Abstract: Generalization is one of the most challenging issues
of Learning Classifier Systems. This feature depends on the
representation method which the system used. Considering the
proposed representation schemes for Learning Classifier System, it
can be concluded that many of them are designed to describe the
shape of the region which the environmental states belong and the
other relations of the environmental state with that region was
ignored. In this paper, we propose a new representation scheme
which is designed to show various relationships between the
environmental state and the region that is specified with a particular
classifier.
Abstract: Motivated by the recent work of Herbert, Hayen, Macaskill and Walter [Interval estimation for the difference of two independent variances. Communications in Statistics, Simulation and Computation, 40: 744-758, 2011.], we investigate, in this paper, new confidence intervals for the difference between two normal population variances based on the generalized confidence interval of Weerahandi [Generalized Confidence Intervals. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 88(423): 899-905, 1993.] and the closed form method of variance estimation of Zou, Huo and Taleban [Simple confidence intervals for lognormal means and their differences with environmental applications. Environmetrics 20: 172-180, 2009]. Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that our proposed confidence intervals give a better coverage probability than that of the existing confidence interval. Also two new confidence intervals perform similarly based on their coverage probabilities and their average length widths.
Abstract: In this paper we introduced new wavelet based algorithm for speckle reduction of synthetic aperture radar images, which uses combination of undecimated wavelet transformation, wiener filter (which is an adaptive filter) and mean filter. Further more instead of using existing thresholding techniques such as sure shrinkage, Bayesian shrinkage, universal thresholding, normal thresholding, visu thresholding, soft and hard thresholding, we use brute force thresholding, which iteratively run the whole algorithm for each possible candidate value of threshold and saves each result in array and finally selects the value for threshold that gives best possible results. That is why it is slow as compared to existing thresholding techniques but gives best results under the given algorithm for speckle reduction.
Abstract: Paleoclimate was reconstructed by the clay mineral
assemblages of shale units of Pabdeh (Paleocene- Oligocene), Gurpi
(Upper Cretaceous), Kazhdumi (Albian-Cenomanian) and Gadvan
(Aptian-Neocomian) formations in the Bangestan anticline. To
compare with clay minerals assemblages in these formations,
selected samples also taken from available formations in drilled wells
in Ahvaz, Marun, Karanj, and Parsi oil fields. Collected samples
prepared using standard clay mineral methodology. They were
treated as normal, glycolated and heated oriented glass slides. Their
identification was made on X-Ray diffractographs. Illite % varies
from 8 to 36. Illite quantity increased from Pabdeh to Gurpi
Formation. This may be due to dominant dry climate. Kaolinite is in
range of 12-49%. Its variation style in different formations could be a
marker of climate changes from wet to dry which is supported by the
lithological changes. Chlorite (4-28%) can also be detected in those
samples without any kaolinite. Mixed layer minerals as the mixture
of illite-chlorite and illite-vermiculite-montmorillonite are varied
from 6 to 36%, decreased during Kazhdumi deposition from the base
to the top. This result may be according to decreasing of illite
leaching process. Vermiculite was also determined in very less
quantity and found in those units without kaolinite. Montmorillonite
varies from 8 to 43%, and its presence is due to terrestrial
depositional condition. Stratigraphical documents is also supported
this idea that clay mineral distribution is a function of the climate
changes. It seems, thus, the present results can be indicated a possible
procedure for ancient climate changes evaluation.
Abstract: In this paper we discuss the development of an Augmented Reality (AR) - based scientific visualization system prototype that supports identification, localisation, and 3D visualisation of oil leakages sensors datasets. Sensors generates significant amount of multivariate datasets during normal and leak situations. Therefore we have developed a data model to effectively manage such data and enhance the computational support needed for the effective data explorations. A challenge of this approach is to reduce the data inefficiency powered by the disparate, repeated, inconsistent and missing attributes of most available sensors datasets. To handle this challenge, this paper aim to develop an AR-based scientific visualization interface which automatically identifies, localise and visualizes all necessary data relevant to a particularly selected region of interest (ROI) along the virtual pipeline network. Necessary system architectural supports needed as well as the interface requirements for such visualizations are also discussed in this paper.
Abstract: Success is a European project that will implement several clean transport offers in three European cities and evaluate the environmental impacts. The goal of these measures is to improve urban mobility or the displacement of residents inside cities. For e.g. park and ride, electric vehicles, hybrid bus and bike sharing etc. A list of 28 criteria and 60 measures has been established for evaluation of these transport projects. The evaluation criteria can be grouped into: Transport, environment, social, economic and fuel consumption. This article proposes a decision support system based that encapsulates a hybrid approach based on fuzzy logic, multicriteria analysis and belief theory for the evaluation of impacts of urban mobility solutions. A web-based tool called DeSSIA (Decision Support System for Impacts Assessment) has been developed that treats complex data. The tool has several functionalities starting from data integration (import of data), evaluation of projects and finishes by graphical display of results. The tool development is based on the concept of MVC (Model, View, and Controller). The MVC is a conception model adapted to the creation of software's which impose separation between data, their treatment and presentation. Effort is laid on the ergonomic aspects of the application. It has codes compatible with the latest norms (XHTML, CSS) and has been validated by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). The main ergonomic aspect focuses on the usability of the application, ease of learning and adoption. By the usage of technologies such as AJAX (XML and Java Script asynchrones), the application is more rapid and convivial. The positive points of our approach are that it treats heterogeneous data (qualitative, quantitative) from various information sources (human experts, survey, sensors, model etc.).
Abstract: The use of plastic materials in agriculture causes
serious hazards to the environment. The introduction of biodegradable materials, which can be disposed directly into the soil
can be one possible solution to this problem. In the present research results of experimental tests carried out on biodegradable film
fabricated from natural waste (corn husk) are presented. The film was
characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR),
differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), thermal gravimetric analysis
(TGA) and atomic force microscope (AFM) observation. The film is
shown to be readily degraded within 7-9 months under controlled soil
conditions, indicating a high biodegradability rate. The film
fabricated was use to produce biodegradable pot (BioPot) for
seedlings plantation. The introduction and the expanding use of
biodegradable materials represent a really promising alternative for
enhancing sustainable and environmentally friendly agricultural
activities.
Abstract: Different types of aggregation operators such as the
ordered weighted quasi-arithmetic mean (Quasi-OWA) operator and
the normalized Hamming distance are studied. We introduce the use
of the OWA operator in generalized distances such as the quasiarithmetic
distance. We will call these new distance aggregation the
ordered weighted quasi-arithmetic distance (Quasi-OWAD) operator.
We develop a general overview of this type of generalization and
study some of their main properties such as the distinction between
descending and ascending orders. We also consider different families
of Quasi-OWAD operators such as the Minkowski ordered weighted
averaging distance (MOWAD) operator, the ordered weighted
averaging distance (OWAD) operator, the Euclidean ordered
weighted averaging distance (EOWAD) operator, the normalized
quasi-arithmetic distance, etc.
Abstract: Motion capture devices have been utilized in
producing several contents, such as movies and video games. However,
since motion capture devices are expensive and inconvenient to use,
motions segmented from captured data was recycled and synthesized
to utilize it in another contents, but the motions were generally
segmented by contents producers in manual. Therefore, automatic
motion segmentation is recently getting a lot of attentions. Previous
approaches are divided into on-line and off-line, where on-line
approaches segment motions based on similarities between
neighboring frames and off-line approaches segment motions by
capturing the global characteristics in feature space. In this paper, we
propose a graph-based high-level motion segmentation method. Since
high-level motions consist of several repeated frames within temporal
distances, we consider all similarities among all frames within the
temporal distance. This is achieved by constructing a graph, where
each vertex represents a frame and the edges between the frames are
weighted by their similarity. Then, normalized cuts algorithm is used
to partition the constructed graph into several sub-graphs by globally
finding minimum cuts. In the experiments, the results using the
proposed method showed better performance than PCA-based method
in on-line and GMM-based method in off-line, as the proposed method
globally segment motions from the graph constructed based
similarities between neighboring frames as well as similarities among
all frames within temporal distances.
Abstract: The African Great Lakes Region refers to the zone
around lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, Albert, Edward, Kivu, and
Malawi. The main source of electricity in this region is hydropower
whose systems are generally characterized by relatively weak,
isolated power schemes, poor maintenance and technical deficiencies
with limited electricity infrastructures. Most of the hydro sources are
rain fed, and as such there is normally a deficiency of water during
the dry seasons and extended droughts. In such calamities fossil fuels
sources, in particular petroleum products and natural gas, are
normally used to rescue the situation but apart from them being nonrenewable,
they also release huge amount of green house gases to our
environment which in turn accelerates the global warming that has at
present reached an amazing stage. Wind power is ample, renewable,
widely distributed, clean, and free energy source that does not
consume or pollute water. Wind generated electricity is one of the
most practical and commercially viable option for grid quality and
utility scale electricity production. However, the main shortcoming
associated with electric wind power generation is fluctuation in its
output both in space and time. Before making a decision to establish
a wind park at a site, the wind speed features there should therefore
be known thoroughly as well as local demand or transmission
capacity. The main objective of this paper is to utilise monthly
average wind speed data collected from one prospective site within
the African Great Lakes Region to demonstrate that the available
wind power there is high enough to generate electricity. The mean
monthly values were calculated from records gathered on hourly
basis for a period of 5 years (2001 to 2005) from a site in Tanzania.
The documentations that were collected at a height of 2 m were
projected to a height of 50 m which is the standard hub height of
wind turbines. The overall monthly average wind speed was found to
be 12.11 m/s whereas June to November was established to be the
windy season as the wind speed during the session is above the
overall monthly wind speed. The available wind power density
corresponding to the overall mean monthly wind speed was evaluated
to be 1072 W/m2, a potential that is worthwhile harvesting for the
purpose of electric generation.
Abstract: Diesel Engines emit complex mixtures of inorganic
and organic compounds in the form of both solid and vapour phase
particles. Most of the particulates released are ultrafine nanoparticles
which are detrimental to human health and can easily enter the body
by respiration. The emissions standards on particulate matter release
from diesel engines are constantly upgraded within the European
Union and with future regulations based on the particles numbers
released instead of merely mass, the need for effective aftertreatment
devices will increase. Standard particulate filters in the form of wall
flow filters can have problems with high soot accumulation,
producing a large exhaust backpressure. A potential solution would
be to combine the standard filter with a flow through filter to reduce
the load on the wall flow filter. In this paper soot particle trapping has
been simulated in different continuous flow filters of monolithic
structure including the use of promoters, at laminar flow conditions.
An Euler Lagrange model, the discrete phase model in Ansys used
with user defined functions for forces acting on particles. A method
to quickly screen trapping of 5 nm and 10 nm particles in different
catalysts designs with tracers was also developed.
Simulations of square duct monoliths with promoters show that the
strength of the vortices produced are not enough to give a high
amount of particle deposition on the catalyst walls. The smallest
particles in the simulations, 5 and 10 nm particles were trapped to a
higher extent, than larger particles up to 1000 nm, in all studied
geometries with the predominant deposition mechanism being
Brownian diffusion. The comparison of the different filters designed
with a wall flow filter does show that the options for altering a design
of a flow through filter, without imposing a too large pressure drop
penalty are good.
Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are characterized
by abnormalities in social interaction and communication, as well as
repetitive and stereotyped behaviors. Although various studies have
been conducted in ASDs etiology across the world, it seems that they
are still unknown in Middle East. Some scientific researches have
been conducted on ASDs in Middle East (ME) especially in
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
A systematic literature review was performed to identify the ASDs
studies in KSA. Accordingly, PubMed, ISI web of Science and
Google were searched to find KSA and ME studies in ASDs. The
main focus of this review work is to outline an improved
understanding of the underpinnings of ASD in order to achieve
therapeutic interventions and we will discuss the main problem we
waiting for solution with reference with role of Transcranial
Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to modulate cortical activity improve
understanding ASD.
Abstract: In today-s world, the efficient utilization of wood
resources comes more and more to the mind of forest owners. It is a
very complex challenge to ensure an efficient harvest of the wood
resources. This is one of the scopes the project “Virtual Forest II"
addresses. Its core is a database with data about forests containing
approximately 260 million trees located in North Rhine-Westphalia
(NRW). Based on this data, tree growth simulations and wood
mobilization simulations can be conducted. This paper focuses on the
latter. It describes a discrete-event-simulation with an attached 3-D
real time visualization which simulates timber harvest using trees
from the database with different crop resources. This simulation can
be displayed in 3-D to show the progress of the wood crop. All the
data gathered during the simulation is presented as a detailed
summary afterwards. This summary includes cost-benefit
calculations and can be compared to those of previous runs to
optimize the financial outcome of the timber harvest by exchanging
crop resources or modifying their parameters.
Abstract: Polypropylene blended with natural oil and pigment additives has been studied. Different formulations for each compound were made into polybag used for cultivation of oil palm seedlings for strength and mechanical properties studies. One group of sample was exposed under normal sunlight to initiate degradation and another group of sample was placed under shaded area for five months. All samples were tested for tensile strength to determine the degradation effects. The tensile strength of directly exposed sunlight samples and shaded area showed up to 50% and 25% degradation respectively. However, similar reduction of Young’s modulus for all samples was found for both exposures. Structural investigations were done using FTIR to detect deformation. The natural additives that were used in the studies were all natural and environmental friendly
Abstract: In today-s competitive market, most companies
develop manufacturing systems that can help in cost reduction and
maximum quality. Human issues are an important part of
manufacturing systems, yet most companies ignore their effects on
production performance. This paper aims to developing an integrated
workforce planning system that incorporates the human being.
Therefore, a multi-objective mixed integer nonlinear programming
model is developed to determine the amount of hiring, firing,
training, overtime for each worker type. This paper considers a
workforce planning model including human aspects such as skills,
training, workers- personalities, capacity, motivation, and learning
rates. This model helps to minimize the hiring, firing, training and
overtime costs, and maximize the workers- performance. The results
indicate that the workers- differences should be considered in
workforce scheduling to generate realistic plans with minimum costs.
This paper also investigates the effects of human learning rates on the
performance of the production systems.
Abstract: The most important property of the Gene Ontology is
the terms. These control vocabularies are defined to provide
consistent descriptions of gene products that are shareable and
computationally accessible by humans, software agent, or other
machine-readable meta-data. Each term is associated with
information such as definition, synonyms, database references, amino
acid sequences, and relationships to other terms. This information has
made the Gene Ontology broadly applied in microarray and
proteomic analysis. However, the process of searching the terms is
still carried out using traditional approach which is based on keyword
matching. The weaknesses of this approach are: ignoring semantic
relationships between terms, and highly depending on a specialist to
find similar terms. Therefore, this study combines semantic similarity
measure and genetic algorithm to perform a better retrieval process
for searching semantically similar terms. The semantic similarity
measure is used to compute similitude strength between two terms.
Then, the genetic algorithm is employed to perform batch retrievals
and to handle the situation of the large search space of the Gene
Ontology graph. The computational results are presented to show the
effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.
Abstract: In this paper, a new design technique for enhancing
bandwidth that improves the performance of a conventional
microstrip patch antenna is proposed. This paper presents a novel
wideband probe fed inverted slotted microstrip patch antenna. The
design adopts contemporary techniques; coaxial probe feeding,
inverted patch structure and slotted patch. The composite effect of
integrating these techniques and by introducing the proposed patch,
offer a low profile, broadband, high gain, and low cross-polarization
level. The results for the VSWR, gain and co-and cross-polarization
patterns are presented. The antenna operating the band of 1.80-2.36
GHz shows an impedance bandwidth (2:1 VSWR) of 27% and a gain
of 10.18 dBi with a gain variation of 1.12 dBi. Good radiation
characteristics, including a cross-polarization level in xz-plane less
than -42 dB, have been obtained.
Abstract: Cattle manure and mineral fertilizers are two source
of Nitrogen, which can affect the growth and quantity of potato. In
this research the effects of the use of cattle manure (5, 10, 15 and 20
ton ha-1), Nitrogen fertilizer (50, 100 and 150 kg N ha-1) and their
interaction on potato growth were evaluated during field
experiments in 2008 with the help of Randomized Complete Block
(RCB) with the factorial arrangement of three experimental
replications in Iran. At the 75 th day after emergence, dry weight of
Shoots, leaf area index (LAI) and plant height were recorded. Results
showed that, dry weight of Shoots, LAI and plant height increased
linearly and very significantly in response to the application of
manure and Nitrogen fertilizer. While the interaction between
manure and Nitrogen fertilizer just on the LAI and plant height was
significant, somehow the maximum amount of plant height( 73 cm)
was obtained by using 150 kg Nitrogen + 15 tons of manure per
hectare, and maximum LAI ( 5.36) was obtained by using 150 kg
Nitrogen + 20 tons of manure per hectare. Also in this experiment
maximum tuber yield (36.8 tons ha-1) was obtained by the utilization
of 150 kg Nitrogen per hectare + 20 tons manure.
Abstract: Because road traffic accidents are a major source of death worldwide, attempts have been made to create Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) able to detect vehicle, driver and
environmental conditions that are cues for possible potential accidents. This paper presents continued work on a novel Nonintrusive
Intelligent Driver Assistance and Safety System (Ni-DASS)
for assessing driver attention and hazard awareness. It uses two onboard
CCD cameras – one observing the road and the other observing
the driver-s face. The windscreen is divided into cells and analysis of
the driver-s eye-gaze patterns allows Ni-DASS to determine the windscreen cell the driver is focusing on using eye-gesture templates.
Intersecting the driver-s field of view through the observed
windscreen cell with subsections of the camera-s field of view containing a potential hazard allows Ni-DASS to estimate the
probability that the driver has actually observed the hazard. Results
have shown that the proposed technique is an accurate enough
measure of driver observation to be useful in ADAS systems.
Abstract: Liners are made to protect the groundwater table from
the infiltration of leachate which normally carries different kinds of
toxic materials from landfills. Although these liners are engineered to
last for long period of time; unfortunately these liners fail; therefore,
toxic materials pass to groundwater. This paper focuses on the
changes of the hydraulic conductivity of a sand-bentonite liner due to
the infiltration of biofuel and ethanol fuel. Series of laboratory tests
were conducted in 20-cm-high PVC columns. Several compositions
of sand-bentonite liners were tested: 95% sand: 5% bentonite; 90%
sand: 10% bentonite; and 100% sand (passed mesh #40). The
columns were subjected to extreme pressures of 40 kPa, and 100 kPa
to evaluate the transport of alternative fuels (biofuel and ethanol
fuel). For comparative studies, similar tests were carried out using
water. Results showed that hydraulic conductivity increased due to
the infiltration of alternative fuels through the liners. Accordingly,
the increase in the hydraulic conductivity showed significant
dependency on the type of liner mixture and the characteristics of the
liquid. The hydraulic conductivity of a liner (subjected to biofuel
infiltration) consisting of 5% bentonite: 95% sand under pressure of
40 kPa and 100 kPa had increased by one fold. In addition, the
hydraulic conductivity of a liner consisting of 10% bentonite: 90%
sand under pressure of 40 kPa and 100 kPa and infiltrated by biofuel
had increased by three folds. On the other hand, the results obtained
by water infiltration under 40 kPa showed lower hydraulic
conductivities of 1.50×10-5 and 1.37×10-9 cm/s for 5% bentonite:
95% sand, and 10% bentonite: 90% sand, respectively. Similarly,
under 100 kPa, the hydraulic conductivities were 2.30×10-5 and
1.90×10-9 cm/s for 5% bentonite: 95% sand, and 10% bentonite: 90%
sand, respectively.