Abstract: A method for solving linear and non-linear Goursat
problem is given by using the two-dimensional differential transform
method. The approximate solution of this problem is calculated in
the form of a series with easily computable terms and also the exact
solutions can be achieved by the known forms of the series solutions.
The method can easily be applied to many linear and non-linear
problems and is capable of reducing the size of computational work.
Several examples are given to demonstrate the reliability and the
performance of the presented method.
Abstract: Data mining is an extraordinarily demanding field referring to extraction of implicit knowledge and relationships, which are not explicitly stored in databases. A wide variety of methods of data mining have been introduced (classification, characterization, generalization...). Each one of these methods includes more than algorithm. A system of data mining implies different user categories,, which mean that the user-s behavior must be a component of the system. The problem at this level is to know which algorithm of which method to employ for an exploratory end, which one for a decisional end, and how can they collaborate and communicate. Agent paradigm presents a new way of conception and realizing of data mining system. The purpose is to combine different algorithms of data mining to prepare elements for decision-makers, benefiting from the possibilities offered by the multi-agent systems. In this paper the agent framework for data mining is introduced, and its overall architecture and functionality are presented. The validation is made on spatial data. Principal results will be presented.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel method for data hiding based on neighborhood pixels information to calculate the number of bits that can be used for substitution and modified Least Significant Bits technique for data embedding. The modified solution is independent of the nature of the data to be hidden and gives correct results along with un-noticeable image degradation. The technique, to find the number of bits that can be used for data hiding, uses the green component of the image as it is less sensitive to human eye and thus it is totally impossible for human eye to predict whether the image is encrypted or not. The application further encrypts the data using a custom designed algorithm before embedding bits into image for further security. The overall process consists of three main modules namely embedding, encryption and extraction cm.
Abstract: A high performance thin layer chromatography
system (HPTLC) for the separation of vitamin B2 and B12 has been
developed. The separation was successfully using a solvent system of
methanol, water, ammonia 7.3.1 (V/V) as mobile phase on HPTLC
plates impregnated with boric acid. The effect of other mobile phases
on the separation of vitamins was also examined. The method is
based on different behavior of investigated compounds in
impregnated TLC plates with different amount of boric acid. The Rf
values of vitamin B2 and B12 are considered on non impregnated
and impregnated silica gel HPTLC plate with boric acid. The effect
of boric acid in the mobile phase and on HPTLC plates on the RF
values of the vitamins has also been studied.
Abstract: Model Predictive Control has been previously applied
to supply chain problems with promising results; however hitherto
proposed systems possessed no information on future demand. A
forecasting methodology will surely promote the efficiency of
control actions by providing insight on the future. A complete supply
chain management framework that is based on Model Predictive
Control (MPC) and Time Series Forecasting will be presented in this
paper. The proposed framework will be tested on industrial data in
order to assess the efficiency of the method and the impact of
forecast accuracy on overall control performance of the supply chain.
To this end, forecasting methodologies with different characteristics
will be implemented on test data to generate forecasts that will serve
as input to the Model Predictive Control module.
Abstract: The appearance management behavior of tanning by gay men is examined through the lens of Impression Formation. The study proposes that body image, self-esteem, and internalized homophobia are connected and affect the motives for engaging in sun, salon, and cosmetic tanning. Motives examined were: to look masculine, to look attractive to (potential) partners, to look attractive in general, to socialize, to meet a peer standard, and for personal satisfaction. Using regression analysis to examine data of 103 gay men who engage in at least one method of tanning, results reveal that components of body image and internalized homophobia–but not self-esteem–are linked to various motives and methods of tanning. These findings support and extend the literature of Impression Formation Theory and provide practitioners in the health and healthrelated fields new avenues to pursue when dealing with diseases related to tanning.
Abstract: This paper proposes a method to vibration analysis in
order to on-line monitoring and predictive maintenance during the
milling process. Adapting envelope method to diagnostics and the
analysis for milling tool materials is an important contribution to the
qualitative and quantitative characterization of milling capacity and a
step by modeling the three-dimensional cutting process. An
experimental protocol was designed and developed for the
acquisition, processing and analyzing three-dimensional signal. The
vibration envelope analysis is proposed to detect the cutting capacity
of the tool with the optimization application of cutting parameters.
The research is focused on Hilbert transform optimization to evaluate
the dynamic behavior of the machine/ tool/workpiece.
Abstract: Object: Review recent publications of patient safety
culture to investigate the relationship between leadership behavior,
safety culture, and safety performance in the healthcare industry.
Method: This study is a cross-sectional study, 350 questionnaires were
mailed to hospital workers with 195 valid responses obtained, and a
55.7% valid response rate. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was
carried out to test the factor structure and determine if the composite
reliability was significant with a factor loading of >0.5, resulting in an
acceptable model fit. Results: Through the analysis of One-way
ANOVA, the results showed that physicians significantly have more
negative patient safety culture perceptions and safety performance
perceptions than non- physicians. Conclusions: The path analysis
results show that leadership behavior affects safety culture and safety
performance in the health care industry. Safety performance was
affected and improved with contingency leadership and a positive
patient safety organization culture. The study suggests improving
safety performance by providing a well-managed system that
includes: consideration of leadership, hospital worker training
courses, and a solid safety reporting system.
Abstract: Today the social marketing was constituted as a tool
of significant value in what he refers to the promotion of changes of
behaviors, attitudes end practices. With the objective of analyzing the
benefits that the social marketing can bring for the organizations that
use it the research was of the exploratory and descriptive. In the
present study the comparative method was used, through a qualitative
approach, to analyze the activities developed by three institutions:
the Recovery Center Rosa de Saron, the House of Recovery for
addicts and Teen Challenge Institute Children's Cancer of the
Wasteland (ICIA), kindred of pointing out the benefits of the social
marketing in organizations that don-t seek the profit.
Abstract: In this study, an analysis has been performed for
heat and mass transfer of a steady laminar boundary-layer flow
of a viscous flow past a nonlinearly stretching sheet.
Parameters n, Ec, k0, Sc represent the dominance of the
nonlinearly effect, viscous effect, radiation effect and mass
transfer effect which have presented in governing equations,
respectively. The similarity transformation and the
finite-difference method have been used to analyze the present
problem.
Abstract: Photonic Crystal (PhC) based devices are being
increasingly used in multifunctional, compact devices in integrated
optical communication systems. They provide excellent
controllability of light, yet maintaining the small size required for
miniaturization. In this paper, the band gap properties of PhCs and
their typical applications in optical waveguiding are considered.
Novel PhC based applications such as nonlinear switching and
tapers are considered and simulation results are shown using the
accurate time-domain numerical method based on Finite Difference
Time Domain (FDTD) scheme. The suitability of these devices for
novel applications is discussed and evaluated.
Abstract: This research investigates risk factors for defective products in autoparts factories. Under a Bayesian framework, a generalized linear mixed model (GLMM) in which the dependent variable, the number of defective products, has a Poisson distribution is adopted. Its performance is compared with the Poisson GLM under a Bayesian framework. The factors considered are production process, machines, and workers. The products coded RT50 are observed. The study found that the Poisson GLMM is more appropriate than the Poisson GLM. For the production Process factor, the highest risk of producing defective products is Process 1, for the Machine factor, the highest risk is Machine 5, and for the Worker factor, the highest risk is Worker 6.
Abstract: Water pollution assessment problems arise frequently
in environmental science. In this research, a finite difference method
for solving the one-dimensional steady convection-diffusion equation
with variable coefficients is proposed; it is then used to optimize
water treatment costs.
Abstract: Intelligence tests are series of tasks designed to measure the capacity to make abstractions, to learn, and to deal with novel situations. Testing of the visual abilities of the shape understanding system (SUS) is performed based on the visual intelligence tests. In this paper the progressive matrices tests are formulated as tasks given to SUS. These tests require good visual problem solving abilities of the human subject. SUS solves these tests by performing complex visual reasoning transforming the visual forms (tests) into the string forms. The experiment proved that the proposed method, which is part of the SUS visual understanding abilities, can solve a test that is very difficult for human subject.
Abstract: Borate minerals have attracted considerable attention in the past years due to their structural chemistry and mechanical properties in several industries. Recently, increasing attention has been paid to the use of; synthetically produced magnesium borates as catalysts reinforcing material for plastics, the conversion of hydrocarbons, electro-conductive treating agent, anti-wear and anti-corrosion materials. Magnesium borates can be synthesized by several methods such as; hydrothermal and solid-state (thermal) processes. In this study the hydrothermal production method was applied at the modest temperature of 80C along with convenient crystal growth. Using MgCl2.6H2O, H3BO3, and NaOH as starting materials, 30, 60, 120, 240 minutes of reaction times were studied. After all, the crystal structure and the morphology of the products were examined by X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). As a result the forms of Admontite and Mcallisterite minerals were synthesized.
Abstract: This paper presents an improved variable ordering method to obtain the minimum number of nodes in Reduced Ordered Binary Decision Diagrams (ROBDD). The proposed method uses the graph topology to find the best variable ordering. Therefore the input Boolean function is converted to a unidirectional graph. Three levels of graph parameters are used to increase the probability of having a good variable ordering. The initial level uses the total number of nodes (NN) in all the paths, the total number of paths (NP) and the maximum number of nodes among all paths (MNNAP). The second and third levels use two extra parameters: The shortest path among two variables (SP) and the sum of shortest path from one variable to all the other variables (SSP). A permutation of the graph parameters is performed at each level for each variable order and the number of nodes is recorded. Experimental results are promising; the proposed method is found to be more effective in finding the variable ordering for the majority of benchmark circuits.
Abstract: Stress analysis of functionally graded composite plates
composed of ceramic, functionally graded material and metal layers is
investigated using 3-D finite element method. In FGM layer, material
properties are assumed to be varied continuously in the thickness
direction according to a simple power law distribution in terms of the
volume fraction of a ceramic and metal. The 3-D finite element model
is adopted by using an 18-node solid element to analyze more
accurately the variation of material properties in the thickness
direction. Numerical results are compared for three types of materials.
In the analysis, the tensile and the compressive stresses are
summarized for various FGM thickness ratios, volume fraction
distributions, geometric parameters and mechanical loads.
Abstract: In this paper, Zinc Oxide (ZnO) thin films are deposited on glass substrate by sol-gel method. The ZnO thin films with well defined orientation were acquired by spin coating of zinc acetate dehydrate monoethanolamine (MEA), de-ionized water and isopropanol alcohol. These films were pre-heated at 275°C for 10 min and then annealed at 350°C, 450°C and 550°C for 80 min. The effect of annealing temperature and different thickness on structure and surface morphology of the thin films were verified by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). It was found that there was a significant effect of annealing temperature on the structural parameters of the films such as roughness exponent, fractal dimension and interface width. Thin films also were characterizied by X-ray Diffractometery (XRD) method. XRD analysis revealed that the annealed ZnO thin films consist of single phase ZnO with wurtzite structure and show the c-axis grain orientation. Increasing annealing temperature increased the crystallite size and the c-axis orientation of the film after 450°C. Also In this study, ZnO thin films in different thickness have been prepared by sol-gel method on the glass substrate at room temperature. The thicknesses of films are 100, 150 and 250 nm. Using fractal analysis, morphological characteristics of surface films thickness in amorphous state were investigated. The results show that with increasing thickness, surface roughness (RMS) and lateral correlation length (ξ) are decreased. Also, the roughness exponent (α) and growth exponent (β) were determined to be 0.74±0.02 and 0.11±0.02, respectively.
Abstract: The advantage of solving the complex nonlinear
problems by utilizing fuzzy logic methodologies is that the
experience or expert-s knowledge described as a fuzzy rule base can
be directly embedded into the systems for dealing with the problems.
The current limitation of appropriate and automated designing of
fuzzy controllers are focused in this paper. The structure discovery
and parameter adjustment of the Branched T-S fuzzy model is
addressed by a hybrid technique of type constrained sparse tree
algorithms. The simulation result for different system model is
evaluated and the identification error is observed to be minimum.
Abstract: The Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) applied to
Arabic language is a challenging task. This is mainly related to the
language specificities which make the researchers facing multiple
difficulties such as the insufficient linguistic resources and the very
limited number of available transcribed Arabic speech corpora. In
this paper, we are interested in the development of a HMM-based
ASR system for Standard Arabic (SA) language. Our fundamental
research goal is to select the most appropriate acoustic parameters
describing each audio frame, acoustic models and speech recognition
unit. To achieve this purpose, we analyze the effect of varying frame
windowing (size and period), acoustic parameter number resulting
from features extraction methods traditionally used in ASR, speech
recognition unit, Gaussian number per HMM state and number of
embedded re-estimations of the Baum-Welch Algorithm. To evaluate
the proposed ASR system, a multi-speaker SA connected-digits
corpus is collected, transcribed and used throughout all experiments.
A further evaluation is conducted on a speaker-independent continue
SA speech corpus. The phonemes recognition rate is 94.02% which is
relatively high when comparing it with another ASR system
evaluated on the same corpus.