Abstract: It is known that the heart interacts with and adapts to
its venous and arterial loading conditions. Various experimental
studies and modeling approaches have been developed to investigate
the underlying mechanisms. This paper presents a model of the left
ventricle derived based on nonlinear stress-length myocardial
characteristics integrated over truncated ellipsoidal geometry, and
second-order dynamic mechanism for the excitation-contraction
coupling system. The results of the model presented here describe the
effects of the viscoelastic damping element of the electromechanical
coupling system on the hemodynamic response. Different heart rates
are considered to study the pacing effects on the performance of the
left-ventricle against constant preload and afterload conditions under
various damping conditions. The results indicate that the pacing
process of the left ventricle has to take into account, among other
things, the viscoelastic damping conditions of the myofilament
excitation-contraction process.
Abstract: Building intelligent traffic guide systems has been an
interesting subject recently. A good system should be able to observe
all important visual information to be able to analyze the context of
the scene. To do so, signs in general, and traffic signs in particular,
are usually taken into account as they contain rich information to
these systems. Therefore, many researchers have put an effort on
sign recognition field. Sign localization or sign detection is the most
important step in the sign recognition process. This step filters out
non informative area in the scene, and locates candidates in later
steps. In this paper, we apply a new approach in detecting sign
locations using a new color invariant model. Experiments are carried
out with different datasets introduced in other works where authors
claimed the difficulty in detecting signs under unfavorable imaging
conditions. Our method is simple, fast and most importantly it gives
a high detection rate in locating signs.
Abstract: Electrical Discharge Machine (EDM) is especially
used for the manufacturing of 3-D complex geometry and hard
material parts that are extremely difficult-to-machine by conventional
machining processes. In this paper authors review the research work
carried out in the development of die-sinking EDM within the past
decades for the improvement of machining characteristics such as
Material Removal Rate, Surface Roughness and Tool Wear Ratio. In
this review various techniques reported by EDM researchers for
improving the machining characteristics have been categorized as
process parameters optimization, multi spark technique, powder
mixed EDM, servo control system and pulse discriminating. At the
end, flexible machine controller is suggested for Die Sinking EDM to
enhance the machining characteristics and to achieve high-level
automation. Thus, die sinking EDM can be integrated with Computer
Integrated Manufacturing environment as a need of agile
manufacturing systems.
Abstract: This paper applies fuzzy set theory to evaluate the
service quality of online auction. Service quality is a composition of
various criteria. Among them many intangible attributes are difficult
to measure. This characteristic introduces the obstacles for respondent
in replying to the survey. So as to overcome this problem, we
invite fuzzy set theory into the measurement of performance. By
using AHP in obtaining criteria and TOPSIS in ranking, we found
the most concerned dimension of service quality is Transaction
Safety Mechanism and the least is Charge Item. Regarding to the
most concerned attributes are information security, accuracy and
information.
Abstract: In quality control of freeze-dried durian, crispiness is
a key quality index of the product. Generally, crispy testing has to be
done by a destructive method. A nondestructive testing of the
crispiness is required because the samples can be reused for other
kinds of testing. This paper proposed a crispiness classification
method of freeze-dried durians using fuzzy logic for decision
making. The physical changes of a freeze-dried durian include the
pores appearing in the images. Three physical features including (1)
the diameters of pores, (2) the ratio of the pore area and the
remaining area, and (3) the distribution of the pores are considered to
contribute to the crispiness. The fuzzy logic is applied for making the
decision. The experimental results comparing with food expert
opinion showed that the accuracy of the proposed classification
method is 83.33 percent.
Abstract: Data mining is the process of sifting through large
volumes of data, analyzing data from different perspectives and
summarizing it into useful information. One of the widely used
desktop applications for data mining is the Weka tool which is
nothing but a collection of machine learning algorithms implemented
in Java and open sourced under the General Public License (GPL). A
web service is a software system designed to support interoperable
machine to machine interaction over a network using SOAP
messages. Unlike a desktop application, a web service is easy to
upgrade, deliver and access and does not occupy any memory on the
system. Keeping in mind the advantages of a web service over a
desktop application, in this paper we are demonstrating how this Java
based desktop data mining application can be implemented as a web
service to support data mining across the internet.
Abstract: Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the
overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project
on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for
any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting
objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision
support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather
than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will
select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the
problem in project scheduling notated as
(1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The
problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto
optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project
(curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish
activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different
possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and
each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is
constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because
the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is
developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted
to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project
with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed
method.
Abstract: In the Top Right Access point Minimum Length Corridor (TRA-MLC) problem [1], a rectangular boundary partitioned into rectilinear polygons is given and the problem is to find a corridor of least total length and it must include the top right corner of the outer rectangular boundary. A corridor is a tree containing a set of line segments lying along the outer rectangular boundary and/or on the boundary of the rectilinear polygons. The corridor must contain at least one point from the boundaries of the outer rectangle and also the rectilinear polygons. Gutierrez and Gonzalez [1] proved that the MLC problem, along with some of its restricted versions and variants, are NP-complete. In this paper, we give a shorter proof of NP-Completeness of TRA-MLC by findig the reduction in the following way.
Abstract: Superplastic deformation and high temperature load
relaxation behavior of coarse-grained iron aluminides with the
composition of Fe-28 at.% Al have been investigated. A series of load
relaxation and tensile tests were conducted at temperatures ranging
from 600 to 850oC. The flow curves obtained from load relaxation
tests were found to have a sigmoidal shape and to exhibit stress vs.
strain rate data in a very wide strain rate range from 10-7/s to 10-2/s.
Tensile tests have been conducted at various initial strain rates ranging
from 3×10-5/s to 1×10-2/s. Maximum elongation of ~500 % was
obtained at the initial strain rate of 3×10-5/s and the maximum strain
rate sensitivity was found to be 0.68 at 850oC in binary Fe-28Al alloy.
Microstructure observation through the optical microscopy (OM) and
the electron back-scattered diffraction (EBSD) technique has been
carried out on the deformed specimens and it has revealed the
evidences for grain boundary migration and grain refinement to occur
during superplastic deformation, suggesting the dynamic
recrystallization mechanism. The addition of Cr by the amount of 5
at.% appeared to deteriorate the superplasticity of the binary iron
aluminide. By applying the internal variable theory of structural
superplasticity, the addition of Cr has been revealed to lower the
contribution of the frictional resistance to dislocation glide during high
temperature deformation of the Fe3Al alloy.
Abstract: Self-directed learning (SDL) was developed initially
for adult learning. Guglielmino constructed a scale to measure SDL.
Recent researchers have applied this concept to children. Although
there are sufficient theoretical evidences to present the possibility of
applying this concept to children, empirical evidences were not
provided. This study aimed to examine the quality of SDL and
construct a scale to measure SDL among young children. A modified
scale of Guglielmino-s scale was constructed and piloted with 183
subjects of age 9. Findings suggest that the qualities of SDL in young
ages are apparently congruent with that of adults.
Abstract: The study was designed to develop a measurement of
the positive emotion regulation questionnaire (PERQ) that assesses
positive emotion regulation strategies through self-report. The 14
items developed for the surveying instrument of the study were based
upon literatures regarding elements of positive regulation strategies.
319 elementary students (age ranging from 12 to14) were recruited
among three public elementary schools to survey on their use of
positive emotion regulation strategies. Of 319 subjects, 20 invalid
questionnaire s yielded a response rate of 92%. The data collected
wasanalyzed through methods such as item analysis, factor analysis,
and structural equation models. In reference to the results from item
analysis, the formal survey instrument was reduced to 11 items. A
principal axis factor analysis with varimax was performed on
responses, resulting in a 2-factor equation (savoring strategy and
neutralizing strategy), which accounted for 55.5% of the total
variance. Then, the two-factor structure of scale was also identified by
structural equation models. Finally, the reliability coefficients of the
two factors were Cronbach-s α .92 and .74. Gender difference was
only found in savoring strategy. In conclusion, the positive emotion
regulation strategies questionnaire offers a brief, internally consistent,
and valid self-report measure for understanding the emotional
regulation strategies of children that may be useful to researchers and
applied professionals.
Abstract: with increasing circuits- complexity and demand to
use portable devices, power consumption is one of the most
important parameters these days. Full adders are the basic block of
many circuits. Therefore reducing power consumption in full adders
is very important in low power circuits. One of the most powerconsuming
modules in full adders is XOR/XNOR circuit. This paper
presents two new full adders based on two new logic approaches. The
proposed logic approaches use one XOR or XNOR gate to implement
a full adder cell. Therefore, delay and power will be decreased. Using
two new approaches and two XOR and XNOR gates, two new full
adders have been implemented in this paper. Simulations are carried
out by HSPICE in 0.18μm bulk technology with 1.8V supply voltage.
The results show that the ten-transistors proposed full adder has 12%
less power consumption and is 5% faster in comparison to MB12T
full adder. 9T is more efficient in area and is 24% better than similar
10T full adder in term of power consumption. The main drawback of
the proposed circuits is output threshold loss problem.
Abstract: Distance education program is a dimension of contemporary and new education technologies. Concepts and applications in this field are the results of a series of educational demands and developments in various communication and education technologies. Distance education applications have some conceptual bases. These are creating new education opportunities, realizing work-education unity, getting democratic in education, lifelong education, tendency to individual matters, effective use of institutions, integration of technology and education, tendency to individual and social needs, taking three dimensional integration as the main principle (publishing, printed materials and face to face education), reaching maximum mass, individual and mass education integrity and education demand and financial matters balance. Economics, Business Administration and Open Education faculties, which have been giving education within Anadolu University since 1982 in Turkey, are carrying on education with nearly 1.000.000 students. The aim of this study is to determine organizational commitment levels of students who have been studying at Anadolu University Economics, Business Administration and Open Education faculties in the scope of affective, continuance and nominative commitment in Allen&Meyer model. In the study, organizational commitment of the Economics, Business Administration and Open Education faculty students, who are receiving education by means of distance education, to their faculties is dealt after introducing Anadolu University Distance Education system which gives higher education via distance education method in Turkey. In order to increase the success level of faculties it is required for students to have high level of organizational commitment to their faculties. A questionnaire has been applied by using “Organizational Commitment Scale", developed by Meyer&Allen to determine organizational commitments of Economics, Business Administration and Open Education students. Organizational commitment is dealt with as affective, continuance and nominative commitment. The questionnaire was applied face to face to randomly chosen 500 students living in Eskişehir and the data was downloaded to the computer by using SPSS program and the results were analyzed in terms of demographic features (gender, age, marital status, years of study, work and income level) of students by using frequency test, ttest and ANOVA test. As a result of these analyses, when the comments of Open Education Faculty students on levels of affective, continuance and nominative commitment to their faculties were examined, it has been revealed that continuance commitment level has the highest rate. Among the female participants; continuance commitment is high in the age range of 30-40, for normative commitment it is 17-22. However no dominant age range was defined for affective commitment. Regarding the marital status; continuance commitment average is higher among married participants; but nominative affective commitment average is higher among single participants. As to the years of study, affective and continuance commitment is higher among senior students while normative commitment is higher among junior students. Moreover; in terms of continuance, affective and normative commitment, those who do not work and have low income have higher level of all there commitment types than those who work and have relatively high income.
Abstract: The practical implementation of audio-video coupled speech recognition systems is mainly limited by the hardware complexity to integrate two radically different information capturing devices with good temporal synchronisation. In this paper, we propose a solution based on a smart CMOS image sensor in order to simplify the hardware integration difficulties. By using on-chip image processing, this smart sensor can calculate in real time the X/Y projections of the captured image. This on-chip projection reduces considerably the volume of the output data. This data-volume reduction permits a transmission of the condensed visual information via the same audio channel by using a stereophonic input available on most of the standard computation devices such as PC, PDA and mobile phones. A prototype called VMIKE (Visio-Microphone) has been designed and realised by using standard 0.35um CMOS technology. A preliminary experiment gives encouraged results. Its efficiency will be further investigated in a large variety of applications such as biometrics, speech recognition in noisy environments, and vocal control for military or disabled persons, etc.
Abstract: In this work, we consider the rational points on elliptic
curves over finite fields Fp. We give results concerning the number
of points Np,a on the elliptic curve y2 ≡ x3 +a3(mod p) according
to whether a and x are quadratic residues or non-residues. We use
two lemmas to prove the main results first of which gives the list of
primes for which -1 is a quadratic residue, and the second is a result
from [1]. We get the results in the case where p is a prime congruent
to 5 modulo 6, while when p is a prime congruent to 1 modulo 6,
there seems to be no regularity for Np,a.
Abstract: This paper presents a new feature based dense stereo
matching algorithm to obtain the dense disparity map via dynamic
programming. After extraction of some proper features, we use some
matching constraints such as epipolar line, disparity limit, ordering
and limit of directional derivative of disparity as well. Also, a coarseto-
fine multiresolution strategy is used to decrease the search space
and therefore increase the accuracy and processing speed. The
proposed method links the detected feature points into the chains and
compares some of the feature points from different chains, to
increase the matching speed. We also employ color stereo matching
to increase the accuracy of the algorithm. Then after feature
matching, we use the dynamic programming to obtain the dense
disparity map. It differs from the classical DP methods in the stereo
vision, since it employs sparse disparity map obtained from the
feature based matching stage. The DP is also performed further on a
scan line, between any matched two feature points on that scan line.
Thus our algorithm is truly an optimization method. Our algorithm
offers a good trade off in terms of accuracy and computational
efficiency. Regarding the results of our experiments, the proposed
algorithm increases the accuracy from 20 to 70%, and reduces the
running time of the algorithm almost 70%.
Abstract: Intelligent technologies are increasingly facilitating
sustainable water management strategies in Australia. While this
innovation can present clear cost benefits to utilities through
immediate leak detection and deference of capital costs, the impact of
this technology on households is less distinct. By offering real-time
engagement and detailed end-use consumption breakdowns, there is
significant potential for demand reduction as a behavioural response
to increased information. Despite this potential, passive
implementation without well-planned residential engagement
strategies is likely to result in a lost opportunity. This paper begins
this research process by exploring the effect of smart water meters
through the lens of three behaviour change theories. The Theory of
Planned Behaviour (TPB), Belief Revision theory (BR) and Practice
Theory emphasise different variables that can potentially influence
and predict household water engagements. In acknowledging the
strengths of each theory, the nuances and complexity of household
water engagement can be recognised which can contribute to
effective planning for residential smart meter engagement strategies.
Abstract: In this research three methods of Maximum Likelihood, Mahalanobis Distance and Minimum Distance were analyzed in the Western part of Isfahan province in the Iran country. For this purpose, the IRS satellite images and various land preparation uses in region including rangelands, irrigation farming, dry farming, gardens and urban areas were separated and identified. In these methods, matrix error and Kappa index were calculated and accuracy of each method, based on percentages: 53.13, 56.64 and 48.44, were obtained respectively. Considering the low accuracy of these methods to separate land uses due to spread of the land uses, it-s suggested the visual interpretation of the map, to preparing the land use map in this region. The map prepared by visual interpretation is in high accuracy if it will be accompany with the visit of the region.
Abstract: In the other to Study of drought stress and Selenium
spraying effect on superoxide dismotase (SOD) activity of rapeseed
(Brassica napus L.) cultivars in Shahr-e-Rey region, an experiment
carried out in Split factorial design in the basis of randomized
complete blocks with 4 replications in 2006. Irrigation in two levels:
Normal irrigation and irrigation with drought stress when the soil
electrical conductivity reached to 60 as main factor and rapeseed
cultivars in 3 levels Zarfam, Okapi, Opera and selenium spraying at
the beginning of flowering stage in 3 levels: 0, 16 and 21 g/ha as sub
factor.
The results showed that the simple and interaction effect of
irrigation, selenium and cultivars on SOD activity had significant
difference. In this case Zarfam cultivar with 2010 u.mg-1 protein and
Opera with 1454 u.mg-1 protein produced maximum and minimum
amounts of SOD activitiy. Interaction effect of irrigation and variety
showed that, normal irrigation in Opera with 1115 u.mg-1 protein
and drought stress in Zarfam with 2784 u.mg-1 protein conducted to
and minimum and maximum amounts of SOD activity.
Interaction effect of irrigation, cultivar and selenium on SOD
indicated that drought stress condition and 21 gr/ha selenium
spraying in Zarfam variety with 3146 u.mg-1 protein gained to
highest activities of SOD.
Abstract: In the power quality analysis non-stationary nature
of voltage distortions require some precise and powerful analytical
techniques. The time-frequency representation (TFR) provides a
powerful method for identification of the non-stationary of the
signals. This paper investigates a comparative study on two
techniques for analysis and visualization of voltage distortions with
time-varying amplitudes. The techniques include the Discrete
Wavelet Transform (DWT), and the S-Transform. Several power
quality problems are analyzed using both the discrete wavelet
transform and S–transform, showing clearly the advantage of the S–
transform in detecting, localizing, and classifying the power quality
problems.