Abstract: Traveling salesman problem (TSP) is hard to resolve
when the number of cities and routes become large. The frequency
graph is constructed to tackle the problem. A frequency graph
maintains the topological relationships of the original weighted graph.
The numbers on the edges are the frequencies of the edges emulated
from the local optimal Hamiltonian paths. The simplest kind of local
optimal Hamiltonian paths are computed based on the four vertices
and three lines inequality. The search algorithm is given to find the
optimal Hamiltonian circuit based on the frequency graph. The
experiments show that the method can find the optimal Hamiltonian
circuit within several trials.
Abstract: Tackling emergency situations is performed based on emergency scenarios. These scenarios do not have a uniform form in the Czech Republic. They are unstructured and developed primarily in the text form. This does not allow solving emergency situations efficiently. For this reason, the paper aims at defining a Process Oriented Architecture to support and thus to improve tackling emergency situations in the Czech Republic. The innovative Process Oriented Architecture is based on the Workflow Reference Model while taking into account the options of Business Process Management Suites for the implementation of process oriented emergency scenarios. To verify the proposed architecture the Proof of Concept has been used which covers the reception of an emergency event at the district emergency operations centre. Within the particular implementation of the proposed architecture the Bonita Open Solution has been used. The architecture created in this way is suitable not only for emergency management, but also for educational purposes.
Abstract: Sediment formation and its transport along the river course is considered as important hydraulic consideration in river engineering. Their impact on the morphology of rivers on one hand and important considerations of which in the design and construction of the hydraulic structures on the other has attracted the attention of experts in arid and semi-arid regions. Under certain conditions where the momentum energy of the flow stream reaches a specific rate, the sediment materials start to be transported with the flow. This can usually be analyzed in two different categories of suspended and bed load materials. Sedimentation phenomenon along the waterways and the conveyance of vast volume of materials into the canal networks can potentially influence water abstraction in the intake structures. This can pose a serious threat to operational sustainability and water delivery performance in the canal networks. The situation is serious where ineffective watershed management (poor vegetation cover in the water basin) is the underlying cause of soil erosion which feeds the materials into the waterways that intern would necessitate comprehensive study. The present paper aims to present an analytical investigation of the sediment process in the waterways on one hand and estimation of the sediment load transport into the lined canals using the SHARC software on the other. For this reason, the paper focuses on the comparative analysis of the hydraulic behaviors of the Sabilli main canal that feeds the pumping station with that of the Western canal in the Greater Dezful region to identify effective factors in sedimentation and ways of mitigating their impact on water abstraction in the canal systems. The method involved use of observational data available in the Dezful Dastmashoon hydrometric station along a 6 km waterway of the Sabilli main canal using the SHARC software to estimate the suspended load concentration and bed load materials. Results showed the transport of a significant volume of sediment loads from the waterways into the canal system which is assumed to have arisen from the absence of stilling basin on one hand and the gravity flow on the other has caused serious challenges. This is contrary to what occurs in the Sabilli canal, where the design feature which incorporates a settling basin just before the pumping station is the major cause of reduced sediment load transport into the canal system.Results showed that modification of the present design features by constructing a settling basin just upstream of the western intake structure can considerably reduce the entry of sediment materials into the canal system. Not only this can result in the sustainability of the hydraulic structures but can also improve operational performance of water conveyance and distribution system, all of which are the pre-requisite to secure reliable and equitable water delivery regime for the command area.
Abstract: An area-integrating method that uses the technique of total integrated light scatter for evaluating the root mean square height of the surface Sq has been presented in the paper. It is based on the measurement of the scatter power using a flat photodiode integrator rather than an optical sphere or a hemisphere. By this means, one can obtain much less expensive and smaller instruments than traditional ones. Thanks to this, they could find their application for surface control purposes, particularly in small and medium size enterprises. A description of the functioning of the measuring unit as well as the impact caused by different factors on its properties is presented first. Next, results of measurements of the Sq values performed for optical, silicon and metal samples have been shown. It has been also proven that they are in a good agreement with the results obtained using the Ulbricht sphere instrument.
Abstract: In this paper we study the rheonomic mechanical systems from the point of view of Lagrange geometry, by means of its canonical semispray. We present an example of the constraint motion of a material point, in the rheonomic case.
Abstract: This paper presents results obtained from the
numerical solution for the flow past an oscillating circular cylinder at
Reynolds number of 200. The frequency of oscillation was fixed to
the vortex shedding frequency from a fixed cylinder, f0, while the
amplitudes of oscillations were varied from to 1.1a, where a
represents the radius of the cylinder. The response of the flow
through the fluid forces acting on the surface of the cylinder are
investigated. The lock-on phenomenon is captured at low oscillation
amplitudes.
Abstract: Rapid prototyping (RP) techniques are a group of
advanced manufacturing processes that can produce custom made
objects directly from computer data such as Computer Aided Design
(CAD), Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI) data. Using RP fabrication techniques, constructs
with controllable and complex internal architecture with appropriate
mechanical properties can be achieved. One of the attractive and
promising utilization of RP techniques is related to tissue engineering
(TE) scaffold fabrication. Tissue engineering scaffold is a 3D
construction that acts as a template for tissue regeneration. Although
several conventional techniques such as solvent casting and gas
forming are utilized in scaffold fabrication; these processes show
poor interconnectivity and uncontrollable porosity of the produced
scaffolds. So, RP techniques become the best alternative fabrication
methods of TE scaffolds. This paper reviews the current state of the
art in the area of tissue engineering scaffolds fabrication using
advanced RP processes, as well as the current limitations and future
trends in scaffold fabrication RP techniques.
Abstract: In this paper, we derive some algebraic identities on
right and left neighbors R(F) and L(F) of an indefinite binary
quadratic form F = F(x, y) = ax2 + bxy + cy2 of discriminant
Δ = b2 -4ac. We prove that the proper cycle of F can be given by
using its consecutive left neighbors. Also we construct a connection
between right and left neighbors of F.
Abstract: One of the primary uses of higher order statistics in
signal processing has been for detecting and estimation of non-
Gaussian signals in Gaussian noise of unknown covariance. This is
motivated by the ability of higher order statistics to suppress additive
Gaussian noise. In this paper, several methods to test for non-
Gaussianity of a given process are presented. These methods include
histogram plot, kurtosis test, and hypothesis testing using cumulants
and bispectrum of the available sequence. The hypothesis testing is
performed by constructing a statistic to test whether the bispectrum
of the given signal is non-zero. A zero bispectrum is not a proof of
Gaussianity. Hence, other tests such as the kurtosis test should be
employed. Examples are given to demonstrate the performance of the
presented methods.
Abstract: An innovative approach utilizing highly alkaline oil
shale waste ash and carbon dioxide gas (CO2), associated with power
production, as a resource for production of precipitated calcium
carbonate (PCC) is introduced in this paper. The specifics and
feasibility of the integrated ash valorization and CO2 sequestration
process by indirect aqueous carbonation of lime-consisting ash were
elaborated and the main parameters established. Detailed description
of the formed precipitates was included. Complimentary carbonation
experiments with commercial CaO fine powder were conducted for
comparative characterization of the final products obtained on the
basis of two different raw materials. Finally, the expected CO2
uptake was evaluated.
Abstract: The C3 plants are frequently suffering from exposure
to high temperature stress which limits the growth and yield of these
plants. This study seeks to clarify the physiological mechanisms of
heat tolerance in relation to oxidative stress in C3 species. Fifteen C3
species were exposed to prolonged moderately high temperature
stress 36/30°C for 40 days in a growth chamber. Chlorophyll
fluorescence (Fv/Fm) showed great difference among species at 40
days of the stress. The species showed decreases in Fv/Fm and
increases in malondialdehyde (MDA) content under stress condition
as well as negative correlation between Fv/Fm and MDA (r = -0.61*)
at 40 days of the stress. Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) content before
and after stress in addition to its response under stress showed great
differences among species. The results suggest that the difference in
heat tolerance among C3 species is closely associated with the ability
to suppress oxidative damage but not with the content of reactive
oxygen species (ROS) which is regulated by complex network.
Abstract: The objective of positioning the fixture elements in
the fixture is to make the workpiece stiff, so that geometric errors in
the manufacturing process can be reduced. Most of the work for
optimal fixture layout used the minimization of the sum of the nodal
deflection normal to the surface as objective function. All deflections
in other direction have been neglected. We propose a new method for
fixture layout optimization in this paper, which uses the element
strain energy. The deformations in all the directions have been
considered in this way. The objective function in this method is to
minimize the sum of square of element strain energy. Strain energy
and stiffness are inversely proportional to each other. The
optimization problem is solved by the sequential quadratic
programming method. Three different kinds of case studies are
presented, and results are compared with the method using nodal
deflections as objective function to verify the propose method.
Abstract: The paper presents an analysis of linkages and
structures of co-operation and their intensity like the potential for the
establishment of clusters in the Central and Eastern (Pannonian)
Croatian. Starting from the theoretical elaboration of the need for
entrepreneurs to organize through the cluster model and the terms of
their self-actualization, related to the importance of traditional values
in terms of benefits, social capital and assess where the company now
is, in order to prove the need to create their own identity in terms of
clustering. The institutional dimensions of social capital where the
public sector has the best role in creating the social structure of
clusters, and social dimensions of social capital in terms of trust,
cooperation and networking will be analyzed to what extent the trust
and coherency are present between companies in the Brod posavina
and Pozega slavonia County, expressed through the readiness of
inclusion in clusters in the NUTS II region - Central and Eastern
(Pannonian) Croatia, as a homogeneous economic entity, with
emphasis on limiting factors that stand in the way of greater
competitiveness.
Abstract: A wide spectrum of systems require reliable
personal recognition schemes to either confirm or determine the
identity of an individual person. This paper considers multimodal
biometric system and their applicability to access control,
authentication and security applications. Strategies for feature
extraction and sensor fusion are considered and contrasted. Issues
related to performance assessment, deployment and standardization
are discussed. Finally future directions of biometric systems
development are discussed.
Abstract: The state of the art in instructional design for
computer-assisted learning has been strongly influenced by advances
in information technology, Internet and Web-based systems. The
emphasis of educational systems has shifted from training to
learning. The course delivered has also been changed from large
inflexible content to sequential small chunks of learning objects. The
concepts of learning objects together with the advanced technologies
of Web and communications support the reusability, interoperability,
and accessibility design criteria currently exploited by most learning
systems. These concepts enable just-in-time learning. We propose to
extend theses design criteria further to include the learnability
concept that will help adapting content to the needs of learners. The
learnability concept offers a better personalization leading to the
creation and delivery of course content more appropriate to
performance and interest of each learner. In this paper we present a
new framework of learning environments containing knowledge
discovery as a tool to automatically learn patterns of learning
behavior from learners' profiles and history.
Abstract: Laser soldering is based on applying some soldering material (albumin) onto the approximated edges of the cut and heating the solder (and the underlying tissues) by a laser beam. Endogenous and exogenous materials such as indocyanine green (ICG) are often added to solders to enhance light absorption. Gold nanoshells are new materials which have an optical response dictated by the plasmon resonance. The wavelength at which the resonance occurs depends on the core and shell sizes, allowing nanoshells to be tailored for particular applications. The purposes of this study was use combination of ICG and different concentration of gold nanoshells for skin tissue soldering and also to examine the effect of laser soldering parameters on the properties of repaired skin. Two mixtures of albumin solder and different combinations of ICG and gold nanoshells were prepared. A full thickness incision of 2×20 mm2 was made on the surface and after addition of mixtures it was irradiated by an 810nm diode laser at different power densities. The changes of tensile strength σt due to temperature rise, number of scan (Ns), and scan velocity (Vs) were investigated. The results showed at constant laser power density (I), σt of repaired incisions increases by increasing the concentration of gold nanoshells in solder, Ns and decreasing Vs. It is therefore important to consider the tradeoff between the scan velocity and the surface temperature for achieving an optimum operating condition. In our case this corresponds to σt =1800 gr/cm2 at I~ 47 Wcm-2, T ~ 85ºC, Ns =10 and Vs=0.3mms-1.
Abstract: A clustering based technique has been developed and implemented for Short Term Load Forecasting, in this article. Formulation has been done using Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) as an objective function. Data Matrix and cluster size are optimization variables. Model designed, uses two temperature variables. This is compared with six input Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) and Fuzzy Inference Neural Network (FINN) for the data of the same system, for same time period. The fuzzy inference system has the network structure and the training procedure of a neural network which initially creates a rule base from existing historical load data. It is observed that the proposed clustering based model is giving better forecasting accuracy as compared to the other two methods. Test results also indicate that the RBFNN can forecast future loads with accuracy comparable to that of proposed method, where as the training time required in the case of FINN is much less.
Abstract: Mechanical design of the thin-film solar framed
module and mounting system is important to enhance module
reliability and to increase areas of applications. The stress induced by
different mounting positions played a main role controlling the
stability of the whole mechanical structure. From the finite element
method, under the pressure from the back of module, the stress at Lc
(center point of the Long frame) increased and the stresses at Center,
Corner and Sc (center point of the Short frame) decreased while the
mounting position was away from the center of the module. In addition,
not only the stress of the glass but also the stress of the frame
decreased. Accordingly it was safer to mount in the position away
from the center of the module. The emphasis of designing frame
system of the module was on the upper support of the Short frame.
Strength of the overall structure and design of the corner were also
important due to the complexity of the stress in the Long frame.
Abstract: In this study, we investigated the effects of ginger and
L-carnitine on the reproductive performance of male rats with respect
to semen parameters, male sex hormones and the testicular
antioxidant system. A total of sixty mature male albino rats were
divided into four groups of fifteen rats. The control group received
saline, whereas the other three groups received ginger (100 mg kg-1 d-
1.), L-carnitine (150 mg kg-1 d-1.) or a combination of both ginger
(100 mg kg-1 d-1.) and L-carnitine (150 mg kg-1 d-1.) via a stomach
tube daily for one month. At the end of the treatment period, the rats
were sacrificed, and their sperm characteristics (count, motility and
viability), antioxidant enzyme factors levels (reduced glutathione,
catalase, superoxide dismutase and total antioxidant capacity) and sex
hormone levels (testosterone, Follicle stimulating hormone(FSH) and
luteinizing hormone (LH) were analysed. Our results showed that the
three experimental treatments improved sperm parameters,
antioxidant enzyme activity and testosterone hormone levels; the
most pronounced positive effects were observed in the group that
received a combination of both ginger and L-carnitine. Therefore, the
administration of a combination of ginger and L-carnitine may be
beneficial for improving male sexual performance.
Abstract: Named Entity Recognition (NER) aims to classify each word of a document into predefined target named entity classes and is now-a-days considered to be fundamental for many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks such as information retrieval, machine translation, information extraction, question answering systems and others. This paper reports about the development of a NER system for Bengali and Hindi using Support Vector Machine (SVM). Though this state of the art machine learning technique has been widely applied to NER in several well-studied languages, the use of this technique to Indian languages (ILs) is very new. The system makes use of the different contextual information of the words along with the variety of features that are helpful in predicting the four different named (NE) classes, such as Person name, Location name, Organization name and Miscellaneous name. We have used the annotated corpora of 122,467 tokens of Bengali and 502,974 tokens of Hindi tagged with the twelve different NE classes 1, defined as part of the IJCNLP-08 NER Shared Task for South and South East Asian Languages (SSEAL) 2. In addition, we have manually annotated 150K wordforms of the Bengali news corpus, developed from the web-archive of a leading Bengali newspaper. We have also developed an unsupervised algorithm in order to generate the lexical context patterns from a part of the unlabeled Bengali news corpus. Lexical patterns have been used as the features of SVM in order to improve the system performance. The NER system has been tested with the gold standard test sets of 35K, and 60K tokens for Bengali, and Hindi, respectively. Evaluation results have demonstrated the recall, precision, and f-score values of 88.61%, 80.12%, and 84.15%, respectively, for Bengali and 80.23%, 74.34%, and 77.17%, respectively, for Hindi. Results show the improvement in the f-score by 5.13% with the use of context patterns. Statistical analysis, ANOVA is also performed to compare the performance of the proposed NER system with that of the existing HMM based system for both the languages.