Abstract: In this paper a combined feature selection method is
proposed which takes advantages of sample domain filtering,
resampling and feature subset evaluation methods to reduce
dimensions of huge datasets and select reliable features. This method
utilizes both feature space and sample domain to improve the process
of feature selection and uses a combination of Chi squared with
Consistency attribute evaluation methods to seek reliable features.
This method consists of two phases. The first phase filters and
resamples the sample domain and the second phase adopts a hybrid
procedure to find the optimal feature space by applying Chi squared,
Consistency subset evaluation methods and genetic search.
Experiments on various sized datasets from UCI Repository of
Machine Learning databases show that the performance of five
classifiers (Naïve Bayes, Logistic, Multilayer Perceptron, Best First
Decision Tree and JRIP) improves simultaneously and the
classification error for these classifiers decreases considerably. The
experiments also show that this method outperforms other feature
selection methods.
Abstract: Study of soil properties like field capacity (F.C.) and permanent wilting point (P.W.P.) play important roles in study of soil moisture retention curve. Although these parameters can be measured directly, their measurement is difficult and expensive. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) provide an alternative by estimating soil parameters from more readily available soil data. In this investigation, 70 soil samples were collected from different horizons of 15 soil profiles located in the Ziaran region, Qazvin province, Iran. The data set was divided into two subsets for calibration (80%) and testing (20%) of the models and their normality were tested by Kolmogorov-Smirnov method. Both multivariate regression and artificial neural network (ANN) techniques were employed to develop the appropriate PTFs for predicting soil parameters using easily measurable characteristics of clay, silt, O.C, S.P, B.D and CaCO3. The performance of the multivariate regression and ANN models was evaluated using an independent test data set. In order to evaluate the models, root mean square error (RMSE) and R2 were used. The comparison of RSME for two mentioned models showed that the ANN model gives better estimates of F.C and P.W.P than the multivariate regression model. The value of RMSE and R2 derived by ANN model for F.C and P.W.P were (2.35, 0.77) and (2.83, 0.72), respectively. The corresponding values for multivariate regression model were (4.46, 0.68) and (5.21, 0.64), respectively. Results showed that ANN with five neurons in hidden layer had better performance in predicting soil properties than multivariate regression.
Abstract: Two-dimensional (2D) bar codes were designed to
carry significantly more data with higher information density and
robustness than its 1D counterpart. Thanks to the popular
combination of cameras and mobile phones, it will naturally bring
great commercial value to use the camera phone for 2D bar code
reading. This paper addresses the problem of specific 2D bar code
design for mobile phones and introduces a low-level encoding
method of matrix codes. At the same time, we propose an efficient
scheme for 2D bar codes decoding, of which the effort is put on
solutions of the difficulties introduced by low image quality that is
very common in bar code images taken by a phone camera.
Abstract: As the new industrial revolution advances in the
nanotechnology have been followed with interest throughout the
world and also in Turkey. Media has an important role in conveying
these advances to public, rising public awareness and creating
attitudes related to nanotechnology. As well as representing how a
subject is treated, media frames determine how public think about
this subject. In literature definite frames related to nanoscience and
nanotechnology such as process, regulation, conflict and risks were
mentioned in studies focusing different countries. So how
nanotechnology news is treated by which frames and in which news
categories in Turkey as a one of developing countries? In this study
examining different variables about nanotechnology that affect
public attitudes such as category, frame, story tone, source in Turkish
media via framing analysis developed in agenda setting studies was
aimed. In the analysis data between 2005 and 2009 obtained from the
first five national newspapers with wide circulation in Turkey will be
used. In this study the direction of the media about nanotechnology,
in which frames nanotechnologic advances brought to agenda were
reported as news, and sectoral, legal, economic and social scenes
reflected by these frames to public related to nanotechnology in
Turkey were planned.
Abstract: There are few studies on eggshell of leatherback turtle
which is endangered species in Thailand. This study was focusing on
the ultrastructure and elemental composition of leatherback turtle
eggshells collected from Andaman Sea Shore, Thailand during the
nesting season using scanning electron microscope (SEM). Three
eggshell layers of leatherback turtle; the outer cuticle layer or
calcareous layer, the middle layer or middle multistrata layer and the
inner fibrous layer were recognized. The outer calcareous layer was
thick and porosity which consisted of loose nodular units of various
crystal shapes and sizes. The loose attachment between these units
resulted in numerous spaces and openings. The middle layer was
compact thick with several multistrata and contained numerous
openings connecting to both outer cuticle layer and inner fibrous
layer. The inner fibrous layer was compact and thin, and composed of
numerous reticular fibers. Energy dispersive X-ray microanalysis
detector revealed energy spectrum of X-rays character emitted from
all elements on each layer. The percentages of all elements were
found in the following order: carbon (C) > oxygen (O) > calcium
(Ca) > sulfur (S) > potassium (K) > aluminum (Al) > iodine (I) >
silicon (Si) > chlorine (Cl) > sodium (Na) > fluorine (F) >
phosphorus (P) > magnesium (Mg). Each layer consisted of high
percentage of CaCO3 (approximately 98%) implying that it was
essential for turtle embryonic development. A significant difference
was found in the percentages of Ca and Mo in the 3layers. Moreover,
transition metal, metal and toxic non-metal contaminations were
found in leatherback turtle eggshell samples. These were palladium
(Pd), molybdenum (Mo), copper (Cu), aluminum (Al), lead (Pb), and
bromine (Br). The contamination elements were seen in the outer
layers except for Mo. All elements were readily observed and
mapped using Smiling program. X-ray images which mapped the
location of all elements were showed. Calcium containing in the
eggshell appeared in high contents and was widely distributing in
clusters of the outer cuticle layer to form CaCO3 structure. Moreover,
the accumulation of Na and Cl was observed to form NaCl which was
widely distributing in 3 eggshell layers. The results from this study
would be valuable on assessing the emergent success in this
endangered species.
Abstract: In Thailand, the practice of pre-hospital Emergency
Medical Service (EMS) in each area reveals the different growth
rates and effectiveness of the practices. Those can be found as the
diverse quality and quantity. To shorten the learning curve prior to
speed-up the practices in other areas, story telling and lessons learnt
from the effective practices are valued as meaningful knowledge. To
this paper, it was to ascertain the factors, lessons learnt and best
practices that have impact as contributing to the success of prehospital
EMS system. Those were formulized as model prior to
speedup the practice in other areas. To develop the model, Malcolm
Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), which is widely
recognized as a framework for organizational quality assessment and
improvement, was chosen as the discussion framework. Remarkably,
this study was based on the consideration of knowledge capture;
however it was not to complete the loop of knowledge activities.
Nevertheless, it was to highlight the recognition of knowledge
capture, which is the initiation of knowledge management.
Abstract: The city of Suceava, one of the most important
medieval capital of Moldova, owes its urban genesis to the power
center established in its territory at the turn of the thirteenth and
fourteenth centuries. Freed from the effective control exercised by
the Emir Nogai through Alanians, the local center of power evolved
as the main representative of the interests of indigenous people in
relation to the Hungarian Angevin dinasty and to their
representatives from Maramures. From this perspective, the political
and military role of the settlement of Suceava was archeologically
proved by the discovery of extensive fortifications, unrivaled in the
first half of the XIVth century-s Moldavia. At the end of that century,
voivod Peter I decides to move the capital of the state from Siret to
Suceava. That option stimulated the development of the settlement
on specific urban coordinates.
Abstract: Void formation in underfill is considered as failure
in flip chip manufacturing process. Void formation possibly caused
by several factors such as poor soldering and flux residue during
die attach process, void entrapment due moisture contamination,
dispense pattern process and setting up the curing process. This
paper presents the comparison of single step and two steps curing
profile towards the void and black dots formation in underfill for
Hi-CTE Flip Chip Ceramic Ball Grid Array Package (FC-CBGA).
Statistic analysis was conducted to analyze how different factors
such as wafer lot, sawing technique, underfill fillet height and
curing profile recipe were affected the formation of voids and
black dots. A C-Mode Scanning Aqoustic Microscopy (C-SAM)
was used to scan the total count of voids and black dots. It was
shown that the 2 steps curing profile provided solution for void
elimination and black dots in underfill after curing process.
Abstract: These days we face with so many advertisements in
magazines, those mentioned coaching is pragmatic specialties which
help people make change in their lives. Up to know Specialty coaches
are not necessarily therapists, consultants or psychologist, thus they
may not know psychological theories. The International Coach
Federation identifies "facilitating learning and results" as one of its
four core coach competencies, without understanding learning
theories coaching practice hangs in theoretical abyss. Thus the aim of
this article is investigating learning theories within coaching process.
Therefore, I reviewed some cognitive and behavioral learning
theories and analyzed their contribution with coaching process which
has been introduced in mentor coaches and ICF certified coaches'
papers and books. The result demonstrated that coaching profession
is strongly grounded in learning theories, and it will be strengthened
by the validation of theories and evidence-based research as we move
forward. Thus, it needs more research in order to applying effective
theoretical frameworks.
Abstract: Let p be a prime number, Fp be a finite field and t ∈ F*p= Fp- {0}. In this paper we obtain some properties of ellipticcurves Ep,t: y2= y2= x3- t2x over Fp. In the first sectionwe give some notations and preliminaries from elliptic curves. In the second section we consider the rational points (x, y) on Ep,t. Wegive a formula for the number of rational points on Ep,t over Fnp for an integer n ≥ 1. We also give some formulas for the sum of x?andy?coordinates of the points (x, y) on Ep,t. In the third section weconsider the rank of Et: y2= x3- t2x and its 2-isogenous curve Et over Q. We proved that the rank of Etand Etis 2 over Q. In the last section we obtain some formulas for the sums Σt∈F?panp,t for an integer n ≥ 1, where ap,t denote the trace of Frobenius.
Abstract: In this study, we examine multiple algebras and
algebraic structures derived from them and by stating a theory on
multiple algebras; we will show that the theory of multiple algebras
is a natural extension of the theory of universal algebras. Also, we
will treat equivalence relations on multiple algebras, for which the
quotient constructed modulo them is a universal algebra and will
study the basic relation and the fundamental algebra in question.
In this study, by stating the characteristic theorem of multiple
algebras, we show that the theory of multiple algebras is a natural
extension of the theory of universal algebras.
Abstract: We present a dextran modified silicon microring
resonator sensor for high density antibody immobilization. An array
of sensors consisting of three sensor rings and a reference ring was
fabricated and its surface sensitivity and the limit of detection were
obtained using polyelectrolyte multilayers. The mass sensitivity and
the limit of detection of the fabricated sensor ring are 0.35 nm/ng
mm-2 and 42.8 pg/mm2 in air, respectively. Dextran modified sensor
surface was successfully prepared by covalent grafting of oxidized
dextran on 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) modified silicon
sensor surface. The antibody immobilization on hydrogel dextran
matrix improves 40% compared to traditional antibody
immobilization method via APTES and glutaraldehyde linkage.
Abstract: This paper presents a vocoder to obtain high quality synthetic speech at 600 bps. To reduce the bit rate, the algorithm is based on a sinusoidally excited linear prediction model which extracts few coding parameters, and three consecutive frames are grouped into a superframe and jointly vector quantization is used to obtain high coding efficiency. The inter-frame redundancy is exploited with distinct quantization schemes for different unvoiced/voiced frame combinations in the superframe. Experimental results show that the quality of the proposed coder is better than that of 2.4kbps LPC10e and achieves approximately the same as that of 2.4kbps MELP and with high robustness.
Abstract: A straightforward and intuitive combination of single simulations into an aggregated master-simulation is not trivial. There are lots of problems, which trigger-specific difficulties during the modeling and execution of such a simulation. In this paper we identify these problems and aim to solve them by mapping the task to the field of multi agent systems. The solution is a new meta-model named AGENTMAP, which is able to mitigate most of the problems and to support intuitive modeling at the same time. This meta-model will be introduced and explained on basis of an example from the e-commerce domain.
Abstract: The batch nature limits the standard kernel principal component analysis (KPCA) methods in numerous applications, especially for dynamic or large-scale data. In this paper, an efficient adaptive approach is presented for online extraction of the kernel principal components (KPC). The contribution of this paper may be divided into two parts. First, kernel covariance matrix is correctly updated to adapt to the changing characteristics of data. Second, KPC are recursively formulated to overcome the batch nature of standard KPCA.This formulation is derived from the recursive eigen-decomposition of kernel covariance matrix and indicates the KPC variation caused by the new data. The proposed method not only alleviates sub-optimality of the KPCA method for non-stationary data, but also maintains constant update speed and memory usage as the data-size increases. Experiments for simulation data and real applications demonstrate that our approach yields improvements in terms of both computational speed and approximation accuracy.
Abstract: WLAN Positioning has been presented by many
approaches in literatures using the characteristics of Received Signal
Strength (RSS), Time of Arrival (TOA) or Time Difference of
Arrival (TDOA), Angle of Arrival (AOA) and cell ID. Among these,
RSS approach is the simplest method to implement because there is
no need of modification on both access points and client devices
whereas its accuracy is terrible due to physical environments. For
TOA or TDOA approach, the accuracy is quite acceptable but most
researches have to modify either software or hardware on existing
WLAN infrastructure. The scales of modifications are made on only
access card up to the changes in protocol of WLAN. Hence, it is an
unattractive approach to use TOA or TDOA for positioning system.
In this paper, the new concept of merging both RSS and TOA
positioning techniques is proposed. In addition, the method to
achieve TOA characteristic for positioning WLAN user without any
extra modification necessarily appended in the existing system is
presented. The measurement results confirm that the proposed
technique using both RSS and TOA characteristics provides better
accuracy than using only either RSS or TOA approach.
Abstract: Collateralized Debt Obligations are not as widely used
nowadays as they were before 2007 Subprime crisis. Nonetheless
there remains an enthralling challenge to optimize cash flows
associated with synthetic CDOs. A Gaussian-based model is used
here in which default correlation and unconditional probabilities of
default are highlighted. Then numerous simulations are performed
based on this model for different scenarios in order to evaluate the
associated cash flows given a specific number of defaults at different
periods of time. Cash flows are not solely calculated on a single
bought or sold tranche but rather on a combination of bought and
sold tranches. With some assumptions, the simplex algorithm gives
a way to find the maximum cash flow according to correlation of
defaults and maturities. The used Gaussian model is not realistic in
crisis situations. Besides present system does not handle buying or
selling a portion of a tranche but only the whole tranche. However the
work provides the investor with relevant elements on how to know
what and when to buy and sell.
Abstract: Semiconductor detector arrays are widely used in
high-temperature plasma diagnostics. They have a fast response,
which allows observation of many processes and instabilities in
tokamaks. In this paper, there are reviewed several diagnostics based
on semiconductor arrays as cameras, AXUV photodiodes (referred
often as fast “bolometers") and detectors of both soft X-rays and
visible light installed on the COMPASS tokamak recently. Fresh
results from both spring and summer campaigns in 2012 are
introduced. Examples of the utilization of the detectors are shown on
the plasma shape determination, fast calculation of the radiation
center, two-dimensional plasma radiation tomography in different
spectral ranges, observation of impurity inflow, and also on
investigation of MHD activity in the COMPASS tokamak discharges.
Abstract: E-learning refers to the specific kind of learning
experienced within the domain of educational technology, which can
be used in or out of the classroom. In this paper, we give an
overview of an e-learning platform 'An Innovative Interactive and
Online English Platform for Upper Primary Students' is an
interactive web-based application which will serve as an aid to the
primary school students in Mauritius. The objectives of this platform
are to offer quality learning resources for the English subject at our
primary level of education, encourage self-learning and hence
promote e-learning. The platform developed consists of several
interesting features, for example, the English Verb Conjugation tool,
Negative Form tool, Interrogative Form tool and Close Test
Generator. Thus, this learning platform will be useful at a time
where our country is looking for an alternative to private tuition and
also, looking forward to increase the pass rate.
Abstract: In the present paper, an improved initial value
numerical technique is presented to analyze the free vibration of
symmetrically laminated rectangular plate. A combination of the
initial value method (IV) and the finite differences (FD) devices is
utilized to develop the present (IVFD) technique. The achieved
technique is applied to the equation of motion of vibrating laminated
rectangular plate under various types of boundary conditions. Three
common types of laminated symmetrically cross-ply, orthotropic and
isotropic plates are analyzed here. The convergence and accuracy of
the presented Initial Value-Finite Differences (IVFD) technique have
been examined. Also, the merits and validity of improved technique
are satisfied via comparing the obtained results with those available
in literature indicating good agreements.