Abstract: In this work, we propose and analyze a model of
Phytoplankton-Zooplankton interaction with harvesting considering
that some species are exploited commercially for food. Criteria for
local stability, instability and global stability are derived and some
threshold harvesting levels are explored to maintain the population
at an appropriate equilibrium level even if the species are exploited
continuously.Further,biological and bionomic equilibria of the system
are obtained and an optimal harvesting policy is also analysed using
the Pantryagin’s Maximum Principle.Finally analytical findings are
also supported by some numerical simulations.
Abstract: The growth in the volume of text data such as books
and articles in libraries for centuries has imposed to establish
effective mechanisms to locate them. Early techniques such as
abstraction, indexing and the use of classification categories have
marked the birth of a new field of research called "Information
Retrieval". Information Retrieval (IR) can be defined as the task of
defining models and systems whose purpose is to facilitate access to
a set of documents in electronic form (corpus) to allow a user to find
the relevant ones for him, that is to say, the contents which matches
with the information needs of the user.
Most of the models of information retrieval use a specific data
structure to index a corpus which is called "inverted file" or "reverse
index".
This inverted file collects information on all terms over the corpus
documents specifying the identifiers of documents that contain the
term in question, the frequency of each term in the documents of the
corpus, the positions of the occurrences of the word...
In this paper we use an oriented object database (db4o) instead of
the inverted file, that is to say, instead to search a term in the inverted
file, we will search it in the db4o database.
The purpose of this work is to make a comparative study to see if
the oriented object databases may be competing for the inverse index
in terms of access speed and resource consumption using a large
volume of data.
Abstract: The edge waviness in hot rolled steel is a common
defect. Variables that affect such defect include raw material and
machine. These variables are necessary to consider to understand
such defect. This research studied the defect of edge waviness for SS
400 of metal sheet manufacture. Defect of metal sheets were divided
into two groups. The specimens were investigated on chemical
composition and mechanical properties to find the difference. The
results of investigation showed that the difference was not significant.
Therefore the roll mill machine should be used to adjust to support
another location on a roller to avoide edge waviness.
Abstract: Brown seaweeds are abundant in Portuguese coastline
and represent an almost unexploited marine economic resource. One
of the most common species, easily available for harvesting in the
northwest coast, is Saccorhiza polyschides grows in the lowest shore
and costal rocky reefs. It is almost exclusively used by local farmers
as natural fertilizer, but contains a substantial amount of valuable
compounds, particularly alginates, natural biopolymers of high
interest for many industrial applications.
Alginates are natural polysaccharides present in cell walls of
brown seaweed, highly biocompatible, with particular properties that
make them of high interest for the food, biotechnology, cosmetics
and pharmaceutical industries. Conventional extraction processes are
based on thermal treatment. They are lengthy and consume high
amounts of energy and solvents. In recent years, microwave-assisted
extraction (MAE) has shown enormous potential to overcome major
drawbacks that outcome from conventional plant material extraction
(thermal and/or solvent based) techniques, being also successfully
applied to the extraction of agar, fucoidans and alginates. In the
present study, acid pretreatment of brown seaweed Saccorhiza
polyschides for subsequent microwave-assisted extraction (MAE) of
alginate was optimized. Seaweeds were collected in Northwest
Portuguese coastal waters of the Atlantic Ocean between May and
August, 2014. Experimental design was used to assess the effect of
temperature and acid pretreatment time in alginate extraction.
Response surface methodology allowed the determination of the
optimum MAE conditions: 40 mL of HCl 0.1 M per g of dried
seaweed with constant stirring at 20ºC during 14h. Optimal acid
pretreatment conditions have enhanced significantly MAE of
alginates from Saccorhiza polyschides, thus contributing for the
development of a viable, more environmental friendly alternative to
conventional processes.
Abstract: This paper aims to represent the commercial activity
of a city taking as source data the social network Foursquare. The
city of Murcia is selected as case study, and the location-based
social network Foursquare is the main source of information. After
carrying out a reorganisation of the user-generated data extracted
from Foursquare, it is possible to graphically display on a map the
various city spaces and venues especially those related to commercial,
food and entertainment sector businesses. The obtained visualisation
provides information about activity patterns in the city of Murcia
according to the people‘s interests and preferences and, moreover,
interesting facts about certain characteristics of the town itself.
Abstract: Communicating and managing customers’
requirements in software development projects play a vital role in the
software development process. While it is difficult to do so locally, it
is even more difficult to communicate these requirements over
distributed boundaries and to convey them to multiple distribution
customers. This paper discusses the communication of multiple
distribution customers’ requirements in the context of customised
software products. The main purpose is to understand the challenges
of communicating and managing customisation requirements across
distributed boundaries. We propose a model for Communicating
Customisation Requirements of Multi-Clients in a Distributed
Domain (CCRD). Thereafter, we evaluate that model by presenting
the findings of a case study conducted with a company with
customisation projects for 18 distributed customers. Then, we
compare the outputs of the real case process and the outputs of the
CCRD model using simulation methods. Our conjecture is that the
CCRD model can reduce the challenge of communication
requirements over distributed organisational boundaries, and the
delay in decision making and in the entire customisation process
time.
Abstract: Corrosion inhibitors are widely used in concrete
industry to reduce the corrosion rate of steel rebar which is present in
contact with aggressive environments. The present work aims to
using Zamzam water from well located within the Masjid al-Haram
in Mecca, Saudi Arabia 20 m (66 ft) east of the Kaaba, the holiest
place in Islam as corrosion inhibitor for steel in rain water and
simulated acid rain. The effect of Zamzam water was investigated by
electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and Potentiodynamic
polarization techniques in Department of Civil Engineering - IUT
Saint-Nazaire, Nantes University, France. Zamzam water is
considered to be one of the most important steel corrosion inhibitor
which is frequently used in different industrial applications. Results
showed that zamzam water gave a very good inhibition for steel
corrosion in rain water and simulated acid rain.
Abstract: An algorithm is a well-defined procedure that takes
some input in the form of some values, processes them and gives the
desired output. It forms the basis of many other algorithms such as
searching, pattern matching, digital filters etc., and other applications
have been found in database systems, data statistics and processing,
data communications and pattern matching. This paper introduces
algorithmic “Enhanced Bidirectional Selection” sort which is
bidirectional, stable. It is said to be bidirectional as it selects two
values smallest from the front and largest from the rear and assigns
them to their appropriate locations thus reducing the number of
passes by half the total number of elements as compared to selection
sort.
Abstract: The financial crises caused a collapse in prices of
most asset classes, raising the attention on alternative investments
such as sukuk, a smaller, fast growing but often misunderstood
market. We study diversification benefits of sukuk, their correlation
with other asset classes and the effects of their inclusion in
investment portfolios of institutional and retail investors, through a
comprehensive comparison of their risk/return profiles during and
after the financial crisis.
We find a beneficial performance adjusted for the specific
volatility together with a lower correlation especially during the
financial crisis. The distribution of sukuk returns is positively skewed
and leptokurtic, with a risk/return profile similarly to high yield
bonds. Overall, our results suggest that sukuk present diversification
opportunities, a significant volatility-adjusted performance and lower
correlations especially during the financial crisis.
Our findings are relevant for a number of institutional investors.
Long term investors, such as life insurers would benefit from sukuk’s
protective features during financial crisis yet keeping return and
growth opportunities, whereas banks would gain due to their role of
placers, advisors, market makers or underwriters.
Abstract: Tumor is an uncontrolled growth of tissues in any part
of the body. Tumors are of different types and they have different
characteristics and treatments. Brain tumor is inherently serious and
life-threatening because of its character in the limited space of the
intracranial cavity (space formed inside the skull). Locating the tumor
within MR (magnetic resonance) image of brain is integral part of the
treatment of brain tumor. This segmentation task requires
classification of each voxel as either tumor or non-tumor, based on
the description of the voxel under consideration. Many studies are
going on in the medical field using Markov Random Fields (MRF) in
segmentation of MR images. Even though the segmentation process
is better, computing the probability and estimation of parameters is
difficult. In order to overcome the aforementioned issues, Conditional
Random Field (CRF) is used in this paper for segmentation, along
with the modified artificial bee colony optimization and modified
fuzzy possibility c-means (MFPCM) algorithm. This work is mainly
focused to reduce the computational complexities, which are found in
existing methods and aimed at getting higher accuracy. The
efficiency of this work is evaluated using the parameters such as
region non-uniformity, correlation and computation time. The
experimental results are compared with the existing methods such as
MRF with improved Genetic Algorithm (GA) and MRF-Artificial
Bee Colony (MRF-ABC) algorithm.
Abstract: In oases, the surface water resources are becoming
increasingly scarce and groundwater resources, which generally have
a poor quality due to the high levels of salinity, are often
overexploited. Water saving have therefore become imperative for
better oases sustainability. If drip irrigation is currently recommended
in Morocco for saving water and valuing, its use in the sub-desert
areas does not keep water safe from high evaporation rates. An
alternative to this system would be the use of subsurface drip
irrigation. This technique is defined as an application of water under
the soil surface through drippers, which deliver water at rates
generally similar to surface drip irrigation. As subsurface drip
irrigation is a recently introduced in Morocco, a better understanding
of the infiltration process around a buried source, in local conditions,
and its impact on plant growth is necessarily required. This study
aims to contribute to improving the water use efficiency by testing
the performance of subsurface irrigation system, especially in areas
where water is a limited source. The objectives of this research are
performance evaluation in arid conditions of the subsurface drip
irrigation system for young date palms compared to the surface drip.
In this context, an experimental test is installed at a farmer’s field in
the area of Erfoud (Errachidia Province, southeastern Morocco),
using the subsurface drip irrigation system in comparison with the
classic drip system for young date palms. Flow measurement to
calculate the uniformity of the application of water was done through
two methods: a flow measurement of drippers above the surface and
another one underground. The latter method has also helped us to
estimate losses through evaporation for both irrigation techniques. In
order to compare the effect of two irrigation modes, plants were
identified for each type of irrigation to monitor certain agronomic
parameters (cumulative numbers of palms and roots development).
Experimentation referred to a distribution uniformity of about 88%;
considered acceptable for subsurface drip irrigation while it is around
80% for the surface drip irrigation. The results also show an increase
in root development and in the number of palm, as well as a
substantial water savings due to lower evaporation losses compared
to the classic drip irrigation.
The results of this study showed that subsurface drip irrigation is
an efficient technique, which allows sustainable irrigation in arid
areas.
Abstract: Oases are complex and fragile agro-ecosystems. They
have always existed in environments characterized by an arid climate,
scarcity of rainfall, high temperatures and high evaporation. These
palms have grown up despite the severity of the physical
characteristics thanks to the water's existence and irrigation practice.
The oases are generally spread along non-perennial rivers (wadis),
shallow water table or deep artesian groundwater. However, the
sustainability of oasis system is threatened by water scarcity and
declining of water table levels particularly in arid areas. Located in
the southern east area of Morocco, Tafilalet plain encompasses one of
the largest palm groves in the kingdom. In recent years, this area has
become increasingly threatened by water shortage and has seen a
sharp deterioration under the effect of several combined
anthropogenic and climatic factors. The Bayoud disease, successive
years of drought, Hassan Addakhil dam construction etc are all
factors that have affected both water and phoenicicole heritage of the
area. The objective of this study is to understand the interaction
between qualitative and quantitative degradation of groundwater
resources, and the palm grove dynamics, while reviewing the
assumption that groundwater resources contribute in a direct way to
the conservation of this oasis agroecosystem. A historical analysis
tracing both the oasis dynamics and the groundwater evolution has
been established. Data were collected from satellite images, surveys
with different actors (farmers, Regional Office for Agricultural
Development, Basin agency...). They were complemented by a
synthesis of numerous technical reports in the area. The results
showed that within 40 years, the thickness of the groundwater table
has dropped in 50 %. Along with this, there has been a downsizing of
date palm by 50 %. Areas with higher groundwater level were the
least affected by the downsizing. So we can say that the shallow
groundwater contribute significantly and directly to the water supply
of date palm through its root system, and largely ensures the oasis
ecosystem sustainability.
Abstract: Currently, seismic probabilistic risk assessments
(SPRA) for nuclear facilities use In-Structure Response Spectra
(ISRS) in the calculation of fragilities for systems and components.
ISRS are calculated via dynamic analyses of the host building
subjected to two orthogonal components of horizontal ground
motion. Each component is defined as the median motion in any
horizontal direction. Structural engineers applied the components
along selected X and Y Cartesian axes. The ISRS at different
locations in the building are also calculated in the X and Y directions.
The choice of the directions of X and Y are not specified by the
ground motion model with respect to geographic coordinates, and are
rather arbitrarily selected by the structural engineer. Normally, X and
Y coincide with the “principal” axes of the building, in the
understanding that this practice is generally conservative. For SPRA
purposes, however, it is desirable to remove any conservatism in the
estimates of median ISRS. This paper examines the effects of the
direction of horizontal seismic motion on the ISRS on typical nuclear
structure. We also evaluate the variability of ISRS calculated along
different horizontal directions. Our results indicate that some central
measures of the ISRS provide robust estimates that are practically
independent of the selection of the directions of the horizontal
Cartesian axes.
Abstract: Mammography has been one of the most reliable
methods for early detection of breast cancer. There are different
lesions which are breast cancer characteristic such as
microcalcifications, masses, architectural distortions and bilateral
asymmetry. One of the major challenges of analysing digital
mammogram is how to extract efficient features from it for accurate
cancer classification. In this paper we proposed a hybrid feature
extraction method to detect and classify all four signs of breast
cancer. The proposed method is based on multiscale surrounding
region dependence method, Gabor filters, multi fractal analysis,
directional and morphological analysis. The extracted features are
input to self adaptive resource allocation network (SRAN) classifier
for classification. The validity of our approach is extensively
demonstrated using the two benchmark data sets Mammographic
Image Analysis Society (MIAS) and Digital Database for Screening
Mammograph (DDSM) and the results have been proved to be
progressive.
Abstract: Key frame extraction methods select the most
representative frames of a video, which can be used in different areas
of video processing such as video retrieval, video summary, and video
indexing. In this paper we present a novel approach for extracting key
frames from video sequences. The frame is characterized uniquely by
his contours which are represented by the dominant blocks. These
dominant blocks are located on the contours and its near textures.
When the video frames have a noticeable changement, its dominant
blocks changed, then we can extracte a key frame. The dominant
blocks of every frame is computed, and then feature vectors are
extracted from the dominant blocks image of each frame and arranged
in a feature matrix. Singular Value Decomposition is used to calculate
sliding windows ranks of those matrices. Finally the computed ranks
are traced and then we are able to extract key frames of a video.
Experimental results show that the proposed approach is robust
against a large range of digital effects used during shot transition.
Abstract: Domestic goats (Capra hircus) are extremely diverse
species and principal animal genetic resource of the developing
world. These facilitate a persistent supply of meat, milk, fibre, and
skin and are considered as important revenue generators in small
pastoral environments. This study aimed to fingerprint β-LG gene at
PCR-RFLP level in native Saudi goat breeds (Ardi, Habsi and Harri)
in an attempt to have a preliminary image of β-LG genotypic patterns
in Saudi breeds as compared to other foreign breeds such as Indian
and Egyptian. Also, the Phylogenetic analysis was done to investigate
evolutionary trends and similarities among the caprine β-LG gene
with that of the other domestic specie, viz. cow, buffalo and sheep.
Blood samples were collected from 300 animals (100 for each breed)
and genomic DNA was extracted. A fragment of the β-LG gene
(427bp) was amplified using specific primers. Subsequent digestion
with Sac II restriction endonuclease revealed two alleles (A and B)
and three different banding patterns or genotypes i.e. AA, AB and
BB. The statistical analysis showed a general trend that β-LG AA
genotype had higher milk yield than β-LG AB and β-LG BB
genotypes. Nucleotide sequencing of the selected β-LG fragments
was done and submitted to GenBank NCBI (Accession No.
KJ544248, KJ588275, KJ588276, KJ783455, KJ783456 and
KJ874959). Phylogenetic analysis on the basis of nucleotide
sequences of native Saudi goats indicated evolutional similarity with
the GenBank reference sequences of goat, Bubalus bubalis and Bos
taurus. However, the origin of sheep which is the most closely
related from the evolutionary point of view, was located some
distance away.
Abstract: The exposure to outdoor air pollution causes lung
cancer and increases the risk of bladder cancer. Because air pollution
in urban areas is mainly caused by transportation, it is necessary to
evaluate pollutant exhaust emissions from vehicles during their realworld
use. Nevertheless their evaluation and reduction is a key
problem, especially in the cities, that account for more than 50% of
world population.
A particular attention was given to the slope variability along the
streets during each journey performed by the instrumented vehicle.
In this paper we dealt with the problem of describing a
quantitatively approach for the reconstruction of GPS coordinates and
altitude, in the context of correlation study between driving cycles /
emission / geographical location, during an experimental campaign
realized with some instrumented cars.
Finally the slope analysis can be correlated to the emission and
consumption values in a specific road position, and it could be
evaluated its influence on their behaviour.
Abstract: Essential oils are expensive phytochemicals produced
and extracted from specific species belonging to particular families in
the plant kingdom. In the United Arab Emirates country (UAE), is
located in the arid region of the world, nine species, from the
Lamiaceae family, having the capability to produce therapeutic grade
essential oils. These species include; Mentha spicata, Ocimum
forskolei, Salvia macrosiphon, Salvia aegyptiaca, Salvia macilenta,
Salvia spinosa, Teucrium polium, Teucrium stocksianum and Zataria
multiflora. Although, such potential species are indigenous to the
UAE, however, there are almost no studies available to investigate
the chemical composition and the quality of the extracted essential
oils under the UAE climatological conditions. Therefore, great
attention has to be given to such valuable natural resources, through
conducting highly supported research projects, tailored to the UAE
conditions, and investigating different extraction techniques,
including the application of the latest available technologies, such as
superficial fluid CO2. This is crucially needed; in order to accomplish
the greatest possibilities in the medicinal field, specifically in the
discovery of new therapeutic chemotypes, as well as, to achieve the
sustainability of this natural resource in the country.
Abstract: Energy consumption and users’ satisfaction were
compared in three LEED certified office buildings in turkey and an
office building in Egypt. The field studies were conducted in summer
2012. The measured environmental parameters in the four buildings
were indoor air temperature, relative humidity, CO2 percentage and
light intensity. The traditional building is located in Smart Village in
Abu Rawash, Cairo, Egypt. The building was studied for 7 days
resulting in 84 responds. The three rated buildings are in Istanbul;
Turkey. A Platinum LEED certified office building is owned by
BASF and gained a platinum certificate for new construction and
major renovation. The building was studied for 3 days resulting in 13
responds. A Gold LEED certified office building is owned by BASF
and gained a gold certificate for new construction and major
renovation. The building was studied for 2 days resulting in 10
responds. A silver LEED certified office building is owned by
Unilever and gained a silver certificate for commercial interiors. The
building was studied for 7 days resulting in 84 responds.
The results showed that all buildings had no significant difference
regarding occupants’ satisfaction with the amount of lighting, noise
level, odor and access to the outdoor view. There was significant
difference between occupants’ satisfaction in LEED certified
buildings and the traditional building regarding the thermal
environment and the perception of the general environment (colors,
carpet and decoration. The findings suggest that careful design could
lead to a certified building that enhances the thermal environment and
the perception of the indoor environment leading to energy
consumption without scarifying occupants’ satisfaction.
Abstract: The objective of the Economic Dispatch(ED) Problems
of electric power generation is to schedule the committed generating
units outputs so as to meet the required load demand at minimum
operating cost while satisfying all units and system equality and
inequality constraints. This paper presents a new method of ED
problems utilizing the Max-Min Ant System Optimization.
Historically, traditional optimizations techniques have been used,
such as linear and non-linear programming, but within the past
decade the focus has shifted on the utilization of Evolutionary
Algorithms, as an example Genetic Algorithms, Simulated Annealing
and recently Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). In this paper we
introduce the Max-Min Ant System based version of the Ant System.
This algorithm encourages local searching around the best solution
found in each iteration. To show its efficiency and effectiveness, the
proposed Max-Min Ant System is applied to sample ED problems
composed of 4 generators. Comparison to conventional genetic
algorithms is presented.