Abstract: In the present study, the incorporation of graphene
into blends of acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene terpolymer with
polypropylene (ABS/PP) was investigated focusing on the
improvement of their thermomechanical characteristics and the effect
on their rheological behavior. The blends were prepared by melt
mixing in a twin-screw extruder and were characterized by measuring
the MFI as well as by performing DSC, TGA and mechanical tests.
The addition of graphene to ABS/PP blends tends to increase their
melt viscosity, due to the confinement of polymer chains motion.
Also, graphene causes an increment of the crystallization temperature
(Tc), especially in blends with higher PP content, because of the
reduction of surface energy of PP nucleation, which is a consequence
of the attachment of PP chains to the surface of graphene through the
intermolecular CH-π interaction. Moreover, the above nanofiller
improves the thermal stability of PP and increases the residue of
thermal degradation at all the investigated compositions of blends,
due to the thermal isolation effect and the mass transport barrier
effect. Regarding the mechanical properties, the addition of graphene
improves the elastic modulus, because of its intrinsic mechanical
characteristics and its rigidity, and this effect is particularly strong in
the case of pure PP.
Abstract: In this report we present a rule-based approach to
detect anomalous telephone calls. The method described here uses
subscriber usage CDR (call detail record) data sampled over two
observation periods: study period and test period. The study period
contains call records of customers- non-anomalous behaviour.
Customers are first grouped according to their similar usage
behaviour (like, average number of local calls per week, etc). For
customers in each group, we develop a probabilistic model to describe
their usage. Next, we use maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) to
estimate the parameters of the calling behaviour. Then we determine
thresholds by calculating acceptable change within a group. MLE is
used on the data in the test period to estimate the parameters of the
calling behaviour. These parameters are compared against thresholds.
Any deviation beyond the threshold is used to raise an alarm. This
method has the advantage of identifying local anomalies as compared
to techniques which identify global anomalies. The method is tested
for 90 days of study data and 10 days of test data of telecom
customers. For medium to large deviations in the data in test window,
the method is able to identify 90% of anomalous usage with less than
1% false alarm rate.
Abstract: This paper presents an integrated model that
automatically measures the change of rivers, damage area of bridge
surroundings, and change of vegetation. The proposed model is on the
basis of a neurofuzzy mechanism enhanced by SOM optimization
algorithm, and also includes three functions to deal with river imagery.
High resolution imagery from FORMOSAT-2 satellite taken before
and after the invasion period is adopted. By randomly selecting a
bridge out of 129 destroyed bridges, the recognition results show that
the average width has increased 66%. The ruined segment of the
bridge is located exactly at the most scour region. The vegetation
coverage has also reduced to nearly 90% of the original. The results
yielded from the proposed model demonstrate a pinpoint accuracy rate
at 99.94%. This study brings up a successful tool not only for
large-scale damage assessment but for precise measurement to
disasters.
Abstract: The interaction of tunneling or mining with
groundwater has become a very relevant problem not only due to the
need to guarantee the safety of workers and to assure the efficiency of
the tunnel drainage systems, but also to safeguard water resources
from impoverishment and pollution risk. Therefore it is very
important to forecast the drainage processes (i.e., the evaluation of
drained discharge and drawdown caused by the excavation). The aim
of this study was to know better the system and to quantify the flow
drained from the Fontane mines, located in Val Germanasca (Turin,
Italy). This allowed to understand the hydrogeological local changes
in time. The work has therefore been structured as follows: the
reconstruction of the conceptual model with the geological,
hydrogeological and geological-structural study; the calculation of
the tunnel inflows (through the use of structural methods) and the
comparison with the measured flow rates; the water balance at the
basin scale. In this way it was possible to understand what are the
relationships between rainfall, groundwater level variations and the
effect of the presence of tunnels as a means of draining water.
Subsequently, it the effects produced by the excavation of the mining
tunnels was quantified, through numerical modeling. In particular,
the modeling made it possible to observe the drawdown variation as a
function of number, excavation depth and different mines linings.
Abstract: This paper presents an experimental investigation on
the machinability of laser-sintered material using small ball end mill focusing on wear mechanisms. Laser-sintered material was produced
by irradiating a laser beam on a layer of loose fine SCM-Ni-Cu powder. Bulk carbon steel JIS S55C was selected as a reference steel.
The effects of powder consolidation mechanisms and unsintered
powder on the tool life and wear mechanisms were carried out. Results indicated that tool life in cutting laser-sintered material is
lower than that in cutting JIS S55C. Adhesion of the work material and chipping were the main wear mechanisms of the ball end mill in
cutting laser-sintered material. Cutting with the unsintered powder
surrounding the tool and laser-sintered material had caused major fracture on the cutting edge.
Abstract: This research aimed to modify pineapple leaf paper
(PALP) for using as wet media in the evaporation cooling system by
improving wet mechanical property (tensile strength) without
compromising water absorption property. Polyamideamineepichorohydrin
resin (PAE) and carboxymethylcellulose (CMC)
were used to strengthen the paper, and the PAE and CMC ratio of
80:20 showed the optimum wet and dry tensile index values, which
were higher than those of the commercial cooling pad (CCP).
Compared with CCP, PALP itself and all the PAE/CMC modified
PALP possessed better water absorption. The PAE/CMC modified
PALP had potential to become a new type of wet media.
Abstract: Human genome is not only the evolutionary
summation of all advantageous events, but also houses lesions of
deleterious foot prints. A single gene mutation sometimes may
express multiple consequences in numerous tissues and a linear
relationship of the genotype and the phenotype may often be obscure.
ß Thalassemia minor, a transfusion independent mild anaemia,
coupled with environment among other factors may articulate into
phenotypic pleotropy with Hypocholesterolemia, Vitamin D
deficiency, Tissue hypoxia, Hyper-parathyroidism and Psychological
alterations. Occurrence of Pancreatic insufficiency, resultant
steatorrhoea, Vitamin-D (25-OH) deficiency (13.86 ngm/ml) with
Hypocholesterolemia (85mg/dl) in a 30 years old male ß Thal-minor
patient (Hemoglobin 11mg/dl with Fetal Hemoglobin 2.10%, Hb A2
4.60% and Hb Adult 84.80% and altered Hemogram) with increased
Para thyroid hormone (62 pg/ml) & moderate Serum Ca+2
(9.5mg/ml) indicate towards a cascade of phenotypic pleotropy
where the ß Thalassemia mutation ,be it in the 5’ cap site of the
mRNA , differential splicing etc in heterozygous state is effecting
several metabolic pathways. Compensatory extramedulary
hematopoiesis may not coped up well with the stressful life style of
the young individual and increased erythropoietic stress with high
demand for cholesterol for RBC membrane synthesis may have
resulted in Hypocholesterolemia.Oxidative stress and tissue hypoxia
may have caused the pancreatic insufficiency, leading to Vitamin D
deficiency. This may in turn have caused the secondary
hyperparathyroidism to sustain serum Calcium level. Irritability and
stress intolerance of the patient was a cumulative effect of the vicious
cycle of metabolic compromises. From these findings we propose
that the metabolic deficiencies in the ß Thalassemia mutations may
be considered as the phenotypic display of the pleotropy to explain
the genetic epidemiology.
According to the recommendations from the NIH Workshop on
Gene-Environment Interplay in Common Complex Diseases: Forging
an Integrative Model, study design of observations should be
informed by gene-environment hypotheses and results of a study
(genetic diseases) should be published to inform future hypotheses.
Variety of approaches is needed to capture data on all possible
aspects, each of which is likely to contribute to the etiology of
disease. Speakers also agreed that there is a need for development of
new statistical methods and measurement tools to appraise
information that may be missed out by conventional method where
large sample size is needed to segregate considerable effect.
A meta analytic cohort study in future may bring about significant
insight on to the title comment.
Abstract: This paper aims to study decomposition behavior in
pyrolytic environment of four lignocellulosic biomass (oil palm shell,
oil palm frond, rice husk and paddy straw), and two commercial
components of biomass (pure cellulose and lignin), performed in a
thermogravimetry analyzer (TGA). The unit which consists of a
microbalance and a furnace flowed with 100 cc (STP) min-1 Nitrogen,
N2 as inert. Heating rate was set at 20⁰C min-1 and temperature
started from 50 to 900⁰C. Hydrogen gas production during the
pyrolysis was observed using Agilent Gas Chromatography Analyzer
7890A. Oil palm shell, oil palm frond, paddy straw and rice husk
were found to be reactive enough in a pyrolytic environment of up to
900°C since pyrolysis of these biomass starts at temperature as low as
200°C and maximum value of weight loss is achieved at about
500°C. Since there was not much different in the cellulose,
hemicelluloses and lignin fractions between oil palm shell, oil palm
frond, paddy straw and rice husk, the T-50 and R-50 values obtained
are almost similar. H2 productions started rapidly at this temperature
as well due to the decompositions of biomass inside the TGA.
Biomass with more lignin content such as oil palm shell was found to
have longer duration of H2 production compared to materials of high
cellulose and hemicelluloses contents.
Abstract: In the upstream we place a piece of ring and rotate
it with 83Hz, 166Hz, 333Hz,and 666H to find the effect of the
periodic distortion.In the experiment this type of the perturbation
will not allow since the mechanical failure of any parts of the
equipment in the upstream will destroy the blade system. This type of
study will be only possible by CFD. We use two pumps NS32
(ENSAM) and three blades pump (Tamagawa Univ). The benchmark
computations were performed without perturbation parts, and confirm
the computational results well agreement in head-flow rate. We
obtained the pressure fluctuation growth rate that is representing the
global instability of the turbo-system. The fluctuating torque
components were 0.01Nm(5000rpm), 0.1Nm(10000rmp),
0.04Nm(20000rmp), 0.15Nm( 40000rmp) respectively. Only for
10000rpm(166Hz) the output toque was random, and it implies that it
creates unsteady flow by separations on the blades, and will reduce the
pressure loss significantly
Abstract: Leave of absence is important in maintaining a good
status of human resource quality. Allowing the employees temporarily
free from the routine assignments can vitalize the workers- morality
and productivity. This is particularly critical to secure a satisfactory
service quality for healthcare professionals of which were typically
featured with labor intensive and complicated works to perform. As
one of the veteran hospitals that were found and operated by the
Veteran Department of Taiwan, the nursing staff of the case hospital
was squeezed to an extreme minimum level under the pressure of a
tight budgeting. Leave of absence on schedule became extremely
difficult, especially for the intensive care units (ICU), in which
required close monitoring over the cared patients, and that had more
easily driven the ICU nurses nervous. Even worse, the deferred leaves
were more than 10 days at any time in the ICU because of a fluctuating
occupancy. As a result, these had brought a bad setback to this
particular nursing team, and consequently defeated the job
performance and service quality. To solve this problem and
accordingly to strengthen their morality, a project team was organized
across different departments specific for this. Sufficient information
regarding jobs and positions requirements, labor resources, and actual
working hours in detail were collected and analyzed in the team
meetings. Several alternatives were finalized. These included job
rotating, job combination, leave on impromptu and cross-departmental
redeployment. Consequently, the deferred leave days sharply reduced
70% to a level of 3 or less days. This improvement had not only
provided good shelter for the ICU nurses that improved their job
performance and patient safety but also encouraged the nurses active
participating of a project and learned the skills of solving problems
with colleagues.
Abstract: In wireless communication system, a Decision Feedback Equalizer (DFE) to cancel the intersymbol interference (ISI) is required. In this paper, an exact convergence analysis of the (DFE) adapted by the Least Mean Square (LMS) algorithm during the training phase is derived by taking into account the finite alphabet context of data transmission. This allows us to determine the shortest training sequence that allows to reach a given Mean Square Error (MSE). With the intention of avoiding the problem of ill-convergence, the paper proposes an initialization strategy for the blind decision directed (DD) algorithm. This then yields a semi-blind DFE with high speed and good convergence.
Abstract: This paper presents the prediction of kidney
dysfunction using different neural network (NN) approaches. Self
organization Maps (SOM), Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) and
Multi Layer Perceptron Neural Network (MLPNN) trained with Back
Propagation Algorithm (BPA) are used in this study. Six hundred and
sixty three sets of analytical laboratory tests have been collected from
one of the private clinical laboratories in Baghdad. For each subject,
Serum urea and Serum creatinin levels have been analyzed and tested
by using clinical laboratory measurements. The collected urea and
cretinine levels are then used as inputs to the three NN models in
which the training process is done by different neural approaches.
SOM which is a class of unsupervised network whereas PNN and
BPNN are considered as class of supervised networks. These
networks are used as a classifier to predict whether kidney is normal
or it will have a dysfunction. The accuracy of prediction, sensitivity
and specificity were found for each type of the proposed networks
.We conclude that PNN gives faster and more accurate prediction of
kidney dysfunction and it works as promising tool for predicting of
routine kidney dysfunction from the clinical laboratory data.
Abstract: A company CSR commitment, as stated in its Social
Report is, actually, perceived by its stakeholders?And in what
measure? Moreover, are stakeholders satisfied with the company
CSR efforts? Indeed, business returns from Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) practices, such as company reputation and
customer loyalty, depend heavily on how stakeholders perceive the
company social conduct. In this paper, we propose a methodology to
assess a company CSR commitment based on Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI) indicators, Content Analysis and a CSR positioning
matrix. We evaluate three aspects of CSR: the company commitment
disclosed through its Social Report; the company commitment
perceived by its stakeholders; the CSR commitment that stakeholders
require to the company. The positioning of the company under study
in the CSR matrix is based on the comparison among the three
commitment aspects (disclosed, perceived, required) and it allows
assessment and development of CSR strategies.
Abstract: the data quality is a kind of complex and unstructured concept, which is concerned by information systems managers. The reason of this attention is the high amount of Expenses for maintenance and cleaning of the inefficient data. Such a data more than its expenses of lack of quality, cause wrong statistics, analysis and decisions in organizations. Therefor the managers intend to improve the quality of their information systems' data. One of the basic subjects of quality improvement is the evaluation of the amount of it. In this paper, we present a precautionary method, which with its application the data of information systems would have a better quality. Our method would cover different dimensions of data quality; therefor it has necessary integrity. The presented method has tested on three dimensions of accuracy, value-added and believability and the results confirm the improvement and integrity of this method.
Abstract: A different concept for designing and detailing of
reinforced concrete precast frame structures is analyzed in this paper.
The new detailing of the joints derives from the special hybrid
moment frame joints. The special reinforcements of this alternative
detailing, named modified special hybrid joint, are bondless with
respect to both column and beams. Full scale tests were performed on
a plan model, which represents a part of 5 story structure, cropped in
the middle of the beams and columns spans. Theoretical approach
was developed, based on testing results on twice repaired model,
subjected to lateral seismic type loading. Discussion regarding the
modified special hybrid joint behavior and further on widening
research needed concludes the presentation.
Abstract: Color image segmentation can be considered as a
cluster procedure in feature space. k-means and its adaptive
version, i.e. competitive learning approach are powerful tools
for data clustering. But k-means and competitive learning suffer
from several drawbacks such as dead-unit problem and need to
pre-specify number of cluster. In this paper, we will explore to
use competitive and cooperative learning approach to perform
color image segmentation. In competitive and cooperative
learning approach, seed points not only compete each other, but
also the winner will dynamically select several nearest
competitors to form a cooperative team to adapt to the input
together, finally it can automatically select the correct number
of cluster and avoid the dead-units problem. Experimental
results show that CCL can obtain better segmentation result.
Abstract: Solution to unsteady Navier-Stokes equation by Splitting method in physical orthogonal algebraic curvilinear coordinate system, also termed 'Non-linear grid system' is presented. The linear terms in Navier-Stokes equation are solved by Crank- Nicholson method while the non-linear term is solved by the second order Adams-Bashforth method. This work is meant to bring together the advantage of Splitting method as pressure-velocity solver of higher efficiency with the advantage of consuming Non-linear grid system which produce more accurate results in relatively equal number of grid points as compared to Cartesian grid. The validation of Splitting method as a solution of Navier-Stokes equation in Nonlinear grid system is done by comparison with the benchmark results for lid driven cavity flow by Ghia and some case studies including Backward Facing Step Flow Problem.
Abstract: Recently, malware attacks have become more serious
over the Internet by e-mail, denial of service (DoS) or distributed
denial of service (DDoS). The Botnets have become a significant part
of the Internet malware attacks. The traditional botnets include three
parts – botmaster, command and control (C&C) servers and bots. The
C&C servers receive commands from botmaster and control the
distributions of computers remotely. Bots use DNS to find the
positions of C&C server. In this paper, we propose an advanced hybrid
peer-to-peer (P2P) botnet 2.0 (AHP2P botnet 2.0) using web 2.0
technology to hide the instructions from botmaster into social sites,
which are regarded as C&C servers. Servent bots are regarded as
sub-C&C servers to get the instructions from social sites. The AHP2P
botnet 2.0 can evaluate the performance of servent bots, reduce DNS
traffics from bots to C&C servers, and achieve harder detection bots
actions than IRC-based botnets over the Internet.
Abstract: In this paper, a new recursive strategy is proposed for determining $\frac{(n-1)!}{2}$ of $n$th order diagrams. The generalization of $n$th diagram for cross multiplication method were proposed by Pavlovic and Bankier but the specific rule of determining $\frac{(n-1)!}{2}$ of the $n$th order diagrams for square matrix is yet to be discovered. Thus using combinatorial approach, $\frac{(n-1)!}{2}$ of the $n$th order diagrams will be presented as $\frac{(n-1)!}{2}$ starter sets. These starter sets will be generated based on exchanging one element. The advantages of this new strategy are the discarding process was eliminated and the sign of starter set is alternated to each others.
Abstract: Through a proper analysis of residual strain and stress
distributions obtained at the surface of high speed milled specimens
of AA 6082–T6 aluminium alloy, the performance of an improved
indentation method is evaluated. This method integrates a special
device of indentation to a universal measuring machine. The
mentioned device allows introducing elongated indents allowing to
diminish the absolute error of measurement. It must be noted that the
present method offers the great advantage of avoiding both the
specific equipment and highly qualified personnel, and their inherent
high costs. In this work, the cutting tool geometry and high speed
parameters are selected to introduce reduced plastic damage.
Through the variation of the depth of cut, the stability of the shapes
adopted by the residual strain and stress distributions is evaluated.
The results show that the strain and stress distributions remain
unchanged, compressive and small. Moreover, these distributions
reveal a similar asymmetry when the gradients corresponding to
conventional and climb cutting zones are compared.