Abstract: Monitoring lightning electromagnetic pulses (sferics)
and other terrestrial as well as extraterrestrial transient radiation signals
is of considerable interest for practical and theoretical purposes
in astro- and geophysics as well as meteorology. Managing a continuous
flow of data, automisation of the detection and classification
process is important. Features based on a combination of wavelet and
statistical methods proved efficient for analysis and characterisation
of transients and as input into a radial basis function network that is
trained to discriminate transients from pulse like to wave like.
Abstract: In this paper a controller for the pitch angle of an
aircraft regarding to the elevator deflection angle is designed.
The way how the elevator angle affects pitching motion of the
aircraft is pointed out, as well as, how a pitch controller can be
applied for the aircraft to reach certain pitch angle. In this digital
optimal system, the elevator deflection angle and pitching angle
of the plane are considered to be input and output respectively.
A single input single output (SISO) system is presented. A
digital pitch aircraft control is demonstrated. A simulation for
the whole system has been performed. The optimal control
weighting vectors, Q and R have been determined.
Abstract: The objective of the research was focused on the
design, development and evaluation of a sustainable web based
network system to be used as an interoperable environment for
University process workflow and document management. In this
manner the most of the process workflows in Universities can be
entirely realized electronically and promote integrated University.
Definition of the most used University process workflows enabled
creating electronic workflows and their execution on standard
workflow execution engines. Definition or reengineering of
workflows provided increased work efficiency and helped in having
standardized process through different faculties. The concept and the
process definition as well as the solution applied as Case study are
evaluated and findings are reported.
Abstract: The information revealed by derivatives can help to
better characterize digital near-end crosstalk signatures with the
ultimate goal of identifying the specific aggressor signal.
Unfortunately, derivatives tend to be very sensitive to even low
levels of noise. In this work we approximated the derivatives of both
quiet and noisy digital signals using a wavelet-based technique. The
results are presented for Gaussian digital edges, IBIS Model digital
edges, and digital edges in oscilloscope data captured from an actual
printed circuit board. Tradeoffs between accuracy and noise
immunity are presented. The results show that the wavelet technique
can produce first derivative approximations that are accurate to
within 5% or better, even under noisy conditions. The wavelet
technique can be used to calculate the derivative of a digital signal
edge when conventional methods fail.
Abstract: The breakdown strength characteristic of Low Density
Polyethylene films (LDPE) under DC voltage application and the
effect of water absorption have been studied. Mainly, our experiment
was investigated under two conditions; dry and heavy water
absorption. Under DC ramp voltage, the result found that the
breakdown strength under heavy water absorption has a lower value
than dry condition. In order to clarify the effect, the temperature rise of
film was observed using non contact thermograph until the occurrence
of the electrical breakdown and the conduction current of the sample
was also measured in correlation with the thermograph measurement.
From the observations, it was shown that under the heavy water
absorption, the hot spot in the samples appeared at lower voltage. At
the same voltage the temperature of the hot spot and conduction
current was higher than that under the dry condition. The measurement
result has a good correlation between the existence of a critical field
for conduction current and thermograph observation. In case of the
heavy water absorption, the occurrence of the threshold field was
earlier than the dry condition as result lead to higher of conduction
current and the temperature rise appears after threshold field was
significantly increased in increasing of field. The higher temperature
rise was caused by the higher current conduction as the result the
insulation leads to breakdown to the lower field application.
Abstract: To study on effect of PEG and NaCl stress on
germination and early seedling stages on two cultivar of corn, two
separated experiment were laid out at physiology laboratory, faculty
of Agriculture, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran in 2009. This
investigation was performed as factorial experiment under Complete
Randomized Design (CRD) with three replications. Cultivar factor
contains of two varieties (sweet corn SC403 and Flint corn SC704)
and five levels of stress (0, -2, -4, -6 and -8 bar). The principal aim of
current study was to compare the two varieties of maize in relative to
the stress conditions. Results indicated that significant decrease was
observed in percentage of germination, germination rate, length of
radicle and plumule and radicle and plumule dry matter. On the basis
of the results, NaCl as compared with PEG had more effect on
germination and early seedling stage and sweet corn had more
resistant than flint corn in both stress conditions.
Abstract: The purpose of the experiments described in this article was the comparison of integrated fixed film activated sludge (IFAS) and activated sludge (AS) system. The IFAS applied system consists of the cigarette filter rods (wasted filter in tobacco factories) as a biofilm carrier. The comparison with activated sludge was performed by two parallel treatment lines. Organic substance, ammonia and TP removal was investigated over four month period. Synthetic wastewater was prepared with ordinary tap water and glucose as the main sources of carbon and energy, plus balanced macro and micro nutrients. COD removal percentages of 94.55%, and 81.62% were achieved for IFAS and activated sludge system, respectively. Also, ammonia concentration significantly decreased by increasing the HRT in both systems. The average ammonia removal of 97.40 % and 96.34% were achieved for IFAS and activated sludge system, respectively. The removal efficiency of total phosphorus (TP-P) was 60.64%, higher than AS process by 56.63% respectively.
Abstract: A simple method for the simultaneous determination
of hippuric acid and benzoic acid in urine using reversed-phase high
performance liquid chromatography was described. Chromatography
was performed on a Nova-Pak C18 (3.9 x 150 mm) column with a
mobile phase of mixed solution methanol: water: acetic acid
(20:80:0.2) and UV detection at 254 nm. The calibration curve was
linear within concentration range at 0.125 to 6.0 mg/ml of hippuric
acid and benzoic acid. The recovery, accuracy and coefficient
variance of hippuric acid were 104.54%, 0.2% and 0.2% respectively
and for benzoic acid were 98.48%, 1.25% and 0.60% respectively.
The detection limit of this method was 0.01ng/l for hippuric acid and
0.06ng/l for benzoic acid. This method has been applied to the
analysis of urine samples from the suspected of toluene abuser or
glue sniffer among secondary school students at Johor Bahru.
Abstract: International markets driven forces are changing
continuously, therefore companies need to gain a competitive edge in
such markets. Improving the company's products, processes and
practices is no longer auxiliary. Lean production is a production
management philosophy that consolidates work tasks with minimum
waste resulting in improved productivity. Lean production practices
can be mapped into many production areas. One of these is
Manufacturing Equipment and Technology (MET). Many lean
production practices can be implemented in MET, namely, specific
equipment configurations, total preventive maintenance, visual
control, new equipment/ technologies, production process
reengineering and shared vision of perfection.The purpose of this
paper is to investigate the implementation level of these six practices
in Jordanian industries. To achieve that a questionnaire survey has
been designed according to five-point Likert scale. The questionnaire
is validated through pilot study and through experts review. A sample
of 350 Jordanian companies were surveyed, the response rate was
83%. The respondents were asked to rate the extent of
implementation for each of practices. A relationship conceptual
model is developed, hypotheses are proposed, and consequently the
essential statistical analyses are then performed. An assessment tool
that enables management to monitor the progress and the
effectiveness of lean practices implementation is designed and
presented. Consequently, the results show that the average
implementation level of lean practices in MET is 77%, Jordanian
companies are implementing successfully the considered lean
production practices, and the presented model has Cronbach-s alpha
value of 0.87 which is good evidence on model consistency and
results validation.
Abstract: There are different kinds of online systems on the Internet for people who need support and develop new knowledge. Online communities and Ask the Expert systems are two such systems. In the health care area, the number of users of these systems has increased at a rapid pace. Interactions with medical trained experts take place online, and people with concerns about similar health problems come together to share experiences and advice. The systems are also used as storages and browsed for health information. Over the years, studies have been conducted of the usage of the different systems. However, in what ways the systems can be used together to enhance learning has not been explored. This paper presents results from a study of online health-communities and an Ask the Expert system for people who suffer from overweight. Differences and similarities in regards to posted issues and replies are discussed, and suggestions for a new holistic design of the two systems are presented.
Abstract: Self-organizing map (SOM) provides both clustering and visualization capabilities in mining data. Dynamic self-organizing maps such as Growing Self-organizing Map (GSOM) has been developed to overcome the problem of fixed structure in SOM to enable better representation of the discovered patterns. However, in mining large datasets or historical data the hierarchical structure of the data is also useful to view the cluster formation at different levels of abstraction. In this paper, we present a technique to generate concept trees from the GSOM. The formation of tree from different spread factor values of GSOM is also investigated and the quality of the trees analyzed. The results show that concept trees can be generated from GSOM, thus, eliminating the need for re-clustering of the data from scratch to obtain a hierarchical view of the data under study.
Abstract: Biodiesel is traditionally produced from oleaginous
plants. On the other hand, increasing biodiesel production from these
raw materials could create problems of food supply. Producing
biodiesel from microalgae could help to overcome this difficulty,
because microalgae are rich in lipids and do not compete for arable
lands. However, no studies had compared vegetable and microalgae
oil-based biodiesel in terms of yield, viscosity and heat of
combustion. In the present study, commercial canola and microalgae
oil were therefore transesterified with methanol under a homogenous
alkali catalyst (potassium hydroxide) at 100oC for 1h. The result
showed that microalgae-based oil has a higher yield in biodiesel with
89.7% (g biodiesel/g oil) and a lower kinematic viscosity (22oC) of
4.31 mm/s2 than canola oil.
Abstract: Vermicomposting is the conversion of organic waste
into bio-fertilizers through the action of earthworm. This technology
is widely used for organic solid waste management. Waste corn pulp
blended with cow dung manure was vermicomposted over 30 days
using Eisenia fetida earthworms species. pH, temperature, moisture
content, and electrical conductivity were daily monitored. The
feedstock, vermicompost and vermiwash were analyzed for nutrient
composition. The average temperature and moisture content in the
vermi-reactor was 22.5°C and 42.5% respectively. The vermicompost
and vermiwash had an almost neutral pH whilst the electrical
conductivity was 21% higher in the vermicompost. The nitrogen and
potassium content was 57% and 79.6% richer in the vermicompost
respectively compared to the vermiwash. However, the vermiwash
was 84% richer in phosphorous as compared to vermicompost.
Furthermore, the vermiwash was 89.1% and 97.6% richer in Ca and
Mg respectively and was 97.8% richer in Na salts compared to the
vermicompost. The vermiwash also indicated a significantly higher
amount of micronutrients. Both bio-fertilizers were rich in nutrients
specification for fertilizers.
Abstract: Scouring around a bridge pier is a complex
phenomenon. More laboratory experiments are required to
understand the scour mechanism. This paper focused on time
development of local scour around piers and piles in semi integral
bridges. Laboratory data collected at Hydraulics Laboratory,
University of Malaya was analyzed for this purpose. Tests were
performed with two different uniform sediment sizes and five ranges
of flow velocities. Fine and coarse sediments were tested in the
flume. Results showed that scour depths for both pier and piles
increased with time up to certain levels and after that they became
almost constant. It had been found that scour depths increased when
discharges increased. Coarser sediment also produced lesser scouring
at the piers and combined piles.
Abstract: This work proposes a recursive weighted ELS
algorithm for system identification by applying numerically robust
orthogonal Householder transformations. The properties of the
proposed algorithm show it obtains acceptable results in a noisy
environment: fast convergence and asymptotically unbiased
estimates. Comparative analysis with others robust methods well
known from literature are also presented.
Abstract: Swarm principles are increasingly being used to design controllers for the coordination of multi-robot systems or, in general, multi-agent systems. This paper proposes a two-dimensional Lagrangian swarm model that enables the planar agents, modeled as point masses, to swarm whilst effectively avoiding each other and obstacles in the environment. A novel method, based on an extended Lyapunov approach, is used to construct the model. Importantly, the Lyapunov method ensures a form of practical stability that guarantees an emergent behavior, namely, a cohesive and wellspaced swarm with a constant arrangement of individuals about the swarm centroid. Computer simulations illustrate this basic feature of collective behavior. As an application, we show how multiple planar mobile unicycle-like robots swarm to eventually form patterns in which their velocities and orientations stabilize.
Abstract: Female breast cancer is the second in frequency after cervical cancer. Surgery is the most common treatment for breast cancer, followed by chemotherapy as a treatment of choice. Although effective, it causes serious side effects. Controlled-release drug delivery is an alternative method to improve the efficacy and safety of the treatment. It can release the dosage of drug between the minimum effect concentration (MEC) and minimum toxic concentration (MTC) within tumor tissue and reduce the damage of normal tissue and the side effect. Because an in vivo experiment of this system can be time-consuming and labor-intensive, a mathematical model is desired to study the effects of important parameters before the experiments are performed. Here, we describe a 3D mathematical model to predict the release of doxorubicin from pluronic gel to treat human breast cancer. This model can, ultimately, be used to effectively design the in vivo experiments.
Abstract: The task of face recognition has been actively
researched in recent years. This paper provides an up-to-date review of major human face recognition research. We first present an
overview of face recognition and its applications. Then, a literature review of the most recent face recognition techniques is presented.
Description and limitations of face databases which are used to test
the performance of these face recognition algorithms are given. A
brief summary of the face recognition vendor test (FRVT) 2002, a
large scale evaluation of automatic face recognition technology, and
its conclusions are also given. Finally, we give a summary of the research results.
Abstract: This paper presents a new algorithm for the channel estimation of the OFDM system based on a pilot signal for the new generation of high data rate communication systems. In orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems over fast-varying fading channels, channel estimation and tracking is generally carried out by transmitting known pilot symbols in given positions of the frequency-time grid. In this paper, we propose to derive an improved algorithm based on the calculation of the mean and the variance of the adjacent pilot signals for a specific distribution of the pilot signals in the OFDM frequency-time grid then calculating of the entire unknown channel coefficients from the equation of the mean and the variance. Simulation results shows that the performance of the OFDM system increase as the length of the channel increase where the accuracy of the estimated channel will be increased using this low complexity algorithm, also the number of the pilot signal needed to be inserted in the OFDM signal will be reduced which lead to increase in the throughput of the signal over the OFDM system in compared with other type of the distribution such as Comb type and Block type channel estimation.
Abstract: The technological concepts such as wireless hospital
and portable cardiac telemetry system require the development of
physiological signal acquisition devices to be easily integrated into
the hospital database. In this paper we present the low cost, portable
wireless ECG acquisition hardware that transmits ECG signals to a
dedicated computer.The front end of the system obtains and
processes incoming signals, which are then transmitted via a
microcontroller and wireless Bluetooth module. A monitoring
purpose Bluetooth based end user application integrated with patient
database management module is developed for the computers. The
system will act as a continuous event recorder, which can be used to
follow up patients who have been resuscitatedfrom cardiac arrest,
ventricular tachycardia but also for diagnostic purposes for patients
with arrhythmia symptoms. In addition, cardiac information can be
saved into the patient-s database of the hospital.