Abstract: This study aimed at investigating whether the
functional brain networks constructed using the initial EEG (obtained
when patients first visited hospital) can be correlated with the
progression of cognitive decline calculated as the changes of
mini-mental state examination (MMSE) scores between the latest and
initial examinations. We integrated the time–frequency cross mutual
information (TFCMI) method to estimate the EEG functional
connectivity between cortical regions, and the network analysis based
on graph theory to investigate the organization of functional networks
in aMCI. Our finding suggested that higher integrated functional
network with sufficient connection strengths, dense connection
between local regions, and high network efficiency in processing
information at the initial stage may result in a better prognosis of the
subsequent cognitive functions for aMCI. In conclusion, the functional
connectivity can be a useful biomarker to assist in prediction of
cognitive declines in aMCI.
Abstract: Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs)
are pervasive nowadays, including in education where they are
expected to improve the performance of learners. However, the hope
placed in ICTs to find viable solutions to the problem of poor
academic performance in schools in the developing world has not yet
yielded the expected benefits. This problem serves as a motivation to
this study whose aim is to examine the perceptions of educators on
the advantages and disadvantages of e-learning. This aim will be
subdivided into two types of research objectives. Objectives on the
identification and design of theories and models will be achieved
using content analysis and literature review. However, the objective
on the empirical testing of such theories and models will be achieved
through the survey of educators from different schools in the
Pinetown District of the South African Kwazulu-Natal province.
SPSS is used to quantitatively analyse the data collected by the
questionnaire of this survey using descriptive statistics and Pearson
correlations after assessing the validity and the reliability of the data.
The main hypothesis driving this study is that there is a relationship
between the demographics of educators’ and their adherence to
learning theories on one side, and their perceptions on the advantages
and disadvantages of e-learning on the other side, as argued by
existing research; but this research views these learning theories
under three perspectives: educators’ adherence to self-regulated
learning, to constructivism, and to progressivism. This hypothesis
was fully confirmed by the empirical study except for the
demographic factor where teachers’ level of education was found to
be the only demographic factor affecting the perceptions of educators
on the advantages and disadvantages of e-learning.
Abstract: This paper attempts to evaluate the effect of fire
damage on concrete by using nonlinear resonance vibration method,
one of the nonlinear nondestructive method. Concrete exhibits not
only nonlinear stress-strain relation but also hysteresis and discrete
memory effect which are contained in consolidated materials.
Hysteretic materials typically show the linear resonance frequency
shift. Also, the shift of resonance frequency is changed according to
the degree of micro damage. The degree of the shift can be obtained
through nonlinear resonance vibration method. Five exposure
scenarios were considered in order to make different internal micro
damage. Also, the effect of post-fire-curing on fire-damaged concrete
was taken into account to conform the change in internal damage.
Hysteretic nonlinearity parameter was obtained by amplitudedependent
resonance frequency shift after specific curing periods. In
addition, splitting tensile strength was measured on each sample to
characterize the variation of residual strength. Then, a correlation
between the hysteretic nonlinearity parameter and residual strength
was proposed from each test result.
Abstract: The paper presents combined automatic speech
recognition (ASR) of English and machine translation (MT) for
English and Croatian and Croatian-English language pairs in the
domain of business correspondence. The first part presents results of
training the ASR commercial system on English data sets, enriched
by error analysis. The second part presents results of machine
translation performed by free online tool for English and Croatian
and Croatian-English language pairs. Human evaluation in terms of
usability is conducted and internal consistency calculated by
Cronbach's alpha coefficient, enriched by error analysis. Automatic
evaluation is performed by WER (Word Error Rate) and PER
(Position-independent word Error Rate) metrics, followed by
investigation of Pearson’s correlation with human evaluation.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to analyze the ability to
identify and acquire knowledge from external sources at the regional
level in the Czech Republic. The results show that the most important
sources of knowledge for innovative activities are sources within the
businesses themselves, followed by customers and suppliers.
Furthermore, the analysis of relationships between the objective of
the innovative activity and the ability to identify and acquire
knowledge implies that knowledge obtained from (1) customers aims
at replacing outdated products and increasing product quality; (2)
suppliers aims at increasing capacity and flexibility of production;
and (3) competing businesses aims at growing market share and
increasing the flexibility of production and services. Regions should
therefore direct their support especially into development and
strengthening of networks within the value chain.
Abstract: The article demonstrates on a case study how it is
possible to identify MSD risk. It is based on a dissertation Risk
identification model of occupational diseases formation in relation to
the work activity that determines what risk can endanger workers who
are exposed to the specific risk factors. It is evaluated based on
statistical calculations. These risk factors are main cause of upperextremities
musculoskeletal disorders.
Abstract: In this study, the evaluation of thermal stability of the
micrometer-sized silica particle reinforced epoxy composite was
carried out through the measurement of thermal expansion coefficient
and Young’s modulus of the specimens. For all the specimens in this
study from the baseline to those containing 50 wt% silica filler, the
thermal expansion coefficients and the Young’s moduli were
gradually decreased down to 20% and increased up to 41%,
respectively. The experimental results were compared with fillervolume-
based simple empirical relations. The experimental results of
thermal expansion coefficients correspond with those of Thomas’s
model which is modified from the rule of mixture. However, the
measured result for Young’s modulus tends to be increased slightly.
The differences in increments of the moduli between experimental and
numerical model data are quite large.
Abstract: Over the past era, there have been a lot of efforts and
studies are carried out in growing proficient tools for performing
various tasks in big data. Recently big data have gotten a lot of
publicity for their good reasons. Due to the large and complex
collection of datasets it is difficult to process on traditional data
processing applications. This concern turns to be further mandatory
for producing various tools in big data. Moreover, the main aim of
big data analytics is to utilize the advanced analytic techniques
besides very huge, different datasets which contain diverse sizes from
terabytes to zettabytes and diverse types such as structured or
unstructured and batch or streaming. Big data is useful for data sets
where their size or type is away from the capability of traditional
relational databases for capturing, managing and processing the data
with low-latency. Thus the out coming challenges tend to the
occurrence of powerful big data tools. In this survey, a various
collection of big data tools are illustrated and also compared with the
salient features.
Abstract: A total of 150 meat type chickens comprising 50 each
of Arbor Acre, Marshall and Ross were used for this study which
lasted for 10 weeks at the Federal University of Agriculture,
Abeokuta, Nigeria. Growth performance data were collected from the
third week through week 10 and data obtained were analysed using
the Generalized Linear Model Procedure. Heritability estimates (h2)
for body dimensions carried out on the chicken strains ranged from
low to high. Marshall broiler chicken strain had the highest h2 for
body weight 0.46±0.04, followed by Arbor Acre and Ross with h2
being 0.38±0.12 and 0.26±0.06, respectively. The repeatability
estimates for body weight in the three broiler strains were high, and it
ranged from 0.70 at week 4 to 0.88 at week 10. Relationships
between the body weight and linear body measurements in the broiler
chicken strains were positive and highly significant (p > 0.05).
Abstract: The relationship between eigenstructure (eigenvalues
and eigenvectors) and latent structure (latent roots and latent vectors)
is established. In control theory eigenstructure is associated with
the state space description of a dynamic multi-variable system and
a latent structure is associated with its matrix fraction description.
Beginning with block controller and block observer state space forms
and moving on to any general state space form, we develop the
identities that relate eigenvectors and latent vectors in either direction.
Numerical examples illustrate this result. A brief discussion of the
potential of these identities in linear control system design follows.
Additionally, we present a consequent result: a quick and easy
method to solve the polynomial eigenvalue problem for regular matrix
polynomials.
Abstract: Recent perceived climate variability raises concerns
with unprecedented hydrological phenomena and extremes.
Distribution and circulation of the waters of the Earth become
increasingly difficult to determine because of additional uncertainty
related to anthropogenic emissions. The world wide observed
changes in the large-scale hydrological cycle have been related to an
increase in the observed temperature over several decades. Although
the effect of change in climate on hydrology provides a general
picture of possible hydrological global change, new tools and
frameworks for modelling hydrological series with nonstationary
characteristics at finer scales, are required for assessing climate
change impacts. Of the downscaling techniques, dynamic
downscaling is usually based on the use of Regional Climate Models
(RCMs), which generate finer resolution output based on atmospheric
physics over a region using General Circulation Model (GCM) fields
as boundary conditions. However, RCMs are not expected to capture
the observed spatial precipitation extremes at a fine cell scale or at a
basin scale. Statistical downscaling derives a statistical or empirical
relationship between the variables simulated by the GCMs, called
predictors, and station-scale hydrologic variables, called predictands.
The main focus of the paper is on the need for using statistical
downscaling techniques for projection of local hydrometeorological
variables under climate change scenarios. The projections can be then
served as a means of input source to various hydrologic models to
obtain streamflow, evapotranspiration, soil moisture and other
hydrological variables of interest.
Abstract: With the rapid progress of modern cities, the railway
construction must be developing quickly in China.As a typical
high-density country, shopping center on the subway should be one
important factor during the process of urban development. The paper
discusses the influence of the layout of shopping center on the subway,
and put it in the time and space’s axis of Shanghai urban development.
We usethe digital technology to establish the database of relevant
information. And then get the change role about shopping center on
subway in Shanghaiby the Kernel density estimate.The result shows
the development of shopping center on subway has a relationship with
local economic strength, population size, policysupport, and city
construction. And the suburbanization trend of shopping center would
be increasingly significant.By this case research, we could see the
Kernel density estimate is an efficient analysis method on the spatial
layout. It could reveal the characters of layout form of shopping center
on subway in essence. And it can also be applied to the other research
of space form.
Abstract: This paper presents the variation of the dynamic
characteristics of a spindle with the change of bearing preload. The
correlations between the variation of bearing preload and fundamental
modal parameters were first examined by conducting vibration tests on
physical spindle units. Experimental measurements show that the
dynamic compliance and damping ratio associated with the
dominating modes were affected to vary with variation of the bearing
preload. When the bearing preload was slightly deviated from a
standard value, the modal frequency and damping ability also vary to
different extent, which further enable the spindle to perform with
different compliance. For the spindle used in this study, a standard
preload value set on bearings would enable the spindle to behave a
higher stiffness as compared with others with a preload variation. This
characteristic can be served as a reference to examine the variation of
bearing preload of spindle in assemblage or operation.
Abstract: This work presents the modelling and simulation of
saponification of ethyl acetate in the presence of sodium hydroxide in
a plug flow reactor using Aspen Plus simulation software. Plug flow
reactors are widely used in the industry due to the non-mixing
property. The use of plug flow reactors becomes significant when
there is a need for continuous large scale reaction or fast reaction.
Plug flow reactors have a high volumetric unit conversion as the
occurrence for side reactions is minimum. In this research Aspen Plus
V8.0 has been successfully used to simulate the plug flow reactor. In
order to simulate the process as accurately as possible HYSYS Peng-
Robinson EOS package was used as the property method. The results
obtained from the simulation were verified by the experiment carried
out in the EDIBON plug flow reactor module. The correlation
coefficient (r2) was 0.98 and it proved that simulation results
satisfactorily fit for the experimental model. The developed model
can be used as a guide for understanding the reaction kinetics of a
plug flow reactor.
Abstract: Construction in Finland is focusing increasingly on
renovation instead of conventional new construction, and this trend
will continue to grow in the coming years and decades. Renovation of
the large number of suburban residential apartment buildings built in
the 1960s and 1970s poses a particular challenge. However,
renovation projects are demanding for the residents of these
buildings, since they usually are uninitiated in construction issues. On
the other hand, renovation projects generally apply the operating
models of new construction.
Nevertheless, the residents of an existing residential apartment
building are some of the best experts on the site. Thus, in this
research project we applied a relational model in developing and
testing at case sites a planning process that employs interactive
planning methods. Current residents, housing company managers, the
city zoning manager, the contractor’s and prefab element supplier’s
representatives, professional designers and researchers all took part in
the planning. The entire interactive planning process progressed
phase by phase as the participants’ and designers’ concerted
discussion and ideation process, so that the end result was a
renovation plan desired by the residents.
Abstract: The need to extract R&D keywords from issues and use
them to retrieve R&D information is increasing rapidly. However, it is
difficult to identify related issues or distinguish them. Although the
similarity between issues cannot be identified, with an R&D lexicon,
issues that always share the same R&D keywords can be determined.
In detail, the R&D keywords that are associated with a particular issue
imply the key technology elements that are needed to solve a particular
issue.
Furthermore, the relationship among issues that share the same
R&D keywords can be shown in a more systematic way by clustering
them according to keywords. Thus, sharing R&D results and reusing
R&D technology can be facilitated. Indirectly, redundant investment
in R&D can be reduced as the relevant R&D information can be shared
among corresponding issues and the reusability of related R&D can be
improved. Therefore, a methodology to cluster issues from the
perspective of common R&D keywords is proposed to satisfy these
demands.
Abstract: Analytical expressions of the current and angular errors, as well as the frequency characteristics of an induction converter describing the relation with its structural parameters, the core and winding characteristics are obtained. Based on estimation of the dependences obtained, a mathematical problem of parametric optimization is formulated which can successfully be used for investigating and diagnosing an induction converter.
Abstract: Flow forming is widely used in many industries, especially in defence technology industries. Pressure vessels requirements are high precision, light weight, seamless and optimum strength. For large pressure vessels, flow forming by 3 rollers machine were used. In case of long range rocket motor case flow forming and welding of pressure vessels have been used for manufacturing. Due to complication of welding process, researchers had developed 4 meters length pressure vessels without weldment by 4 rollers flow forming machine. Design and preparation of preform work pieces are performed. The optimization of flow forming parameter such as feed rate, spindle speed and depth of cut will be discussed. The experimental result shown relation of flow forming parameters to quality of flow formed tube and prototype pressure vessels have been made.
Abstract: In this study, we will touch upon the legal arrangements issued in Turkey for prevention of condensation and for ensuring pluralism in the media. We will mention the legal arrangements concerning the regulatory and supervisory authority, namely the Radio and Television Supreme Council, for the visual and auditory media. In this context; the legal arrangements, which have been introduced by the Law No 6112 on the Establishment of Radio and Television Enterprises and Their Media Services in relation to the media ownership, will be reviewed through comparison with the Article 29 of the repealed Law No 3984.
Abstract: In recent years in Italy the progress of the automobile industry, in the field of reduction of emissions values, is very remarkable. Nevertheless their evaluation and reduction is a key problem, especially in the cities, that account for more than 50% of world population. 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.