Abstract: The study site was located in Ratchaburi Province,
Thailand. Four experimental plots in dry dipterocarp forest (DDF)
and four plots in mixed deciduous forest (MDF) were set up to
estimate the above-ground biomass of tree, sapling and bamboo. The
allometry equations were used to investigate above-ground biomass
of these vegetation. Seedling and other understory were determined
using direct harvesting method. Carbon storage in above-ground
biomass was calculated based on IPCC 2006.
The results showed that the above-ground biomass of DDF at
20-40% slope,
Abstract: Graph decompositions are vital in the study of
combinatorial design theory. A decomposition of a graph G is a
partition of its edge set. An n-sun graph is a cycle Cn with an edge
terminating in a vertex of degree one attached to each vertex. In this
paper, we define n-sun decomposition of some even order graphs
with a perfect matching. We have proved that the complete graph
K2n, complete bipartite graph K2n, 2n and the Harary graph H4, 2n have
n-sun decompositions. A labeling scheme is used to construct the n-suns.
Abstract: A climate dependent model is proposed to simulate
the population of Aedes aegypti mosquito. In developing the model,
average temperature of Shah Alam, Malaysia was used to determine
the development rate of each stage of the life cycle of mosquito.
Rainfall dependent function was proposed to simulate the hatching
rate of the eggs under several assumptions. The proposed transition
matrix was obtained and used to simulate the population of eggs,
larvae, pupae and adults mosquito. It was found that the peak of
mosquito abundance comes during a relatively dry period following a
heavy rainfall. In addition, lag time between the peaks of mosquito
abundance and dengue fever cases in Shah Alam was estimated.
Abstract: This paper presents the theoretical investigation of a
slotted patch antenna. The main objective of proposed work is to
obtain a large bandwidth antenna with reduced size. The antenna has
a compact size of 21.1mm x 20.25mm x 8.5mm. Two designs with
minor variation are studied which provide wide impedance
bandwidths of 24.056% and 25.63% respectively with the use of
parasitic elements when excited by a probe feed. The advantages of
this configuration are its compact size and the wide range of
frequencies covered. A parametric study is also conducted to
investigate the characteristics of the antenna under different
conditions. The measured return loss and radiation pattern indicate
the suitability of this design for WLAN applications, namely, Wi-
Max, 802.11a/b/g and ISM bands.
Abstract: This paper examined the influence of matching
students- learning preferences with the teaching methodology
adopted, on their academic performance in an accounting course in
two types of learning environment in one university in Lebanon:
classes with PowerPoint (PPT) vs. conventional classes. Learning
preferences were either for PPT or for Conventional methodology. A
statistically significant increase in academic achievement is found in
the conventionally instructed group as compared to the group taught
with PPT. This low effectiveness of PPT might be attributed to the
learning preferences of Lebanese students. In the PPT group, better
academic performance was found among students with
learning/teaching match as compared with students with
learning/teaching mismatch. Since the majority of students display a
preference for the conventional methodology, the result might
suggest that Lebanese students- performance is not optimized by PPT
in the accounting classrooms, not because of PPT itself, but because
it is not matching the Lebanese students- learning preferences in such
a quantitative course.
Abstract: A structural study of an aqueous electrolyte whose
experimental results are available. It is a solution of LiCl-6H2O type
at glassy state (120K) contrasted with pure water at room temperature
by means of Partial Distribution Functions (PDF) issue from neutron
scattering technique. Based on these partial functions, the Reverse
Monte Carlo method (RMC) computes radial and angular correlation
functions which allow exploring a number of structural features of
the system. The obtained curves include some artifacts. To remedy
this, we propose to introduce a screened potential as an additional
constraint. Obtained results show a good matching between
experimental and computed functions and a significant improvement
in PDFs curves with potential constraint. It suggests an efficient fit of
pair distribution functions curves.
Abstract: Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is the
coherent oscillation of conductive electrons confined in noble
metallic nanoparticles excited by electromagnetic radiation, and
nanosphere lithography (NSL) is one of the cost-effective methods to
fabricate metal nanostructures for LSPR. NSL can be categorized
into two major groups: dispersed NSL and closely pack NSL. In
recent years, gold nanocrescents and gold nanoholes with vertical
sidewalls fabricated by dispersed NSL, and silver nanotriangles and
gold nanocaps on silica nanospheres fabricated by closely pack NSL,
have been reported for LSPR biosensing. This paper introduces
several novel gold nanostructures fabricated by NSL in LSPR
applications, including 3D nanostructures obtained by evaporating
gold obliquely on dispersed nanospheres, nanoholes with slant
sidewalls, and patchy nanoparticles on closely packed nanospheres,
all of which render satisfactory sensitivity for LSPR sensing. Since
the LSPR spectrum is very sensitive to the shape of the metal
nanostructures, formulas are derived and software is developed for
calculating the profiles of the obtainable metal nanostructures by
NSL, for different nanosphere masks with different fabrication
conditions. The simulated profiles coincide well with the profiles of
the fabricated gold nanostructures observed under scanning electron
microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscope (AFM), which
proves that the software is a useful tool for the process design of
different LSPR nanostructures.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper isunavailability of the two main types of conveSwedish traction power supply (TPS) system, i.e.static converter. The number of outages and the ouused to analyze and compare the unavailability oconverters. The mean cumulative function (MCF)analyze the number of outages and the unavailabthe forced outage rate (FOR) concept has been uoutage rates. The study shows that the outagesfailure occur at a constant rate by calendar timconverter stations, while very few stations havedecreasing rate. It has also been found that the stata higher number of outages and a higher outage ratcompared to the rotary converter types. The resultsthat combining the number of outages and the fgives a better view of the converters performasupport for the maintenance decision. In fact, usingdoes not reflect reality. Comparing these two indein identifying the areas where extra resources are maintenance planning and where improvementsoutage in the TPS system.KeywordsFrequency Converter, Forced OuCumulative Function, Traction Power Supply, ESystems.
Abstract: A human verification system is presented in this
paper. The system consists of several steps: background subtraction,
thresholding, line connection, region growing, morphlogy, star
skelatonization, feature extraction, feature matching, and decision
making. The proposed system combines an advantage of star
skeletonization and simple statistic features. A correlation matching
and probability voting have been used for verification, followed by a
logical operation in a decision making stage. The proposed system
uses small number of features and the system reliability is
convincing.
Abstract: In this paper, novel techniques in increasing the accuracy
and speed of convergence of a Feed forward Back propagation
Artificial Neural Network (FFBPNN) with polynomial activation
function reported in literature is presented. These technique was
subsequently used to determine the coefficients of Autoregressive
Moving Average (ARMA) and Autoregressive (AR) system. The
results obtained by introducing sequential and batch method of weight
initialization, batch method of weight and coefficient update, adaptive
momentum and learning rate technique gives more accurate result
and significant reduction in convergence time when compared t the
traditional method of back propagation algorithm, thereby making
FFBPNN an appropriate technique for online ARMA coefficient
determination.
Abstract: Most people know through experience and intuition what the word „sport“ means. Sport includes a combination of these configurations when it involves team competitions, tournaments, or matches in dual sports or individual sports. Sport management - it is an area of professional endeavor in which a variety of sport-related managerial careers exist and it is also an area of academic professional preparation. Exists three unique aspects of sport management: sport marketing, sport enterprise financial structures and sport industry career paths. The aim of the paper was to highlight the growing importance of sport in contemporary society, especially to emphasize its socio-economic benefits and refer to the development of sport management and marketing. The article has shown that sport contributes 2-3% to gross domestic product in the Czech Republic and that the demand for experts, specialists educated for the sports manager profession is growing.
Abstract: The study describes chitosan membrane platform
modified with nanostructure pattern which using nanotechnology to
fabricate. The cell-substrate interaction between neuro-2a neuroblasts
cell lines and chitosan membrane (flat, nanostructure and
nanostructure pattern types) was investigated. The adhered
morphology of neuro-2a cells depends on the topography of chitosan
surface. We have found that neuro-2a showed different morphogenesis
when cells adhered on flat and nanostructure chitosan membrane. The
cell projected area of neuro-2a on flat chitosan membrane is larger
than on nanostructure chitosan membrane. In addition, neuro-2a cells
preferred to adhere on flat chitosan surface region than on
nanostructure chitosan membrane to immobilize and differentiation.
The experiment suggests surface topography can be used as a critical
mechanism to isolate group of neuro-2a to a particular rectangle area
on chitosan membrane. Our finding will provide a platform to take
patch clamp to record electrophysiological behavior about neurons in
vitro in the future.
Abstract: Voltage flicker is a disturbance in electrical power
systems. The reason for this disturbance is mainly the large nonlinear
loads such as electric arc furnaces. Synchronous static
compensator (STATCOM) is considered as a proper technique to
mitigate the voltage flicker. Application of more suitable and precise
power electronic converter leads to a more precise performance of the
compensator. In this paper a three-level 12-pulse voltage source
inverter (VSI) with a 12-terminal transformer connected to the ac
system is studied and the obtained results are compared with the
performance of a STATCOM using a simple two-level VSI and an
optimal and more precise performance of the proposed scheme is
achieved.
Abstract: In recent years, rapid advances in software and hardware in the field of information technology along with a digital imaging revolution in the medical domain facilitate the generation and storage of large collections of images by hospitals and clinics. To search these large image collections effectively and efficiently poses significant technical challenges, and it raises the necessity of constructing intelligent retrieval systems. Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR) consists of retrieving the most visually similar images to a given query image from a database of images[5]. Medical CBIR (content-based image retrieval) applications pose unique challenges but at the same time offer many new opportunities. On one hand, while one can easily understand news or sports videos, a medical image is often completely incomprehensible to untrained eyes.
Abstract: With the growth of electricity generation from gas
energy gas pipeline reliability can substantially impact the electric
generation. A physical disruption to pipeline or to a compressor
station can interrupt the flow of gas or reduce the pressure and lead
to loss of multiple gas-fired electric generators, which could
dramatically reduce the supplied power and threaten the power
system security. Gas pressure drops during peak loading time on
pipeline system, is a common problem in network with no enough
transportation capacity which limits gas transportation and causes
many problem for thermal domain power systems in supplying their
demand. For a feasible generation scheduling planning in networks
with no sufficient gas transportation capacity, it is required to
consider gas pipeline constraints in solving the optimization problem
and evaluate the impacts of gas consumption in power plants on gas
pipelines operating condition. This paper studies about operating of
gas fired power plants in critical conditions when the demand of gas
and electricity peak together. An integrated model of gas and electric
model is used to consider the gas pipeline constraints in the economic
dispatch problem of gas-fueled thermal generator units.
Abstract: In this paper, an Interactive Compromise Approach
with Particle Swarm Optimization(ICA-PSO) is presented to solve the
Economic Emission Dispatch(EED) problem. The cost function and
emission function are modeled as the nonsmooth functions,
respectively. The bi-objective including both the minimization of cost
and emission is formulated in this paper. ICA-PSO is proposed to
solve EED problem for finding a better compromise solution. The
solution methodology can offer a global or near-global solution for
decision-making requirements. The effectiveness and efficiency of
ICA-PSO are demonstrated by a sample test system. Test results can
be shown that the proposed method provide a practical and flexible
framework for power dispatch.
Abstract: Economic dispatch (ED) has been considered to be one of the key functions in electric power system operation which can help to build up effective generating management plans. The practical ED problem has non-smooth cost function with nonlinear constraints which make it difficult to be effectively solved. This paper presents a novel heuristic and efficient optimization approach based on the new Bat algorithm (BA) to solve the practical non-smooth economic dispatch problem. The proposed algorithm easily takes care of different constraints. In addition, two newly introduced modifications method is developed to improve the variety of the bat population when increasing the convergence speed simultaneously. The simulation results obtained by the proposed algorithms are compared with the results obtained using other recently develop methods available in the literature.
Abstract: A way of generating millimeter wave I/Q signal using inductive resonator matched poly-phase filter is suggested. Normally the poly-phase filter generates quite accurate I/Q phase and magnitude but the loss of the filter is considerable due to series connection of passive RC components. This loss term directly increases system noise figure when the poly-phase filter is used in RF Front-end. The proposed matching method eliminates above mentioned loss and in addition provides gain on the passive filter. The working algorithm is illustrated by mathematical analysis. The generated I/Q signal is used in implementing millimeter wave phase shifter for the 60 GHz communication system to verify its effectiveness. The circuit is fabricated in 90 nm TSMC RF CMOS process under 1.2 V supply voltage. The measurement results showed that the suggested method improved gain by 6.5 dB and noise by 2.3 dB. The summary of the proposed I/Q generation is compared with previous works.
Abstract: Palm shell obtained from coastal part of southern
India was studied for the removal for the adsorption of Hg (II) ions.
Batch adsorption experiments were carried out as a function of pH,
concentration of Hg (II) ions, time, temperature and adsorbent dose.
Maximum removal was seen in the range pH 4.0- pH 7.0. The palm
shell powder used as adsorbent was characterized for its surface area,
SEM, PXRD, FTIR, ion exchange capacity, moisture content, and
bulk density, soluble content in water and acid and pH. The
experimental results were analyzed using Langmuir I, II, III, IV and
Freundlich adsorption isotherms. The batch sorption kinetics was
studied for the first order reversible reaction, pseudo first order;
pseudo second order reaction and the intra-particle diffusion reaction.
The biomass was successfully used for removal Hg (II) from
synthetic and industrial effluents and the technique appears
industrially applicable and viable.
Abstract: The literature reports a large number of approaches for
measuring the similarity between protein sequences. Most of these
approaches estimate this similarity using alignment-based techniques
that do not necessarily yield biologically plausible results, for two
reasons.
First, for the case of non-alignable (i.e., not yet definitively aligned
and biologically approved) sequences such as multi-domain, circular
permutation and tandem repeat protein sequences, alignment-based
approaches do not succeed in producing biologically plausible results.
This is due to the nature of the alignment, which is based on the
matching of subsequences in equivalent positions, while non-alignable
proteins often have similar and conserved domains in non-equivalent
positions.
Second, the alignment-based approaches lead to similarity measures
that depend heavily on the parameters set by the user for the alignment
(e.g., gap penalties and substitution matrices). For easily alignable
protein sequences, it's possible to supply a suitable combination of
input parameters that allows such an approach to yield biologically
plausible results. However, for difficult-to-align protein sequences,
supplying different combinations of input parameters yields different
results. Such variable results create ambiguities and complicate the
similarity measurement task.
To overcome these drawbacks, this paper describes a novel and
effective approach for measuring the similarity between protein
sequences, called SAF for Substitution and Alignment Free. Without
resorting either to the alignment of protein sequences or to substitution
relations between amino acids, SAF is able to efficiently detect the
significant subsequences that best represent the intrinsic properties of
protein sequences, those underlying the chronological dependencies of
structural features and biochemical activities of protein sequences.
Moreover, by using a new efficient subsequence matching scheme,
SAF more efficiently handles protein sequences that contain similar
structural features with significant meaning in chronologically
non-equivalent positions. To show the effectiveness of SAF, extensive
experiments were performed on protein datasets from different
databases, and the results were compared with those obtained by
several mainstream algorithms.