Abstract: The recycling of concrete, bricks and masonry rubble
as concrete aggregates is an important way to contribute to a
sustainable material flow. However, there are still various
uncertainties limiting the widespread use of Recycled Concrete
Aggregates (RCA). The fluctuations in the composition of grade
recycled aggregates and their influence on the properties of fresh and
hardened concrete are of particular concern regarding the use of
RCA. Most of problems occurring while using recycled concrete
aggregates as aggregates are due to higher porosity and hence higher
water absorption, lower mechanical strengths, residual impurities on
the surface of the RCA forming weaker bond between cement paste
and aggregate. So, the reuse of RCA is still limited. Efficient
polymer based treatment is proposed in order to reuse RCA easier.
The silicon-based polymer treatments of RCA were carried out and
were compared. This kind of treatment can improve the properties of
RCA such as the rate of water absorption on treated RCA is
significantly reduced.
Abstract: According to the statistics, the prevalence of congenital hearing loss in Taiwan is approximately six thousandths; furthermore, one thousandths of infants have severe hearing impairment. Hearing ability during infancy has significant impact in the development of children-s oral expressions, language maturity, cognitive performance, education ability and social behaviors in the future. Although most children born with hearing impairment have sensorineural hearing loss, almost every child more or less still retains some residual hearing. If provided with a hearing aid or cochlear implant (a bionic ear) timely in addition to hearing speech training, even severely hearing-impaired children can still learn to talk. On the other hand, those who failed to be diagnosed and thus unable to begin hearing and speech rehabilitations on a timely manner might lose an important opportunity to live a complete and healthy life. Eventually, the lack of hearing and speaking ability will affect the development of both mental and physical functions, intelligence, and social adaptability. Not only will this problem result in an irreparable regret to the hearing-impaired child for the life time, but also create a heavy burden for the family and society. Therefore, it is necessary to establish a set of computer-assisted predictive model that can accurately detect and help diagnose newborn hearing loss so that early interventions can be provided timely to eliminate waste of medical resources. This study uses information from the neonatal database of the case hospital as the subjects, adopting two different analysis methods of using support vector machine (SVM) for model predictions and using logistic regression to conduct factor screening prior to model predictions in SVM to examine the results. The results indicate that prediction accuracy is as high as 96.43% when the factors are screened and selected through logistic regression. Hence, the model constructed in this study will have real help in clinical diagnosis for the physicians and actually beneficial to the early interventions of newborn hearing impairment.
Abstract: Building intelligent traffic guide systems has been an
interesting subject recently. A good system should be able to observe
all important visual information to be able to analyze the context of
the scene. To do so, signs in general, and traffic signs in particular,
are usually taken into account as they contain rich information to
these systems. Therefore, many researchers have put an effort on
sign recognition field. Sign localization or sign detection is the most
important step in the sign recognition process. This step filters out
non informative area in the scene, and locates candidates in later
steps. In this paper, we apply a new approach in detecting sign
locations using a new color invariant model. Experiments are carried
out with different datasets introduced in other works where authors
claimed the difficulty in detecting signs under unfavorable imaging
conditions. Our method is simple, fast and most importantly it gives
a high detection rate in locating signs.
Abstract: Electrical Discharge Machine (EDM) is especially
used for the manufacturing of 3-D complex geometry and hard
material parts that are extremely difficult-to-machine by conventional
machining processes. In this paper authors review the research work
carried out in the development of die-sinking EDM within the past
decades for the improvement of machining characteristics such as
Material Removal Rate, Surface Roughness and Tool Wear Ratio. In
this review various techniques reported by EDM researchers for
improving the machining characteristics have been categorized as
process parameters optimization, multi spark technique, powder
mixed EDM, servo control system and pulse discriminating. At the
end, flexible machine controller is suggested for Die Sinking EDM to
enhance the machining characteristics and to achieve high-level
automation. Thus, die sinking EDM can be integrated with Computer
Integrated Manufacturing environment as a need of agile
manufacturing systems.
Abstract: This paper applies fuzzy set theory 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 respondent
in replying to the survey. So as to overcome this problem, we
invite fuzzy set theory into the measurement of performance. By
using AHP in obtaining criteria and TOPSIS in ranking, we found
the most concerned dimension of service quality is Transaction
Safety Mechanism and the least is Charge Item. Regarding to the
most concerned attributes are information security, accuracy and
information.
Abstract: To investigate the possible correlation between peer aggression and peer victimization, 148 sixth-graders were asked to respond to the Reduced Aggression and Victimization Scales (RAVS). RAVS measures the frequency of reporting aggressive behaviors or of being victimized during the previous week prior to the survey. The scales are composed of six items each. Each point represents one instance of aggression or victimization. Specifically, the Pearson Product-Moment Correlation Coefficient (PMCC) was used to determine the correlations between the scores of the sixthgraders in the two scales, both in individual items and total scores. Positive correlations were established and correlations were significant at the 0.01 levels.
Abstract: In quality control of freeze-dried durian, crispiness is
a key quality index of the product. Generally, crispy testing has to be
done by a destructive method. A nondestructive testing of the
crispiness is required because the samples can be reused for other
kinds of testing. This paper proposed a crispiness classification
method of freeze-dried durians using fuzzy logic for decision
making. The physical changes of a freeze-dried durian include the
pores appearing in the images. Three physical features including (1)
the diameters of pores, (2) the ratio of the pore area and the
remaining area, and (3) the distribution of the pores are considered to
contribute to the crispiness. The fuzzy logic is applied for making the
decision. The experimental results comparing with food expert
opinion showed that the accuracy of the proposed classification
method is 83.33 percent.
Abstract: Research on damage of gears and gear pairs using
vibration signals remains very attractive, because vibration signals
from a gear pair are complex in nature and not easy to interpret.
Predicting gear pair defects by analyzing changes in vibration signal
of gears pairs in operation is a very reliable method. Therefore, a
suitable vibration signal processing technique is necessary to extract
defect information generally obscured by the noise from dynamic
factors of other gear pairs.This article presents the value of cepstrum
analysis in vehicle gearbox fault diagnosis. Cepstrum represents the
overall power content of a whole family of harmonics and sidebands
when more than one family of sidebands is present at the same time.
The concept for the measurement and analysis involved in using the
technique are briefly outlined. Cepstrum analysis is used for detection
of an artificial pitting defect in a vehicle gearbox loaded with
different speeds and torques. The test stand is equipped with three
dynamometers; the input dynamometer serves asthe internal
combustion engine, the output dynamometers introduce the load on
the flanges of the output joint shafts. The pitting defect is
manufactured on the tooth side of a gear of the fifth speed on the
secondary shaft. Also, a method for fault diagnosis of gear faults is
presented based on order Cepstrum. The procedure is illustrated with
the experimental vibration data of the vehicle gearbox. The results
show the effectiveness of Cepstrum analysis in detection and
diagnosis of the gear condition.
Abstract: Project managers are the ultimate responsible for the
overall characteristics of a project, i.e. they should deliver the project
on time with minimum cost and with maximum quality. It is vital for
any manager to decide a trade-off between these conflicting
objectives and they will be benefited of any scientific decision
support tool. Our work will try to determine optimal solutions (rather
than a single optimal solution) from which the project manager will
select his desirable choice to run the project. In this paper, the
problem in project scheduling notated as
(1,T|cpm,disc,mu|curve:quality,time,cost) will be studied. The
problem is multi-objective and the purpose is finding the Pareto
optimal front of time, cost and quality of a project
(curve:quality,time,cost), whose activities belong to a start to finish
activity relationship network (cpm) and they can be done in different
possible modes (mu) which are non-continuous or discrete (disc), and
each mode has a different cost, time and quality . The project is
constrained to a non-renewable resource i.e. money (1,T). Because
the problem is NP-Hard, to solve the problem, a meta-heuristic is
developed based on a version of genetic algorithm specially adapted
to solve multi-objective problems namely FastPGA. A sample project
with 30 activities is generated and then solved by the proposed
method.
Abstract: In 3D-wavelet video coding framework temporal
filtering is done along the trajectory of motion using Motion
Compensated Temporal Filtering (MCTF). Hence computationally
efficient motion estimation technique is the need of MCTF. In this
paper a predictive technique is proposed in order to reduce the
computational complexity of the MCTF framework, by exploiting
the high correlation among the frames in a Group Of Picture (GOP).
The proposed technique applies coarse and fine searches of any fast
block based motion estimation, only to the first pair of frames in a
GOP. The generated motion vectors are supplied to the next
consecutive frames, even to subsequent temporal levels and only fine
search is carried out around those predicted motion vectors. Hence
coarse search is skipped for all the motion estimation in a GOP
except for the first pair of frames. The technique has been tested for
different fast block based motion estimation algorithms over different
standard test sequences using MC-EZBC, a state-of-the-art scalable
video coder. The simulation result reveals substantial reduction (i.e.
20.75% to 38.24%) in the number of search points during motion
estimation, without compromising the quality of the reconstructed
video compared to non-predictive techniques. Since the motion
vectors of all the pair of frames in a GOP except the first pair will
have value ±1 around the motion vectors of the previous pair of
frames, the number of bits required for motion vectors is also
reduced by 50%.
Abstract: In this paper, a Biochemical Methane Potential (BMP)
test provides a measure of the energy production potential from codigestion
between the frozen seafood wastewater and the decanter
cake. The experiments were conducted in laboratory-scale. The
suitable ratio of the frozen seafood wastewater and the decanter cake
was observed in the BMP test. The ratio of the co-digestion between
the frozen seafood wastewater and the decanter cake has impacts on
the biogas production and energy production potential. The best
performance for energy production potential using BMP test
observed from the 180 ml of the frozen seafood wastewater and 10 g
of the decanter cake ratio. This ratio provided the maximum methane
production at 0.351 l CH4/g TCODremoval. The removal efficiencies
are 76.18%, 83.55%, 43.16% and 56.76% at TCOD, SCOD, TS and
VS, respectively. The result can be concluded that the decanter cake
can improve the energy production potential of the frozen seafood
wastewater. The energy provides from co-digestion between frozen
seafood wastewater and decanter cake approximately 19x109
MJ/year in Thailand.
Abstract: One important objective in Precision Agriculture is to minimize the volume of herbicides that are applied to the fields through the use of site-specific weed management systems. In order to reach this goal, two major factors need to be considered: 1) the similar spectral signature, shape and texture between weeds and crops; 2) the irregular distribution of the weeds within the crop's field. This paper outlines an automatic computer vision system for the detection and differential spraying of Avena sterilis, a noxious weed growing in cereal crops. The proposed system involves two processes: image segmentation and decision making. Image segmentation combines basic suitable image processing techniques in order to extract cells from the image as the low level units. Each cell is described by two area-based attributes measuring the relations among the crops and the weeds. From these attributes, a hybrid decision making approach determines if a cell must be or not sprayed. The hybrid approach uses the Support Vector Machines and the Fuzzy k-Means methods, combined through the fuzzy aggregation theory. This makes the main finding of this paper. The method performance is compared against other available strategies.
Abstract: Negation is useful in the majority of the real world applications. However, its introduction leads to semantic and canonical problems. SEPN nets are well adapted extension of predicate nets for the definition and manipulation of stratified programs. This formalism is characterized by two main contributions. The first concerns the management of the whole class of stratified programs. The second contribution is related to usual operations optimization (maximal stratification, incremental updates ...). We propose, in this paper, useful algorithms for manipulating stratified programs using SEPN. These algorithms were implemented and validated with STRPRO tool.
Abstract: This study was to investigate the performance of
hybrid solvents blended between primary, secondary, or tertiary
amines and piperazine (PZ) for CO2 removal from flue gas in terms
of CO2 absorption capacity and regeneration efficiency at 90 oC.
Alkanolamines used in this work were monoethanolamine (MEA),
diethanolamine (DEA), and triethanolamine (TEA). The CO2
absorption was experimentally examined under atmospheric pressure
and room temperature. The results show that MEA blend with PZ
provided the maximum CO2 absorption capacity of 0.50 mol
CO2/mol amine while TEA provided the minimum CO2 absorption
capacity of 0.30 mol CO2/mol amine. TEA was easier to regenerate
for both first cycle and second cycle with less loss of absorption
capacity. The regeneration efficiency of TEA was 95.09 and 92.89 %,
for the first and second generation cycles, respectively.
Abstract: Self-directed learning (SDL) was developed initially
for adult learning. Guglielmino constructed a scale to measure SDL.
Recent researchers have applied this concept to children. Although
there are sufficient theoretical evidences to present the possibility of
applying this concept to children, empirical evidences were not
provided. This study aimed to examine the quality of SDL and
construct a scale to measure SDL among young children. A modified
scale of Guglielmino-s scale was constructed and piloted with 183
subjects of age 9. Findings suggest that the qualities of SDL in young
ages are apparently congruent with that of adults.
Abstract: Researches related to standard product model and
development of neutral manufacturing interfaces for numerical
control machines becomes a significant topic since the last 25 years.
In this paper, a detail description of STEP implementation on turnmill
manufacturing has been discussed. It shows requirements of
information contents from ISO14649 data model. It covers to
describe the design of STEP-NC framework applicable to turn-mill
manufacturing. In the framework, EXPRESS-G and UML modeling
tools are used to depict the information contents of the system and
established the bases of information model requirement. A product
and manufacturing data model applicable for STEP compliant
manufacturing. The next generation turn-mill operations
requirements have been represented by a UML diagram. An object
oriented classes of ISO1449 has been developed on Visual Basic dot
NET platform for binding the static information model represented
by the UML diagram. An architect of the proposed system
implementation has been given on the bases of the design and
manufacturing module of STEP-NC interface established. Finally, a
part 21 file process plan generated for an illustration of turn-mill
components.
Abstract: In this paper, a novel multi join algorithm to join
multiple relations will be introduced. The novel algorithm is based
on a hashed-based join algorithm of two relations to produce a double index. This is done by scanning the two relations once. But
instead of moving the records into buckets, a double index will be built. This will eliminate the collision that can happen from a complete hash algorithm. The double index will be divided into join
buckets of similar categories from the two relations. The algorithm then joins buckets with similar keys to produce joined buckets. This
will lead at the end to a complete join index of the two relations. without actually joining the actual relations. The time complexity
required to build the join index of two categories is Om log m where m is the size of each category. Totaling time complexity to O n log m
for all buckets. The join index will be used to materialize the joined relation if required. Otherwise, it will be used along with other join
indices of other relations to build a lattice to be used in multi-join operations with minimal I/O requirements. The lattice of the join indices can be fitted into the main memory to reduce time complexity of the multi join algorithm.
Abstract: The study was designed to develop a measurement of
the positive emotion regulation questionnaire (PERQ) that assesses
positive emotion regulation strategies through self-report. The 14
items developed for the surveying instrument of the study were based
upon literatures regarding elements of positive regulation strategies.
319 elementary students (age ranging from 12 to14) were recruited
among three public elementary schools to survey on their use of
positive emotion regulation strategies. Of 319 subjects, 20 invalid
questionnaire s yielded a response rate of 92%. The data collected
wasanalyzed through methods such as item analysis, factor analysis,
and structural equation models. In reference to the results from item
analysis, the formal survey instrument was reduced to 11 items. A
principal axis factor analysis with varimax was performed on
responses, resulting in a 2-factor equation (savoring strategy and
neutralizing strategy), which accounted for 55.5% of the total
variance. Then, the two-factor structure of scale was also identified by
structural equation models. Finally, the reliability coefficients of the
two factors were Cronbach-s α .92 and .74. Gender difference was
only found in savoring strategy. In conclusion, the positive emotion
regulation strategies questionnaire offers a brief, internally consistent,
and valid self-report measure for understanding the emotional
regulation strategies of children that may be useful to researchers and
applied professionals.
Abstract: with increasing circuits- complexity and demand to
use portable devices, power consumption is one of the most
important parameters these days. Full adders are the basic block of
many circuits. Therefore reducing power consumption in full adders
is very important in low power circuits. One of the most powerconsuming
modules in full adders is XOR/XNOR circuit. This paper
presents two new full adders based on two new logic approaches. The
proposed logic approaches use one XOR or XNOR gate to implement
a full adder cell. Therefore, delay and power will be decreased. Using
two new approaches and two XOR and XNOR gates, two new full
adders have been implemented in this paper. Simulations are carried
out by HSPICE in 0.18μm bulk technology with 1.8V supply voltage.
The results show that the ten-transistors proposed full adder has 12%
less power consumption and is 5% faster in comparison to MB12T
full adder. 9T is more efficient in area and is 24% better than similar
10T full adder in term of power consumption. The main drawback of
the proposed circuits is output threshold loss problem.
Abstract: It is quite essential to form dialogue mechanisms and
dialogue channels to solve intercultural communication issues.
Therefore, every country should develop a intercultural education
project which aims to resolve international communication issues.
For proper mediation training, the first step is to reach an agreement
on the actors to run the project. The strongest mediation mechanisms
in the world should be analyzed and initiated within the educational
policies. A communication-based mediation model should be
developed for international mediation training. Mediators can use
their convincing communication skills as a part of this model. At the
first, fundamental stages of the mediation training should be specified
within the scope of the model. Another important topic at this point is
common sence and peace leaders to act as an ombudsman in this
process. Especially for solving some social issues and conflicts,
common sense leaders acting as an ombudsman would lead to
effective communication. In mediation training that is run by
universities and non-governmental organizations, another phase is to
focus on conducting the meetings. In intercultural mediation training,
one of the most critical topics is to conduct the meeting traffic and
performing a shuttle diplomacy. Meeting traffic is where the mediator
organizes meetings with the parties with initiative powers, in order to
contribute to the solution of the issue, and schedule these meetings.
In this notice titled “ Intercultural mediation training and the training
process of common sense leaders by the leadership of universities
communication and artistic campaigns" , communication models and
strategies about this topic will be constructed and an intercultural art
activities and perspectives will be presented.