Abstract: The present paper is a case study about exploitation of
Kheir Abad river (Khoozestan, Iran) water resources and the
problems caused by river sediments around the pumping stations.
The weak points and strong points of Boneh Basht pumping station
have been studied by experienced experts, work teams, and
consulting engineers and technical and executive solutions have been
suggested. Therefore, the suggestions of this article are based on the
performed studies and are proposed in order to evaluate the logical
solutions.
Rather complicated processes resulting from the interaction of
water flows and sediments observed at Boneh Basht pumping station
occur at other pumping stations in almost the same way. Therefore,
Boneh Basht pumping station can be selected as a sample (pilot) and
up-to-date theories and experiences can be applied to this station and
the results can be offered to other stations.
Abstract: An experiment was performed in the south of
Morocco in order to evaluate the effect of deficit irrigation by treated
wastewater on chickpea production. We applied six irrigation
treatments on a local variety of chickpea by supplying alternatively
50 or 100% of ETm in a completely randomized design.
We found a highly significant difference between treatments in
terms of biomass production. Drought stress during the vegetative
period showed highest yield with 6.5 t/ha which was more than the
yield obtained for the control (4.9 t/ha). The optimal crop stage in
which deficit irrigation can be applied is the vegetative growth stage,
as the crop has a chance to develop its root system, to be able to
cover the plant needs for water and nutrient supply during the rest of
cycle, and non stress conditions during the flowering and seed filling
stages allow the plant to optimize its photosynthesis and carbon
translocation, therefore increase its productivity.
Abstract: To coop with urbanization issues and the economic need for expansion, the city of Jakarta is planning to reclaim more land in the Jakarta Bay. However, the reclamation activities of some islands have barely started and already the developers are facing difficulties in finding sufficient quantities of sand as fill material. When addressing the problem of sand scarcity in the case of Jakarta where, an excess of waste production, an inadequate solid waste management system and a lack of dumping ground pose a major problem, it is hard not to think of the use of waste as alternative fill material. This paper analyses the possibilities of using waste in the land reclamation projects, considering the governmental, social, environmental and economic context of the city. The results identify types of waste that could be used, ways of using those types of waste and implementation conditions for the city of Jakarta.
Abstract: Despite the fact that Knowledge Sharing (KS) is very important, we found only little discussion about the reasons why people have the willingness to share knowledge at such platform even though there is no immediate benefit to the persons who contribute knowledge in it. The aim of this study is to develop an integrative understanding of the factors that support or inhibit individuals- knowledge sharing intentions in virtual communities and to find whether habit would generate people-s willingness to be involved. We apply Social Capital Theory (SCT), and we also add two dimensions for discussion: member incentive and habitual domain (HD). This research assembles the questionnaire from individuals who have experienced knowledge sharing in virtual communities, and applies survey and Structural Equation Model (SEM) to analyze the results from the questionnaires. Finally, results confirm that individuals are willing to share knowledge in virtual communities: (1) if they consider reciprocity, centrality, and have longer tenure in their field, and enjoy helping. (2) if they have the habit of sharing knowledge. This study is useful for the developers of virtual communities to insight into knowledge sharing in cyberspace.
Abstract: Nowadays the devices of night vision are widely used both for military and civil applications. The variety of night vision applications require a variety of the night vision devices designs. A web-based architecture of a software system for design assessment before producing of night vision devices is developed. The proposed architecture of the web-based system is based on the application of a mathematical model for designing of night vision devices. An algorithm with two components – for iterative design and for intelligent design is developed and integrated into system architecture. The iterative component suggests compatible modules combinations to choose from. The intelligent component provides compatible combinations of modules satisfying given user requirements to device parameters. The proposed web-based architecture of a system for design assessment of night vision devices is tested via a prototype of the system. The testing showed the applicability of both iterative and intelligent components of algorithm.
Abstract: In this study the extracts of the Iraqi herb Tribulus
terrestris (Al-Hassage or Al-Kutub) was done by using of polar and
non polar solvents, then the biological activity of these extractants
was studied in three fields, First, the antibacterial activity (in vitro)
on gram positive bacteria (Staphylococcus aureus), and gram
negative bacteria (E. coli, Proteus vulgaris, Pseudomonas
aerugiuosa, and Klebsiella), all extracts showed considerable activity
against all bacteria. Second, the effect of extracts on free serum
testosterone level in male mice (in vivo), the alcoholic, and
acetonitrilic extracts showed significant (P < 0.05) increase in free
serum testosterone level, and we found that the extracts contained
compounds with less genotoxic effects in mice germ cells. 3rd, was to
study the effect of methanolic extract of T. terrestris in diabetes
management.
Abstract: Spatial understanding and the understanding of
dynamic change in the spatial structure of molecules during a
reaction is essential for designing new molecules. Knowing the
physical processes in the reactions helps to speed up the designing
process. To support the designer with the correct representation of
the designed molecule as well as showing the dynamic behavior of
the whole reacting system is the goal of our application. Our system
shows the spatial deformation of the molecules at every time interval
by minimizing the energy level of the molecules. The position and
orientation of the molecules can be intuitively controlled by
manipulating objects of the real world using Augmented Reality
techniques. Our approach has the potential to speed up the design of
new molecules and help students to understand the chemical
processes better.
Abstract: The many feasible alternatives and conflicting
objectives make equipment selection in materials handling a
complicated task. This paper presents utilizing Monte Carlo (MC)
simulation combined with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to
evaluate and select the most appropriate Material Handling
Equipment (MHE). The proposed hybrid model was built on the base
of material handling equation to identify main and sub criteria critical
to MHE selection. The criteria illustrate the properties of the material
to be moved, characteristics of the move, and the means by which the
materials will be moved. The use of MC simulation beside the AHP
is very powerful where it allows the decision maker to represent
his/her possible preference judgments as random variables. This will
reduce the uncertainty of single point judgment at conventional AHP,
and provide more confidence in the decision problem results. A small
business pharmaceutical company is used as an example to illustrate
the development and application of the proposed model.
Abstract: The most important property of the Gene Ontology is
the terms. These control vocabularies are defined to provide
consistent descriptions of gene products that are shareable and
computationally accessible by humans, software agent, or other
machine-readable meta-data. Each term is associated with
information such as definition, synonyms, database references, amino
acid sequences, and relationships to other terms. This information has
made the Gene Ontology broadly applied in microarray and
proteomic analysis. However, the process of searching the terms is
still carried out using traditional approach which is based on keyword
matching. The weaknesses of this approach are: ignoring semantic
relationships between terms, and highly depending on a specialist to
find similar terms. Therefore, this study combines semantic similarity
measure and genetic algorithm to perform a better retrieval process
for searching semantically similar terms. The semantic similarity
measure is used to compute similitude strength between two terms.
Then, the genetic algorithm is employed to perform batch retrievals
and to handle the situation of the large search space of the Gene
Ontology graph. The computational results are presented to show the
effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Abstract: The overall service performance of I/O intensive
system depends mainly on workload on its storage system. In
heterogeneous storage environment where storage elements from
different vendors with different capacity and performance are put
together, workload should be distributed according to storage
capability. This paper addresses data placement issue in short video
sharing website. Workload contributed by a video is estimated by the
number of views and life time span of existing videos in same
category. Experiment was conducted on 42,000 video titles in six
weeks. Result showed that the proposed algorithm distributed
workload and maintained balance better than round robin and random
algorithms.
Abstract: In the upgrade process of enterprise information
systems, how to deal with and utilize those legacy systems affects the
efficiency of construction and development of the new system. We
propose an evaluation system, which comprehensively describes the
capacity of legacy information systems in five aspects. Then we
propose a practical legacy systems evaluation method. Base on the
evaluation result, we can determine the current state of legacy system
which was evaluated.
Abstract: In this paper, a new automated methodology to detect the optic disc (OD) automatically in retinal images from patients with risk of being affected by Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) and Macular Edema (ME) is presented. The detection procedure comprises two independent methodologies. On one hand, a location methodology obtains a pixel that belongs to the OD using image contrast analysis and structure filtering techniques and, on the other hand, a boundary segmentation methodology estimates a circular approximation of the OD boundary by applying mathematical morphology, edge detection techniques and the Circular Hough Transform. The methodologies were tested on a set of 1200 images composed of 229 retinographies from patients affected by DR with risk of ME, 431 with DR and no risk of ME and 540 images of healthy retinas. The location methodology obtained 98.83% success rate, whereas the OD boundary segmentation methodology obtained good circular OD boundary approximation in 94.58% of cases. The average computational time measured over the total set was 1.67 seconds for OD location and 5.78 seconds for OD boundary segmentation.
Abstract: In the present paper the extreme shear stresses with the corresponding planes are established using the freely available computer tools like the Gnuplot, Sage, R, Python and Octave. In order to support these freely available computer tools, their strong symbolical and graphical abilities are illustrated. The nature of the stationary points obtained by the Method of Lagrangian Multipliers can be determined using freely available computer symbolical tools like Sage. The characters of the stationary points can be explained in the easiest way using freely available computer graphical tools like Gnuplot, Sage, R, Python and Octave. The presented figures improve the understanding of the problem and the obtained solutions for the majority of students of civil or mechanical engineering.
Abstract: A new design approach for three-stage operational
amplifiers (op-amps) is proposed. It allows to actually implement a
symmetrical push-pull class-AB amplifier output stage for wellestablished
three-stage amplifiers using a feedforward
transconductance stage. Compared with the conventional design
practice, the proposed approach leads to a significant
improvement of the symmetry between the positive and the
negative op-amp step response, resulting in similar values of the
positive/negative settling time. The new approach proves to be very
useful in order to fully exploit the potentiality allowed by the op-amp
in terms of speed performances. Design examples in a commercial
0.35-μm CMOS prove the effectiveness of theproposed strategy.
Abstract: This paper explain about analysis and design a business directory for micro-scale businesses, small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Business Directory, if implemented will facilitate and optimize the access of SMEs to ease suppliers access to marketing. Business Directory will be equipped with the power of geocoding, so each location can be easily viewed SMEs on the map. The map will be constructed by using the functionality of a webbased Google Maps API. The information presented in the form of multimedia that can be more interesting and interactive. The method used to achieve the goal are: observation; interviews; modeling and classifying business directory for SMEs.
Abstract: The strengthening of competitive advantage combined with the transformation of business strategy is necessary for the company to succeed in the time of market changes. And in this sense the innovation activities of the firm are exactly significanting. Virtual firms are a specific form of enterprise in which we can't suppose all regularities obtaining in other forms. The aim of the paper is to evaluate factors influencing the innovation activity of virtual firm with the determination of their importance and influences on the basis of selected metrics.
Abstract: In this work we report the recent progresses that have been achieved by our group in the last half decade on the field of computational proteomics. Specifically, we discuss the application of Molecular Dynamics Simulations and Electronic Structure Calculations in drug design, in the clarification of the structural and dynamic properties of proteins and enzymes and in the understanding of the catalytic and inhibition mechanism of cancer-related enzymes. A set of examples illustrate the concepts and help to introduce the reader into this important and fast moving field.
Abstract: In this article, we consider the estimation of P[Y < X], when strength, X and stress, Y are two independent variables of Burr Type XII distribution. The MLE of the R based on one simple iterative procedure is obtained. Assuming that the common parameter is known, the maximum likelihood estimator, uniformly minimum variance unbiased estimator and Bayes estimator of P[Y < X] are discussed. The exact confidence interval of the R is also obtained. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to compare the different proposed methods.
Abstract: Hypericum perforatum L. is a member of the Hypericaceae (Guttiferae) family and commonly known as St. John’s wort. There is a growing interest in this medicinal plant because of the constituents of this genus. A number of species have been shown to possess various biological activities such as antiviral, wound healing, analgesic, hepatoprotective, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities and also have therapeutic effects on burns, bruises, swelling, anxiety and mild to moderate depression.
In this study, the aerial parts of Hypericum perforatum L. are extracted and the main and effective constituents are determined. The analysis of the extracts was performed by GC-MS and LC-MS. As a next step, it is aimed to investigate the usage of the main constituents of the medicinal plant.
Abstract: In the context of introduction of deregulatory policy measures and subsequent wave of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in Indian corporate sector since 1991, the present paper attempts to examine the welfare implications of this wave. It is found that M&A do not have any significant impact on consumers- welfare. Instead, consumers- welfare is significantly influenced by exports intensity, imports intensity, advertising intensity, technology related efforts, and past profitability of the firms. While the industries with higher exports orientation or greater product differentiation or better financial performance experience greater loss in consumers- welfare, it is less in the industries with greater competition from imports or better technology. Hence, the wave of M&A in Indian manufacturing sector in the post-liberalization era may not be a matter of serious concern from consumers- welfare point of view. Instead, in many cases, M&A can help the firms in consolidating their business and enhancing competitiveness, and this may benefit the consumers in the form of greater efficiency and lower prices.