Abstract: We present a new algorithm for nonlinear dimensionality reduction that consistently uses global information, and that enables understanding the intrinsic geometry of non-convex manifolds. Compared to methods that consider only local information, our method appears to be more robust to noise. Unlike most methods that incorporate global information, the proposed approach automatically handles non-convexity of the data manifold. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithm and compare it to state-of-the-art methods on synthetic as well as real data.
Abstract: Waiting times and queues are a daily problem for theme parks. Fast lines or priority queues appear as a solution for a specific segment of customers, that is, tourists who are willing to pay to avoid waiting. This paper analyzes the fast line system and explores the factors that affect the decision to purchase a fast line pass. A greater understanding of these factors may help companies to design appropriate products and services. This conceptual paper was based on a literature review in marketing and consumer behavior. Additional research was identified in related disciplines such as leisure studies, psychology, and sociology. A conceptual framework of the factors influencing the decision to purchase a fast line pass is presented.
Abstract: Diagnostic and detection of the arterial stiffness is
very important; which gives indication of the associated increased risk of cardiovascular diseases. To make a cheap and easy method for general screening technique to avoid the future cardiovascular
complexes , due to the rising of the arterial stiffness ; a proposed algorithm depending on photoplethysmogram to be used. The
photoplethysmograph signals would be processed in MATLAB. The
signal will be filtered, baseline wandering removed, peaks and
valleys detected and normalization of the signals should be achieved
.The area under the catacrotic phase of the photoplethysmogram
pulse curve is calculated using trapezoidal algorithm ; then will used
in cooperation with other parameters such as age, height, blood
pressure in neural network for arterial stiffness detection. The Neural
network were implemented with sensitivity of 80%, accuracy 85%
and specificity of 90% were got from the patients data. It is
concluded that neural network can detect the arterial STIFFNESS
depending on risk factor parameters.
Abstract: Land with low pH soil spread widely in Indonesia
can be used for soybean (Glycine max) cultivation, however the
production is low. The use of acid tolerant soybean and acidaluminium
tolerant nitrogen-fixing bacteria formula was an
alternative way to increase soybean productivity on acid soils.
Bradyrhizobium japonicum is one of the nitrogen fixing bacteria
which can symbiose with soybean plants through root nodule
formation. Most of the nitrogen source required by soybean plants
can be provided by this symbiosis. This research was conducted to
study the influence of acid-aluminium tolerant B. japonicum strain
BJ 11 formula using peat as carrier on growth of Tanggamus and
Anjasmoro cultivar soybean planted on acid soil fields (pH 5.0-
5.5). The results showed that the inoculant was able to increase the
growth and production of soybean which were grown on fields acid
soil at Sukadana (Lampung) and Tanah Laut (South Kalimantan),
Indonesia.
Abstract: The environmental impacts caused by the current production and consumption models, together with the impact that the current economic crisis, bring necessary changes in the European industry toward new business models based on sustainability issues that could allow them to innovate and improve their competitiveness. This paper analyzes the key environmental issues and the current and future market trends in one of the most important industrial sectors in Spain, the furniture sector. It also proposes new decision support tools -diagnostic kit, roadmap and guidelines- to guide companies to implement sustainability criteria into their organizations, including eco-design strategies and other economical and social strategies in accordance with the sustainability definition, and other available tools such as eco-labels, environmental management systems, etc., and to use and combine them to obtain the results the company expects to help improve its competitiveness.
Abstract: The Implementation of the Union law faces major
challenges today. If for a long period of time, the Community and the
Union have persevered in their legislative vocation, now one can
notice that this large legislative quantity has complicated the task of
knowledge and of application the European standards. Under these
circumstances, it became necessary, in order to give effectiveness to
the European legislation, the development of some operational
application criteria and the generation of some new implementation
tools. The correct application of the European Union legislation by
the national public administrations was considered by the European
Commission as being crucial for further integration and proper
functioning of the internal market. Among the initiatives launched in
the past years to promote the exchange of good administrative
practices in the correct application of European Union legislation,
SOLVIT net has proved to be one of the most effective.
Abstract: Thyroid dysfunction is one of the most frequently
reported complications of chronic blood transfusion therapy in patients with beta-thalassemia major (BTM). However, the occurrence of thyroid dysfunction and its possible association with
iron overload in BTM patients is still under debate. Therefore, this
study aimed to investigate the status of thyroid functions and iron overload in adolescent and young adult patients with BTM in Jordan population. Thirty six BTM patients aged 12-28 years and matched controls were included in this study. All patients have been receiving frequent blood transfusion to maintain pretransfusion hemoglobin
concentration above 10 g dl-1 and deferoxamine at a dose of 45 mg kg-1 day-1 (8 h, 5-7 days/week) by subcutaneous infusion. Blood
samples were drawn from patients and controls. The status of thyroid functions and iron overload was evaluated by measurements of serum
free thyroxine (FT4), triiodothyronine (FT3), thyrotropin (TSH) and
serum ferritin level. A number of some hematological and
biochemical parameters were also measured. It was found that hematocrit, serum ferritin, hemoglobin, FT3 and zinc, copper mean values were significantly higher in the patients than in the controls (P< 0.05). On other hand, leukocyte, FT4 and TSH mean values were
similar to that of the controls. In addition, our data also indicated that
all of the above examined parameters were not significantly affected
by the patient-s age and gender. Deferoxamine approach for removing excess iron from our BTM patient did not normalize the
values of serum ferritin, copper and zinc, suggesting poor compliance
with deferoxamine chelation therapy. Thus, we recommend the use
of a combination of deferoxamine and deferiprone to reduce the risk
of excess of iron in our patients. Furthermore, thyroid dysfunction
appears to be a rare complication, because our patients showed
normal mean levels for serum TSH and FT4. However, high mean
levels of serum ferritin, zinc, copper might be seen as potential risk
factors for initiation and development of thyroid dysfunctions and
other diseases. Therefore, further studies must be carried out at
yearly intervals with large sample number, to detect subclinical
thyroid dysfunction cases.
Abstract: In the present work, Pulsed Electro Acoustic (PEA)
technique was adopted to understand the space charge dynamics in
elastomeric material. It is observed that the polarity of the applied
DC voltage voltage and its magnitude alters the space charge
dynamics in insulation structure. It is also noticed that any addition
of compound to the base material/processing technique have
characteristic variation in the space charge injection process. It could
be concluded based on the present work that the plasticizer could
inject heterocharges into the insulation medium. Also it is realized
that space charge magnitude is less with the addition of plasticizer. In
the PEA studies, it is observed that local electric field in the
insulating material can be much more than applied electric field due
to space charge formation. One of the important conclusions arrived
at based on PEA technique is that one could understand the safe
operating electric field of an insulation material and the charge trap
sites.
Abstract: Nowadays there is a growing environmental concern
and the business communities have slowly started recognising
environmental protection and sustainable utilization of natural
resources into their marketing strategies. This paper discusses the
various Ecolabeling and Certification Systems developed world
over to regulate and introduce Fair Trade in Ornamental Fish
Industry. Ecolabeling and green certification are considered as part
of these strategies implemented partly out of compulsion from the
National and International Regulatory Bodies and Environmental
Movements. All the major markets of ornamental fishes like
European Union, USA and Japan have started putting restrictions on
the trade to impose ecolabeling as a non tariff barrier like the one
imposed on seafood and aqua cultured products. A review was done
on the available Ecolabeling and Green Certification Schemes
available at local, national and international levels for fisheries
including aquaculture and ornamental fish trade and to examine the
success and constraints faced by these schemes during its
implementation. The primary downside of certification is the
multiplicity of ecolabels and cost incurred by applicants for
certification, costs which may in turn be passed on to consumers.
The studies reveal serious inadequacies in a number of ecolabels
and cast doubt on their overall contribution to effective fisheries
management and sustainability. The paper also discusses the
inititive taken in India to develop guidelines for Green Certification
of Fresh water ornamental fishes.
Abstract: A cross-sectional study was carried out to determine the prevalence, species characterization and associated risk factors with Eimeria (E.) in sheep of district Toba Tek Singh from April, 2009 to March, 2010. Of the total 486 faecal samples examined for Eimeria, 209 (43%) were found infected with five species of Eimeria. Amongst the identified species of Eimeria, E. ovinoidalis was the commonest one (48.32%), followed in order by E. ahsata, E. intricata, E. parva and E. faurei with prevalence of 45.45, 28.71, 24.40 and 19.14 percent respectively. Peak prevalence was observed in August. Wet season (rainy and post-rainy) was found to be favourable for Eimeria infection. Lambs had significantly higher prevalence (P < 0.05) of Eimeria than adults. Similarly higher prevalence of Eimeria was observed in female as compared to male. Among management and husbandry practices; watering system, housing system, floor type and herd size strongly influenced the prevalence of Eimeria. Coccidiosis was more prevalent in closed housing system, non-cemented floor type, pond watered animals and larger herds (P < 0.05) as compared to open housing system, partially cemented floor type, tap watered animals and smaller herds respectively. Feeding system, breed and body condition of animals were not found as risk factors (P>0.05) influencing prevalence of Eimeria.
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to analyse the
application of the Half-Sweep Gauss-Seidel (HSGS) method by using
the Half-sweep approximation equation based on central difference
(CD) and repeated trapezoidal (RT) formulas to solve linear fredholm
integro-differential equations of first order. The formulation and
implementation of the Full-Sweep Gauss-Seidel (FSGS) and Half-
Sweep Gauss-Seidel (HSGS) methods are also presented. The HSGS
method has been shown to rapid compared to the FSGS methods.
Some numerical tests were illustrated to show that the HSGS method
is superior to the FSGS method.
Abstract: Artifact is one of the most important factors in
degrading the CT image quality and plays an important role in
diagnostic accuracy. In this paper, some artifacts typically appear in
Spiral CT are introduced. The different factors such as patient,
equipment and interpolation algorithm which cause the artifacts are
discussed and new developments and image processing algorithms to
prevent or reduce them are presented.
Abstract: In this paper the FPGA implementations for four
stream ciphers are presented. The two stream ciphers, MUGI and
SNOW 2.0 are recently adopted by the International Organization for
Standardization ISO/IEC 18033-4:2005 standard. The other two
stream ciphers, MICKEY 128 and TRIVIUM have been submitted
and are under consideration for the eSTREAM, the ECRYPT
(European Network of Excellence for Cryptology) Stream Cipher
project. All ciphers were coded using VHDL language. For the
hardware implementation, an FPGA device was used. The proposed
implementations achieve throughputs range from 166 Mbps for
MICKEY 128 to 6080 Mbps for MUGI.
Abstract: The issue of human anthropology took an important
role in the last epochs and still hasn-t lost its importance. Scientists of
different countries were interested in investigating the appearance of
human being and the idea of life after death. While writing this article
we noticed that scientists who made research in this issue, despite of
the different countries and different epochs in which they lived, had
similarities in their opinions. In given article we wrote great Kazakh
poet AbaiKunanbayev-s philosophical view to the problem of human
anthropology.
Abstract: A numerical study is made of laminar, unsteady flow
behind a rotationally oscillating circular cylinder using a recently
developed higher order compact (HOC) scheme. The stream function
vorticity formulation of Navier-Stokes (N-S) equations in cylindrical
polar coordinates are considered as the governing equations. The
temporal behaviour of vortex formation and relevant streamline
patterns of the flow are scrutinized over broad ranges of two
externally specified parameters namely dimensionless forced
oscillating frequency Sf and dimensionless peak rotation rate αm for
the Reynolds-s number Re = 200. Excellent agreements are found
both qualitatively and quantitatively with the existing experimental
and standard numerical results.
Abstract: We propose a low-cost uniform analysis framework
allowing comparison of the strengths and weaknesses of the
bicycling experience within and between cities. A primary
component is an expedient, one-page mobility survey from which
mode share is calculated. The bicycle mode share of many cities
remains unknown, creating a serious barrier for both scientists and
policy makers aiming to understand and increase rates of bicycling.
Because of its low cost and expedience, this framework could be
replicated widely, uniformly filling the data gap. The framework has
been applied to 13 Central European cities with success. Data is
collected on multiple modes with specific questions regarding both
behavior and quality of travel experience. Individual preferences are
also collected, examining the conditions under which respondents
would change behavior to adopt more sustainable modes (bicycling
or public transportation). A broad analysis opportunity results,
intended to inform policy choices.
Abstract: Studying alternative raw materials for biodiesel production is of major importance. The use of mixtures with incorporation of wastes is an environmental friendly alternative and might reduce biodiesel production costs. The objective of the present work was: (i) to study biodiesel production using waste frying oil mixed with pork lard and (ii) to understand how mixture composition influences biodiesel quality. Biodiesel was produced by transesterification and quality was evaluated through determination of several parameters according to EN 14214. The weight fraction of lard in the mixture varied from 0 to 1 in 0.2 intervals. Biodiesel production yields varied from 81.7 to 88.0 (wt%), the lowest yields being the ones obtained using waste frying oil and lard alone as raw materials. The obtained products fulfilled most of the determined quality specifications according to European biodiesel quality standard EN 14214. Minimum purity (96.5 wt%) was closely obtained when waste frying oil was used alone and when 0.2% of lard was incorporated in the raw material (96.3 wt%); however, it ranged from 93.9 to 96.3 (wt%) being always close to the limit. From the evaluation of the influence of mixture composition in biodiesel quality, it was possible to establish a model to be used for predicting some parameters of biodiesel resulting from mixtures of waste frying oil with lard when different lard contents are used.
Abstract: This paper addresses the problem of source separation
in images. We propose a FastICA algorithm employing a modified
Gaussian contrast function for the Blind Source Separation.
Experimental result shows that the proposed Modified Gaussian
FastICA is effectively used for Blind Source Separation to obtain
better quality images. In this paper, a comparative study has been
made with other popular existing algorithms. The peak signal to
noise ratio (PSNR) and improved signal to noise ratio (ISNR) are
used as metrics for evaluating the quality of images. The ICA metric
Amari error is also used to measure the quality of separation.
Abstract: Nonspecific protein adsorption generally occurs on
any solid surfaces and usually has adverse consequences. Adsorption
of proteins onto a solid surface is believed to be the initial and
controlling step in biofouling. Surfaces modified with end-tethered
poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) have been shown to be protein-resistant
to some degree. In this study, the adsorption of β-casein and
lysozyme was performed on 6 different types of surfaces where PEG
was tethered onto stainless steel by polyethylene imine (PEI) through
either OH or NHS end groups. Protein adsorption was also performed
on the bare stainless steel surface as a control. The adsorption was
conducted at 23 °C and pH 7.2. In situ QCM-D was used to
determine PEG adsorption kinetics, plateau PEG chain densities,
protein adsorption kinetics and plateau protein adsorbed quantities.
PEG grafting density was the highest for a NHS coupled chain,
around 0.5 chains / nm2. Interestingly, lysozyme which has smaller
size than β-casein, appeared to adsorb much less mass than that of β-
casein. Overall, the surface with high PEG grafting density exhibited
a good protein rejection.
Abstract: Pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) blanched for 20min was dehulled and milled into flour. The flour was incorporated into dried whole fermented maize (Ogi) at five levels. The resultant products were analyzed for chemical and pasting properties. The fortified Ogi samples were also assessed for sensory attributes: appearance, color, flavor, mouth feel and overall acceptability. The protein content in the whole Ogi fortified samples was in the range of 11.2-16.6% and crude fibre 3.22-3.46%. Fortified whole Ogi with pigeon pea at 30%, 40% and 50% of inclusion with pigeon pea flour has higher protein, crude fibre and ash content. Varying range of pasting quality was recorded for the blends, pasting temperature for fortified Obi was in the range of 45.3-49.50C and peak time 5.05-5.210C. The sensory acceptability of the whole Ogi fortified blends prepared into gruel has higher acceptability for various qualities in comparison with the traditional Ogi gruel.