A Force-directed Graph Drawing based on the Hierarchical Individual Timestep Method

In this paper, we propose a fast and efficient method for drawing very large-scale graph data. The conventional force-directed method proposed by Fruchterman and Rheingold (FR method) is well-known. It defines repulsive forces between every pair of nodes and attractive forces between connected nodes on a edge and calculates corresponding potential energy. An optimal layout is obtained by iteratively updating node positions to minimize the potential energy. Here, the positions of the nodes are updated every global timestep at the same time. In the proposed method, each node has its own individual time and time step, and nodes are updated at different frequencies depending on the local situation. The proposed method is inspired by the hierarchical individual time step method used for the high accuracy calculations for dense particle fields such as star clusters in astrophysical dynamics. Experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the original FR method in both speed and accuracy. We implement the proposed method on the MDGRAPE-3 PCI-X special purpose parallel computer and realize a speed enhancement of several hundred times.

In situ Observation of the State and Stability of Hemoglobin Adsorbed onto Glass Surface by Slab Optical Waveguide (SOWG) Spectroscopy

The state and stability of hemoglobin adsorbed on the glass surface was investigated using slab optical waveguide (SOWG) spectroscopy. The peak position of the absorption band of hemoglobin adsorbed on the glass surface was same as that of the hemoglobin in solution. This result suggests that no significant denaturation occurred by adsorption. The adsorption of hemoglobin is relatively strong that the hemoglobin molecules even remained adsorbed after rinsing the cell with buffer solution. The peak shift caused by the reduction of adsorbed hemoglobin was also observed.

Analysis of Genotype Size for an Evolvable Hardware System

The evolution of logic circuits, which falls under the heading of evolvable hardware, is carried out by evolutionary algorithms. These algorithms are able to automatically configure reconfigurable devices. One of main difficulties in developing evolvable hardware with the ability to design functional electrical circuits is to choose the most favourable EA features such as fitness function, chromosome representations, population size, genetic operators and individual selection. Until now several researchers from the evolvable hardware community have used and tuned these parameters and various rules on how to select the value of a particular parameter have been proposed. However, to date, no one has presented a study regarding the size of the chromosome representation (circuit layout) to be used as a platform for the evolution in order to increase the evolvability, reduce the number of generations and optimize the digital logic circuits through reducing the number of logic gates. In this paper this topic has been thoroughly investigated and the optimal parameters for these EA features have been proposed. The evolution of logic circuits has been carried out by an extrinsic evolvable hardware system which uses (1+λ) evolution strategy as the core of the evolution.

Numerical Analysis of Turbulent Natural Convection in a Square Cavity using Large- Eddy Simulation in Lattice Boltzmann Method

In this paper Lattice Boltzmann simulation of turbulent natural convection with large-eddy simulations (LES) in a square cavity which is filled by water has been investigated. The present results are validated by finds of other investigations which have been done with different numerical methods. Calculations were performed for high Rayleigh numbers of Ra=108 and 109. The results confirm that this method is in acceptable agreement with other verifications of such a flow. In this investigation is tried to present Large-eddy turbulence flow model by Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) with a clear and simple statement. Effects of increase in Rayleigh number are displayed on streamlines, isotherm counters and average Nusselt number. Result shows that the average Nusselt number enhances with growth of the Rayleigh numbers.

Operational Analysis of Urban Intelligent Transportation System and Strategies for Future Development - Taking Calling Service of Taxi in Wuhan as an Example

Intelligent Transportation System integrates various modern advanced technologies into the ground transportation system, and it will be the goal of urban transport system in the future because of its comprehensive effects. However, it also brings some problems, such as project performance assessment, fairness of benefiting groups, fund management, which are directly related to its operation and implementation. Wuhan has difficulties in organizing transportation because of its nature feature (river and lake), therefore, calling Service of Taxi plays an important role in transportation. This paper researches on calling Service of Taxi in Wuhan, based on quantitative and qualitative analysis. It analyzes its operations management systematically, including business model, finance, usage analysis and users evaluation. As for business model, it is that the government leads the operation at the initial stage, and the third part dominates the operation at the mature stage, which not only eases the pressure of the third part and benefits the spread of the calling service at the initial stage, but also alleviates financial pressure of government and improve the efficiency of the operation at the mature stage. As for finance, it draws that this service will bring heavy financial burden of equipments, but it will be alleviated in the future because of its spread. As for usage analysis, through data comparison, this service can bring some benefits for taxi drivers, and time and spatial distribution of usage have certain features. As for user evaluation, it analyzes using group and the reason why choosing it. At last, according to the analysis above, the paper puts forward the potentials, limitations, and future development strategies for it.

Effects of Drought on Microbial Activity in Rhizosphere, Soil Hydrophobicity and Leaching of Mineral Nitrogen from Arable Soil Depending on Method of Fertilization

This work presents the first results from the long-term laboratory experiment dealing with impact of drought on soil properties. Three groups of the treatment (A, B and C) with different regime of irrigation were prepared. The soil water content was maintained at 70 % of soil water holding capacity in group A, at 40 % in group B. In group C, soil water regime was maintained in the range of wilting point. Each group of the experiment was divided into three variants (A1 = B1, C1; A2 = B2, C2 etc.) with three repetitions: Variants A1 (B1, C1) were a controls without addition of another fertilizer. Variants A2 (B2, C2) were fertilized with mineral nitrogen fertilizer DAM 390 (0.140 Mg of N per ha) and variants A3 (B3, C3) contained 45 g of Cp per a pot. The significant differences (ANOVA, P

Semantic Markup for Web Applications

In this paper we would like to introduce some of the best practices of using semantic markup and its significance in the success of web applications. Search engines are one of the best ways to reach potential customers and are some of the main indicators of web sites' fruitfulness. We will introduce the most important semantic vocabularies which are used by Google and Yahoo. Afterwards, we will explain the process of semantic markup implementation and its significance for search engines and other semantic markup consumers. We will describe techniques for slow conceiving RDFa markup to our web application for collecting Call for papers (CFP) announcements.

Factors Related to Behaviour Trend of Roasted Coffee Consumers

The purpose of this research was to study the behavior trend factors of consumers to roasted coffee at the petrol station on the route of Rangsit to Nakhon Nayok. The research drew upon data collected from the regular consumers of roasted coffee stands. The majority of respondents was male, 33-39 years old, and holding a bachelor degree. The majority of respondents considered themselves private business proprietors or entrepreneurs and had a monthly income of between 10,000-16,000 baht. The regular coffee consumers spent a minimum coffee expense of between 45 and 300 baht per day. These consumers also displayed good attitude and good motivation which can be ranked as very high. From the hypothesis testing of the behavior trend for the roasted coffee consumers in repurchasing coffee and recommended the coffee to others, the findings revealed that it had a significant correlation. Moreover, the overall attitude towards the marketing mix factors also had a significant correlation with the behavior trend consumers.

Microalbuminuria in Essential Hypertension

Essential hypertension (HTN) usually clusters with other cardiovascular risk factors such as age, overweight, diabetes, insulin resistance and dyslipidemia. The target organ damage (TOD) such as left ventricular hypertrophy, microalbuminuria (MA), acute coronary syndrome (ACS), stroke and cognitive dysfunction takes place early in course of hypertension. Though the prevalence of hypertension is high in India, the relationship between microalbuminuria and target organ damage in hypertension is not well studied. This study aim at detecting MA in essential hypertension and its relation to severity of HTN, duration of HTN, body mass index (BMI), age and TOD such as HTN retinopathy and acute coronary syndrome The present study was done in 100 patients of essential hypertension non diabetics admitted to B.L.D.E.University-s Sri B.M.Patil Medical College, Bijapur, from October 2008 to April 2011. The patients underwent detailed history and clinical examination. Early morning 5 ml of urine sample was collected & MA was estimated by immunoturbidometry method. The relationship of MA with the duration & severity of HTN, BMI, age, sex and TOD's like hypertensive retinopathy, ACS was assessed by univariate analysis. The prevalence of MA in this study was found to be 63 %. In that 42% were male & 21% were female. In this study a significant association between MA and the duration of hypertension (p = 0.036) & (OR =0.438). Longer the duration of hypertension, more possibility of microalbumin in urine. Also there was a significant association between severity of hypertension and MA (p=0.045) and (OR=0.093). MA was positive in 50 (79.4%) patients out of 63, whose blood pressure was >160/100 mm Hg. In this study a significant association between MA and the grades of hypertensive retinopathy (p =0.011) and acute coronary syndrome (p = 0.041) (OR =2.805). Gender and BMI did not pose high risk for MA in this study.The prevalence of MA in essential hypertension is high in this part of the community and MA will increase the risk of developing target organ damage.Early screening of patients with essential hypertension for MA and aggressive management of positive cases might reduce the burden of chronic kidney diseases and cardiovascular diseases in the community.

Improved C-Fuzzy Decision Tree for Intrusion Detection

As the number of networked computers grows, intrusion detection is an essential component in keeping networks secure. Various approaches for intrusion detection are currently being in use with each one has its own merits and demerits. This paper presents our work to test and improve the performance of a new class of decision tree c-fuzzy decision tree to detect intrusion. The work also includes identifying best candidate feature sub set to build the efficient c-fuzzy decision tree based Intrusion Detection System (IDS). We investigated the usefulness of c-fuzzy decision tree for developing IDS with a data partition based on horizontal fragmentation. Empirical results indicate the usefulness of our approach in developing the efficient IDS.

The Study of Applying Models: House, Temple and School for Sufficiency Development to Participate in ASEAN Economic Community: A Case Study of Trimitra Temple (China Town) Bangkok, Thailand

The purposes of this study are 1) to study the impact of the 3-community-core model: House (H), Temple (T), and School (S) with the co-operation of official departments on community development to ASEAN economic community involvement and 2) to study the procedures and extension of the model. The research which is a qualitative research is based on the formal and informal interviews. Local people in a community are observed. Group interview is, also, operated by executors and cooperators in the school in the community. In terms of social and cultural dimension, the 3-community-core model consisting of house, temple and school is the base of Thai cultures bringing about understanding, happiness and unity to the community. The result of this research is that the official departments in accompanied with this model developers cooperatively work together in the community to support such factors as budget, plan, activities. Moreover, the need of community, and the continual result to sustain the community are satisfied by the model implementation. In terms of the procedures of the model implementation, executors and co-operators can work, coordinate, think, and launch their public relation altogether. Concerning the model development, this enables the community to achieve its goal to prepare the community’s readiness for ASEAN Economic Community involvement.

Design and Performance of Adaptive Polarized MIMO MC-SS-CDMA System for Downlink Mobile Communications

In this paper, an adaptive polarized Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) Multicarrier Spread Spectrum Code Division Multiple Access (MC-SS-CDMA) system is designed for downlink mobile communications. The proposed system will be examined in Frequency Division Duplex (FDD) mode for both macro urban and suburban environments. For the same transmission bandwidth, a performance comparison between both nonoverlapped and orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) schemes will be presented. Also, the proposed system will be compared with both the closed loop vertical MIMO MC-SS-CDMA system and the synchronous vertical STBC-MIMO MC-SS-CDMA system. As will be shown, the proposed system introduces a significant performance gain as well as reducing the spatial dimensions of the MIMO system and simplifying the receiver implementation. The effect of the polarization diversity characteristics on the BER performance will be discussed. Also, the impact of excluding the cross-polarization MCSS- CDMA blocks in the base station will be investigated. In addition, the system performance will be evaluated under different Feedback Information (FBI) rates for slowly-varying channels. Finally, a performance comparison for vehicular and pedestrian environments will be presented

A Constrained Clustering Algorithm for the Classification of Industrial Ores

In this paper a Pattern Recognition algorithm based on a constrained version of the k-means clustering algorithm will be presented. The proposed algorithm is a non parametric supervised statistical pattern recognition algorithm, i.e. it works under very mild assumptions on the dataset. The performance of the algorithm will be tested, togheter with a feature extraction technique that captures the information on the closed two-dimensional contour of an image, on images of industrial mineral ores.

A Novel Approach to Handle Uncertainty in Health System Variables for Hospital Admissions

Hospital staff and managers are under pressure and concerned for effective use and management of scarce resources. The hospital admissions require many decisions that have complex and uncertain consequences for hospital resource utilization and patient flow. It is challenging to predict risk of admissions and length of stay of a patient due to their vague nature. There is no method to capture the vague definition of admission of a patient. Also, current methods and tools used to predict patients at risk of admission fail to deal with uncertainty in unplanned admission, LOS, patients- characteristics. The main objective of this paper is to deal with uncertainty in health system variables, and handles uncertain relationship among variables. An introduction of machine learning techniques along with statistical methods like Regression methods can be a proposed solution approach to handle uncertainty in health system variables. A model that adapts fuzzy methods to handle uncertain data and uncertain relationships can be an efficient solution to capture the vague definition of admission of a patient.

A CFD Study of Sensitive Parameters Effect on the Combustion in a High Velocity Oxygen-Fuel Thermal Spray Gun

High-velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) thermal spraying uses a combustion process to heat the gas flow and coating material. A computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model has been developed to predict gas dynamic behavior in a HVOF thermal spray gun in which premixed oxygen and propane are burnt in a combustion chamber linked to a parallel-sided nozzle. The CFD analysis is applied to investigate axisymmetric, steady-state, turbulent, compressible, chemically reacting, subsonic and supersonic flow inside and outside the gun. The gas velocity, temperature, pressure and Mach number distributions are presented for various locations inside and outside the gun. The calculated results show that the most sensitive parameters affecting the process are fuel-to-oxygen gas ratio and total gas flow rate. Gas dynamic behavior along the centerline of the gun depends on both total gas flow rate and fuel-to-oxygen gas ratio. The numerical simulations show that the axial gas velocity and Mach number distribution depend on both flow rate and ratio; the highest velocity is achieved at the higher flow rate and most fuel-rich ratio. In addition, the results reported in this paper illustrate that the numerical simulation can be one of the most powerful and beneficial tools for the HVOF system design, optimization and performance analysis.

Numerical Investigation of Flow Past Cylinderin Cross Flow

A numerical prediction of flow in a tube bank is reported. The flow regimes considered cover a wide range of Reynolds numbers, which range from 380 to 99000 and which are equivalent to a range of inlet velocities from very low (0.072 m/s) to very high (60 m/s). In this study, calculations were made using the standard k-e model with standard wall function. The drag coefficient, skin friction drag, pressure drag, and pressure distribution around a tube were investigated. As the velocity increased, the drag coefficient decreased until the velocity exceeded 45 m/s, after which it increased. Furthermore, the pressure drag and skin friction drag depend on the velocity.

Dye-Sensitized Solar Cell by Plasma Spray

This paper aims to scale up Dye-sensitized Solar Cell (DSSC) production using a commonly available industrial material – stainless steel - and industrial plasma equipment. A working DSSC electrode formed by (1) coating titania nanotube (TiO2 NT) film on 304 stainless steel substrate using a plasma spray technique; then, (2) filling the nano-pores of the TiO2 NT film using a TiF4 sol-gel method. A DSSC device consists of an anode absorbed photosensitive dye (N3), a transparent conductive cathode with platinum (Pt) nano-catalytic particles adhered to its surface, and an electrolytic solution sealed between the anode and the transparent conductive cathode. The photo-current conversion efficiency of the DSSC sample was tested under an AM 1.5 Solar Simulator. The sample has a short current (Isc) of 0.83 mA cm-2, open voltage (Voc) of 0.81V, filling factor (FF) of 0.52, and conversion efficiency (η) of 2.18% on a 0.16 cm2 DSSC work-piece.

Video-based Face Recognition: A Survey

During the past several years, face recognition in video has received significant attention. Not only the wide range of commercial and law enforcement applications, but also the availability of feasible technologies after several decades of research contributes to the trend. Although current face recognition systems have reached a certain level of maturity, their development is still limited by the conditions brought about by many real applications. For example, recognition images of video sequence acquired in an open environment with changes in illumination and/or pose and/or facial occlusion and/or low resolution of acquired image remains a largely unsolved problem. In other words, current algorithms are yet to be developed. This paper provides an up-to-date survey of video-based face recognition research. To present a comprehensive survey, we categorize existing video based recognition approaches and present detailed descriptions of representative methods within each category. In addition, relevant topics such as real time detection, real time tracking for video, issues such as illumination, pose, 3D and low resolution are covered.

Critical Thinking Perspectives on Work Integrated Learning in Information Systems Education

Students with high level skills are in demand, especially in scare skill environments. If universities wish to be successful and competitive, its students need to be adequately equipped with the necessary tools. Work Integrated Learning (WIL) is an essential component of the education of a student. The relevance of higher education should be assessed in terms of how it meets the needs of society and the world of work in a global economy. This paper demonstrates how to use Habermas's theory of communicative action to reflect on students- perceptions on their integration in the work environment to achieve social integration and financial justification. Interpretive questionnaires are used to determine the students- view of how they are integrated into society, and contributing to the economy. This paper explores the use of Habermas-s theory of communicative action to give theoretical and methodological guidance for the practice of social findings obtained in this inquiry.

Landowers' Participation Behavior on the Payment for Environmental Service (PES): Evidences from Taiwan

To respond to the Kyoto Protocol, the policy of Payment for Environmental Service (PES), which was entitled “Plain Landscape Afforestation Program (PLAP)", was certified by Executive Yuan in Taiwan on 31 August 2001 and has been implementing for six years since 1 January 2002. Although the PLAP has received a lot of positive comments, there are still many difficulties during the process of implementation, such as insufficient technology for afforestation, private landowners- low interests in participating in PLAP, insufficient subsidies, and so on, which are potential threats that hinder the PLAP from moving forward in future. In this paper, selecting Ping-Tung County in Taiwan as a sample region and targeting those private landowners with and without intention to participate in the PLAP, respectively, we conduct an empirical analysis based on the Logit model to investigate the factors that determine whether those private landowners join the PLAP, so as to realize the incentive effects of the PLAP upon the personal decision on afforestation. The possible factors that might determine private landowner-s participation in the PLAP include landowner-s characteristics, cropland characteristics, as well as policy factors. Among them, the policy factors include afforestation subsidy amount (+), duration of afforestation subsidy (+), the rules on adjoining and adjacent areas (+), and so on, which do not reach the remarkable level in statistics though, but the directions of variable signs are consistent with the intuition behind the policy. As for the landowners- characteristics, each of age (+), education level (–), and annual household income (+) variables reaches 10% of the remarkable level in statistics; as for the cropland characteristics, each of cropland area (+), cropland price (–), and the number of cropland parcels (–) reaches 1% of the remarkable level in statistics. In light of the above, the cropland characteristics are the dominate factor that determines the probability of landowner-s participation in the PLAP. In the Logit model established by this paper, the probability of correctly estimating nonparticipants is 98%, the probability of correctly estimating the participants is 71.8%, and the probability for the overall estimation is 95%. In addition, Hosmer-Lemeshow test and omnibus test also revealed that the Logit model in this paper may provide fine goodness of fit and good predictive power in forecasting private landowners- participation in this program. The empirical result of this paper expects to help the implementation of the afforestation programs in Taiwan.