Abstract: The present study attempted to improve the Mercury
(Hg) sorption capacity of kanuma volcanic ash soil (KVAS) by
impregnating the cupper (Cu). Impregnation was executed by 1 and
5% Cu powder and sorption characterization of optimum Hg
removing Cu impregnated KVAS was performed under different
operational conditions, contact time, solution pH, sorbent dosage and
Hg concentration using the batch operation studies. The 1% Cu
impregnated KVAS pronounced optimum improvement (79%) in
removing Hg from water compare to control. The present
investigation determined the equilibrium state of maximum Hg
adsorption at 6 h contact period. The adsorption revealed a pH
dependent response and pH 3.5 showed maximum sorption capacity
of Hg. Freundlich isotherm model is well fitted with the experimental
data than that of Langmuir isotherm. It can be concluded that the Cu
impregnation improves the Hg sorption capacity of KVAS and 1%
Cu impregnated KVAS could be employed as cost-effective
adsorbent media for treating Hg contaminated water.
Abstract: This study was designed to investigate the role of serum nitric oxide and sialic acid in the development of diabetic nephropathy as disease marker. Total 210 diabetic patients (age and sex matched) were selected followed by informed consent and divided into four groups (70 each) as I: control; II: diabetic; III: diabetic hypertensive; IV: diabetic nephropathy. The blood samples of all subjects were collected and analyzed for serum nitric oxide, sialic acid, fasting blood glucose, serum urea, creatinine, HbA1c and GFR. The BMI, systolic and diastolic blood pressures, blood glucose, HbA1c and serum sialic acid levels were high (p
Abstract: Organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) are known to be
persistent and bioaccumulative toxicants that may cause reproductive
impairments in wildlife as well as human. The current study uses the
snail-eating turtle Malayemys macrocephala, a long-lived animal
commonly distribute in rice field habitat in central part of Thailand,
as a sentinel to monitor OCP contamination in environment. The
nest soil, complete clutch of eggs, and blood of the turtle were
collected from agricultural areas in the Chao Phraya River Basin,
Thailand during the nesting season of 2007-2008. The novel
methods for tissue extraction by an accelerated solvent extractor
(ASE, for egg) and liquid-liquid extraction (for blood) have been
developed. The nineteen OCP residues were analyzed by gas
chromatography with micro-electron captured detector (GC-μECD).
The validated methods have met requirements of the AOAC
standard. The results indicated that significant amounts of OCPs are
still contaminated in nest soil and eggs of the turtle even though the
OCPs had been banned in this area for many years. This suggested
the potential risk to health of wildlife as well as human in the area.
Abstract: In this paper we discuss a set of guidelines which
could be adapted when designing an audio user interface for the
visually impaired. It is based on an audio environment that is
focused on audio positioning. Unlike current applications which only
interpret Graphical User Interface (GUI) for the visually impaired,
this particular audio environment bypasses GUI to provide a direct
auditory output. It presents the capability of two dimensional (2D)
navigation on audio interfaces. This paper highlights the significance
of a 2D audio environment with spatial information in the context
of the visually impaired. A thorough usability study has been conducted
to prove the applicability of proposed design guidelines for
these auditory interfaces. While proving these guidelines, previously
unearthed design aspects have been revealed in this study.
Abstract: A pilot project was carried out in 2007 by the senior
students of Cyprus International University, aiming to minimize the
total cost of waste collection in Northern Cyprus. Many developed
and developing countries have cut their transportation costs – which
lies between 30-40% – down at a rate of 40% percent, by
implementing network models for their route assignments.
Accordingly, a network model was implemented at Göçmenköy
district, to optimize and standardize waste collection works. The
work environment of the employees were also redesigned to provide
maximum ergonomy and to increase productivity, efficiency and
safety. Following the collection of the required data including waste
densities, lengths of roads and population, a model was constructed
to allocate the optimal route assignment for the waste collection
trucks at Göçmenköy district.
Abstract: Energy consumption is one of the indices in
determining the levels of development of a nation. Therefore,
availability of energy supply to all sectors of life in any country is
crucial for its development. These exists shortage of all kinds of
energy, particularly electricity which is badly needed for economic
development. Electricity from the sun which is quite abundant in
most of the developing countries is used in rural areas to meet basic
electricity needs of a rural community. Today-s electricity supply in
Myanmar is generated by fuel generators and hydroelectric power
plants. However, far-flung areas which are away from National Grids
cannot enjoy the electricity generated by these sources. Since
Myanmar is a land of plentiful sunshine, especially in central and
southern regions of the country, the first form of energy- solar energy
could hopefully become the final solution to its energy supply
problem. The direct conversion of solar energy into electricity using
photovoltaic system has been receiving intensive installation not only
in developed countries but also in developing countries. It is mainly
intended to present solar energy potential and application in
Myanmar. It is also wanted to get the benefits of using solar energy
for people in remote areas which are not yet connected to the national
grids because of the high price of fossil fuel.
Abstract: Offset Double-Disk Opener (DDO) is a popular
furrow opener in conservation tillage. It has some limitations such as
negative suction to penetrate in the soil, hair pinning and mixing seed
and fertilizer in the slot. Because of importance of separation of seed
and fertilizer in the slot, by adding two horizontal mini disks to DDO
a modified opener was made (MDO) which placed the fertilizer
between and under two rows of seed. To consider performance of
novel opener an indoor comparison test between DDO and MDO was
performed at soil bin. The experiment was conducted with three
working speeds (3, 6 and 8 km h-1), two bulk densities of soil (1.1
and 1.4 Mg m-3) and two levels of residues (1 and 2 ton ha-1). The
experimental design consisted in a (3×2×2) complete randomized
factorial with three replicates for each test. Moisture of seed furrow,
separation of seed and fertilizer, hair pinning and resultant forces
acting on the openers were used as assessing indexes. There was no
significant difference between soil moisture content in slots created
by DDO and MDO at 0-4 cm depth, but at 4-8 cm the in the slot
created by MDO moisture content was higher about 9%. Horizontal
force for both openers increased with increasing speed and soil bulk
density. Vertical force for DDO was negative so it needed additional
weight for penetrating in the soil, but vertical force for MDO was
positive and, which can solve the challenge of penetration in the soil
in DDO. In soft soil with heavy residues some trash was pushed by
DDO into seed furrow (hair pinning) but at MDO seed were placed at
clean groove. Lateral and vertical separation of seed and fertilizer
was performed effectively by MDO (4.5 and 5 cm, respectively)
while DDO put seed and fertilizer close to each other. Overall, the
Modified Offset Double-disks (MDO) had better performance. So by
adapting this opener with no-tillage drillers it would possible to have
higher yield in conservation tillage where the most appropriate
opener is disk type.
Abstract: The proper design of RF pulses in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has a direct impact on the quality of acquired images, and is needed for many applications. Several techniques have been proposed to obtain the RF pulse envelope given the desired slice profile. Unfortunately, these techniques do not take into account the limitations of practical implementation such as limited amplitude resolution. Moreover, implementing constraints for special RF pulses on most techniques is not possible. In this work, we propose to develop an approach for designing optimal RF pulses under theoretically any constraints. The new technique will pose the RF pulse design problem as a combinatorial optimization problem and uses efficient techniques from this area such as genetic algorithms (GA) to solve this problem. In particular, an objective function will be proposed as the norm of the difference between the desired profile and the one obtained from solving the Bloch equations for the current RF pulse design values. The proposed approach will be verified using analytical solution based RF simulations and compared to previous methods such as Shinnar-Le Roux (SLR) method, and analysis, selected, and tested the options and parameters that control the Genetic Algorithm (GA) can significantly affect its performance to get the best improved results and compared to previous works in this field. The results show a significant improvement over conventional design techniques, select the best options and parameters for GA to get most improvement over the previous works, and suggest the practicality of using of the new technique for most important applications as slice selection for large flip angles, in the area of unconventional spatial encoding, and another clinical use.
Abstract: The rotation of starting pitchers is a strategic issue
which has a significant impact on the performance of a professional
team. Choosing an optimal starting pitcher from among many
alternatives is a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) problem. In
this study, a model using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and
Technique for Order Performance by Similarity to the Ideal Solution
(TOPSIS) is proposed with which to arrange the starting pitcher
rotation for teams of the Chinese Professional Baseball League. The
AHP is used to analyze the structure of the starting pitcher selection
problem and to determine the weights of the criteria, while the
TOPSIS method is used to make the final ranking. An empirical
analysis is conducted to illustrate the utilization of the model for the
starting pitcher rotation problem. The results demonstrate the
effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed model.
Abstract: The current trend of increasing quality and demands
of the final product is affected by time analysis of the entire
manufacturing process. The primary requirement of manufacturing is
to produce as many products as soon as possible, at the lowest
possible cost, but of course with the highest quality. Such
requirements may be satisfied only if all the elements entering and
affecting the production cycle are in a fully functional condition.
These elements consist of sensory equipment and intelligent control
elements that are essential for building intelligent manufacturing
systems. The intelligent manufacturing paradigm includes a new
approach to production system structure design. Intelligent behaviors
are based on the monitoring of important parameters of system and
its environment. The flexible reaction to changes. The realization and
utilization of this design paradigm as an "intelligent manufacturing
system" enables the flexible system reaction to production
requirement as soon as environmental changes too. Results of these
flexible reactions are a smaller layout space, be decreasing of
production and investment costs and be increasing of productivity.
Intelligent manufacturing system itself should be a system that can
flexibly respond to changes in entering and exiting the process in
interaction with the surroundings.
Abstract: The Neuro-Fuzzy hybridization scheme has become
of research interest in pattern classification over the past decade. The
present paper proposes a novel Modified Adaptive Fuzzy Inference
Engine (MAFIE) for pattern classification. A modified Apriori
algorithm technique is utilized to reduce a minimal set of decision
rules based on input output data sets. A TSK type fuzzy inference
system is constructed by the automatic generation of membership
functions and rules by the fuzzy c-means clustering and Apriori
algorithm technique, respectively. The generated adaptive fuzzy
inference engine is adjusted by the least-squares fit and a conjugate
gradient descent algorithm towards better performance with a
minimal set of rules. The proposed MAFIE is able to reduce the
number of rules which increases exponentially when more input
variables are involved. The performance of the proposed MAFIE is
compared with other existing applications of pattern classification
schemes using Fisher-s Iris and Wisconsin breast cancer data sets and
shown to be very competitive.
Abstract: This study was aimed for investigating of
manufacturing high aluminum content Mg alloys using a horizontal
twin roll caster. Recently, weight saving has been key issues for lighter
transport equipments as well as electronic component parts. As
alternative materials to aluminum alloys, developing magnesium alloy
with higher strength has been expected. Normally high Aluminum
content Mg alloy has poor ductility and is difficult to be rolled because
of its high strength. However, twin roll casting process is suitable for
manufacturing wrought Mg alloys because materials can be cast
directly from molten metal. In this study, manufacturing of high
aluminum content magnesium alloy sheet using the roll casting
process has been carried out. Effects of manufacturing parameter, such
as roll velocity, pouring temperature and roll gap, on casting was
investigated. A microscopic observation of the crystals of cross section
of as cast strip as well as rolled strip was conducted.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present current and future
procedures in castings procurement. Differences in procurement are
highlighted. The supplier selection criteria used in practice is
compared to literature findings. Different trends related to supply
chains are presented and it is described how they are reflected in
reality to castings procurement. To fulfil the aim, interviews were
conducted in nine companies using castings. It was found that largest
casting users have the most subcontractor foundries and it is more
typical that they have multiple suppliers for the same parts. Currently
only two companies out of nine purchase castings outside Europe,
but the others are also progressing in the same direction. The main
reason is the need to lower purchasing costs. Another trend is that all
companies want to buy cast components or sub-assemblies instead of
raw castings from foundries. It was found that price is a main
supplier selection criterion. All companies use competitive bidding in
supplier selection.
Abstract: This paper explores the scalability issues associated
with solving the Named Entity Recognition (NER) problem using
Support Vector Machines (SVM) and high-dimensional features. The
performance results of a set of experiments conducted using binary
and multi-class SVM with increasing training data sizes are
examined. The NER domain chosen for these experiments is the
biomedical publications domain, especially selected due to its
importance and inherent challenges. A simple machine learning
approach is used that eliminates prior language knowledge such as
part-of-speech or noun phrase tagging thereby allowing for its
applicability across languages. No domain-specific knowledge is
included. The accuracy measures achieved are comparable to those
obtained using more complex approaches, which constitutes a
motivation to investigate ways to improve the scalability of multiclass
SVM in order to make the solution more practical and useable.
Improving training time of multi-class SVM would make support
vector machines a more viable and practical machine learning
solution for real-world problems with large datasets. An initial
prototype results in great improvement of the training time at the
expense of memory requirements.
Abstract: Dynamic location referencing method is an important technology to shield map differences. These method references objects of the road network by utilizing condensed selection of its real-world geographic properties stored in a digital map database, which overcomes the defections existing in pre-coded location referencing methods. The high attributes completeness requirements and complicated reference point selection algorithm are the main problems of recent researches. Therefore, a dynamic location referencing algorithm combining intersection points selected at the extremities compulsively and road link points selected according to link partition principle was proposed. An experimental system based on this theory was implemented. The tests using Beijing digital map database showed satisfied results and thus verified the feasibility and practicability of this method.
Abstract: This paper presents a research agenda on the SCOR
model adaptation. SCOR model is designated to measure supply
chain performance and logistics impact across the boundaries of
individual organizations. It is at its growing stage of its life cycle and
is enjoying the leverage of becoming the industry standard. The
SCOR model has been developed and used widely in developed
countries context. This research focuses on the SCOR model
adaptation for the manufacturing industry in developing countries.
With a necessary understanding of the characteristics, difficulties and
problems of the manufacturing industry in developing countries-
supply chain; consequently, we will try to designs an adapted model
with its building blocks: business process model, performance
measures and best practices.
Abstract: There have been many variations of technologies that helped educators in teaching & learning. From the past research it is evident that Information Technology significantly increases student participation and interactivity in the classrooms. This research started with a aim to find whether adoption of Wi-Fi environment by Malaysian Higher Educational Institutions (HEI) can benefit students and staff equally. The study was carried out in HEI-s of Klang Valley, Malaysia and the data is gathered through paper based surveys. A sample size of 237 units were randomly selected from 5 higher educational institutions in the Klang Valley using the Stratified Random sampling method and from the analysis of the data, it was found that the implementation of wireless technologies in HEIs have created lot of opportunities and also challenges.
Abstract: In this study, communities of ammonia-oxidizing
archaea (AOA) and ammonia-oxidizing bacteria (AOB) in nitrifying
activated sludge (NAS) prepared by enriching sludge from a
municipal wastewater treatment plant in three continuous-flow
reactors receiving an inorganic medium containing different
ammonium concentrations of 2, 10, and 30 mM NH4
+-N (NAS2,
NAS10, and NAS30, respectively) were investigated using molecular
analysis. Results suggested that almost all AOA clones from NAS2,
NAS10, and NAS30 fell into the same AOA cluster and AOA
communities in NAS2 and NAS10 were more diverse than those of
NAS30. In contrast to AOA, AOB communities obviously shifted
from the seed sludge to enriched NASs and in each enriched NAS,
communities of AOB varied particularly. The seed sludge contained
members of N. communis cluster and N. oligotropha cluster. After it
was enriched under various ammonium loads, members of N.
communis cluster disappeared from all enriched NASs. AOB with
high affinity to ammonia presented in NAS 2, AOB with low affinity
to ammonia presented in NAS 30, and both types of AOB survived in
NAS 10. These demonstrated that ammonium load significantly
influenced AOB communities, but not AOA communities in enriched
NASs.
Abstract: In communication networks where communication nodes are connected with finite capacity transmission links, the packet inter-arrival times are strongly correlated with the packet length and the link capacity (or the packet service time). Such correlation affects the system performance significantly, but little attention has been paid to this issue. In this paper, we propose a mathematical framework to study the impact of the correlation between the packet service times and the packet inter-arrival times on system performance. With our mathematical model, we analyze the system performance, e.g., the unfinished work of the system, and show that the correlation affects the system performance significantly. Some numerical examples are also provided.
Abstract: The dynamic model of a drill in drilling process was
proposed and investigated in this study. To assure a good drilling quality, the vibration variation on the drill tips during high speed
drilling is needed to be investigated. A pre-twisted beam is used to
simulate the drill. The moving Winkler-Type elastic foundation is used to characterize the tip boundary variation in drilling. Due to the
variation of the drill depth, a time dependent dynamic model for the drill is proposed. Results simulated from this proposed model indicate that an abrupt natural frequencies drop are experienced as the drill tip
tough the workpiece, and a severe vibration is induced. The effects of parameters, e.g. drilling speed, depth, drill size and thrust force on the
drill tip responses studied.