Abstract: The anti-lock braking systems installed on vehicles
for safe and effective braking, are high-order nonlinear and timevariant.
Using fuzzy logic controllers increase efficiency of such
systems, but impose a high computational complexity as well. The
main concept introduced by this paper is reducing computational
complexity of fuzzy controllers by deploying problem-solution data
structure. Unlike conventional methods that are based on
calculations, this approach is based on data oriented modeling.
Abstract: Exploring an autistic child in Elementary school is a
difficult task that must be fully thought out and the teachers should
be aware of the many challenges they face raising their child
especially the behavioral problems of autistic children. Hence there
arises a need for developing Artificial intelligence (AI)
Contemporary Techniques to help diagnosis to discover autistic
people.
In this research, we suggest designing architecture of expert
system that combine Cognitive Maps (CM) with Case Based
Reasoning technique (CBR) in order to reduce time and costs of
traditional diagnosis process for the early detection to discover
autistic children. The teacher is supposed to enter child's information
for analyzing by CM module. Then, the reasoning processor would
translate the output into a case to be solved a current problem by
CBR module. We will implement a prototype for the model as a
proof of concept using java and MYSQL.
This will be provided a new hybrid approach that will achieve new
synergies and improve problem solving capabilities in AI. And we
will predict that will reduce time, costs, the number of human errors
and make expertise available to more people who want who want to
serve autistic children and their families.
Abstract: Cardiovascular disease mostly in the form of atherosclerosis is responsible for 30% of all world deaths amounting to 17 million people per year. Atherosclerosis is due to the formation of plaque. The fatty plaque may be at risk of rupture, leading typically to stroke and heart attack. The plaque is usually associated with a high degree of lumen reduction, called a stenosis. The initiation and progression of the disease is strongly linked to the hemodynamic environment near the vessel wall. The aim of this study is to validate the flow of blood mimic through an arterial stenosis model with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package. In experiment, an axisymmetric model constructed consists of contraction and expansion region that follow a mathematical form of cosine function. A 30% diameter reduction was used in this study. Particle image velocimetry (PIV) was used to characterize the flow. The fluid consists of rigid spherical particles suspended in waterglycerol- NaCl mixture. The particles with 20 μm diameter were selected to follow the flow of fluid. The flow at Re=155, 270 and 390 were investigated. The experimental result is compared with FLUENT simulated flow that account for viscous laminar flow model. The results suggest that laminar flow model was sufficient to predict flow velocity at the inlet but the velocity at stenosis throat at Re =390 was overestimated. Hence, a transition to turbulent regime might have been developed at throat region as the flow rate increases.
Abstract: Many states are now committed to implementing
international human rights standards domestically. In terms of
practical governance, how might effectiveness be measured? A facevalue
answer can be found in domestic laws and institutions relating
to human rights. However, this article provides two further tools to
help states assess their status on the spectrum of robust to fragile
human rights governance. The first recognises that each state has its
own 'human rights history' and the ideal end stage is robust human
rights governance, and the second is developing criteria to assess
robustness. Although a New Zealand case study is used to illustrate
these tools, the widespread adoption of human rights standards by
many states inevitably means that the issues are relevant to other
countries. This is even though there will always be varying degrees of
similarity-difference in constitutional background and developed or
emerging human rights systems.
Abstract: Human activities are increasingly based on the use of remote resources and services, and on the interaction between
remotely located parties that may know little about each other. Mobile agents must be prepared to execute on different hosts with
various environmental security conditions. The aim of this paper is to
propose a trust based mechanism to improve the security of mobile
agents and allow their execution in various environments. Thus, an
adaptive trust mechanism is proposed. It is based on the dynamic interaction between the agent and the environment. Information
collected during the interaction enables generation of an environment
key. This key informs on the host-s trust degree and permits the mobile agent to adapt its execution. Trust estimation is based on
concrete parameters values. Thus, in case of distrust, the source of problem can be located and a mobile agent appropriate behavior can
be selected.
Abstract: Formaldehyde is the illegal chemical substance used
for food preservation in fish and vegetable. It can promote
carcinogenesis. Superoxide dismutases are the important
antioxidative enzymes that catalyze the dismutation of superoxide
anion into oxygen and hydrogen peroxide. The resultant level of
oxidative stress in formaldehyde-treated lymphocytes was
investigated. The formaldehyde concentrations of 0, 20, 40, 60, 80
and 120μmol/L were treated in human lymphocytes for 12 hours.
After 12 treated hours, the superoxide dismutase activity change was
measured in formaldehyde-treated lymphocytes. The results showed
that the formaldehyde concentrations of 60, 80 and 120μmol/L
significantly decreased superoxide dismutase activities in
lymphocytes (P < 0.05). The change of superoxide dismutase
activity in formaldehyde-treated lymphocytes may be the biomarker
for detect cellular injury, such as damage to DNA, due to
formaldehyde exposure.
Abstract: This paper presents design trade-off and performance impacts of
the amount of pipeline phase of control path signals in a wormhole-switched
network-on-chip (NoC). The numbers of the pipeline phase of the control
path vary between two- and one-cycle pipeline phase. The control paths
consist of the routing request paths for output selection and the arbitration
paths for input selection. Data communications between on-chip routers are
implemented synchronously and for quality of service, the inter-router data
transports are controlled by using a link-level congestion control to avoid
lose of data because of an overflow. The trade-off between the area (logic
cell area) and the performance (bandwidth gain) of two proposed NoC router
microarchitectures are presented in this paper. The performance evaluation is
made by using a traffic scenario with different number of workloads under
2D mesh NoC topology using a static routing algorithm. By using a 130-nm
CMOS standard-cell technology, our NoC routers can be clocked at 1 GHz,
resulting in a high speed network link and high router bandwidth capacity
of about 320 Gbit/s. Based on our experiments, the amount of control path
pipeline stages gives more significant impact on the NoC performance than
the impact on the logic area of the NoC router.
Abstract: Recent developments in information and
communication technologies (ICT) have created excellent conditions
for profoundly enhancing the traditional learning and teaching
practices. New modes of teaching in higher education subjects can
profoundly enhance ones ability to proactively constructing his or her
personal learning universe. These developments have contributed to
digital learning environments becoming widely available and
accessible. In addition, there is a trend towards enlargement and
specialization in higher education in Europe. With as a result that
existing Master of Science (MSc) programmes are merged or new
programmes have been established that are offered as joint MSc
programmes to students. In these joint MSc programmes, the need for
(common) digital learning environments capable of surmounting the
barriers of time and location has become evident. This paper
discusses the past and ongoing efforts to establish such common
digital learning environments in two joint MSc programmes in
Europe and discusses the way technology-based learning
environments affect the traditional way of learning.
Abstract: This paper focuses on the Mega-Sub Controlled
Structure Systems (MSCSS) performances and characteristics
regarding the new control principle contained in MSCSS subjected to
strong earthquake excitations. The adopted control scheme consists of
modulated sub-structures where the control action is achieved by
viscous dampers and sub-structure own configuration. The
elastic-plastic time history analysis under severe earthquake excitation
is analyzed base on the Finite Element Analysis Method (FEAM), and
some comparison results are also given in this paper. The result shows
that the MSCSS systems can remarkably reduce vibrations effects
more than the mega-sub structure (MSS). The study illustrates that the
improved MSCSS presents good seismic resistance ability even at 1.2g
and can absorb seismic energy in the structure, thus imply that
structural members cross section can be reduce and achieve to good
economic characteristics. Furthermore, the elasto-plastic analysis
demonstrates that the MSCSS is accurate enough regarding
international building evaluation and design codes. This paper also
shows that the elasto-plastic dynamic analysis method is a reasonable
and reliable analysis method for structures subjected to strong
earthquake excitations and that the computed results are more precise.
Abstract: In diversity rich environments, such as in Ultra-
Wideband (UWB) applications, the a priori determination of the
number of strong diversity branches is difficult, because of the considerably large number of diversity paths, which are characterized
by a variety of power delay profiles (PDPs). Several
Rake implementations have been proposed in the past, in order to reduce the number of the estimated and combined paths. To this
aim, we introduce two adaptive Rake receivers, which combine
a subset of the resolvable paths considering simultaneously the
quality of both the total combining output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the individual SNR of each path. These schemes achieve
better adaptation to channel conditions compared to other known receivers, without further increasing the complexity. Their performance
is evaluated in different practical UWB channels, whose models are based on extensive propagation measurements. The
proposed receivers compromise between the power consumption,
complexity and performance gain for the additional paths, resulting in important savings in power and computational resources.
Abstract: Traffic congestion has become a major problem in
many countries. One of the main causes of traffic congestion is due
to road merges. Vehicles tend to move slower when they reach the
merging point. In this paper, an enhanced algorithm for traffic
simulation based on the fluid-dynamic algorithm and kinematic wave
theory is proposed. The enhanced algorithm is used to study traffic
congestion at a road merge. This paper also describes the
development of a dynamic traffic simulation tool which is used as a
scenario planning and to forecast traffic congestion level in a certain
time based on defined parameter values. The tool incorporates the
enhanced algorithm as well as the two original algorithms. Output
from the three above mentioned algorithms are measured in terms of
traffic queue length, travel time and the total number of vehicles
passing through the merging point. This paper also suggests an
efficient way of reducing traffic congestion at a road merge by
analyzing the traffic queue length and travel time.
Abstract: This study presents the improvement of thermal
performance of heat pipe using copper nanofluid with aqueous
solution of n-Butanol. The nanofluids kept in the suspension of
conventional fluids have the potential of superior heat transfer
capability than the conventional fluids due to their improved thermal
conductivity. In this work, the copper nanofluid which has a 40 nm
size with a concentration of 100 mg/lit is kept in the suspension of
the de-ionized (DI) water and an aqueous solution of n-Butanol and
these fluids are used as a working medium in the heat pipe. The study
discusses about the effect of heat pipe inclination, type of working
fluid and heat input on the thermal efficiency and thermal resistance.
The experimental results are evaluated in terms of its performance
metrics and are compared with that of DI water.
Abstract: This study was designed to formulate,
pharmaceutically evaluate a topical skin-care cream (w/o emulsion)
of Aloe Vera versus its vehicle (Base) as control and determine their
effects on Stratum Corneum (SC) water content and Transepidermal
water loss (TEWL). Base containing no extract and a Formulation
containing 3% concentrated extract of Aloe Vera was developed by
entrapping in the inner aqueous phase of w/o emulsion (cream).
Lemon oil was incorporated to improve the odor. Both the Base and
Formulation were stored at 8°C ±0.1°C (in refrigerator), 25°C±0.1°C,
40°C±0.1°C and 40°C± 0.1°C with 75% RH (in incubator) for a
period of 4 weeks to predict their stability. The evaluation parameters
consisted of color, smell, type of emulsion, phase separation,
electrical conductivity, centrifugation, liquefaction and pH. Both the
Base and Formulation were applied to the cheeks of 21 healthy
human volunteers for a period of 8 weeks Stratum corneum (SC)
water content and Transepidermal water loss (TEWL) were
monitored every week to measure any effect produced by these
topical creams. The expected organoleptic stability of creams was
achieved from 4 weeks in-vitro study period. Odor was disappeared
with the passage of time due to volatilization of lemon oil. Both the
Base and Formulation produced significant (p≤0.05) changes in
TEWL with respect to time. SC water content was significantly
(p≤0.05) increased by the Formulation while the Base has
insignificant (p 0.05) effects on SC water content. The newly
formulated cream of Aloe Vera, applied is suitable for improvement
and quantitative monitoring of skin hydration level (SC water
content/ moisturizing effects) and reducing TEWL in people with dry
skin.
Abstract: Size based filtration is one of the common methods
employed to isolate circulating tumor cells (CTCs) from whole
blood. It is well known that this method suffers from isolation
efficiency to purity tradeoff. However, this tradeoff is poorly
understood. In this paper, we present the design and manufacturing
of a special rectangular slit filter. The filter was designed to retain
maximal amounts of nucleated cells, while minimizing the pressure
on cells, thereby preserving their morphology. The key parameter,
namely, input pressure, was optimized to retain the maximal number
of tumor cells, whilst maximizing the depletion of normal blood cells
(red and white blood cells and platelets). Our results indicate that for
a slit geometry of 5 × 40 μm on a 13 mm circular membrane with a
fill factor of 21%, a pressure of 6.9 mBar yields the optimum for
maximizing isolation of MCF-7 and depletion of normal blood cells.
Abstract: The environment pollution with pesticides and heavy
metals is a recognized problem nowadays, with extension to the
global scale the tendency of amplification. Even with all the progress
in the environmental field, both in the emphasize of the effect of the
pollutants upon health, the linked studies environment-health are
insufficient, not only in Romania but all over the world also. We aim
to describe the particular situation in Romania regarding the
uncontrolled use of pesticides, to identify and evaluate the risk zones
for health and the environment in Romania, with the final goal of
designing adequate programs for reduction and control of the risk
sources. An exploratory study was conducted to determine the
magnitude of the pesticide use problem in a population living in
Saliste, a rural setting in Transylvania, Romania. The significant
stakeholders in Saliste region were interviewed and a sample from
the population living in Saliste area was selected to fill in a designed
questionnaire. All the selected participants declared that they used
pesticides in their activities for more than one purpose. They
declared they annually applied pesticides for a period of time
between 11 and 30 years, from 5 to 9 days per year on average,
mainly on crops situated at some distance from the houses but high
risk behavior was identified as the volunteers declared the use of
pesticides in the backyard gardens, near their homes, where children
were playing. The pesticide applicators did not have the necessary
knowledge about safety and exposure. The health data must be
correlated with exposure biomarkers in attempt to identify the
possible health effects of the pesticides exposure. Future plans
include educational campaigns to raise the awareness of the
population on the danger of uncontrolled use of pesticides.
Abstract: For Romania, the fulfilment of the obligations
undertaken as a member state of the European Union in accordance
with the Treaty of Accession requires the effective implementation of
sustainable development principles and practices, this being the only
reasonable development option, which adequately draws in on the
economic, social and environment resources. Achieving this
objective is based on a profound analysis of the realities in the
Romanian economy, which will reflect the existent situation and the
action directions for the future. The paper presents an analysis of the
Romanian economic performances compared to the EU economy,
based on the sustainable value (SV) model. The analysis highlighted
the considerable gap between Romania and the EU regarding the
sustainable capitalization of resources, the provided information
being useful to justify strategic development decisions at a micro and
macro levels.
Abstract: This paper presents an adaptive technique for generation
of data required for construction of artificial neural network-based
performance model of nano-scale CMOS inverter circuit. The training
data are generated from the samples through SPICE simulation. The
proposed algorithm has been compared to standard progressive sampling
algorithms like arithmetic sampling and geometric sampling.
The advantages of the present approach over the others have been
demonstrated. The ANN predicted results have been compared with
actual SPICE results. A very good accuracy has been obtained.
Abstract: The 20th century has brought much development to the practice of Architecture worldwide, and technology has bridged inhabitation limits in many regions of the world with high levels of comfort and conveniences, most times at high costs to the environment. Throughout the globe, the tropical countries are being urbanized at an unprecedented rate and housing has become a major issue worldwide, in light of increased demand and lack of appropriate infra-structure and planning. Buildings and urban spaces designed in tropical cities have mainly adopted external concepts that in most cases do not fit the needs of the inhabitants living in such harsh climatic environment, and when they do, do so at high financial, environmental and cultural costs. Traditional architectural practices can provide valuable understanding on how self-reliance and autonomy of construction can be reinforced in rural-urban tropical environments. From traditional housing knowledge, it is possible to derive lessons for the development of new construction materials that are affordable, environmentally friendly, culturally acceptable and accesible to all.Specifically to the urban context, such solutions are of outmost importance, given the needs to a more democratic society, where access to housing is considered high in the agenda for development. Traditional or rural constructions are also ongoing through extensive changes eventhough they have mostly adopted climate-responsive building practices relying on local resources (with minimum embodied energy) and energy (for comfort and quality of life). It is important to note that many of these buildings can actually be called zero-energy, and hold potential answers to enable transition from high energy, high cost, low comfort urban habitations to zero/low energy habitations with high quality urban livelihood. Increasing access to modern urban lifestyels have also an effect on the aspirations from people in terms of performance, comfort and convenience in terms of their housing and the way it is produced and used. These aspirations are resulting in transitions from localresource dependent habitations- to non-local resource based highenergy urban style habitations. And such transitions are resulting in the habitations becoming increasingly unsuited to the local climatic conditions with increasing discomfort, ill-health, and increased CO2 emissions and local environmental disruption. This research studies one specific transition group in the context of 'water communities' in tropical-equatorial regions: Ribeirinhos housing typology (Amazonas, Brazil). The paper presents the results of a qualitative sustainability assessment of the housing typologies under transition, found at the Ribeirinhos communities.
Abstract: Graph has become increasingly important in modeling
complicated structures and schemaless data such as proteins, chemical
compounds, and XML documents. Given a graph query, it is desirable
to retrieve graphs quickly from a large database via graph-based
indices. Different from the existing methods, our approach, called
VFM (Vertex to Frequent Feature Mapping), makes use of vertices
and decision features as the basic indexing feature. VFM constructs
two mappings between vertices and frequent features to answer graph
queries. The VFM approach not only provides an elegant solution to
the graph indexing problem, but also demonstrates how database
indexing and query processing can benefit from data mining,
especially frequent pattern mining. The results show that the proposed
method not only avoids the enumeration method of getting subgraphs
of query graph, but also effectively reduces the subgraph isomorphism
tests between the query graph and graphs in candidate answer set in
verification stage.
Abstract: The concept of privacy, seen in connection to the consumer's private space and personalization, has recently gained a higher importance as a consequence of the increasing marketing efforts of the organizations based on the capturing, processing and usage of consumer-s personal data.Paper intends to provide a definition of the consumer-s private space based on the types of personal data the consumer is willing to disclose, to assess the attitude toward personalization and to identify the means preferred by consumers to control their personal data and defend their private space. Several implications generated through the definition of the consumer-s private space are identified and weighted from both the consumers- and organizations- perspectives.