Abstract: The struggle between modern and postmodern
understanding is also displayed in terms of the superiorities of
quantitative and qualitative methods to each other which are
evaluated within the scope of these understandings. By way of
assuming that the quantitative researches (modern) are able to
account for structure while the qualitative researches (postmodern)
explain the process, these methods are turned into a means for
worldviews specific to a period. In fact, process is not a functioning
independent of structure. In addition to this issue, the ability of
quantitative methods to provide scientific knowledge is also
controversial so long as they exclude the dialectical method. For this
reason, the critiques charged against modernism in terms of
quantitative methods are, in a sense, legitimate. Nevertheless, the
main issue is in which parameters postmodernist critique tries to
legitimize its critiques and whether these parameters represent a point
of view enabling democratic solutions.
In this respect, the scientific knowledge covered in Turkish media
as a means through which ordinary people have access to scientific
knowledge will be evaluated by means of content analysis within a
new objectivity conception.
Abstract: Deaths from cardiovascular diseases have decreased substantially over the past two decades, largely as a result of advances in acute care and cardiac surgery. These developments have produced a growing population of patients who have survived a myocardial infarction. These patients need to be continuously monitored so that the initiation of treatment can be given within the crucial golden hour. The available conventional methods of monitoring mostly perform offline analysis and restrict the mobility of these patients within a hospital or room. Hence the aim of this paper is to design a Portable Cardiac Telemedicine System to aid the patients to regain their independence and return to an active work schedule, there by improving the psychological well being. The portable telemedicine system consists of a Wearable ECG Transmitter (WET) and a slightly modified mobile phone, which has an inbuilt ECG analyzer. The WET is placed on the body of the patient that continuously acquires the ECG signals from the high-risk cardiac patients who can move around anywhere. This WET transmits the ECG to the patient-s Bluetooth enabled mobile phone using blue tooth technology. The ECG analyzer inbuilt in the mobile phone continuously analyzes the heartbeats derived from the received ECG signals. In case of any panic condition, the mobile phone alerts the patients care taker by an SMS and initiates the transmission of a sample ECG signal to the doctor, via the mobile network.
Abstract: Information hiding, especially watermarking is a
promising technique for the protection of intellectual property rights.
This technology is mainly advanced for multimedia but the same has
not been done for text. Web pages, like other documents, need a
protection against piracy. In this paper, some techniques are
proposed to show how to hide information in web pages using some
features of the markup language used to describe these pages. Most
of the techniques proposed here use the white space to hide
information or some varieties of the language in representing
elements. Experiments on a very small page and analysis of five
thousands web pages show that these techniques have a wide
bandwidth available for information hiding, and they might form a
solid base to develop a robust algorithm for web page watermarking.
Abstract: Ethanol is generally used as a therapeutic reagent against Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC or hepatoma) worldwide, as it can induce Hepatocellular carcinoma cell apoptosis at low concentration through a multifactorial process regulated by several unknown proteins. This paper provides a simple and available proteomic strategy for exploring differentially expressed proteins in the apoptotic pathway. The appropriate concentrations of ethanol required to induce HepG2 cell apoptosis were first assessed by MTT assay, Gisma and fluorescence staining. Next, the central proteins involved in the apoptosis pathway processs were determined using 2D-PAGE, SDS-PAGE, and bio-software analysis. Finally the downregulation of two proteins, AFP and survivin, were determined by immunocytochemistry and reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) technology. The simple, useful method demonstrated here provides a new approach to proteomic analysis in key bio-regulating process including proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, immunity and metastasis.
Abstract: This paper reports work done to improve the modeling of complex processes when only small experimental data sets are available. Neural networks are used to capture the nonlinear underlying phenomena contained in the data set and to partly eliminate the burden of having to specify completely the structure of the model. Two different types of neural networks were used for the application of pulping problem. A three layer feed forward neural networks, using the Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (PCG) methods were used in this investigation. Preconditioning is a method to improve convergence by lowering the condition number and increasing the eigenvalues clustering. The idea is to solve the modified odified problem M-1 Ax= M-1b where M is a positive-definite preconditioner that is closely related to A. We mainly focused on Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient- based training methods which originated from optimization theory, namely Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient with Fletcher-Reeves Update (PCGF), Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient with Polak-Ribiere Update (PCGP) and Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient with Powell-Beale Restarts (PCGB). The behavior of the PCG methods in the simulations proved to be robust against phenomenon such as oscillations due to large step size.
Abstract: The separation of dissolved gas including dissolved oxygen can be used in breathing for a human under water. When one is suddenly wrecked or meets a tsunami, one is instantly drowned and cannot breathe under water. To avoid this crisis, when we meet waves, the dissolved gas separated from water by wave is used, while air can be used to breathe when we are about to escape from water. In this thesis, we investigated the separation characteristics of dissolved gas using the pipe type of hollow fiber membrane with polypropylene and the nude type of one with polysulfone. The hollow fiber membranes with good characteristics under water are used to separate the dissolved gas. The hollow fiber membranes with good characteristics in an air are used to transfer air. The combination of membranes with good separation characteristics under water and good transferring one in an air is used to breathe instantly under water to be alive at crisis. These results showed that polypropylene represented better performance than polysulfone under both of air and water conditions.
Abstract: The previous study of new metal gasket that contact
width and contact stress an important design parameter for optimizing
metal gasket performance. The optimum design based on an elastic
and plastic contact stress was founded. However, the influence of
flange surface roughness had not been investigated thoroughly. The
flange has many kinds of surface roughness. In this study, we
conducted a gasket model include a flange surface roughness effect. A
finite element method was employed to develop simulation solution. A
uniform quadratic mesh used for meshing the gasket material and a
gradually quadrilateral mesh used for meshing the flange. The gasket
model was simulated by using two simulation stages which is forming
and tightening simulation. A simulation result shows that a smoother
of surface roughness has higher slope for force per unit length. This
mean a squeezed against between flange and gasket will be strong. The
slope of force per unit length for gasket 400-MPa mode was higher
than the gasket 0-MPa mode.
Abstract: An active RC filters with a 880 / 1760 MHz dual bandwidth tuning ability is present for 60 GHz unlicensed band applications. A third order Butterworth low-pass filter utilizes two Cherry-Hooper amplifiers to satisfy the very high bandwidth requirements of an amplifier. The low-pass filter is fabricated in 90nm standard CMOS process. Drawing 6.7 mW from 1.2 V power supply, the low frequency gains of the filter are -2.5 and -4.1 dB, and the output third order intercept points (OIP3) are +2.2 and +1.9 dBm for the single channel and channel bonding conditions, respectively.
Abstract: In general architecture means the art of creating the
space. Comprehensive and complete body which is created by a
creative and purposeful thought to respond the human needs.
Professionally, architecture is the are of designing and
comprehensive planning of physical spaces that is created for
human-s productivity. The purpose of architectural design is to
respond the human needs which is appeared in physical frame.
Human in response to his needs is always looking to achieve comfort.
Throughout history of human civilization this relative comfort has
been inspired by nature and assimilating the facility and natural
achievement in the format of artifact patterns base on the nature, so
that it is achieved in this comfort level and invention of these factors.
All physical factors like regional, social and economical factors are
made available to human in order to achieve a specific goal and are
made to gain an ideal architecture to respond the functional needs and
consider the aesthetics and elemental principles and pay attention to
residents- comfort. In this study the Persian architecture with
exploiting and transforming the energies into the requisite energies of
architecture spaces and importing fuel products, utilities, etc, in order
to achieve a relative comfort level will be investigated. In this paper
the study of structural and physical specialties of traditional houses in
desert regions and Central Plateau of Iran gave us this opportunity to
being more familiar with important specialties of energy productivity
in architecture body of traditional houses in these regions specially
traditional houses of Kashan and in order to use these principles to
create modern architectures in these regions.
Abstract: Data envelopment analysis (DEA) has gained great popularity in environmental performance measurement because it can provide a synthetic standardized environmental performance index when pollutants are suitably incorporated into the traditional DEA framework. Since some of the environmental performance indicators cannot be controlled by companies managers, it is necessary to develop the model in a way that it could be applied when discretionary and/or non-discretionary factors were involved. In this paper, we present a semi-radial DEA approach to measuring environmental performance, which consists of non-discretionary factors. The model, then, has been applied on a real case.
Abstract: The present study was designed to investigate the
cardio protective role of chronic oral administration of alcoholic
extract of Terminalia arjuna in in-vivo ischemic reperfusion injury
and the induction of HSP72. Rabbits, divided into three groups, and
were administered with the alcoholic extract of the bark powder of
Terminalia arjuna (TAAE) by oral gavage [6.75mg/kg: (T1) and
9.75mg/kg: (T2), 6 days /week for 12 weeks]. In open-chest
Ketamine pentobarbitone anaesthetized rabbits, the left anterior
descending coronary artery was occluded for 15 min of ischemia
followed by 60 min of reperfusion. In the vehicle-treated group,
ischemic-reperfusion injury (IRI) was evidenced by depression of
global hemodynamic function (MAP, HR, LVEDP, peak LV (+) & (-
) (dP/dt) along with depletion of HEP compounds. Oxidative stress
in IRI was evidenced by, raised levels of myocardial TBARS and
depletion of endogenous myocardial antioxidants GSH, SOD and
catalase. Western blot analysis showed a single band corresponding
to 72 kDa in homogenates of hearts from rabbits treated with both the
doses. In the alcoholic extract of the bark powder of Terminalia
arjuna treatment groups, both the doses had better recovery of
myocardial hemodynamic function, with significant reduction in
TBARS, and rise in SOD, GSH, catalase were observed. The results
of the present study suggest that the alcoholic extract of the bark
powder of Terminalia arjuna in rabbit induces myocardial HSP 72
and augments myocardial endogenous antioxidants, without causing
any cellular injury and offered better cardioprotection against
oxidative stress associated with myocardial IR injury.
Abstract: Knowledge development in companies relies on
knowledge-intensive business processes, which are characterized by
a high complexity in their execution, weak structuring,
communication-oriented tasks and high decision autonomy, and often the need for creativity and innovation. A foundation of knowledge development is provided, which is based on a new conception of
knowledge and knowledge dynamics. This conception consists of a three-dimensional model of knowledge with types, kinds and qualities. Built on this knowledge conception, knowledge dynamics is
modeled with the help of general knowledge conversions between
knowledge assets. Here knowledge dynamics is understood to cover
all of acquisition, conversion, transfer, development and usage of
knowledge. Through this conception we gain a sound basis for
knowledge management and development in an enterprise. Especially
the type dimension of knowledge, which categorizes it according to
its internality and externality with respect to the human being, is crucial for enterprise knowledge management and development,
because knowledge should be made available by converting it to
more external types.
Built on this conception, a modeling approach for knowledgeintensive
business processes is introduced, be it human-driven,e-driven or task-driven processes. As an example for this approach, a model of the creative activity for the renewal planning of
a product is given.
Abstract: Despite the recent surge of research in control of
worm propagation, currently, there is no effective defense system
against such cyber attacks. We first design a distributed detection
architecture called Detection via Distributed Blackholes (DDBH).
Our novel detection mechanism could be implemented via virtual
honeypots or honeynets. Simulation results show that a worm can be
detected with virtual honeypots on only 3% of the nodes. Moreover,
the worm is detected when less than 1.5% of the nodes are infected.
We then develop two control strategies: (1) optimal dynamic trafficblocking,
for which we determine the condition that guarantees
minimum number of removed nodes when the worm is contained and
(2) predictive dynamic traffic-blocking–a realistic deployment of
the optimal strategy on scale-free graphs. The predictive dynamic
traffic-blocking, coupled with the DDBH, ensures that more than
40% of the network is unaffected by the propagation at the time
when the worm is contained.
Abstract: This paper presents an optimized methodology to
folded cascode operational transconductance amplifier (OTA) design.
The design is done in different regions of operation, weak inversion,
strong inversion and moderate inversion using the gm/ID methodology
in order to optimize MOS transistor sizing.
Using 0.35μm CMOS process, the designed folded cascode OTA
achieves a DC gain of 77.5dB and a unity-gain frequency of 430MHz
in strong inversion mode. In moderate inversion mode, it has a 92dB
DC gain and provides a gain bandwidth product of around 69MHz.
The OTA circuit has a DC gain of 75.5dB and unity-gain frequency
limited to 19.14MHZ in weak inversion region.
Abstract: Iterative learning control aims to achieve zero tracking
error of a specific command. This is accomplished by iteratively
adjusting the command given to a feedback control system, based on
the tracking error observed in the previous iteration. One would like
the iterations to converge to zero tracking error in spite of any error
present in the model used to design the learning law. First, this need
for stability robustness is discussed, and then the need for robustness
of the property that the transients are well behaved. Methods of
producing the needed robustness to parameter variations and to
singular perturbations are presented. Then a method involving
reverse time runs is given that lets the world behavior produce the
ILC gains in such a way as to eliminate the need for a mathematical
model. Since the real world is producing the gains, there is no issue
of model error. Provided the world behaves linearly, the approach
gives an ILC law with both stability robustness and good transient
robustness, without the need to generate a model.
Abstract: In this paper, a watermarking algorithm that uses the wavelet transform with Multiple Description Coding (MDC) and Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) concepts is introduced. Also, the paper investigates the role of Contourlet Transform (CT) versus Wavelet Transform (WT) in providing robust image watermarking. Two measures are utilized in the comparison between the waveletbased and the contourlet-based methods; Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Normalized Cross-Correlation (NCC). Experimental results reveal that the introduced algorithm is robust against different attacks and has good results compared to the contourlet-based algorithm.
Abstract: An advanced Monte Carlo simulation method, called Subset Simulation (SS) for the time-dependent reliability prediction for underground pipelines has been presented in this paper. The SS can provide better resolution for low failure probability level with efficient investigating of rare failure events which are commonly encountered in pipeline engineering applications. In SS method, random samples leading to progressive failure are generated efficiently and used for computing probabilistic performance by statistical variables. SS gains its efficiency as small probability event as a product of a sequence of intermediate events with larger conditional probabilities. The efficiency of SS has been demonstrated by numerical studies and attention in this work is devoted to scrutinise the robustness of the SS application in pipe reliability assessment. It is hoped that the development work can promote the use of SS tools for uncertainty propagation in the decision-making process of underground pipelines network reliability prediction.
Abstract: In this paper, an estimation accuracy of multiple moving
talker tracking using a microphone array is improved. The tracking
can be achieved by the adaptive method in which two algorithms are integrated, namely, the PAST (Projection Approximation Subspace
Tracking) algorithm and the IPLS (Interior Point Least Square) algorithm. When either talker begins to speak again after a silent
period, an appropriate feasible region for an evaluation function of
the IPLS algorithm might not be set. Then, the tracking fails due to the incorrect updating. Therefore, if an increment of the number of
active talkers is detected, the feasible region must be reset. Then, a low cost realization is required for the high speed tracking and a high
accuracy realization is desired for the precise tracking. In this paper,
the directions roughly estimated using the delayed-sum-array method
are used for the resetting. Several results of experiments performed in
an actual room environment show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Abstract: The major problem that wireless communication
systems undergo is multipath fading caused by scattering of the
transmitted signal. However, we can treat multipath propagation as
multiple channels between the transmitter and receiver to improve
the signal-to-scattering-noise ratio. While using Single Input
Multiple Output (SIMO) systems, the diversity receivers extract
multiple signal branches or copies of the same signal received from
different channels and apply gain combining schemes such as Root
Mean Square Gain Combining (RMSGC). RMSGC asymptotically
yields an identical performance to that of the theoretically optimal
Maximum Ratio Combining (MRC) for values of mean Signal-to-
Noise-Ratio (SNR) above a certain threshold value without the need
for SNR estimation. This paper introduces an improvement of
RMSGC using two different issues. We found that post-detection and
de-noising the received signals improve the performance of RMSGC
and lower the threshold SNR.
Abstract: It is known that the heart interacts with and adapts to
its venous and arterial loading conditions. Various experimental
studies and modeling approaches have been developed to investigate
the underlying mechanisms. This paper presents a model of the left
ventricle derived based on nonlinear stress-length myocardial
characteristics integrated over truncated ellipsoidal geometry, and
second-order dynamic mechanism for the excitation-contraction
coupling system. The results of the model presented here describe the
effects of the viscoelastic damping element of the electromechanical
coupling system on the hemodynamic response. Different heart rates
are considered to study the pacing effects on the performance of the
left-ventricle against constant preload and afterload conditions under
various damping conditions. The results indicate that the pacing
process of the left ventricle has to take into account, among other
things, the viscoelastic damping conditions of the myofilament
excitation-contraction process.