Abstract: In this paper we propose a novel methodology for
extracting a road network and its nodes from satellite images of
Algeria country.
This developed technique is a progress of our previous research
works. It is founded on the information theory and the mathematical
morphology; the information theory and the mathematical
morphology are combined together to extract and link the road
segments to form a road network and its nodes.
We therefore have to define objects as sets of pixels and to study
the shape of these objects and the relations that exist between them.
In this approach, geometric and radiometric features of roads are
integrated by a cost function and a set of selected points of a crossing
road. Its performances were tested on satellite images of Algeria
country.
Abstract: Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test
a hypothesized model explaining Malaysian hypermarket customers’
perceptions of brand trust (BT), customer perceived value (CPV) and
perceived service quality (PSQ) on building their brand loyalty
(CBL) and generating positive word-of-mouth communication
(WOM). Self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data
from 374 Malaysian hypermarket customers from Mydin, Tesco,
Aeon Big and Giant in Kuala Lumpur, a metropolitan city of
Malaysia. The data strongly supported the model exhibiting that BT,
CPV and PSQ are prerequisite factors in building customer brand
loyalty, while PSQ has the strongest effect on prediction of customer
brand loyalty compared to other factors. Besides, the present study
suggests the effect of the aforementioned factors via customer brand
loyalty strongly contributes to generate positive word of mouth
communication.
Abstract: The development of adaptive user interfaces (UI)
presents for a long time an important research area in which
researcher attempt to call upon the full resources and skills of several
disciplines, The adaptive UI community holds a thorough knowledge
regarding the adaptation of UIs with users and with contexts of use.
Several solutions, models, formalisms, techniques and mechanisms
were proposed to develop adaptive UI. In this paper, we propose an
approach based on the fuzzy set theory for modeling the concept of
the appropriateness of different solutions of UI adaptation with
different situations for which interactive systems have to adapt their
UIs.
Abstract: This paper adopts a two-stage data envelopment
analysis to explore the impacts of financial development and bank
operating scale on bank efficiencies. The sample comprises
unbalanced panel data of 32 Taiwanese listed domestic commercial
banks over the period 1998 to 2013. Empirical results show that pure
technical efficiency is positively related to financial development,
whereas the effect of financial development on scale efficiency is
insignificant. Enlargement of bank operating scale improves bank
efficiencies, but the efficiency gains are decreased gradually when the
scale increases. Increases in capital adequacy ratio and market power
of loans lead into a growth of bank efficiencies.
Abstract: The effect of additional magnesium oxide (MgO) was
investigated by using the tungsten oxide supported on silica catalyst
(WOx/SiO2) physically mixed with MgO in a weight ratio 1:1. The
both fresh and spent catalysts were characterized by FT-Raman
spectrometer, UV-Vis spectrometer, X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and
temperature programmed oxidation (TPO). The results indicated that
the additional MgO could enhance the conversion of trans-2-butene
due to isomerization reaction. However, adding MgO would increase
the amount of coke deposit on the WOx/SiO2 catalyst. The TPO
profile presented two peaks when the WOx/SiO2 catalyst was
physically mixed with MgO. The further peak was suggested that
came from coke precursor could be produced by isomerization
reaction of undesired product. Then, the occurred coke precursor
could deposit and form coke on the acid catalyst.
Abstract: Failure of typical seismic frames has been found by
plastic hinge occurring on beams section near column faces. On the
other hand, the seismic capacity of the frames can be enhanced if the
plastic hinges of the beams are shifted away from the column faces.
This paper presents detailing of reinforcements in the interior beam–
column connections aiming to relocate the plastic hinge of reinforced
concrete and precast concrete frames. Four specimens were tested
under quasi-static cyclic load including two monolithic specimens
and two precast specimens. For one monolithic specimen, typical
seismic reinforcement was provided and considered as a reference
specimen named M1. The other reinforced concrete frame M2
contained additional intermediate steel in the connection area
compared with the specimen M1. For the precast specimens,
embedded T-section steels in joint were provided, with and without
diagonal bars in the connection area for specimen P1 and P2,
respectively. The test results indicated the ductile failure with beam
flexural failure in monolithic specimen M1 and the intermediate steel
increased strength and improved joint performance of specimen M2.
For the precast specimens, cracks generated at the end of the steel
inserts. However, slipping of reinforcing steel lapped in top of the
beams was seen before yielding of the main bars leading to the brittle
failure. The diagonal bars in precast specimens P2 improved the
connection stiffness and the energy dissipation capacity.
Abstract: With the growing of computer and network, digital
data can be spread to anywhere in the world quickly. In addition,
digital data can also be copied or tampered easily so that the security
issue becomes an important topic in the protection of digital data.
Digital watermark is a method to protect the ownership of digital data.
Embedding the watermark will influence the quality certainly. In this
paper, Vector Quantization (VQ) is used to embed the watermark into
the image to fulfill the goal of data hiding. This kind of watermarking
is invisible which means that the users will not conscious the existing
of embedded watermark even though the embedded image has tiny
difference compared to the original image. Meanwhile, VQ needs a lot
of computation burden so that we adopt a fast VQ encoding scheme by
partial distortion searching (PDS) and mean approximation scheme to
speed up the data hiding process.
The watermarks we hide to the image could be gray, bi-level and
color images. Texts are also can be regarded as watermark to embed.
In order to test the robustness of the system, we adopt Photoshop to
fulfill sharpen, cropping and altering to check if the extracted
watermark is still recognizable. Experimental results demonstrate that
the proposed system can resist the above three kinds of tampering in
general cases.
Abstract: Micro-electromechanical system (MEMS)
accelerometers and gyroscopes are suitable for the inertial navigation
system (INS) of many applications due to low price, small
dimensions and light weight. The main disadvantage in a comparison
with classic sensors is a worse long term stability. The estimation
accuracy is mostly affected by the time-dependent growth of inertial
sensor errors, especially the stochastic errors. In order to eliminate
negative effects of these random errors, they must be accurately
modeled. In this paper, the Allan variance technique will be used in
modeling the stochastic errors of the inertial sensors. By performing
a simple operation on the entire length of data, a characteristic curve
is obtained whose inspection provides a systematic characterization
of various random errors contained in the inertial-sensor output data.
Abstract: OPEN_EmoRec_II is an open multimodal corpus with
experimentally induced emotions. In the first half of the experiment,
emotions were induced with standardized picture material and in the
second half during a human-computer interaction (HCI), realized
with a wizard-of-oz design. The induced emotions are based on the
dimensional theory of emotions (valence, arousal and dominance).
These emotional sequences - recorded with multimodal data (facial
reactions, speech, audio and physiological reactions) during a
naturalistic-like HCI-environment one can improve classification
methods on a multimodal level.
This database is the result of an HCI-experiment, for which 30
subjects in total agreed to a publication of their data including the
video material for research purposes*. The now available open
corpus contains sensory signal of: video, audio, physiology (SCL,
respiration, BVP, EMG Corrugator supercilii, EMG Zygomaticus
Major) and facial reactions annotations.
Abstract: OPEN_EmoRec_II is an open multimodal corpus with
experimentally induced emotions. In the first half of the experiment,
emotions were induced with standardized picture material and in the
second half during a human-computer interaction (HCI), realized
with a wizard-of-oz design. The induced emotions are based on the
dimensional theory of emotions (valence, arousal and dominance).
These emotional sequences - recorded with multimodal data (facial
reactions, speech, audio and physiological reactions) during a
naturalistic-like HCI-environment one can improve classification
methods on a multimodal level.
This database is the result of an HCI-experiment, for which 30
subjects in total agreed to a publication of their data including the
video material for research purposes*. The now available open
corpus contains sensory signal of: video, audio, physiology (SCL,
respiration, BVP, EMG Corrugator supercilii, EMG Zygomaticus
Major) and facial reactions annotations.
Abstract: Heat transfer of leaves is a crucial factor in optimal
operation of metabolic functions in plants. In order to quantify this
phenomenon in different leaves and investigate the influence of leaf
shape on heat transfer, natural convection for pine, orange and olive
leaves was simulated as representatives of different groups of leaf
shapes. CFD techniques were used in this simulation with the
purpose to calculate heat transfer of leaves in similar environmental
conditions. The problem was simulated for steady state and threedimensional
conditions. From obtained results, it was concluded that
heat fluxes of all three different leaves are almost identical, however,
total rate of heat transfer have highest and lowest values for orange
leaves, and pine leaves, respectively.
Abstract: This work assesses the cortical and the sub-cortical
neural activity recorded from rodents using entropy and mutual
information based approaches to study how hypothermia affects neural
activity. By applying the multi-scale entropy and Shannon entropy, we
quantify the degree of the regularity embedded in the cortical and
sub-cortical neurons and characterize the dependency of entropy of
these regions on temperature. We study also the degree of the mutual
information on thalamocortical pathway depending on temperature.
The latter is most likely an indicator of coupling between these highly
connected structures in response to temperature manipulation leading
to arousal after global cerebral ischemia.
Abstract: The seismic risk mitigation from the perspective of
the old buildings stock is truly essential in Algerian urban areas,
particularly those located in seismic prone regions, such as Annaba
city, and which the old buildings present high levels of degradation
associated with no seismic strengthening and/or rehabilitation
concerns. In this sense, the present paper approaches the issue of the
seismic vulnerability assessment of old masonry building stocks
through the adaptation of a simplified methodology developed for a
European context area similar to that of Annaba city, Algeria.
Therefore, this method is used for the first level of seismic
vulnerability assessment of the masonry buildings stock of the old
city center of Annaba. This methodology is based on a vulnerability
index that is suitable for the evaluation of damage and for the
creation of large-scale loss scenarios. Over 380 buildings were
evaluated in accordance with the referred methodology and the
results obtained were then integrated into a Geographical Information
System (GIS) tool. Such results can be used by the Annaba city
council for supporting management decisions, based on a global view
of the site under analysis, which led to more accurate and faster
decisions for the risk mitigation strategies and rehabilitation plans.
Abstract: Pt/γ-Al2O3 membrane catalysts were prepared via an
evaporative-crystallization deposition method. The obtained Pt/γ-
Al2O3 catalyst activity was tested after characterization (SEM-EDAX
observation, BET measurement, permeability assessment) in the
catalytic oxidation of selected volatile organic compound (VOC) i.e.
propane, fed in mixture of oxygen. The VOC conversion (nearly
90%) obtained by varying the operating temperature showed that
flow-through membrane reactor might do better in the abatement of
VOCs.
Abstract: One of the key aspects of power quality improvement
in power system is the mitigation of voltage sags/swells and flicker.
Custom power devices have been known as the best tools for voltage
disturbances mitigation as well as reactive power compensation.
Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) which is the most efficient and
effective modern custom power device can provide the most
commercial solution to solve several problems of power quality in
distribution networks. This paper deals with analysis and simulation
technique of DVR based on instantaneous power theory which is a
quick control to detect signals. The main purpose of this work is to
remove three important disturbances including voltage sags/swells
and flicker. Simulation of the proposed method was carried out on
two sample systems by using Matlab software environment and the
results of simulation show that the proposed method is able to
provide desirable power quality in the presence of wide range of
disturbances.
Abstract: An unconventional composite inorganic ceramic
membrane capable of enhancing carbon dioxide emission decline was
fabricated and tested at laboratory scale in conformism to various
environmental guidelines and also to mitigate the effect of global
warming. A review of the existing membrane technologies for carbon
capture including the relevant gas transport mechanisms is presented.
Single gas permeation experiments using silica modified ceramic
membrane with internal diameter 20mm, outside diameter 25mm and
length of 368mm deposited on a macro porous support was carried
out to investigate individual gas permeation behaviours at different
pressures at room temperature. Membrane fabrication was achieved
using after a dip coating method. Nitrogen, Carbon dioxide, Argon,
Oxygen and Methane pure gases were used to investigate their
individual permeation rates at various pressures. Results show that
the gas flow rate increases with pressure drop. However above a
pressure of 3bar, CO2 permeability ratio to that of the other gases
indicated control of a more selective surface adsorptive transport
mechanism.
Abstract: Mangosteen (Garcinia mangostana) pericarp is
considered as agricultural waste and not fully utilized in food
products. It is widely reported that mangosteen pericarp contains high
antioxidant properties. The objective of this study is to develop novel
yellow alkaline noodle (YAN) substituted with different levels of
mangosteen pericarp powder (MPP). YAN formulation was
substituted with different levels of MPP (0%, 5%, 10% and 15%).
The effect on nutritional and antioxidant properties was evaluated.
Higher substitution levels of MPP resulted in significant increase
(p
Abstract: In order to avoid self-collision of space manipulators
during operation process, a real-time detection method is proposed in
this paper. The manipulator is fitted into a cylinder-enveloping
surface, and then, a kind of detection algorithm of collision between
cylinders is analyzed. The collision model of space manipulator
self-links can be detected by using this algorithm in real-time detection
during the operation process. To ensure security of the operation, a
safety threshold is designed. The simulation and experiment results
verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm for a 7-DOF space
manipulator.
Abstract: The aim of this research is to identify the key factors in shipping company’s port selection in order to providing their requirement. To identify and rank factors that play the main role in selecting port for providing the ship requirement, at the first step, data were collected via Semi-structured interviews, the aim was to generate knowledge on how shipping company select the port and suppliers for providing their needs. 37 port selection factors were chosen from the previous researches and field interviews and have been categorized into two groups of port's factor and the factors of services of suppliers companies. The current study adopts a questionnaire survey to the main shipping companies' operators in Iran. Their responses reveal that level of services of supplying companies and customs rules play the important role in selecting the ports. Our findings could affect decisions made by port authorities to consider that supporting the privet sections for ship chandelling business could have the best result in attracting ships.
Abstract: In this research numerical simulations are performed,
using the multi-relaxation-time lattice Boltzmann method, in the
range 3 ≤ β = w[d] ≤ 30 at Re = 100, 200 and 300, where β the
blockage ratio, w is the equispaced distance between centers of
cylinders, d is the diameter of the cylinder and Re is the Reynolds
number, respectively. Special attention is paid to the effect of the
equispaced distance between centers of cylinders. Visualization of
the vorticity contour visualization are presented for some simulation
showing the flow dynamics and patterns for blockage effect. Results
show that the drag and mean drag coefficients, and Strouhal number,
in general, decrease with the increase of β for fixed Re. It is found
that the decreasing rate of drag and mean drag coefficients and
Strouhal number is more distinct in the range 3 ≤ β ≤ 15. We found
that when β > 15, the blockage effect almost diminishes. Our results
further indicate that the drag and mean drag coefficients, peak value
of the lift coefficient, root-mean-square value of the lift and drag
coefficients and the ratio between lift and drag coefficients decrease
with the increase of Re. The results indicate that symmetry boundary
condition have more blockage effect as compared to periodic
boundary condition.