Abstract: The use of radar in Quantitative Precipitation Estimation (QPE) for radar-rainfall measurement is significantly beneficial. Radar has advantages in terms of high spatial and temporal condition in rainfall measurement and also forecasting. In Malaysia, radar application in QPE is still new and needs to be explored. This paper focuses on the Z/R derivation works of radarrainfall estimation based on rainfall classification. The works developed new Z/R relationships for Klang River Basin in Selangor area for three different general classes of rain events, namely low (10mm/hr, 30mm/hr) and also on more specific rain types during monsoon seasons. Looking at the high potential of Doppler radar in QPE, the newly formulated Z/R equations will be useful in improving the measurement of rainfall for any hydrological application, especially for flood forecasting.
Abstract: Increasing energy absorption is a significant parameter
in vehicle design. Absorbing more energy results in decreasing
occupant damage. Limitation of the deflection in a side impact results
in decreased energy absorption (SEA) and increased peak load (PL).
Hence a high crash force jeopardizes passenger safety and vehicle
integrity. The aims of this paper are to determine suitable dimensions
and material of a square beam subjected to side impact, in order to
maximize SEA and minimize PL. To achieve this novel goal, the
geometric parameters of a square beam are optimized using the
response surface method (RSM).multi-objective optimization is
performed, and the optimum design for different response features is
obtained.
Abstract: The recent global financial problem urges government
to play role in stimulating the economy due to the fact that private
sector has little ability to purchase during the recession. A concerned
question is whether the increased government spending crowds out
private consumption and whether it helps stimulate the economy. If
the government spending policy is effective; the private consumption
is expected to increase and can compensate the recent extra
government expense. In this study, the government spending is
categorized into government consumption spending and government
capital spending. The study firstly examines consumer consumption
along the line with the demand function in microeconomic theory.
Three categories of private consumption are used in the study. Those
are food consumption, non food consumption, and services
consumption. The dynamic Almost Ideal Demand System of the three
categories of the private consumption is estimated using the Vector
Error Correction Mechanism model. The estimated model indicates
the substituting effects (negative impacts) of the government
consumption spending on budget shares of private non food
consumption and of the government capital spending on budget share
of private food consumption, respectively. Nevertheless the result
does not necessarily indicate whether the negative effects of changes
in the budget shares of the non food and the food consumption means
fallen total private consumption. Microeconomic consumer demand
analysis clearly indicates changes in component structure of
aggregate expenditure in the economy as a result of the government
spending policy. The macroeconomic concept of aggregate demand
comprising consumption, investment, government spending (the
government consumption spending and the government capital
spending), export, and import are used to estimate for their
relationship using the Vector Error Correction Mechanism model.
The macroeconomic study found no effect of the government capital
spending on either the private consumption or the growth of GDP
while the government consumption spending has negative effect on
the growth of GDP. Therefore no crowding out effect of the
government spending is found on the private consumption but it is
ineffective and even inefficient expenditure as found reducing growth
of the GDP in the context of Thailand.
Abstract: Large scale systems such as computational Grid is
a distributed computing infrastructure that can provide globally
available network resources. The evolution of information processing
systems in Data Grid is characterized by a strong decentralization of
data in several fields whose objective is to ensure the availability and
the reliability of the data in the reason to provide a fault tolerance
and scalability, which cannot be possible only with the use of the
techniques of replication. Unfortunately the use of these techniques
has a height cost, because it is necessary to maintain consistency
between the distributed data. Nevertheless, to agree to live with
certain imperfections can improve the performance of the system by
improving competition. In this paper, we propose a multi-layer protocol
combining the pessimistic and optimistic approaches conceived
for the data consistency maintenance in large scale systems. Our
approach is based on a hierarchical representation model with tree
layers, whose objective is with double vocation, because it initially
makes it possible to reduce response times compared to completely
pessimistic approach and it the second time to improve the quality
of service compared to an optimistic approach.
Abstract: This study investigated a strategy of blending lead-laden sludge and Al-rich precursors to reduce the release of metals from the stabilized products. Using PbO as the simulated lead-laden sludge to sinter with γ-Al2O3 by Pb:Al molar ratios of 1:2 and 1:12, PbAl2O4 and PbAl12O19 were formed as final products during the sintering process, respectively. By firing the PbO + γ-Al2O3 mixtures with different Pb/Al molar ratios at 600 to 1000 °C, the lead transformation was determined through X-ray diffraction (XRD) data. In Pb/Al molar ratio of 1/2 system, the formation of PbAl2O4 is initiated at 700 °C, but an effective formation was observed above 750 °C. An intermediate phase, Pb9Al8O21, was detected in the temperature range of 800-900 °C. However, different incorporation behavior for sintering PbO with Al-rich precursors at a Pb/Al molar ratio of 1/12 was observed during the formation of PbAl12O19 in this system. In the sintering process, both temperature and time effect on the formation of PbAl2O4 and PbAl12O19 phases were estimated. Finally, a prolonged leaching test modified from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-s toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) was used to evaluate the durability of PbO, Pb9Al8O21, PbAl2O4 and PbAl12O19 phases. Comparison for the leaching results of the four phases demonstrated the higher intrinsic resistance of PbAl12O19 against acid attack.
Abstract: In the present study Schwertmannite (an iron oxide
hydroxide) is selected as an adsorbent for defluoridation of water.
The adsorbent was prepared by wet chemical process and was
characterized by SEM, XRD and BET. The fluoride adsorption
efficiency of the prepared adsorbent was determined with respect to
contact time, initial fluoride concentration, adsorbent dose and pH of
the solution. The batch adsorption data revealed that the fluoride
adsorption efficiency was highly influenced by the studied factors.
Equilibrium was attained within one hour of contact time indicating
fast kinetics and the adsorption data followed pseudo second order
kinetic model. Equilibrium isotherm data fitted to both Langmuir and
Freundlich isotherm models for a concentration range of 5-30 mg/L.
The adsorption system followed Langmuir isotherm model with
maximum adsorption capacity of 11.3 mg/g. The high adsorption
capacity of Schwertmannite points towards the potential of this
adsorbent for fluoride removal from aqueous medium.
Abstract: Pattern recognition and image recognition methods are commonly developed and tested using testbeds, which contain known responses to a query set. Until now, testbeds available for image analysis and content-based image retrieval (CBIR) have been scarce and small-scale. Here we present the one million images CEA-List Image Collection (CLIC) testbed that we have produced, and report on our use of this testbed to evaluate image analysis merging techniques. This testbed will soon be made publicly available through the EU MUSCLE Network of Excellence.
Abstract: In this research, CaO-ZnO catalysts (with various
Ca:Zn atomic ratios of 1:5, 1:3, 1:1, and 3:1) prepared by incipientwetness
impregnation (IWI) and co-precipitation (CP) methods were
used as a catalyst in the transesterification of palm oil with methanol
for biodiesel production. The catalysts were characterized by several
techniques, including BET method, CO2-TPD, and Hemmett
Indicator. The effects of precursor concentration, and calcination
temperature on the catalytic performance were studied under reaction
conditions of a 15:1 methanol to oil molar ratio, 6 wt% catalyst,
reaction temperature of 60°C, and reaction time of 8 h. At Ca:Zn
atomic ratio of 1:3 gave the highest FAME value owing to a basic
properties and surface area of the prepared catalyst.
Abstract: The purpose of the study is to determine the primary mathematics student teachers- views related to use instructional technology tools in course of the learning process and to reveal how the sample presentations towards different mathematical concepts affect their views. This is a qualitative study involving twelve mathematics students from a public university. The data gathered from two semi-structural interviews. The first one was realized in the beginning of the study. After that the representations prepared by the researchers were showed to the participants. These representations contain animations, Geometer-s Sketchpad activities, video-clips, spreadsheets, and power-point presentations. The last interview was realized at the end of these representations. The data from the interviews and content analyses were transcribed and read and reread to explore the major themes. Findings revealed that the views of the students changed in this process and they believed that the instructional technology tools should be used in their classroom.
Abstract: In this paper, we analyzed the pattern of urban spatial structure of Siheung City that had been divided into two parts and presented alternative plans in order to get rid of these phenomena. Concerning patterns of urban spatial structure, we examined it through means of analyzing status of land use, population density and distribution of residence, status of distribution of main facilities, medical facilities, status of distribution of cultural facilities, distribution of land prices and traffic volume trends. The results of study revealed that status of facilities distribution and distribution of land prices, etc. were bisected by the surrounding area of former municipal office and the district of Sihwa, which were both regarded as one apex of the city divide, forming a duo-centric city. In order to get rid of this problem concerned with urban spatial structure that has been bisected, it is required that measures in order to expand facilities in Siheung City should be taken.
Abstract: Future space vehicles will require the use of non-toxic, cryogenic propellants, because of the performance advantages over the toxic hypergolic propellants and also because of the environmental and handling concerns. A prototypical capillary flow liquid acquisition device (LAD) for cryogenic propellants was fabricated with a mesh screen, covering a rectangular flow channel with a cylindrical outlet tube, and was tested with liquid oxygen (LOX). In order to better understand the performance in various gravity environments and orientations with different submersion depths of the LAD, a series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations of LOX flow through the LAD screen channel, including horizontally and vertically submersions of the LAD channel assembly at normal gravity environment was conducted. Gravity effects on the flow field in LAD channel are inspected and analyzed through comparing the simulations.
Abstract: This paper reports the results of an experimental work
conducted to investigate the effect of curing conditions on the
compressive strength of self-compacting geopolymer concrete
prepared by using fly ash as base material and combination of sodium
hydroxide and sodium silicate as alkaline activator. The experiments
were conducted by varying the curing time and curing temperature in
the range of 24-96 hours and 60-90°C respectively. The essential
workability properties of freshly prepared Self-compacting
Geopolymer concrete such as filling ability, passing ability and
segregation resistance were evaluated by using Slump flow,
V-funnel, L-box and J-ring test methods. The fundamental
requirements of high flowability and resistance to segregation as
specified by guidelines on Self-compacting Concrete by EFNARC
were satisfied. Test results indicate that longer curing time and curing
the concrete specimens at higher temperatures result in higher
compressive strength. There was increase in compressive strength
with the increase in curing time; however increase in compressive
strength after 48 hours was not significant. Concrete specimens cured
at 70°C produced the highest compressive strength as compared to
specimens cured at 60°C, 80°C and 90°C.
Abstract: NFκB is a transcription factor regulating many
function of the vessel wall. In the normal condition , NFκB is
revealed diffuse cytoplasmic expressionsuggesting that the system is
inactive. The presence of activation NFκB provide a potential
pathway for the rapid transcriptional of a variety of genes encoding
cytokines, growth factors, adhesion molecules and procoagulatory
factors. It is likely to play an important role in chronic inflamatory
disease involved atherosclerosis. There are many stimuli with the
potential to active NFκB, including hyperlipidemia. We used 24 mice
which was divided in 6 groups. The HFD given by et libitum
procedure during 2, 4, and 6 months. The parameters in this study
were the amount of NFKB activation ,H2O2 as ROS and VCAM-1 as
a product of NFKB activation. H2O2 colorimetryc assay performed
directly using Anti Rat H2O2 ELISA Kit. The NFKB and VCAM-1
detection obtained from aorta mice, measured by ELISA kit and
imunohistochemistry. There was a significant difference activation of
H2O2, NFKB and VCAM-1 level at induce HFD after 2, 4 and 6
months. It suggest that HFD induce ROS formation and increase the
activation of NFKB as one of atherosclerosis marker that caused by
hyperlipidemia as classical atheroschlerosis risk factor.
Abstract: This study was conducted to evaluate factors
regulating groundwater quality in an area with agriculture as main
use. Under this study twelve groundwater samples have been
collected from Padra taluka, Dabhoi taluka and Savli taluka of
Vadodara district. Groundwater samples were chemically analyzed
for major physicochemical parameter in order to understand the
different geochemical processes affecting the groundwater quality.
The analytical results shows higher concentration of total dissolved
solids (16.67%), electrical conductivity (25%) and magnesium
(8.33%) for pre monsoon and total dissolved solids (16.67%),
electrical conductivity (33.3%) and magnesium (8.33%) for post
monsoon which indicates signs of deterioration as per WHO and BIS
standards. On the other hand, 50% groundwater sample is unsuitable
for irrigation purposes based on irrigation quality parameters. The
study revealed that application of fertilizer for agricultural
contributing the higher concentration of ions in aquifer of Vadodara
district.
Abstract: Not with standing the importance of foreign highly
skilled professionals for host economies, there is a paucity of
research studies investigating the role of the corporate social context
during the integration process. This research aims to address this
paucity by exploring the role of social capital in the integration of
foreign health professionals. It does so by using a qualitative research
approach. In this pilot study the hospital sector forms this study-s
sample and interviews were conducted with HR managers, foreign
health professionals and external HR consultants. It was found that
most of the participating hospitals had not established specific HR
practices and had only partly linked the development of
organisational social capital with a successful integration process.
This research contributes, for example, to the HR literature on the
integration of self-initiated expatriates by analysing the role of HRM
in generating organisational social capital needed for a successful
integration process.
Abstract: Fecal coliform bacteria are widely used as indicators of
sewage contamination in surface water. However, there are some
disadvantages in these microbial techniques including time consuming
(18-48h) and inability in discriminating between human and animal
fecal material sources. Therefore, it is necessary to seek a more
specific indicator of human sanitary waste. In this study, the feasibility
was investigated to apply caffeine and human pharmaceutical
compounds to identify the human-source contamination. The
correlation between caffeine and fecal coliform was also explored.
Surface water samples were collected from upstream, middle-stream
and downstream points respectively, along Rochor Canal, as well as 8
locations of Marina Bay. Results indicate that caffeine is a suitable
chemical tracer in Singapore because of its easy detection (in the range
of 0.30-2.0 ng/mL), compared with other chemicals monitored.
Relative low concentrations of human pharmaceutical compounds (<
0.07 ng/mL) in Rochor Canal and Marina Bay water samples make
them hard to be detected and difficult to be chemical tracer. However,
their existence can help to validate sewage contamination. In addition,
it was discovered the high correlation exists between caffeine
concentration and fecal coliform density in the Rochor Canal water
samples, demonstrating that caffeine is highly related to the
human-source contamination.
Abstract: Ensemble learning algorithms such as AdaBoost and
Bagging have been in active research and shown improvements in
classification results for several benchmarking data sets with mainly
decision trees as their base classifiers. In this paper we experiment to
apply these Meta learning techniques with classifiers such as random
forests, neural networks and support vector machines. The data sets
are from MAGIC, a Cherenkov telescope experiment. The task is to
classify gamma signals from overwhelmingly hadron and muon
signals representing a rare class classification problem. We compare
the individual classifiers with their ensemble counterparts and
discuss the results. WEKA a wonderful tool for machine learning has
been used for making the experiments.
Abstract: In developing a text-to-speech system, it is well
known that the accuracy of information extracted from a text is
crucial to produce high quality synthesized speech. In this paper, a
new scheme for converting text into its equivalent phonetic spelling
is introduced and developed. This method is applicable to many
applications in text to speech converting systems and has many
advantages over other methods. The proposed method can also
complement the other methods with a purpose of improving their
performance. The proposed method is a probabilistic model and is
based on Smooth Ergodic Hidden Markov Model. This model can be
considered as an extension to HMM. The proposed method is applied
to Persian language and its accuracy in converting text to speech
phonetics is evaluated using simulations.
Abstract: The wide increase and diffusion on telecommunication
technologies have caused a huge spread of electromagnetic sources
in most European Countries. Since the public is continuously being
exposed to electromagnetic radiation the possible health effects have
become the focus of population concerns. As a result, electromagnetic
field monitoring stations which control field strength in commercial
frequency bands are being placed on the flat roof of many buildings.
However there is no guidance on where to place them. This paper
presents an analysis of frequency, polarization and angles of incidence
of a plane wave which impinges on a flat roof security wall and its
dependence on electromagnetic field strength meters placement.
Abstract: Dual phase steels (DPS)s have a microstructure
consisting of a hard second phase called Martensite in the soft Ferrite
matrix. In recent years, there has been interest in dual-phase steels,
because the application of these materials has made significant usage;
particularly in the automotive sector Composite microstructure of
(DPS)s exhibit interesting characteristic mechanical properties such
as continuous yielding, low yield stress to tensile strength
ratios(YS/UTS), and relatively high formability; which offer
advantages compared with conventional high strength low alloy
steels(HSLAS). The research dealt with the characterization of
damage in (DPS)s. In this study by review the mechanisms of failure
due to volume fraction of martensite second phase; a new method is
introduced to identifying the mechanisms of failure in the various
phases of these types of steels. In this method the acoustic emission
(AE) technique was used to detect damage progression. These failure
mechanisms consist of Ferrite-Martensite interface decohesion and/or
martensite phase fracture. For this aim, dual phase steels with
different volume fraction of martensite second phase has provided by
various heat treatment methods on a low carbon steel (0.1% C), and
then AE monitoring is used during tensile test of these DPSs. From
AE measurements and an energy ratio curve elaborated from the
value of AE energy (it was obtained as the ratio between the strain
energy to the acoustic energy), that allows detecting important
events, corresponding to the sudden drops. These AE signals events
associated with various failure mechanisms are classified for ferrite
and (DPS)s with various amount of Vm and different martensite
morphology. It is found that AE energy increase with increasing Vm.
This increasing of AE energy is because of more contribution of
martensite fracture in the failure of samples with higher Vm. Final
results show a good relationship between the AE signals and the
mechanisms of failure.