Abstract: The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of adding coal to obtain insulating ceramic product. The preparation of mixtures is achieved with 04 types of different masse compositions, consisting of gray and yellow clay, and coal. Analyses are performed on local raw materials by adding coal as additive. The coal content varies from 5 to 20 % in weight by varying the size of coal particles ranging from 0.25mm to 1.60mm.
Initially, each natural moisture content of a raw material has been determined at the temperature of 105°C in a laboratory oven. The Influence of low-coal content on absorption, the apparent density, the contraction and the resistance during compression have been evaluated. The experimental results showed that the optimized composition could be obtained by adding 10% by weight of coal leading thus to insulating ceramic products with water absorption, a density and resistance to compression of 9.40 %, 1.88 g/cm3, 35.46 MPa, respectively. The results show that coal, when mixed with traditional raw materials, offers the conditions to be used as an additive in the production of lightweight ceramic products.
Abstract: A collaboration among the Hospital S. Giovanni Battista
of Turin, the Politecnico of Turin, and the MUST company is
described. The content of the collaboration has been and is the use of
ICT-s, e-learning, and blended learning for the internal professional
education, training, and keeping up to date of the personnel of the
hospital. A platform for the delivery of the teaching materials has
been built, including an evaluation and self-evaluation tool. The first
on line courses have been developed and delivered and many more
are in preparation. The first results of the monitoring of the efficacy
of the online education have been positive.
Abstract: System MEMORI automatically detects and recognizes
rotated and/or rescaled versions of the objects of a database within
digital color images with cluttered background. This task is accomplished
by means of a region grouping algorithm guided by heuristic
rules, whose parameters concern some geometrical properties and the
recognition score of the database objects. This paper focuses on the
strategies implemented in MEMORI for the estimation of the heuristic
rule parameters. This estimation, being automatic, makes the system
a self configuring and highly user-friendly tool.
Abstract: Zinc oxide thin films with various microstructures
were grown on substrates by using HCOOH-sols. The reaction
mechanism of the sol system was investigated by performing an XPS
analysis of as-synthesized films, due to the products of hydrolysis
and condensation in the sol system contributing to the chemical state
of the as-synthesized films. The chemical structures of the assynthesized
films related to the microstructures of the final annealed
films were also studied. The results of the Zn 2p3/2, C 1s and O1s
XPS patterns indicate that the hydrolysis reaction in the sol system is
strongly influenced by the HCOOH agent. The results of XRD and
FE-SEM demonstrated the microstructures of the annealed films are
related to the content of hydrolyzed zinc hydrate (Zn-OH) species
present, and that content of the Zn-OH species in the sol system
increases the HCOOH adding, and these Zn-OH species existing in
the sol phase are responsible for large ZnO crystallites in the final
annealed films.
Abstract: Among the technologies available to reduce methane
emitted from the pig industry, biofiltration seems to be an effective
and inexpensive solution. In methane (CH4) biofiltration, nitrogen is
an important macronutrient for the microorganisms growth. The
objective of this research project was to study the effect of
ammonium (NH4
+) on the performance, the biomass production and
the nitrogen conversion of a biofilter treating methane. For NH4
+
concentrations ranging from 0.05 to 0.5 gN-NH4
+/L, the CH4 removal
efficiency and the dioxide carbon production rate decreased linearly
from 68 to 11.8 % and from 7.1 to 0.5 g/(m3-h), respectively. The dry
biomass content varied from 4.1 to 5.8 kg/(m3 filter bed). For the
same range of concentrations, the ammonium conversion decreased
while the specific nitrate production rate increased. The specific
nitrate production rate presented negative values indicating
denitrification in the biofilter.
Abstract: During the process of compaction in Hot-Mix Asphalt
(HMA) mixtures, the distance between aggregate particles decreases
as they come together and eliminate air-voids. By measuring the
inter-particle distances in a cut-section of a HMA sample the degree
of compaction can be estimated. For this, a calibration curve is
generated by computer simulation technique when the gradation and
asphalt content of the HMA mixture are known. A two-dimensional
cross section of HMA specimen was simulated using the mixture
design information (gradation, asphalt content and air-void content).
Nearest neighbor distance methods such as Delaunay triangulation
were used to study the changes in inter-particle distance and area
distribution during the process of compaction in HMA. Such
computer simulations would enable making several hundreds of
repetitions in a short period of time without the necessity to compact
and analyze laboratory specimens in order to obtain good statistics on
the parameters defined. The distributions for the statistical
parameters based on computer simulations showed similar trends as
those of laboratory specimens.
Abstract: In Croatia, the majority of cultured marine fish species are reared in net cages. The intensive production of the fish in net cages may generate the considerable amount of bio waste and change water quality especially in enclosed and semi-enclosed coastal areas. The aim of this paper is to assess the potential impact of sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax L.) cage farm on water quality. The weak relationship between food supply and water quality parameters (nutrient content and phytoplankton biomass) was found, but significant changes in oxygen saturation was observed in the cages during the warmer period of a year especially in the morning (occasionally it dropped below 70 %). Despite of, satisfactory results of water quality parameters, it is necessary to establish comprehensive monitoring process, especially to include quality assessment of fouling communities.
Abstract: Detection of player identity is challenging task in sport video content analysis. In case of soccer video player number recognition is effective and precise solution. Jersey numbers can be considered as scene text and difficulties in localization and recognition appear due to variations in orientation, size, illumination, motion etc. This paper proposed new method for player number localization and recognition. By observing hue, saturation and value for 50 different jersey examples we noticed that most often combination of low and high saturated pixels is used to separate number and jersey region. Image segmentation method based on this observation is introduced. Then, novel method for player number localization based on internal contours is proposed. False number candidates are filtered using area and aspect ratio. Before OCR processing extracted numbers are enhanced using image smoothing and rotation normalization.
Abstract: An electrical apparatus for measuring moisture
content was developed by our laboratory and uses dependence of
electrical properties on water content in studied material. Error
analysis of the apparatus was run by measuring different volumes of
water in a simplified specimen, i.e. hollow plexiglass block, in order
to avoid as many side-effects as possible. Obtained data were
processed using both basic and advanced statistics and results were
compared with each other. The influence of water content on
accuracy of measured data was studied as well as the influence of
variation of apparatus' proper arrangement or factual methodics of its
usage. The overall coefficient of variation was 4%. There was no
trend found in results of error dependence on water content.
Comparison with current surveys led to a conclusion, that the studied
apparatus can be used for indirect measurement of water content in
porous materials, with expectable error and under known conditions.
Factual experiments with porous materials are not involved, but are
currently under investigation.
Abstract: The Principal component regression (PCR) is a
combination of principal component analysis (PCA) and multiple linear regression (MLR). The objective of this paper is to revise the
use of PCR in shortwave near infrared (SWNIR) (750-1000nm) spectral analysis. The idea of PCR was explained mathematically and
implemented in the non-destructive assessment of the soluble solid
content (SSC) of pineapple based on SWNIR spectral data. PCR achieved satisfactory results in this application with root mean
squared error of calibration (RMSEC) of 0.7611 Brix°, coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.5865 and root mean squared error of crossvalidation
(RMSECV) of 0.8323 Brix° with principal components
(PCs) of 14.
Abstract: Four different colors of cowpeas (Vigna unguiculata)
(black, white, red and black/white speckled) and red kidney bean
(Phaseolus vulgaris) were used to evaluate proximate compositions,
starch content, and pasting properties. There were no significant
differences of moisture, protein, ash, fat, and carbohydrate contents
of all bean types. The kidney bean had significantly lower amounts of
total starch and solubilized starch compared to those of other
cowpeas (p ≤ 0.05), whereas the red cowpea and red kidney bean had
highest content of resistant starch (9-10%). Decortication indicated
no significant effect on the proximate compositions of all samples,
but it significantly decreased the resistant starch content in cowpeas
and increased the solubilized starch and total starch content in all
types of cowpeas. The highest values of pasting properties, generally
observed in flours obtained from black and black/white speckled
cowpea.
Abstract: The main purpose of this research was to study how to
communicate the identity of the Amphawa district, Samut Songkram
province for sustainable tourism. The qualitative data was collected
through studying related materials, exploring the area, in-depth
interviews with three groups of people: three directly responsible
officers who were key informants of the district, twenty foreign
tourists and five Thai tourist guides. A content analysis was used to
analyze the qualitative data. The two main findings of the study were
as follows:
1. The identity of the Amphawa District, Samut Songkram
province is the area controlled by Amphawa sub district (submunicipality).
The working unit which runs and looks after
Amphawa sub district administration is known as the Amphawa
mayor. This establishment was built to be a resort for normal
people and tourists visiting the Amphawa district near the
Maekong River consisting of rest accommodations. Along the
river there is a restaurant where food and drinks are served, rich
mangrove forests, a learning center, fireflies and cork trees. The
Amphawa district was built to honor and commemorate King
Rama II and is where the greatest number of fireflies and cork
trees can be seen in Thailand from May to October each year.
2. The communication of the identity of Amphawa District, Samut
Songkram Province which the researcher could find and design
to present in English materials can be summed up in 5 items: 1)
The history of the Amphawa District, Samut Songkram province
2) The history of King Rama II Memorial Park 3) The identity of
Amphawa Floating Market 4) The Learning center of
Ecosystem: Fireflies and Cork Trees 5) How to keep Amphawa
District, Samut Songkram Province for sustainable tourism.
Abstract: The emergence of the Internet has brewed the
revolution of information storage and retrieval. As most of the
data in the web is unstructured, and contains a mix of text,
video, audio etc, there is a need to mine information to cater to
the specific needs of the users without loss of important
hidden information. Thus developing user friendly and
automated tools for providing relevant information quickly
becomes a major challenge in web mining research. Most of
the existing web mining algorithms have concentrated on
finding frequent patterns while neglecting the less frequent
ones that are likely to contain outlying data such as noise,
irrelevant and redundant data. This paper mainly focuses on
Signed approach and full word matching on the organized
domain dictionary for mining web content outliers. This
Signed approach gives the relevant web documents as well as
outlying web documents. As the dictionary is organized based
on the number of characters in a word, searching and retrieval
of documents takes less time and less space.
Abstract: The proliferation of user-generated content (UGC) results in huge opportunities to explore event patterns. However, existing event recommendation systems primarily focus on advanced information technology users. Little work has been done to address novice and low-literacy users. The next billion users providing and consuming UGC are likely to include communities from developing countries who are ready to use affordable technologies for subsistence goals. Therefore, we propose a design framework for providing event recommendations to address the needs of such users. Grounded in information integration theory (IIT), our framework advocates that effective event recommendation is supported by systems capable of (1) reliable information gathering through structured user input, (2) accurate sense making through spatial-temporal analytics, and (3) intuitive information dissemination through interactive visualization techniques. A mobile pest management application is developed as an instantiation of the design framework. Our preliminary study suggests a set of design principles for novice and low-literacy users.
Abstract: In this content analysis research note the aim was to explore to how sustainability and especially environmental issues are conveyed into environmental items in annual reports and disclosures. As The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a globally wide multistakeholder process, the enterprises using voluntarily GRI framework are considered to be aware of sustainability and environmental concerns. The findings were that although these enterprises included in an environmentally sensitive industry sector and had special capabilities to consider environmental issues there were few GRIreporting enterprises presented substantially detailed environmental items in audited financial statements. There were only slight differences between publishing years 2008 and 2009 - the beginning years of economic turmoil. The environmental issues seemed not to be considered substantial enough for financial reporting as a basis for concerning investment or voting decisions.
Abstract: In order to achieve better road utilization and traffic
efficiency, there is an urgent need for a travel information delivery
mechanism to assist the drivers in making better decisions in the
emerging intelligent transportation system applications. In this paper,
we propose a relayed multicast scheme under heterogeneous networks
for this purpose. In the proposed system, travel information consisting
of summarized traffic conditions, important events, real-time traffic
videos, and local information service contents is formed into layers
and multicasted through an integration of WiMAX infrastructure and
Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANET). By the support of adaptive
modulation and coding in WiMAX, the radio resources can be
optimally allocated when performing multicast so as to dynamically
adjust the number of data layers received by the users. In addition to
multicast supported by WiMAX, a knowledge propagation and
information relay scheme by VANET is designed. The experimental
results validate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed
scheme.
Abstract: In this paper, an ultrasonic technique is proposed to
predict oil content in a fresh palm fruit. This is accomplished by
measuring the attenuation based on ultrasonic transmission mode.
Several palm fruit samples with known oil content by Soxhlet
extraction (ISO9001:2008) were tested with our ultrasonic
measurement. Amplitude attenuation data results for all palm samples
were collected. The Feedforward Neural Networks (FNNs) are
applied to predict the oil content for the samples. The Root Mean
Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of the FNN
model for predicting oil content percentage are 7.6186 and 5.2287
with the correlation coefficient (R) of 0.9193.
Abstract: University websites are considered as one of the brand primary touch points for multiple stakeholders, but most of them did not have great designs to create favorable impressions. Some of the elements that web designers should carefully consider are the appearance, the content, the functionality, usability and search engine optimization. However, priority should be placed on website simplicity and negative space. In terms of content, previous research suggests that universities should include reputation, learning environment, graduate career prospects, image destination, cultural integration, and virtual tour on their websites. The study examines how top 200 world ranking science and technology-based universities present their brands online and whether the websites capture the content dimensions. Content analysis of the websites revealed that the top ranking universities captured these dimensions at varying degree. Besides, the UK-based university had better priority on website simplicity and negative space compared to the Malaysian-based university.
Abstract: Theexperiment was carried out with 2x5 male Merino
lambs raised under intensive conditions to investigate the effect of
dietary calcium soap of linseed oil on the color and fatty acid
composition of longissimusdorsi muscle. Control lambs fed a basal
diet and the experimental lambs consumed a diet supplemented with
3% calcium soap of linseed oil. The color values (L*, a*, b* a*/b*
and chroma) were not influenced by dietary treatment. The MUFA
proportion reduced, SFA and PUFA content did not alter. As
expected, the linolenic (C18:3 n3) and thusthe n-3 content
significantly improved by linseed supplement (0.47 and 0.81; 0.78
and 1.16 in control and in experimental samples, respectively). Other
n-3 and n-6 fatty acids had similar valuestocontrol samples. The n-
6/n-3 ratio was significantly narrower in the experimental group (6.31
vs. 9.38) but the P/S ratio did not differ betweenthe two groups.In
conclusion calcium soap of linseed oil seems to be a suitable
supplement form of n-3 fatty acids to improve the nutritive value of
lamb meat.
Abstract: In this paper we proposed comparison of four content based objective metrics with results of subjective tests from 80 video sequences. We also include two objective metrics VQM and SSIM to our comparison to serve as “reference” objective metrics because their pros and cons have already been published. Each of the video sequence was preprocessed by the region recognition algorithm and then the particular objective video quality metric were calculated i.e. mutual information, angular distance, moment of angle and normalized cross-correlation measure. The Pearson coefficient was calculated to express metrics relationship to accuracy of the model and the Spearman rank order correlation coefficient to represent the metrics relationship to monotonicity. The results show that model with the mutual information as objective metric provides best result and it is suitable for evaluating quality of video sequences.