Abstract: This paper presents a spectroscopic study on doping
of Vanadyl pathalocyanine (VOPc) by [6,6]-phenyl C61 butyric acid
methyl ester (PCBM). The films are characterized by UV/Vis/NIR
spectroscopy. A drastic increase in the absorption coefficient has
been observed with increasing dopant concentration. Optical
properties of VOPc:PCBM films deposited by spin coating technique
were studied in detail. Optical band gap decreased with the PCBM
incorporation in the VOPc film. Optical band gap calculated from the
absorption spectra decreased from 3.32 eV to 3.26 eV with a
variation of 0–75 % of PCBM concentration in the VOPC films.
Abstract: The paper presents a modelling methodology for
small scale multi-source renewable energy systems. Using historical
site-specific weather data, the relationships of cost, availability and
energy form are visualised as a function of the sizing of photovoltaic
arrays, wind turbines, and battery capacity. The specific dependency
of each site on its own particular weather patterns show that unique
solutions exist for each site. It is shown that in certain cases the
capital component cost can be halved if the desired theoretical
demand availability is reduced from 100% to 99%.
Abstract: The study on the tree growth for four species groups of commercial timber in Koh Kong province, Cambodia-s tropical rainforest is described. The simulation for these four groups had been successfully developed in the 5-year interval through year-60. Data were obtained from twenty permanent sample plots in the duration of thirteen years. The aim for this study was to develop stand table simulation system of tree growth by the species group. There were five steps involved in the development of the tree growth simulation: aggregate the tree species into meaningful groups by using cluster analysis; allocate the trees in the diameter classes by the species group; observe the diameter movement of the species group. The diameter growth rate, mortality rate and recruitment rate were calculated by using some mathematical formula. Simulation equation had been created by combining those parameters. Result showed the dissimilarity of the diameter growth among species groups.
Abstract: Campus sustainability is the goal of a university striving for sustainable development. This study found that of 17 popular approaches, two comprehensive campus sustainability assessment frameworks were developed in the context of Sustainability in Higher Education (SHE), and used by many university campuses around the world. Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating Systems (STARS) and the Campus Sustainability Assessment Framework (CSAF) approaches are more comprehensive than others. Therefore, the researchers examined aspects and elements used by CSAF and STARS in the approach to develop a campus sustainability assessment framework for Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Documents analysis found that CSAF and STARS do not focus on physical development, especially the construction industry, as key elements of campus sustainability assessment. This finding is in accordance with the Sustainable UKM Programme which consists of three main components of sustainable community, ecosystem and physical development.
Abstract: Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) algorithm is a relatively new swarm intelligence technique for clustering. It produces higher
quality clusters compared to other population-based algorithms but with poor energy efficiency, cluster quality consistency and typically slower in convergence speed. Inspired by energy saving foraging behavior of natural honey bees this paper presents a Quality and Quantity Aware Artificial Bee Colony (Q2ABC) algorithm to improve quality of cluster identification, energy efficiency and convergence speed of the original ABC. To evaluate the performance of Q2ABC algorithm, experiments were conducted on a suite of ten benchmark UCI datasets. The results demonstrate Q2ABC outperformed ABC and K-means algorithm in the quality of clusters delivered.
Abstract: Avoiding learning failures in mathematics e-learning environments caused by emotional problems in students with autism has become an important topic for combining of special education with information and communications technology. This study presents an adaptive emotional adjustment model in mathematics e-learning for students with autism, emphasizing the lack of emotional perception in mathematics e-learning systems. In addition, an emotion classification for students with autism was developed by inducing emotions in mathematical learning environments to record changes in the physiological signals and facial expressions of students. Using these methods, 58 emotional features were obtained. These features were then processed using one-way ANOVA and information gain (IG). After reducing the feature dimension, methods of support vector machines (SVM), k-nearest neighbors (KNN), and classification and regression trees (CART) were used to classify four emotional categories: baseline, happy, angry, and anxious. After testing and comparisons, in a situation without feature selection, the accuracy rate of the SVM classification can reach as high as 79.3-%. After using IG to reduce the feature dimension, with only 28 features remaining, SVM still has a classification accuracy of 78.2-%. The results of this research could enhance the effectiveness of eLearning in special education.
Abstract: In this research work, poly (acrylonitrile-butadienestyrene)/
polypropylene (ABS/PP) blends were processed by melt
compounding in a twin-screw extruder. Upgrading of the thermal
characteristics of the obtained materials was attempted by the
incorporation of organically modified montmorillonite (OMMT), as
well as, by the addition of two types of compatibilizers;
polypropylene grafted with maleic anhydride (PP-g-MAH) and ABS
grafted with maleic anhydride (ABS-g-MAH). The effect of the
above treatments was investigated separately and in combination.
Increasing the PP content in ABS matrix seems to increase the
thermal stability of their blend and the glass transition temperature
(Tg) of SAN phase of ABS. From the other part, the addition of ABS
to PP promotes the formation of its β-phase, which is maximum at 30
wt% ABS concentration, and increases the crystallization temperature
(Tc) of PP. In addition, it increases the crystallization rate of PP.The
β-phase of PP in ABS/PP blends is reduced by the addition of
compatibilizers or/and organoclay reinforcement. The incorporation
of compatibilizers increases the thermal stability of PP and reduces
its melting (ΔΗm) and crystallization (ΔΗc) enthalpies. Furthermore it
decreases slightly the Tgs of PP and SAN phases of ABS/PP blends.
Regarding the storage modulus of the ABS/PP blends, it presents a
change in their behavior at about 10°C and return to their initial
behavior at ~110°C. The incorporation of OMMT to no compatibilized
and compatibilized ABS/PP blends enhances their storage modulus.
Abstract: Robustness is one of the primary performance criteria for an Intelligent Video Surveillance (IVS) system. One of the key factors in enhancing the robustness of dynamic video analysis is,providing accurate and reliable means for shadow detection. If left undetected, shadow pixels may result in incorrect object tracking and classification, as it tends to distort localization and measurement information. Most of the algorithms proposed in literature are computationally expensive; some to the extent of equalling computational requirement of motion detection. In this paper, the homogeneity property of shadows is explored in a novel way for shadow detection. An adaptive division image (which highlights homogeneity property of shadows) analysis followed by a relatively simpler projection histogram analysis for penumbra suppression is the key novelty in our approach.
Abstract: This work aims to describe the process of developing
services and applications of seamless communication within a
Telecom Italia long-term research project, which takes as central aim
the design of a wearable communication device. In particular, the
objective was to design a wrist phone integrated into everyday life of
people in full transparency. The methodology used to design the
wristwatch was developed through several subsequent steps also
involving the Personas Layering Framework. The data collected in
this phases have been very useful for designing an improved version
of the first two concepts of wrist phone going to change aspects
related to the four critical points expressed by the users.
Abstract: With China's urbanization continuing to accelerate, a amount of rural people flood into China's cities in recent years, and the issue of agriculture, rural areas and farmers is getting more and more serious. In 2005, the Chinese government put forward a plan for “the construction of new rural village", in order to coordinate the development of both urban and rural areas. The planning method of rural region differs sharply from that of urban areas, as same as village social structure and habits of farmer-s life, so the studies which can consider the special needs of village construction in China are absolutely essential. This paper expresses explore current situation and problems existing in the construction of China-s new rural village, such as bigger gap between urban and rural areas, excessive new construction projects, extinct traditional village style and so on. It tries to analyze the deep reason of the present situation of the village from law system, industrial structure, financial sources and planning method. Then it also provides a guide for developing policies and procedures promoting the development of china-s rural areas.
Abstract: The advances in multimedia and networking technologies
have created opportunities for Internet pirates, who can easily
copy multimedia contents and illegally distribute them on the Internet,
thus violating the legal rights of content owners. This paper describes
how a simple and well-known watermarking procedure based on a
spread spectrum method and a watermark recovery by correlation can
be improved to effectively and adaptively protect MPEG-2 videos
distributed on the Internet. In fact, the procedure, in its simplest
form, is vulnerable to a variety of attacks. However, its security
and robustness have been increased, and its behavior has been
made adaptive with respect to the video terminals used to open
the videos and the network transactions carried out to deliver them
to buyers. In fact, such an adaptive behavior enables the proposed
procedure to efficiently embed watermarks, and this characteristic
makes the procedure well suited to be exploited in web contexts,
where watermarks usually generated from fingerprinting codes have
to be inserted into the distributed videos “on the fly", i.e. during the
purchase web transactions.
Abstract: Annotation of a protein sequence is pivotal for the understanding of its function. Accuracy of manual annotation provided by curators is still questionable by having lesser evidence strength and yet a hard task and time consuming. A number of computational methods including tools have been developed to tackle this challenging task. However, they require high-cost hardware, are difficult to be setup by the bioscientists, or depend on time intensive and blind sequence similarity search like Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. This paper introduces a new method of assigning highly correlated Gene Ontology terms of annotated protein sequences to partially annotated or newly discovered protein sequences. This method is fully based on Gene Ontology data and annotations. Two problems had been identified to achieve this method. The first problem relates to splitting the single monolithic Gene Ontology RDF/XML file into a set of smaller files that can be easy to assess and process. Thus, these files can be enriched with protein sequences and Inferred from Electronic Annotation evidence associations. The second problem involves searching for a set of semantically similar Gene Ontology terms to a given query. The details of macro and micro problems involved and their solutions including objective of this study are described. This paper also describes the protein sequence annotation and the Gene Ontology. The methodology of this study and Gene Ontology based protein sequence annotation tool namely extended UTMGO is presented. Furthermore, its basic version which is a Gene Ontology browser that is based on semantic similarity search is also introduced.
Abstract: Considering complexity of products, new geometrical
design and investment tolerances that are necessary, measuring and
dimensional controlling involve modern and more precise methods.
Photo digitizing method using two cameras to record pictures and
utilization of conventional method named “cloud points" and data
analysis by the use of ATOUS software, is known as modern and
efficient in mentioned context. In this paper, benefits of photo
digitizing method in evaluating sampling of machining processes
have been put forward. For example, assessment of geometrical
integrity surface in 5-axis milling process and measurement of
carbide tool wear in turning process, can be can be brought forward.
Advantages of this method comparing to conventional methods have
been expressed.
Abstract: Walking as a type of non-motorized transportation has
various social, economical and environmental privileges. Also, today
different aspects of sustainable development have been emphasized
and promotion of sustainable transportation modes has been
considered according to this approach. Therefore, the objective of
this research is exploring the circumstance of relationship between
walking and sustainable urban transportation.For writing this article,
the most important resources related to the traits of walking have
been surveyed via a documentary method and after explaining the
concept of sustainable transportation and its indicators, benefiting
from the viewpoints of transportation experts of Tehran, as the capital
and greatest city of Iran, different modes of urban transportation have
been compared in proportion to each criterion and to each other and
have been analyzed according to AHP method. The results of this
study indicate that walking is the most sustainable mode of inner city
transportation.
Abstract: An active suspension system has been proposed to
improve the ride comfort. A quarter-car 2 degree-of-freedom (DOF)
system is designed and constructed on the basis of the concept of a
four-wheel independent suspension to simulate the actions of an
active vehicle suspension system. The purpose of a suspension
system is to support the vehicle body and increase ride comfort. The
aim of the work described in the paper was to illustrate the
application of fuzzy logic technique to the control of a continuously
damping automotive suspension system. The ride comfort is
improved by means of the reduction of the body acceleration caused
by the car body when road disturbances from smooth road and real
road roughness.
The paper describes also the model and controller used in the
study and discusses the vehicle response results obtained from a
range of road input simulations. In the conclusion, a comparison of
active suspension fuzzy control and Proportional Integration
derivative (PID) control is shown using MATLAB simulations.
Abstract: In this paper by using the port-controlled Hamiltonian
(PCH) systems theory, a full-order nonlinear controlled model is first
developed. Then a nonlinear passivity-based robust adaptive control
(PBRAC) of switched reluctance motor in the presence of external
disturbances for the purpose of torque ripple reduction and
characteristic improvement is presented. The proposed controller
design is separated into the inner loop and the outer loop controller.
In the inner loop, passivity-based control is employed by using
energy shaping techniques to produce the proper switching function.
The outer loop control is employed by robust adaptive controller to
determine the appropriate Torque command. It can also overcome the
inherent nonlinear characteristics of the system and make the whole
system robust to uncertainties and bounded disturbances. A 4KW 8/6
SRM with experimental characteristics that takes magnetic saturation
into account is modeled, simulation results show that the proposed
scheme has good performance and practical application prospects.
Abstract: This paper presents an improvement method of
the multiple pitch estimation algorithm using comb filters.
Conventionally the pitch was estimated by using parallel
-connected comb filters method (PCF). However, PCF has
problems which often fail in the pitch estimation when there is
the fundamental frequency of higher tone near harmonics of
lower tone. Therefore the estimation is assigned to a wrong
note when shared frequencies happen. This issue often occurs
in estimating octave 3 or more. Proposed method, for solving
the problem, estimates the pitch with every harmonic instead of
every octave. As a result, our method reaches the accuracy of
more than 80%.
Abstract: The objective of this research seeks to transmit a distance training model to the community in the upper northeastern region. The group sampling consists of 60 community leaders in the municipality of sub-district Kumphawapi, Kumphawapi Disrict, Udonthani Province. The research tools rely on the following instruments, they are : 1) the achievement test of community leaders- training and 2) the satisfaction questionnaires of community leaders. The statistics used in data analysis takes the statistical mean, percentage, standard deviation, and statistical T-test. The resulted findings reveal : 1) the efficiency of the distance training developed by the researcher for the community leaders joining in the training received the average score between in-training and post-training period higher than the setup criterion, 2) the two groups of participants in the training achieved higher knowledge than their pre-training state, 3) the comparison of the achievements between the two group presented no different results, 4) the community leaders obtained the high-to-highest satisfaction.
Abstract: The recent growth of using multimedia transmission
over wireless communication systems, have challenges to protect the
data from lost due to wireless channel effect. Images are corrupted
due to the noise and fading when transmitted over wireless channel,
in wireless channel the image is transmitted block by block, Due to
severe fading, entire image blocks can be damaged. The aim of this
paper comes out from need to enhance the digital images at the
wireless receiver side. Proposed Boundary Interpolation (BI)
Algorithm using wavelet, have been adapted here used to
reconstruction the lost block in the image at the receiver depend on
the correlation between the lost block and its neighbors. New
Proposed technique by using Boundary Interpolation (BI) Algorithm
using wavelet with Pixel interleaver has been implemented. Pixel
interleaver work on distribute the pixel to new pixel position of
original image before transmitting the image. The block lost through
wireless channel is only effects individual pixel. The lost pixels at the
receiver side can be recovered by using Boundary Interpolation (BI)
Algorithm using wavelet. The results showed that the New proposed
algorithm boundary interpolation (BI) using wavelet with pixel
interleaver is better in term of MSE and PSNR.
Abstract: The objectives of this study are to determine the
effects of soil cover type on characteristics of leachates generated
from landfill lysimeters. Four lysimeters with diameter and height
of 0.15 and 3.00 m, respectively, were prepared. Three lysimeters
were filled with municipal waste and three different cover soil types
i.e. sandy loam soil, silty loam soil and clay soil while another
lysimeter was filled solely with municipal waste. The study was
conducted in the rainy season. Leachate quantities were measured
every day and leachate characteristics were determined once a week.
The cumulative leachate quantity from the lysimeter filled solely
with municipal waste was found to be around 27% higher than the
lysimeters using cover soils. There were no any differences of the
cumulative leachate amounts generated from the lysimeters using
three types of soils. The comparison of the total mass of pollutants
generated from all lysimeters showed that the lysimeter filled solely
with municipal waste generated the maximum quantities of
pollutants. Among the lysimeters using different types of soils, the
lysimeter using sandy loam soil generated the lowest amount of most
of pollutants, compared with the lysimeters using silty loam and clay
soils. It can be concluded that in term of pollutant attenuation in the
leachate, a sandy loam is the most suitable soil to be used as a cover
soil in the landfill.