Abstract: The objective of this research was to identify the
vegetation-soil relationships in Nodushan arid rangelands of Yazd. 5
sites were selected for measuring the cover of plant species and soil
attributes. Soil samples were taken in 0-10 and 10-80 cm layers. The
species studied were Salsola tomentosa, Salsola arbuscula, Peganum
harmala, Zygophylum eurypterum and Eurotia ceratoides. Canonical
correspondence analysis (CCA) was used to analyze the data. Based
on the CCA results, 74.9 % of vegetation-soil variation was explained
by axis 1-3. Axis 1, 2 and 3 accounted for 27.2%, 24.9 % and 22.8%
of variance respectively. Correlation between axis 1, 2, 3 and speciesedaphic
variables were 0.995, 0.989, 0.981 respectively. Soil texture,
lime, salinity and organic matter significantly influenced the
distribution of these plant species. Determination of soil-vegetation
relationships will be useful for managing and improving rangelands
in arid and semi arid environments.
Abstract: In this paper is described a new conception of the
Cartesian robot for automated assembly and also disassembly
process. The advantage of this conception is the utilization the
Cartesian assembly robot with its all peripheral automated devices for
assembly of the assembled product. The assembly product in the end
of the lifecycle can be disassembled with the same Cartesian
disassembly robot with the use of the same peripheral automated
devices and equipment. It is a new approach to problematic solving
and development of the automated assembly systems with respect to
lifecycle management of the assembly product and also assembly
system with Cartesian robot. It is also important to develop the
methodical process for design of automated assembly and
disassembly system with Cartesian robot. Assembly and disassembly
system use the same Cartesian robot input and output devices,
assembly and disassembly units in one workplace with different
application. Result of design methodology is the verification and
proposition of real automated assembly and disassembly workplace
with Cartesian robot for known verified model of assembled actuator.
Abstract: In this paper, image compression using hybrid vector
quantization scheme such as Multistage Vector Quantization
(MSVQ) and Pyramid Vector Quantization (PVQ) are introduced. A
combined MSVQ and PVQ are utilized to take advantages provided
by both of them. In the wavelet decomposition of the image, most of
the information often resides in the lowest frequency subband.
MSVQ is applied to significant low frequency coefficients. PVQ is
utilized to quantize the coefficients of other high frequency
subbands. The wavelet coefficients are derived using lifting scheme.
The main aim of the proposed scheme is to achieve high compression
ratio without much compromise in the image quality. The results are
compared with the existing image compression scheme using MSVQ.
Abstract: The objective from this paper is to design a solar
thermal engine for space vehicles orbital control and electricity
generation. A computational model is developed for the prediction of
the solar thermal engine performance for different design parameters and conditions in order to enhance the engine efficiency. The engine is divided into two main subsystems. First, the concentrator dish
which receives solar energy from the sun and reflects them to the
cavity receiver. The second one is the cavity receiver which receives
the heat flux reflected from the concentrator and transfers heat to the
fluid passing over. Other subsystems depend on the application required from the engine. For thrust application, a nozzle is
introduced to the system for the fluid to expand and produce thrust.
Hydrogen is preferred as a working fluid in the thruster application.
Results model developed is used to determine the thrust for a
concentrator dish 4 meters in diameter (provides 10 kW of energy),
focusing solar energy to a 10 cm aperture diameter cavity receiver.
The cavity receiver outer length is 50 cm and the internal cavity is 47
cm in length. The suggested design material of the internal cavity is
tungsten to withstand high temperature. The thermal model and
analysis shows that the hydrogen temperature at the plenum reaches
2000oK after about 250 seconds for hot start operation for a flow rate
of 0.1 g/sec.Using solar thermal engine as an electricity generation
device on earth is also discussed. In this case a compressor and
turbine are used to convert the heat gained by the working fluid (air)
into mechanical power. This mechanical power can be converted into
electrical power by using a generator.
Abstract: In this work, the primary compressive strength
components of human femur trabecular bone are qualitatively
assessed using image processing and wavelet analysis. The Primary
Compressive (PC) component in planar radiographic femur trabecular
images (N=50) is delineated by semi-automatic image processing
procedure. Auto threshold binarization algorithm is employed to
recognize the presence of mineralization in the digitized images. The
qualitative parameters such as apparent mineralization and total area
associated with the PC region are derived for normal and abnormal
images.The two-dimensional discrete wavelet transforms are utilized
to obtain appropriate features that quantify texture changes in medical
images .The normal and abnormal samples of the human femur are
comprehensively analyzed using Harr wavelet.The six statistical
parameters such as mean, median, mode, standard deviation, mean
absolute deviation and median absolute deviation are derived at level
4 decomposition for both approximation and horizontal wavelet
coefficients. The correlation coefficient of various wavelet derived
parameters with normal and abnormal for both approximated and
horizontal coefficients are estimated. It is seen that in almost all cases
the abnormal show higher degree of correlation than normals. Further
the parameters derived from approximation coefficient show more
correlation than those derived from the horizontal coefficients. The
parameters mean and median computed at the output of level 4 Harr
wavelet channel was found to be a useful predictor to delineate the
normal and the abnormal groups.
Abstract: The study investigated the effects of Teaching Games
for Understanding approach on students ‘cognitive learning outcome.
The study was a quasi-experimental non-equivalent pretest-posttest
control group design whereby 10 year old primary school students
(n=72) were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control
group. The experimental group students were exposed with TGfU
approach and the control group with the Traditional Skill approach of
handball game. Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI)
was used to measure students' tactical understanding and decision
making in 3 versus 3 handball game situations. Analysis of
covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results
reveal that there was a significant difference between the TGfU
approach group and the traditional skill approach group students on
post test score (F (1, 69) = 248.83, p < .05). The findings of this
study suggested the importance of TGfU approach to improve
primary students’ tactical understanding and decision making in
handball game.
Abstract: Cement, the most widely used construction material
is very brittle and characterized by low tensile strength and strain
capacity. Macro to nano fibers are added to cement to provide
tensile strength and ductility to it. Carbon Nanotube (CNT), one of
the nanofibers, has proven to be a promising reinforcing material in
the cement composites because of its outstanding mechanical
properties and its ability to close cracks at the nano level. The
experimental investigations for CNT reinforced cement is costly,
time consuming and involves huge number of trials. Mathematical
modeling of CNT reinforced cement can be done effectively and
efficiently to arrive at the mechanical properties and to reduce the
number of trials in the experiments. Hence, an attempt is made to
numerically study the effective mechanical properties of CNT
reinforced cement numerically using Representative Volume
Element (RVE) method. The enhancement in its mechanical
properties for different percentage of CNTs is studied in detail.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to find out and analyze the
role of gender and age on the perceptions of students to the distant
online program offered by Vocational High School in Sakarya
University. The research is based on a questionnaire as a mean of
data collection method to find out the role of age and gender on the
student-s perceptions toward online education, and the study
progressed through finding relationships between the variables used
in the data collection instrument. The findings of the analysis
revealed that although the students registered to the online program
by will, they preferred the traditional face-to-face education due to
the difficulty of the nonverbal communication, their incompetence of
using the technology required, and their belief in traditional face-toface
learning more than online education.
Regarding gender, the results showed that the female students
have a better perception of the online education as opposed to the
male students. Regarding age, the results showed that the older the
students are the more is their preference towards attending face-toface
classes.
Abstract: The 2008 Candlelight Protests of Korea was very
significant to portray the political environment among the South
Korean youth. Many challenges and new advanced technologies have
driven the youth community to be engaged in the political arena that
has shifted them from traditional Korean youth to a very greater
community. Due to historical perspective with the people of North
Korea, the young generation has embraced different view of ethnic
nationalism. This study examines the youth involvement in politics in
line with their level of acceptance the practice of democracy. The
increase usage of new media has shown great results in the survey
results whereby the youth used as a platform to gain political
information and brought higher degree of their sociopolitical interests
among them. Furthermore, the rise of nationalism and patriotism will
be discussed in this paper to the dynamism of the political approaches
used by the Korea government
Abstract: Heat transfer from two cam shape cylinder in side-byside
arrangement had been studied numerically.
The transverse gap between the centers of cylinders (T) is allowed
to vary to change the pitch ratio (T/Deq). The equivalent diameter of
the cylinder (Deq) is 27.6 mm and pitch ratio varies in range of
1≤T/Deq≤3. The Reynolds numbers based on equivalent circular
cylinder are within 50≤ Reeq≤150. Results show that Nusselt number
of cylinders increases about 1 to 36 percent when pitch ratio
increases from 1 to 3.
Abstract: This paper reports on an effort to address the issue of
inequality in girls- and women-s access to science, engineering and
technology (SET) education and careers through raising awareness on
SET among secondary school girls in South Africa. Girls participated
in hands-on high-tech rapid prototyping environment of a fabrication
laboratory that was aimed at stimulating creativity and innovation as
part of a Fab Kids initiative. The Fab Kids intervention is about
creating a SET pipeline as part of the Young Engineers and Scientists
of Africa Initiative.The methodology was based on a real world
situation and a hands-on approach. In the process, participants
acquired a number of skills including computer-aided design,
research skills, communication skills, teamwork skills, technical
drawing skills, writing skills and problem-solving skills. Exposure to
technology enhanced the girls- confidence in being able to handle
technology-related tasks.
Abstract: Many natural language expressions are ambiguous, and
need to draw on other sources of information to be interpreted.
Interpretation of the e word تعاون to be considered as a noun or a verb
depends on the presence of contextual cues. To interpret words we
need to be able to discriminate between different usages. This paper
proposes a hybrid of based- rules and a machine learning method for
tagging Arabic words. The particularity of Arabic word that may be
composed of stem, plus affixes and clitics, a small number of rules
dominate the performance (affixes include inflexional markers for
tense, gender and number/ clitics include some prepositions,
conjunctions and others). Tagging is closely related to the notion of
word class used in syntax. This method is based firstly on rules (that
considered the post-position, ending of a word, and patterns), and
then the anomaly are corrected by adopting a memory-based learning
method (MBL). The memory_based learning is an efficient method to
integrate various sources of information, and handling exceptional
data in natural language processing tasks. Secondly checking the
exceptional cases of rules and more information is made available to
the learner for treating those exceptional cases. To evaluate the
proposed method a number of experiments has been run, and in
order, to improve the importance of the various information in
learning.
Abstract: Quantitative trait loci (QTL) experiments have yielded
important biological and biochemical information necessary for
understanding the relationship between genetic markers and
quantitative traits. For many years, most QTL algorithms only
allowed one observation per genotype. Recently, there has been an
increasing demand for QTL algorithms that can accommodate more
than one observation per genotypic distribution. The Bayesian
hierarchical model is very flexible and can easily incorporate this
information into the model. Herein a methodology is presented that
uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to capture the complexity of the
data. Furthermore, the Markov chain Monte Carlo model composition
(MC3) algorithm is used to search and identify important markers. An
extensive simulation study illustrates that the method captures the
true QTL, even under nonnormal noise and up to 6 QTL.
Abstract: Video-on-demand (VOD) is designed by using content delivery networks (CDN) to minimize the overall operational cost and to maximize scalability. Estimation of the viewing pattern (i.e., the relationship between the number of viewings and the ranking of VOD contents) plays an important role in minimizing the total operational cost and maximizing the performance of the VOD systems. In this paper, we have analyzed a large body of commercial VOD viewing data and found that the viewing rank distribution fits well with the parabolic fractal distribution. The weighted linear model fitting function is used to estimate the parameters (coefficients) of the parabolic fractal distribution. This paper presents an analytical basis for designing an optimal hierarchical VOD contents distribution system in terms of its cost and performance.
Abstract: Expression data analysis is based mostly on the
statistical approaches that are indispensable for the study of
biological systems. Large amounts of multidimensional data resulting
from the high-throughput technologies are not completely served by
biostatistical techniques and are usually complemented with visual,
knowledge discovery and other computational tools. In many cases,
in biological systems we only speculate on the processes that are
causing the changes, and it is the visual explorative analysis of data
during which a hypothesis is formed. We would like to show the
usability of multidimensional visualization tools and promote their
use in life sciences. We survey and show some of the
multidimensional visualization tools in the process of data
exploration, such as parallel coordinates and radviz and we extend
them by combining them with the self-organizing map algorithm. We
use a time course data set of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder
in our examples. Analysis of data with these tools has the potential to
uncover additional relationships and non-trivial structures.
Abstract: Biometric measures of one kind or another have been
used to identify people since ancient times, with handwritten
signatures, facial features, and fingerprints being the traditional
methods. Of late, Systems have been built that automate the task of
recognition, using these methods and newer ones, such as hand
geometry, voiceprints and iris patterns. These systems have different
strengths and weaknesses. This work is a two-section composition. In
the starting section, we present an analytical and comparative study
of common biometric techniques. The performance of each of them
has been viewed and then tabularized as a result. The latter section
involves the actual implementation of the techniques under
consideration that has been done using a state of the art tool called,
MATLAB. This tool aids to effectively portray the corresponding
results and effects.
Abstract: This study explored the relationship between
occupational stress and the perceived effectiveness of men and
women managers in Ghanaian organizations. The exploration is
underlined by attempt to understand the degree to which male and
female managers in Ghanaian organizations experience occupational
stress at the workplace. The purpose is to examine the sources and
extents of occupational stress experienced by male and female
managers in Ghana. Data was collected using questionnaires and
analyzed using both descriptive statistics and correlation analysis.
The results showed that female managers in Ghana are more likely to
report of more stress experiences in the workplace than their male
counterparts. The female managers are more likely to perceive role
conflict and alienation as job stressors while the male managers
perceived blocked career as a major source of workplace stress. It is
concluded that despite the female managers experiencing enormous
level of occupational stress, there was no significant differences
between their managerial effectiveness and that of the male.
Abstract: Natural organic matter (NOM) is heterogeneous
mixture of organic compounds that enter the water media from
animal and plant remains, domestic and industrial wastes.
Researches showed that NOM is likely precursor material for
disinfection by products (DBPs). Chlorine very commenly used for
disinfection purposes and NOM and chlorine reacts then
Trihalomethane (THM) and Haloacetic acids (HAAs) which are
cancerogenics for human health are produced. The aim of the study is
to search NOM removal by enhanced coagulation from drinking
water source of Eskisehir which is supplied from Porsuk Dam.
Recently, Porsuk dam water is getting highly polluted and therefore
NOM concentration is increasing. Enhanced coagulation studies were
evaluated by measurement of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), UV
absorbance at 254 nm (UV254), and different trihalomethane
formation potential (THMFP) tests. Results of jar test experiments
showed that NOM can be removed from water about 40-50 % of
efficiency by enhanced coagulation. Optimum coagulant type and
coagulant dosages were determined using FeCl3 and Alum.
Abstract: There are many sources trough which the soil get
enriched and contaminated with REEs. The determination of REEs in
environmental samples has been limited because of the lack of
sensitive analytical techniques. Soil samples were collected from
four sites including open cast coal mine, natural coal burning, coal
washery and control in the coal field located in Dhanbad, India.
Total concentrations of rare earth elements (REEs) were determined
using the inductively coupled plasma atomic absorption spectrometry
in order to assess enrichment status in the coal field. Results showed
that the mean concentrations of La, Pr, Eu, Tb, Ho, and Tm in open
cast mine and natural coal burning sites were elevated compared to
the reference concentrations, while Ce, Nd, Sm, and Gd were
elevated in coal washery site. When compared to reference soil,
heavy REEs (HREEs) were enriched in open cast mines and natural
coal burning affected soils, however, the HREEs were depleted in the
coal washery sites. But, the Chondrite-normalization diagram showed
significant enrichment for light REEs (LREEs) in all the soils. High
concentration of Pr, Eu, Tb, Ho, Tm, and Lu in coal mining and coal
burning sites may pose human health risks. Factor analysis showed
that distribution and relative abundance of REEs of the coal washery
site is comparable with the control. Eventually washing or cleaning
of coal could significantly decrease the emission of REEs from coal
into the environment.
Abstract: Bond graph models of an electrical transformer
including the nonlinear saturation are presented. These models
determine the relation between self and mutual inductances, and
the leakage and magnetizing inductances of power transformers
with two and three windings using the properties of a bond
graph. The modelling and analysis using this methodology to
three phase power transformers or transformers with internal
incipient faults can be extended.