Abstract: Widespread use of response spectra in seismic design and evaluation of different types of structures makes them one of the most important seismic inputs. This importance urges the local design codes to adapt precise data based on updated information about the recent major earthquakes happened and also localized geotechnical data. In this regard, this paper derives the response spectra with a geotechnical approach for various scenarios coming from the recent major earthquakes happened in Iran for different types of hard soils, and compares the results to the corresponding spectra from the current seismic code. This comparison implies the need for adapting new design spectra for seismic design, because of major differences in the frequency domains and amplifications.
Abstract: The transfer rate of messages in distributed sensor network applications is a critical factor in a system's performance. The Sensor Abstraction Layer (SAL) is one such system. SAL is a middleware integration platform for abstracting sensor specific technology in order to integrate heterogeneous types of sensors in a network. SAL uses Java Remote Method Invocation (RMI) as its connection method, which has unsatisfying transfer rates, especially for streaming data. This paper analyses different connection methods to optimize data transmission in SAL by replacing RMI. Our results show that the most promising Java-based connections were frameworks for Java New Input/Output (NIO) including Apache MINA, JBoss Netty, and xSocket. A test environment was implemented to evaluate each respective framework based on transfer rate, resource usage, and scalability. Test results showed the most suitable connection method to improve data transmission in SAL JBoss Netty as it provides a performance enhancement of 68%.
Abstract: The information visualization is still a knowledge field that lacks from a solid theory to support it and there is a myriad of existing methodologies and taxonomies that can be combined and adopted as guidelines. In this context, it is necessary to pre-evaluate as much as possible all the assumptions that are considered for its design and development. We present an exploratory study (n = 123) to detect the graphical preferences of travelers using accommodation portals of Web 2.0 (e.g. tripadvisor.com). We took into account some of the most relevant ground rules applied in the field to map visually data and design end-user interaction. Moreover, the evaluation process was completely data visualization oriented. We found out that people tend to refuse more advanced types of visualization and that a hybrid combination between radial graphs and stacked bars should be explored. In sum, this paper introduces new findings about the visual model and the cognitive response of users of accommodation booking websites.
Abstract: The evaluation of the convective heat transfer of flow in passages with rectangular cross section is still of interest for the heat transfer investigators, as in the air heater solar collectors. The aim of this paper is to present investigation results on the natural convection heat transfer in a solar air heater. The effect of the channel length as heat transfer surface and the inclination of the passage were investigated. The results were obtained experimentally and theoretically. For that, an experimental test rig was fabricated with channel lengths of 1m, 1.5m, and 2m. For each length, the air outlet and inlet temperatures, absorber and cover temperatures, solar radiation intensity and air flow rate were measured at 10o, 30o, 50o, 70o, and 90o tilt angles. Measurements were recorded every 2 hours interval to investigate the transient behavior of the system. The experimental and theoretical results are presented in terms of Nu number versus Ra number and discussed. The percentages of differences between experimental and theoretical results are within the margin of 6% to 13%, effectively. It is recommended to extend the investigation to study the same configurations with different artificial surface roughing by ribs or pins.
Abstract: Metal working fluids were used in the preparation of oil in water emulsions. The size of oil droplets were evaluated by using the analysis of video images taken from the zeta potential measurements. The evaluated size distributions for emulsions were also tested by microscopic analysis. In addition, emulsion stabilities were discussed depending on electrolyte concentration and pH. The results showed that the stability of oil emulsions was strongly related to pH and the concentration of CaCl2. However, the same dependency was not observed for NaCl.
Abstract: The Tropical Data Hub (TDH) is a virtual research environment that provides researchers with an e-research infrastructure to congregate significant tropical data sets for data reuse, integration, searching, and correlation. However, researchers often require data and metadata synthesis across disciplines for cross-domain analyses and knowledge discovery. A triplestore offers a semantic layer to achieve a more intelligent method of search to support the synthesis requirements by automating latent linkages in the data and metadata. Presently, the benchmarks to aid the decision of which triplestore is best suited for use in an application environment like the TDH are limited to performance. This paper describes a new evaluation tool developed to analyze both features and performance. The tool comprises a weighted decision matrix to evaluate the interoperability, functionality, performance, and support availability of a range of integrated and native triplestores to rank them according to requirements of the TDH.
Abstract: This paper deals with the evaluation of different detection strategies used in power electronic devices as a critical element for an effective mitigation of voltage disturbances. The effectiveness of those detection schemes in the mitigation of disturbances such as voltage sags by a Solid-State Transfer Switch is evaluated through simulations. All critical parameters affecting their performance is analytically described and presented. Moreover, the effect of fast detection of sags on the overall performance of STS is analyzed and investigated.
Abstract: A numerical approach for solving constant-coefficient differential equations whose solutions exhibit boundary layer structure is built by inserting Bernstein Partition of Unity into Galerkin variational weak form. Due to the reproduction capability of Bernstein basis, such implementation shows excellent accuracy at boundaries and is able to capture sharp gradients of the field variable by p-refinement using regular distributions of equi-spaced evaluation points. The approximation is subjected to convergence experimentation and a procedure to assemble the discrete equations without a background integration mesh is proposed.
Abstract: One of the most important factors for the success of e-government is training and preparing the workforce of the public sector. As changes and innovation in the public sector progress at a very slow pace and more slowly than in the private sector, issues related to human resources require special care. This is because the workforce will eventually seize the opportunities of the technological solutions used in e-Government. Thus, the central administration should provide employees with continuous and focused training not only on new technologies but also on a wide range of subjects and also improve interdepartmental interaction.
To achieve all this, new methods and training tools need to be implemented in addition to assessment of the employees. In this spirit, we propose the development of an educational platform with user personalization features. We propose the development of this platform using Moodle as the basic tool. Incorporating a personalization mechanism is very important since different employees have different backgrounds, education levels, computer skills, or different capability to develop further. Key features of the proposed platform include, besides typical e-learning tools, communities organized in order to exchange experiences and knowledge, groups of users based on certain criteria, automatic evaluation of users and potential self-education and self-assessment. In its fully developed form, this platform can be part of a more comprehensive knowledge management system for the public sector.
Abstract: This paper discusses a software application to aid in the smooth functioning of a university internship program, including a student, faculty and an administration module. The software can also calculate the most apt combination of students to stations and allocate them respectively.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to evaluate the performance of the faculties of Islamic Azad University of Zahedan Branch based on two-component (teaching and research) decision making units (DMUs) in data envelopment analysis (DEA). Nowadays it is obvious that most of the systems as DMUs do not act as a simple inputoutput structure. Instead, if they have been studied more delicately, they include network structure. University is such a network in which different sections i.e. teaching, research, students and office work as a parallel structure. They consume some inputs of university commonly and some others individually. Then, they produce both dependent and independent outputs. These DMUs are called two-component DMUs
with network structure. In this paper, performance of the faculties of Zahedan branch is calculated by using relative efficiency model and also, a formula to compute relative efficiencies teaching and research components based on DEA are offered.
Abstract: Nowadays, the mathematical/statistical applications
are developed with more complexity and accuracy. However, these
precisions and complexities have brought as result that applications
need more computational power in order to be executed faster. In this
sense, the multicore environments are playing an important role to
improve and to optimize the execution time of these applications.
These environments allow us the inclusion of more parallelism inside
the node. However, to take advantage of this parallelism is not an
easy task, because we have to deal with some problems such as: cores
communications, data locality, memory sizes (cache and RAM),
synchronizations, data dependencies on the model, etc. These issues
are becoming more important when we wish to improve the
application’s performance and scalability. Hence, this paper describes
an optimization method developed for Systemic Model of Banking
Originated Losses (SYMBOL) tool developed by the European
Commission, which is based on analyzing the application's weakness
in order to exploit the advantages of the multicore. All these
improvements are done in an automatic and transparent manner with
the aim of improving the performance metrics of our tool. Finally,
experimental evaluations show the effectiveness of our new
optimized version, in which we have achieved a considerable
improvement on the execution time. The time has been reduced
around 96% for the best case tested, between the original serial
version and the automatic parallel version.
Abstract: Breast cancer is a major health burden worldwide being a major cause of death amongst women. In this paper, Fuzzy Inference Systems (FIS) are developed for the evaluation of breast cancer risk using Mamdani-type and Sugeno-type models. The paper outlines the basic difference between Mamdani-type FIS and Sugeno-type FIS. The results demonstrated the performance comparison of the two systems and the advantages of using Sugeno- type over Mamdani-type.
Abstract: Periodic broadcast is a cost-effective solution for large-scale distribution of popular videos because this approach guarantees constant worst service latency, regardless of the number of video requests. An essential periodic broadcast method is the client-centric approach (CCA), which allows clients to use smaller receiving bandwidth to download broadcast data. An enhanced version, namely CCA++, was proposed to yield a shorter waiting time. This work further improves CCA++ in reducing client buffer requirements. The new scheme decreases the buffer requirements by as much as 52% when compared to CCA++. This study also provides an analytical evaluation to demonstrate the performance advantage, as compared with particular schemes.
Abstract: This paper presents a comparative study of two most popular control strategies for Induction motor (IM) drives: Field-Oriented Control (FOC) and Direct Torque Control (DTC). The comparison is based on various criteria including basic control characteristics,
dynamic performance, and implementation complexity. The study is done by simulation using the Simulink Power System Block set that allows a complete representation of the power section (inverter and IM) and the control system.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to test how advanced digital technology enables a more effective training on the handwriting of children with handwriting deficit. This study implemented the graphomotor apparatuses to a computer-assisted instruction system. In a randomized controlled trial, the experiments for verifying the intervention effect were conducted. Forty two children with handwriting deficit were assigned to computer-assisted instruction, sensorimotor training or control (no intervention) group. Handwriting performance was measured using the Elementary reading/writing test and computerized handwriting evaluation before and after 6 weeks of intervention. Analysis of variance of change scores were conducted to show whether statistically significant difference across the three groups. Significant difference was found among three groups. Computer group shows significant difference from the other two groups. Significance was denoted in near-point, far-point copy, dictation test, and writing from phonetic symbols. Writing speed and mean stroke velocity in near-, far-point and short paragraph copy were found significantly difference among three groups. Computer group shows significant improvement from the other groups. For clinicians and school teachers, the results of this study provide a motor control based insight for the improvement of handwriting difficulties.
Abstract: This study explores the clinical features of neurodegenerative disease patients with tremor. We study the motor impairments in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET). Since uncertainty exists on whether Parkinson's disease (PD) and essential tremor (ET) patients have similar degree of impairment during motor tasks, this study based on the self-developed computerized handwriting movement analysis to characterize motor functions of these two impairments. The recruited subjects were diagnosed and confirmed one of neurodegenerative diseases. They were undergone general clinical evaluations by physicians in the first year. We recruited 8 participants with PD and 10 with ET. Additional 12 participants without any neuromuscular dysfunction were recruited as control group. This study used fine motor control of penmanship on digital tablet for sensorimotor function tests. The movement speed in PD/ET group is found significant slower than subjects in normal control group. In movement intensity and speed, the result found subject with ET has similar clinical feature with PD subjects. The ET group shows smaller and slower movements than control group but not to the same extent as PD group. The results of this study contribute to the early screening and detection of diseases and the evaluation of disease progression.
Abstract: Automated intelligent, clinical decision support systems generally promote to help or to assist physicians and patients regarding to prevention of diseases or treatment of illnesses using computer represented knowledge and information. In this paper, assessment factors affecting the proper design of clinical decision support system were investigated. The required procedure steps for gathering the data from clinical trial and extracting the information from large volume of healthcare repositories were listed, which are necessary for validation and verification of evidence-based implementation of clinical decision support system. The goal of this paper is to extract useful evaluation factors affecting the quality of the clinical decision support system in the design, development, and implementation of a computer-based decision support system.
Abstract: The subject of this paper is to verify the behavior of the truss-type CHS joint which is beyond the scope of use of the EN 1993-1-8. This is performed by using the numerical modeling in program ANSYS and the analytical methods recommended in the CIDECT publication. The recommendations for numerical modeling of such types of joints as well as for evaluation of load-bearing capacity of the joint are given in this paper. The results from both analytical and numerical models are compared.
Abstract: In heat sinks, the flow within the core exhibits separation and hence does not lend itself to simple analytical boundary layer or duct flow analysis of the wall friction. In this paper, we present some findings from an experimental and numerical study aimed to obtain physical insight into the influence of the presence of the shield and its position on the hydraulic and thermal performance of square pin fin heat sink without top by-pass. The variations of the Nusselt number and friction factor are obtained under varied parameters, such as the Reynolds number and the shield position. The numerical code is validated by comparing the numerical results with the available experimental data. It is shown that, there is a good agreement between the temperature predictions based on the model and the experimental data. Results show that, as the presence of the shield, the heat transfer of fin array is enhanced and the flow resistance increased. The surface temperature distribution of the heat sink base is more uniform when the dimensionless shield position equals to 1/3 or 2/3. The comprehensive performance evaluation approach based on identical pumping power criteria is adopted and shows that the optimum shield position is at x/l=0.43.