Abstract: The objective of this research was to investigate the efficiency of the light emitting diode (LED) tube in various color lights used to lure the adult coconut hispine beetle. The research was conducted by setting the forward bias on LED tubes, and the next step was to test luminous efficacy and quantity of electricity used to power each LED tube in different color lights. Finally, the researcher examined the efficiency of each color-light LED tube to lure the adult coconut hispine beetle.
The results showed that the ultraviolet LED tubes had the most capacity to allure the adult coconut hispine beetles with the percentage of 82.92, followed by the blue LED tubes with the percentage of 59.76. Whereas the yellow, pink, red and warm white LED tubes had no influence to the adult coconut hispine beetles.
Abstract: In this contribution a newly developed elearning environment is presented, which incorporates Intelligent Agents and Computational Intelligence Techniques. The new e-learning environment is constituted by three parts, the E-learning platform Front-End, the Student Questioner Reasoning and the Student Model Agent. These parts are distributed geographically in dispersed computer servers, with main focus on the design and development of these subsystems through the use of new and emerging technologies. These parts are interconnected in an interoperable way, using web services for the integration of the subsystems, in order to enhance the user modelling procedure and achieve the goals of the learning process.
Abstract: This study proposes a materials procurement contracts
model to which the zero-cost collar option is applied for heading price
fluctuation risks in construction.The material contract model based on
the collar option that consists of the call option striking zone of the
construction company(the buyer) following the materials price
increase andthe put option striking zone of the material vendor(the
supplier) following a materials price decrease. This study first
determined the call option strike price Xc of the construction company
by a simple approach: it uses the predicted profit at the project starting
point and then determines the strike price of put option Xp that has an
identical option value, which completes the zero-cost material
contract.The analysis results indicate that the cost saving of the
construction company increased as Xc decreased. This was because the
critical level of the steel materials price increasewas set at a low level.
However, as Xc decreased, Xpof a put option that had an identical
option value gradually increased. Cost saving increased as Xc
decreased. However, as Xp gradually increased, the risk of loss from a
construction company increased as the steel materials price decreased.
Meanwhile, cost saving did not occur for the construction company,
because of volatility. This result originated in the zero-cost features of
the two-way contract of the collar option. In the case of the regular
one-way option, the transaction cost had to be subtracted from the cost
saving. The transaction cost originated from an option value that
fluctuated with the volatility. That is, the cost saving of the one-way
option was affected by the volatility. Meanwhile, even though the
collar option with zero transaction cost cut the connection between
volatility and cost saving, there was a risk of exercising the put option.
Abstract: In this paper, a new approach for target recognition based on the Empirical mode decomposition (EMD) algorithm of Huang etal. [11] and the energy tracking operator of Teager [13]-[14] is introduced. The conjunction of these two methods is called Teager-Huang analysis. This approach is well suited for nonstationary signals analysis. The impulse response (IR) of target is first band pass filtered into subsignals (components) called Intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) with well defined Instantaneous frequency (IF) and Instantaneous amplitude (IA). Each IMF is a zero-mean AM-FM component. In second step, the energy of each IMF is tracked using the Teager energy operator (TEO). IF and IA, useful to describe the time-varying characteristics of the signal, are estimated using the Energy separation algorithm (ESA) algorithm of Maragos et al .[16]-[17]. In third step, a set of features such as skewness and kurtosis are extracted from the IF, IA and IMF energy functions. The Teager-Huang analysis is tested on set of synthetic IRs of Sonar targets with different physical characteristics (density, velocity, shape,? ). PCA is first applied to features to discriminate between manufactured and natural targets. The manufactured patterns are classified into spheres and cylinders. One hundred percent of correct recognition is achieved with twenty three echoes where sixteen IRs, used for training, are free noise and seven IRs, used for testing phase, are corrupted with white Gaussian noise.
Abstract: This study examines the issue of recommendation
sources from the perspectives of gender and consumers- perceived
risk, and validates a model for the antecedents of consumer online
purchases. The method of obtaining quantitative data was that of the
instrument of a survey questionnaire. Data were collected via
questionnaires from 396 undergraduate students aged 18-24, and a
multiple regression analysis was conducted to identify causal
relationships. Empirical findings established the link between
recommendation sources (word-of-mouth, advertising, and
recommendation systems) and the likelihood of making online
purchases and demonstrated the role of gender and perceived risk as
moderators in this context. The results showed that the effects of
word-of-mouth on online purchase intentions were stronger than those
of advertising and recommendation systems. In addition, female
consumers have less experience with online purchases, so they may be
more likely than males to refer to recommendations during the
decision-making process. The findings of the study will help
marketers to address the recommendation factor which influences
consumers- intention to purchase and to improve firm performances to
meet consumer needs.
Abstract: The study of interaction among the grain, moisture,
and the surrounding space (air) is key to understanding the graindrying
process. In Iran, rice (mostly Indica type) is dried by flat
bed type dryer until the final MC reaches to 6 to 8%. The
experiments were conducted to examine the effect of application of
discharge fan with different heights of paddy on the drying
efficiency. Experiments were designed based on two different
configurations of the drying methods; with and without discharge
fan with three different heights of paddy including; 5, 10, and 15
cm. The humid heated air will be going out immediately by the
suction of discharge fan. The drying time is established upon the
average final MC to achieve about 8%. To save energy and reduce
the drying time, the distribution of temperature between layers
should be fast and uniform with minimum difference; otherwise
the difference of MC gradient between layers will be high and will
induce grain breakage. The difference of final MC between layers
in the two methods was 48-73%. The steady state of temperature
between the two methods has saved time in the range of 10-20%,
and the efficiency of temperature distribution increased 17-26% by
the use of discharge fan.
Abstract: In the past many uneconomic solutions for limitation
and interruption of short-circuit currents in low power applications
have been introduced, especially polymer switch based on the
positive temperature coefficient of resistance (PCTR) concept.
However there are many limitations in the active material, which
consists of conductive fillers. This paper presents a significantly
improved and simplified approach that replaces the existing current
limiters with faster switching elements. Its elegance lies in the
remarkable simplicity and low-cost processes of producing the device
using polyaniline (PANI) doped with methane-sulfonic acid (MSA).
Samples characterized as lying in the metallic and critical regimes of
metal insulator transition have been studied by means of electrical
performance in the voltage range from 1V to 5 V under different
environmental conditions. Moisture presence is shown to increase the
resistivity and also improved its current limiting performance.
Additionally, the device has also been studied for electrical resistivity
in the temperature range 77 K-300 K. The temperature dependence of
the electrical conductivity gives evidence for a transport mechanism
based on variable range hopping in three dimensions.
Abstract: This paper applies fuzzy AHP 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 respondents
on reply in the survey. So as to overcome this problem, we invite
fuzzy set theory into the measurement of performance and use AHP in
obtaining criteria. We found the most concerned dimension of service
quality is Transaction Safety Mechanism and the least is Charge Item.
Other criteria such as information security, accuracy and information
are too vital.
Abstract: The CMLP building was developed to be a model for
sustainability with strategies to reduce water, energy and pollution,
and to provide a healthy environment for the building occupants. The
aim of this paper is to investigate the environmental effects of energy
used by this building. A LCA (life cycle analysis) was led to measure
the real environmental effects produced by the use of energy. The
impact categories most affected by the energy use were found to be
the human health effects, as well as ecotoxicity. Natural gas
extraction, uranium milling for nuclear energy production, and the
blasting for mining and infrastructure construction are the processes
contributing the most to emissions in the human health effect. Data
comparing LCA results of CMLP building with a conventional
building results showed that energy used by the CMLP building has
less damage for the environment and human health than a
conventional building.
Abstract: Modular multiplication is the basic operation
in most public key cryptosystems, such as RSA, DSA, ECC,
and DH key exchange. Unfortunately, very large operands
(in order of 1024 or 2048 bits) must be used to provide
sufficient security strength. The use of such big numbers
dramatically slows down the whole cipher system, especially
when running on embedded processors.
So far, customized hardware accelerators - developed on
FPGAs or ASICs - were the best choice for accelerating
modular multiplication in embedded environments. On the
other hand, many algorithms have been developed to speed
up such operations. Examples are the Montgomery modular
multiplication and the interleaved modular multiplication
algorithms. Combining both customized hardware with
an efficient algorithm is expected to provide a much faster
cipher system.
This paper introduces an enhanced architecture for computing
the modular multiplication of two large numbers X
and Y modulo a given modulus M. The proposed design is
compared with three previous architectures depending on
carry save adders and look up tables. Look up tables should
be loaded with a set of pre-computed values. Our proposed
architecture uses the same carry save addition, but replaces
both look up tables and pre-computations with an enhanced
version of sign detection techniques. The proposed architecture
supports higher frequencies than other architectures.
It also has a better overall absolute time for a single operation.
Abstract: In this paper the concept of Q-fuzzification of ideals of Γ-semigroups has been introduced and some important properties have been investigated. A characterization of regular Γ-semigroup in terms of Q-fuzzy ideals has been obtained. Operator semigroups of a Γ-semigroup has been made to work by obtaining various relationships between Q-fuzzy ideals of a Γ-semigroup and that of its operator semigroups.
Abstract: The behavior of Radial Basis Function (RBF) Networks greatly depends on how the center points of the basis functions are selected. In this work we investigate the use of instance reduction techniques, originally developed to reduce the storage requirements of instance based learners, for this purpose. Five Instance-Based Reduction Techniques were used to determine the set of center points, and RBF networks were trained using these sets of centers. The performance of the RBF networks is studied in terms of classification accuracy and training time. The results obtained were compared with two Radial Basis Function Networks: RBF networks that use all instances of the training set as center points (RBF-ALL) and Probabilistic Neural Networks (PNN). The former achieves high classification accuracies and the latter requires smaller training time. Results showed that RBF networks trained using sets of centers located by noise-filtering techniques (ALLKNN and ENN) rather than pure reduction techniques produce the best results in terms of classification accuracy. The results show that these networks require smaller training time than that of RBF-ALL and higher classification accuracy than that of PNN. Thus, using ALLKNN and ENN to select center points gives better combination of classification accuracy and training time. Our experiments also show that using the reduced sets to train the networks is beneficial especially in the presence of noise in the original training sets.
Abstract: Herein, the organic semiconductor methyl orange
(MO), is investigated for the first time for its electronic applications.
For this purpose, Al/MO/n-Si heterojunction is fabricated through
economical cheap and simple “drop casting” technique. The currentvoltage
(I-V) measurements of the device are made at room
temperature under dark conditions. The I-V characteristics of
Al/MO/n-Si junction exhibits asymmetrical and rectifying behavior
that confirms the formation of diode. The diode parameters such as
rectification ratio (RR), turn on voltage (Vturn on), reverse saturation
current (I0), ideality factor (n), barrier height ( b
f ), series resistance
(Rs) and shunt resistance (Rsh) are determined from I-V curves using
Schottky equations. These values of these parameters are also
extracted and verified by applying Cheung’s functions. The
conduction mechanisms are explained from the forward bias I-V
characteristics using the power law.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ability
of a genetic programming (GP) algorithm to evolve a team of data
classification models. The GP algorithm used in this work is
“multigene" in nature, i.e. there are multiple tree structures (genes)
that are used to represent team members. Each team member assigns
a data sample to one of a fixed set of output classes. A majority vote,
determined using the mode (highest occurrence) of classes predicted
by the individual genes, is used to determine the final class
prediction. The algorithm is tested on a binary classification problem.
For the case study investigated, compact classification models are
obtained with comparable accuracy to alternative approaches.
Abstract: This paper investigates the development of weld zone
in Resistance Spot Welding (RSW) which focuses on weld nugget and Heat Affected Zone (HAZ). The effects of four factors namely
weld current, weld time, electrode force and hold time were studied using a general 24 factorial design augmented by five centre points. The results of the analysis showed that all selected factors except
hold time exhibit significant effect on weld nugget radius and HAZ size. Optimization of the welding parameters (weld current, weld
time and electrode force) to normalize weld nugget and to minimize
HAZ size was then conducted using Central Composite Design (CCD) in Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and the optimum
parameters were determined. A regression model for radius of weld nugget and HAZ size was developed and its adequacy was evaluated.
The experimental results obtained under optimum operating conditions were then compared with the predicted values and were
found to agree satisfactorily with each other
Abstract: The non-destructive testing of launch tube weld with
radiography was investigated and evaluated with AWS D1.1
standard. The paper started with preparation of launch tube and
radiographic inspection. X-Ray inspection then was done and gotten
the result. The judgment of inspection results were concluded by
certified person and finally, the evaluation with AWS D1.1 standard
was conducted as well.
The result shown that weld position P1 was not conformed to
AWS D1.1 which allowed size of incomplete penetration did not
exceed 4 mm. The other welds were corresponded to as mentioned
standard. Additionally, the corrective actions for incomplete
penetration either provided for future actions.
Abstract: A phorbol-12-myristate-13-acetate (TPA) is a synthetic analogue of phorbol ester (PE), a natural toxic compound of Euphorbiaceae plant. The oil extracted from plants of this family is useful source for primarily biofuel. However this oil might also be used as a foodstuff due to its significant nutrition content. The limitations for utilizing the oil as a foodstuff are mainly due to a toxicity of PE. Currently, a majority of PE detoxification processes are expensive as include multi steps alcohol extraction sequence.
Ozone is considered as a strong oxidative agent. It reacts with PE by attacking the carbon-carbon double bond of PE. This modification of PE molecular structure yields a non toxic ester with high lipid content.
This report presents data on development of simple and cheap PE detoxification process with water application as a buffer and ozone as reactive component. The core of this new technique is an application for a new microscale plasma unit to ozone production and the technology permits ozone injection to the water-TPA mixture in form of microbubbles.
The efficacy of a heterogeneous process depends on the diffusion coefficient which can be controlled by contact time and interfacial area. The low velocity of rising microbubbles and high surface to volume ratio allow efficient mass transfer to be achieved during the process. Direct injection of ozone is the most efficient way to process with such highly reactive and short lived chemical.
Data on the plasma unit behavior are presented and the influence of gas oscillation technology on the microbubble production mechanism has been discussed. Data on overall process efficacy for TPA degradation is shown.
Abstract: This paper is aimed to study the roles of leadership and innovation in the development of local people based ecotourism
services. The survey is conducted in Candirejo village, Borobudur District, Magelang Regency. The study of a descriptive approach is employed to identify people's behavior in ecotourism services. The results showed that ecotourism services have developed and provided benefits to the people. The roles of leadership and innovation interact positively with a cooperative to organize an ecotourism services management. The leadership is able to identify substances, to do the vision and missions of environmental and cultural conservation. The innovation provides alternative development efforts and increases the added value of ecotourism. The cooperative management was able to support a process to realize the goals of ecotourism, to build participation and communication, and to perform organizational learning. The phenomenon of the leadership in the Candirejo ecotourism enriches the studies of the ecotourism management. During this time, the ecotourism management is always associated
with the standard management of national park. The ecotourism management of Candirejo is considered successful even outside the national park management.
Abstract: The present investigation aimed to study the
histomorphometric characterizations of the thyroid gland of the duck.
Five adult male and five adult female ducks were used in the
experiment. Results showed that the overall histological structure of
the thyroid gland of the duck were similar to those of the other
vertebrae. The gland consisted of roughly spherical randomly
distributed micro and macrofollicles with very little interstitial tissue
between them. Each follicle is lined by a single layer of epithelial
cells enclosing a cavity, the follicular cavity, which is filled with
colloid. Ultrastructural findings showed that the apical surface of the
follicular cells bears a variable number of short, irregularly
distributed microvilli which are apparently more numerous on the
columnar cells than on the lower, relatively inactive cells.
Mitochondria and rough endoplasmic reticulum occupy the
subnuclear region of the follicular cell, whereas the Golgi complex,
free ribosomes and colloid droplets were found in the apical
cytoplasm. At light or electron microscopic levels, there was no sex
difference in histomorphometric characteristics of the thyroid
glands.ls.
Abstract: In films, visual effects have played the role of
expressing realities more realistically or describing imaginations as if
they are real. Such images are immediated images representing
realism, and the logic of immediation for the reality of images has
been perceived dominant in visual effects. In order for immediation to
have an identity as immediation, there should be the opposite concept
hypermediation.
In the mid 2000s, hypermediated images were settled as a code of
mass culture in Asia. Thus, among Asian films highly popular in those
days, this study selected five displaying hypermediated images – 2 Korean, 2 Japanese, and 1 Thailand movies – and examined the
semiotic meanings of such images using Roland Barthes- directional and implicated meaning analysis and Metz-s paradigmatic analysis
method, focusing on how hypermediated images work in the general
context of the films, how they are associated with spaces, and what
meanings they try to carry.