of Pseudomonas
putida+Bacillus lentus inoculation plus fertilization.
Abstract: This paper presents software tools that convert the C/Cµ floating point source code for a DSP algorithm into a fixedpoint simulation model that can be used to evaluate the numericalperformance of the algorithm on several different fixed pointplatforms including microprocessors, DSPs and FPGAs. The tools use a novel system for maintaining binary point informationso that the conversion from floating point to fixed point isautomated and the resulting fixed point algorithm achieves maximum possible precision. A configurable architecture is used during the simulation phase so that the algorithm can produce a bit-exact output for several different target devices.
Abstract: The decision to recruit manpower in an organization
requires clear identification of the criteria (attributes) that distinguish
successful from unsuccessful performance. The choice of appropriate
attributes or criteria in different levels of hierarchy in an organization
is a multi-criteria decision problem and therefore multi-criteria
decision making (MCDM) techniques can be used for prioritization
of such attributes. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is one such
technique that is widely used for deciding among the complex criteria
structure in different levels. In real applications, conventional AHP
still cannot reflect the human thinking style as precise data
concerning human attributes are quite hard to be extracted. Fuzzy
logic offers a systematic base in dealing with situations, which are
ambiguous or not well defined. This study aims at defining a
methodology to improve the quality of prioritization of an
employee-s performance measurement attributes under fuzziness. To
do so, a methodology based on the Extent Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy
Process is proposed. Within the model, four main attributes such as
Subject knowledge and achievements, Research aptitude, Personal
qualities and strengths and Management skills with their subattributes
are defined. The two approaches conventional AHP
approach and the Extent Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process approach
have been compared on the same hierarchy structure and criteria set.
Abstract: Polyphenolics and sugar are the components of many
fruit juices. In this work, the performance of ultra-filtration (UF) for
separating phenolic compounds from apple juice was studied by
performing batch experiments in a membrane module with an area of
0.1 m2 and fitted with a regenerated cellulose membrane of 1 kDa
MWCO. The effects of various operating conditions: transmembrane
pressure (3, 4, 5 bar), temperature (30, 35, 40 ºC), pH (2, 3, 4, 5),
feed concentration (3, 5, 7, 10, 15 ºBrix for apple juice) and feed flow
rate (1, 1.5, 1.8 L/min) on the performance were determined.
The optimum operating conditions were: transmembrane pressure
4 bar, temperature 30 ºC, feed flow rate 1 – 1.8 L/min, pH 3 and 10
Brix (apple juice). After performing ultrafiltration under these
conditions, the concentration of polyphenolics in retentate was
increased by a factor of up to 2.7 with up to 70% recovered in the
permeate and with approx. 20% of the sugar in that stream..
Application of diafiltration (addition of water to the concentrate) can
regain the flux by a factor of 1.5, which has been decreased due to
fouling. The material balance performed on the process has shown
the amount of deposits on the membrane and the extent of fouling in
the system. In conclusion, ultrafiltration has been demonstrated as a
potential technology to separate the polyphenolics and sugars from
their mixtures and can be applied to remove sugars from fruit juice.
Abstract: Contractor selection in Saudi Arabia is very important due to the large construction boom and the contractor role to get over construction risks. The need for investigating contractor selection is due to the following reasons; large number of defaulted or failed projects (18%), large number of disputes attributed to contractor during the project execution stage (almost twofold), the extension of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) into construction industry, and finally the few number of researches. The selection strategy is not perfect and considered as the reason behind irresponsible contractors. As a response, this research was conducted to review the contractor selection strategies as an integral part of a long advanced research to develop a good selection model. Many techniques can be used to form a selection strategy; multi criteria for optimizing decision, prequalification to discover contractor-s responsibility, bidding process for competition, third party guarantee to enhance the selection, and fuzzy techniques for ambiguities and incomplete information.
Abstract: Commercially available lipases (Candida antarctica lipase B, Novozyme 435, Thermomyces lanuginosus lipase, and Lipozyme TL IM), as well as sol-gel immobilized lipases, have been screened for their ability to acylate regioselectively xylitol, sorbitol, and mannitol with a phenolic ester in a binary mixture of t-butanol and dimethylsulfoxide. HPLC and MALDI-TOF MS analysis revealed the exclusive formation of monoesters for all studied sugar alcohols. The lipases immobilized by the sol-gel entrapment method proved to be efficient catalysts, leading to high conversions (up to 60%) in the investigated acylation reactions. From a sequence of silane precursors with different nonhydrolyzable groups in their structure, the presence of octyl and i-butyl group was most beneficial for the catalytic activity of sol-gel entrapped lipases in the studied process.
Abstract: This paper describes a new method for affine parameter
estimation between image sequences. Usually, the parameter
estimation techniques can be done by least squares in a quadratic
way. However, this technique can be sensitive to the presence
of outliers. Therefore, parameter estimation techniques for various
image processing applications are robust enough to withstand the
influence of outliers. Progressively, some robust estimation functions
demanding non-quadratic and perhaps non-convex potentials adopted
from statistics literature have been used for solving these. Addressing
the optimization of the error function in a factual framework for
finding a global optimal solution, the minimization can begin with
the convex estimator at the coarser level and gradually introduce nonconvexity
i.e., from soft to hard redescending non-convex estimators
when the iteration reaches finer level of multiresolution pyramid.
Comparison has been made to find the performance of the results
of proposed method with the results found individually using two
different estimators.
Abstract: In H.264/AVC video encoding, rate-distortion
optimization for mode selection plays a significant role to achieve
outstanding performance in compression efficiency and video quality.
However, this mode selection process also makes the encoding
process extremely complex, especially in the computation of the ratedistortion
cost function, which includes the computations of the sum
of squared difference (SSD) between the original and reconstructed
image blocks and context-based entropy coding of the block. In this
paper, a transform-domain rate-distortion optimization accelerator
based on fast SSD (FSSD) and VLC-based rate estimation algorithm
is proposed. This algorithm could significantly simplify the hardware
architecture for the rate-distortion cost computation with only
ignorable performance degradation. An efficient hardware structure
for implementing the proposed transform-domain rate-distortion
optimization accelerator is also proposed. Simulation results
demonstrated that the proposed algorithm reduces about 47% of total
encoding time with negligible degradation of coding performance.
The proposed method can be easily applied to many mobile video
application areas such as a digital camera and a DMB (Digital
Multimedia Broadcasting) phone.