Abstract: In this paper a new Genetic Algorithm based on a heuristic operator and Centre of Mass selection operator (CMGA) is designed for the unbounded knapsack problem(UKP), which is NP-Hard combinatorial optimization problem. The proposed genetic algorithm is based on a heuristic operator, which utilizes problem specific knowledge. This center of mass operator when combined with other Genetic Operators forms a competitive algorithm to the existing ones. Computational results show that the proposed algorithm is capable of obtaining high quality solutions for problems of standard randomly generated knapsack instances. Comparative study of CMGA with simple GA in terms of results for unbounded knapsack instances of size up to 200 show the superiority of CMGA. Thus CMGA is an efficient tool of solving UKP and this algorithm is competitive with other Genetic Algorithms also.
Abstract: Non-profit organizations, especially religious-based
institutions, have long played a very important role in society.
Nevertheless, scandals such as inefficient management and the use of
unlawful fundraising activities have raised questions regarding the
governance and accountability of these organizations. As such, the
issues have attracted considerable research interest. However, there is
still limited research on accountability in religious based
organizations, especially in the context of Islamic religious
organizations. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to discuss the
issues of accounting and accountability in religious organizations,
specifically in Islamic religious establishments. The paper starts by
looking at the conventional meaning and concept of accountability.
This is followed by a discussion of the principles of accountability
within the Islamic framework. In so doing, the history of the role of
accounting within Muslim society and also the differences between
the Islamic and conventional view of accountability are reviewed.
Insights gained from previous research on accountability in faith
based organizations are also discussed
Abstract: In order to study the effects of supplemental irrigation, different levels of nitrogen chemical fertilizer and inoculation with rhizobium bacteria on the grain yield of chickpea, an experiment was carried out using split plot arrangement in randomize complete block design with three replication in agricultural researches station of Zanjan, Iran during 2009-2010 cropping season. The factors of experiment consisted of irritation (without irrigation (I1), irrigation at flowering stage (I2), irrigation at flowering and grain filling stages (I3) and full irrigation (I4)) and different levels of nitrogen fertilizer (without using of nitrogen fertilizer (N0), 75 kg.ha-1 (N75), 150 kg.ha-1 (N150) and inoculation with rhizobium bacteria (N4). The results of the analysis of variance showed that the effects of irrigation, nitrogen fertilizer levels and bacterial inoculation, were significant affect on number of pods per plant, number grains per plant, grain weight, grain yield, biological yield and harvest index at 1% probability level. Also Results showed that the grain yield in full irrigation treatment and inoculated with rhizobium bacteria was significantly higher than the other treatments.
Abstract: In this paper test generation methods and appropriate fault models for testing and analysis of embedded systems described as (extended) finite state machines ((E)FSMs) are presented. Compared to simple FSMs, EFSMs specify not only the control flow but also the data flow. Thus, we define a two-level fault model to cover both aspects. The goal of this paper is to reuse well-known FSM-based test generation methods for automation of embedded system testing. These methods have been widely used in testing and validation of protocols and communicating systems. In particular, (E)FSMs-based specification and testing is more advantageous because (E)FSMs support the formal semantic of already standardised formal description techniques (FDTs) despite of their popularity in the design of hardware and software systems.
Abstract: Several recent studies have shown that the
transparency of financial reporting have a significant influence on investor-s decisions. Thus, regulation authorities and professional
organizations (IFAC) have emphasized the role of XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language) and interactive data as a means of
promoting transparency and monitoring corporate reporting. In this
context, this paper has as objective the analysis of interactive reporting through XBRL and its use as a support in the process of
taking decisions in corporate governance, namely the potential of interactive reports in XBRL to increase the transparency and
monitoring process of corporate governance.
Abstract: The database reverse engineering problems and
solving processes are getting mature, even though, the academic
community is facing the complex problem of knowledge transfer,
both in university and industrial contexts. This paper presents a new
CASE tool developed at the University of Jordan which addresses an
efficient support of this transfer, namely UJ-CASE-TOOL. It is a
small and self-contained application exhibiting representative
problems and appropriate solutions that can be understood in a
limited time. It presents an algorithm that describes the developed
academic CASE tool which has been used for several years both as
an illustration of the principles of database reverse engineering and
as an exercise aimed at academic and industrial students.
Abstract: Development of knowledge based society carries multiple challenges to the higher education system. Some of the challenges laid before the higher education sector of countries which aspire to become knowledge based societies are: the entrepreneurial leadership of the higher education institutions, finding new sources of financing in order to minimize dependence on public resources, creating connections with the labor market, commercial utilization of R&D results, promotion of innovations as well as the overall promotion of science excellence relevant to the economic sector. Within a framework of this paper and its main subject of research, the challenge which is being put before the higher education institutions is an effort of establishing regional mission of higher education through the open collaboration with regional key factors, both private and public. Development of the mentioned collaboration and its contribution to the overall regional development in Croatia is the main subject of empirical research in this paper.
Abstract: Data mining techniques have been used in medical
research for many years and have been known to be effective. In order
to solve such problems as long-waiting time, congestion, and delayed
patient care, faced by emergency departments, this study concentrates
on building a hybrid methodology, combining data mining techniques
such as association rules and classification trees. The methodology is
applied to real-world emergency data collected from a hospital and is
evaluated by comparing with other techniques. The methodology is
expected to help physicians to make a faster and more accurate
classification of chest pain diseases.
Abstract: In this paper, linear multistep technique using power
series as the basis function is used to develop the block methods
which are suitable for generating direct solution of the special second
order ordinary differential equations with associated initial or
boundary conditions. The continuous hybrid formulations enable us
to differentiate and evaluate at some grids and off – grid points to
obtain two different four discrete schemes, each of order (5,5,5,5)T,
which were used in block form for parallel or sequential solutions of
the problems. The computational burden and computer time wastage
involved in the usual reduction of second order problem into system
of first order equations are avoided by this approach. Furthermore, a
stability analysis and efficiency of the block methods are tested on
linear and non-linear ordinary differential equations and the results
obtained compared favorably with the exact solution.
Abstract: This paper attempts to investigate the factors that influence hotel managers- attitudes towards sustainable tourism practices (STP) in Kuala Lumpur and the state of Selangor in Malaysia. The study distributes 104 questionnaires to hotels ranging from one star to five-star categories including budget hotels. Out of this figure, 60 copies of the questionnaires were returned and analyzed. The finding revealed that of all the seven factors investigated, only the variables measuring incentives and knowledge have significantly influenced sustainable tourism practices in the country. Therefore, government and other green bodies within the country should continue to provide hotels with incentives for sound technologies. Moreover, the government agencies should continue to educate hoteliers on the relevance of environmental protection for the successful implementation of sustainable tourism practices.
Abstract: This work presents the design of an expert system that aims in the procurement of patient medial background and in the search for suitable skin test selections. Skin testing is the tool used most widely to diagnose allergies. The language of expert systems CLIPS is used as a tool of designing. Finally, we present the evaluation of the proposed expert system which was achieved with the import of certain medical cases and the system produced with suitable successful skin tests.
Abstract: With advances in computer vision, non-contact gaze tracking systems are heading towards being much easier to operate and more comfortable for use, the technique proposed in this paper is specially designed for achieving these goals. For the convenience in operation, the proposal aims at the system with simple configuration which is composed of a fixed wide angle camera and dual infrared illuminators. Then in order to enhance the usability of the system based on single camera, a self-adjusting method which is called Real-time gaze Tracking Algorithm with head movement Compensation (RTAC) is developed for estimating the gaze direction under natural head movement and simplifying the calibration procedure at the same time. According to the actual evaluations, the average accuracy of about 1° is achieved over a field of 20×15×15 cm3.
Abstract: The solution algorithm, based on Lagrangian relaxation, a sub-gradient method and a heuristic to find the upper bound of the solution, is proposed to solve the coordinated fleet routing and flight scheduling problems. Numerical tests are performed to evaluate the proposed algorithm using real operating data from two Taiwan airlines. The test results indicate that the solution algorithm is a significant improvement over those obtained with CPLEX, consequently they could be useful for allied airlines to solve coordinated fleet routing and flight scheduling problems.
Abstract: Dew harvesting needs only weak investment and
exploits a free, clean and inexhaustible energy. This study aims to
measure the relative contributions of dew and rain water in the
Mediterranean Dalmatian coast and islands of Croatia and determine
whether dew water is potable. Two sites were chosen, an open site on
the coast favourable to dew formation (Zadar) and a less favourable
site in a circus of mountains in Komiža (Vis Island). Between July
1st, 2003 and October 31st, 2006, dew hasbeen daily collected on a 1
m2 tilted (30°) test dew condenser together with ordinary
meteorological data (air temperature and relative humidity, cloud
coverage, windspeed and direction). The mean yearly cumulative
dew yields were found to be 20 mm (Zadar) and 9.3 mm (Komiža ).
During the dry season (May to October), monthly cumulative dew
water yield can represent up to 38% of water collected by rain fall. In
July 2003 and 2006, dew water represented about 120% of the
monthly cumulative rain water. Dew and rain water were analyzed in
Zadar. The corresponding parameters were measured: pH, electrical
conductivity, major anions (HCO3
-, Cl-, SO4
2-
, NO3
-
, ,) and major
cations (NH4
+, Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+. Both dew and rain water are in
conformity with the WHO directives for potability except Mg2+.
Using existing roofs and refurbishing the abandoned impluviums to
permit dew collection could then provide a useful supplementary
amount of water, especially during the dry season.
Abstract: Number of documents being created increases at an
increasing pace while most of them being in already known topics
and little of them introducing new concepts. This fact has started a
new era in information retrieval discipline where the requirements
have their own specialties. That is digging into topics and concepts
and finding out subtopics or relations between topics. Up to now IR
researches were interested in retrieving documents about a general
topic or clustering documents under generic subjects. However these
conventional approaches can-t go deep into content of documents
which makes it difficult for people to reach to right documents they
were searching. So we need new ways of mining document sets
where the critic point is to know much about the contents of the
documents. As a solution we are proposing to enhance LSI, one of
the proven IR techniques by supporting its vector space with n-gram
forms of words. Positive results we have obtained are shown in two
different application area of IR domain; querying a document
database, clustering documents in the document database.
Abstract: The aim of current research was to investigate ASLT method suitability for accelerated beer shelf-life determination. The research was accomplished on popular Latvian beer: light filtrated and unfiltered pasteurized beer with alcohol content 5.2%; dark filtrated pasteurized beer with alcohol content 4.2% with shelf-life five months. Bottled in dark glass bottles beer samples were storage during 20 weeks at several temperature regimes: +10±1 °C, +20±1 °C, +30±1 °C, +40±1 °C. Samples quality parameters as physically-chemical and microbiological was tested every two weeks using standard methods. It is possible to determine beer shelf-life rapidly during storage at +30±1 °C for filtered pasteurized light beer by 2.5 times, unfiltered pasteurized light beer by 1.4 times and for filtered pasteurized dark beer by 1.7 times. During preset experiments it was proved, that it is possible to determine beer shelf-life rapidly using ASLT method if beer storage temperature could be increased by +10±1 °C.
Abstract: Let n ≥ 3 be an integer and p be a prime odd number. Let us consider Gp(n) the subgroup of (Z/nZ)* defined by : Gp(n) = {x ∈ (Z/nZ)* / xp = 1}. In this paper, we give an algorithm that computes a generating set of this subgroup.
Abstract: The growth and interconnection of power networks in many regions has invited complicated techniques for energy management services (EMS). State estimation techniques become a powerful tool in power system control centers, and that more information is required to achieve the objective of EMS. For the online state estimator, assuming the continuous time is equidistantly sampled with period Δt, processing events must be finished within this period. Advantage of Kalman Filtering (KF) algorithm in using system information to improve the estimation precision is utilized. Computational power is a major issue responsible for the achievement of the objective, i.e. estimators- solution at a small sampled period. This paper presents the optimum utilization of processors in a state estimator based on KF. The model used is presented using Petri net (PN) theory.
Abstract: Cements, which are intrinsically brittle materials, can
exhibit a degree of pseudo-ductility when reinforced with a sufficient
volume fraction of a fibrous phase. This class of materials, called
Engineered Cement Composites (ECC) has the potential to be used in
future tunneling applications where a level of pseudo-ductility is
required to avoid brittle failures. However uncertainties remain
regarding mechanical performance. Previous work has focused on
comparatively thin specimens; however for future civil engineering
applications, it is imperative that the behavior in tension of thicker
specimens is understood. In the present work, specimens containing
cement powder and admixtures have been manufactured following
two different processes and tested in tension. Multiple matrix
cracking has been observed during tensile testing, leading to a
“strain-hardening" behavior, confirming the possible suitability of
ECC material when used as thick sections (greater than 50mm) in
tunneling applications.
Abstract: Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (MANETs) are multi-hop
wireless networks in which all nodes cooperatively maintain network
connectivity. In such a multi-hop wireless network, every node may
be required to perform routing in order to achieve end-to-end
communication among nodes. These networks are energy constrained
as most ad hoc mobile nodes today operate with limited battery
power. Hence, it is important to minimize the energy consumption of
the entire network in order to maximize the lifetime of ad hoc
networks. In this paper, a mechanism involving the integration of
load balancing approach and transmission power control approach is
introduced to maximize the life-span of MANETs. The mechanism is
applied on Ad hoc On-demand Vector (AODV) protocol to make it
as energy aware AODV (EA_AODV). The simulation is carried out
using GloMoSim2.03 simulator. The results show that the proposed
mechanism reduces the average required transmission energy per
packet compared to the standard AODV.