Abstract: The purpose of this research study is to investigate the manner in which various loads affect the mechanical properties of the formed mild steel plates. The investigation focuses on examining the cross-sectional area of the metal plate at the centre of the formed mild steel plate. Six mild steel plates were deformed with different loads. The loads applied on the plates had a magnitude of 5 kg, 10 kg, 15 kg, 20 kg, 25 kg and 30 kg. The radius of the punching die was 120 mm and the loads were applied at room temperature. The investigations established that the applied load causes the Vickers microhardness at the cross-sectional area of the plate to increase due to strain hardening. Hence, the percentage increase of the hardness due to the load was found to be directly proportional to the increase in the load. Furthermore, the tensile test results for the parent material showed that the average Ultimate Tensile Strength (UTS) for the three samples was 308 MPa while the average Yield Strength and Percentage Elongation were 227 MPa and 38 % respectively. Similarly, the UTS of the formed components increased after the deformation of the plate, as such it can be concluded that the forming loads alter the mechanical properties of the materials by improving and strengthening the material properties.
Abstract: This paper discusses a qualitative simulator QRiOM
that uses Qualitative Reasoning (QR) technique, and a process-based
ontology to model, simulate and explain the behaviour of selected
organic reactions. Learning organic reactions requires the application
of domain knowledge at intuitive level, which is difficult to be
programmed using traditional approach. The main objective of
QRiOM is to help learners gain a better understanding of the
fundamental organic reaction concepts, and to improve their
conceptual comprehension on the subject by analyzing the multiple
forms of explanation generated by the software. This paper focuses
on the generation of explanation based on causal theories to explicate
various phenomena in the chemistry subject. QRiOM has been tested
with three classes problems related to organic chemistry, with
encouraging results. This paper also presents the results of
preliminary evaluation of QRiOM that reveal its explanation
capability and usefulness.
Abstract: The objective of the present research manuscript is to
perform parametric, nonparametric, and decision tree analysis to
evaluate two treatments that are being used for breast cancer patients.
Our study is based on utilizing real data which was initially used in
“Tamoxifen with or without breast irradiation in women of 50 years
of age or older with early breast cancer" [1], and the data is supplied
to us by N.A. Ibrahim “Decision tree for competing risks survival
probability in breast cancer study" [2]. We agree upon certain aspects
of our findings with the published results. However, in this
manuscript, we focus on relapse time of breast cancer patients instead
of survival time and parametric analysis instead of semi-parametric
decision tree analysis is applied to provide more precise
recommendations of effectiveness of the two treatments with respect
to reoccurrence of breast cancer.
Abstract: Implementing Information Technology/ Information
System (IT/IS) is critical for every industry as its potential benefits
have been to motivate many industries including the Malaysian
construction industry to invest in it. To successfully implement IT/IS
has become the major concern for every organisation. Identifying the
critical success factors (CSFs) has become the main agenda for
researchers, academicians and practitioners due to the wide number
of failures reported. This research paper seeks to identify the CSFs
that influence the successful implementation of IT/IS in construction
industry in Malaysia. Limited factors relating to people issue will be
highlighted here to showcase some as it becomes one of the major
contributing factors to the failure. Three (3) organisations have
participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews are employed as
they offer sufficient flexibility to ensure that all relevant factors are
covered. Several key issues contributing to successful
implementations of IT/IS are identified. The results of this study
reveal that top management support, communication, user
involvement, IT staff roles and responsibility, training/skills, leader/
IT Leader, organisation culture, knowledge/ experience, motivation,
awareness, focus and ambition, satisfaction, teamwork/ collaboration,
willingness to change, attitude, commitment, management style,
interest in IT, employee behaviour towards collaborative
environment, trust, interpersonal relationship, personal characteristic
and competencies are significantly associated with the successful
implementations of IT/IS. It is anticipated that this study will create
awareness and contribute to a better understanding amongst
construction industry players and will assist them to successfully
implement IT/IS.
Abstract: The effects of global warming on India vary from the
submergence of low-lying islands and coastal lands to the melting of
glaciers in the Indian Himalayas, threatening the volumetric flow rate
of many of the most important rivers of India and South Asia. In
India, such effects are projected to impact millions of lives. As a
result of ongoing climate change, the climate of India has become
increasingly volatile over the past several decades; this trend is
expected to continue.
Climate change is one of the most important global environmental
challenges, with implications for food production, water supply,
health, energy, etc. Addressing climate change requires a good
scientific understanding as well as coordinated action at national and
global level. The climate change issue is part of the larger challenge
of sustainable development. As a result, climate policies can be more
effective when consistently embedded within broader strategies
designed to make national and regional development paths more
sustainable. The impact of climate variability and change, climate
policy responses, and associated socio-economic development will
affect the ability of countries to achieve sustainable development
goals.
A very well calibrated Soil and Water Assessment Tool (R2 =
0.9968, NSE = 0.91) was exercised over the Khatra sub basin of the
Kangsabati River watershed in Bankura district of West Bengal,
India, in order to evaluate projected parameters for agricultural
activities. Evapotranspiration, Transmission Losses, Potential
Evapotranspiration and Lateral Flow to reach are evaluated from the
years 2041-2050 in order to generate a picture for sustainable
development of the river basin and its inhabitants.
India has a significant stake in scientific advancement as well as
an international understanding to promote mitigation and adaptation.
This requires improved scientific understanding, capacity building,
networking and broad consultation processes. This paper is a
commitment towards the planning, management and development of
the water resources of the Kangsabati River by presenting detailed
future scenarios of the Kangsabati river basin, Khatra sub basin, over
the mentioned time period.
India-s economy and societal infrastructures are finely tuned to the
remarkable stability of the Indian monsoon, with the consequence
that vulnerability to small changes in monsoon rainfall is very high.
In 2002 the monsoon rains failed during July, causing profound loss
of agricultural production with a drop of over 3% in India-s GDP.
Neither the prolonged break in the monsoon nor the seasonal rainfall
deficit was predicted. While the general features of monsoon
variability and change are fairly well-documented, the causal
mechanisms and the role of regional ecosystems in modulating the
changes are still not clear. Current climate models are very poor at
modelling the Asian monsoon: this is a challenging and critical
region where the ocean, atmosphere, land surface and mountains all
interact. The impact of climate change on regional ecosystems is
likewise unknown. The potential for the monsoon to become more
volatile has major implications for India itself and for economies
worldwide. Knowledge of future variability of the monsoon system,
particularly in the context of global climate change, is of great
concern for regional water and food security.
The major findings of this paper were that of all the chosen
projected parameters, transmission losses, soil water content,
potential evapotranspiration, evapotranspiration and lateral flow to
reach, display an increasing trend over the time period of years 2041-
2050.
Abstract: Most neural network (NN) models of human category learning use a gradient-based learning method, which assumes that locally-optimal changes are made to model parameters on each learning trial. This method tends to under predict variability in individual-level cognitive processes. In addition many recent models of human category learning have been criticized for not being able to replicate rapid changes in categorization accuracy and attention processes observed in empirical studies. In this paper we introduce stochastic learning algorithms for NN models of human category learning and show that use of the algorithms can result in (a) rapid changes in accuracy and attention allocation, and (b) different learning trajectories and more realistic variability at the individual-level.
Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between different dimensions of customer relationship management and innovation capabilities in Melli Bank of Iran. Five dimensions of CRM include information sharing, customer involvement, long-term partnership, joint problem solving and technology-based CRM are selected to measure their relationship with innovation capabilities including innovation in product, innovation in process, innovation in administrative affairs, innovation in marketing, and finally innovation in services. Research findings indicate that there is significant relationship between CRM dimensions and innovation capabilities in Melli bank of Iran.
Abstract: We deal with the numerical solution of time-dependent convection-diffusion-reaction equations. We combine the local projection stabilization method for the space discretization with two different time discretization schemes: the continuous Galerkin-Petrov (cGP) method and the discontinuous Galerkin (dG) method of polynomial of degree k. We establish the optimal error estimates and present numerical results which shows that the cGP(k) and dG(k)- methods are accurate of order k +1, respectively, in the whole time interval. Moreover, the cGP(k)-method is superconvergent of order 2k and dG(k)-method is of order 2k +1 at the discrete time points. Furthermore, the dependence of the results on the choice of the stabilization parameter are discussed and compared.
Abstract: Chitosan is a biopolymer composed of glucosamine
and N-acetyl glucosamine. Solubility and viscosity pose problems in
some applications. These problems can be overcome with unique
modifications. In this study, firstly, chitosan was modified by caffeic
acid and thioglycolic acid, separately. Then, growing effects of these
modified polymers was observed in U937 cell line. Caffeic acid is a
phenolic compound and its modifications act carcinogenic inhibitors
in drugs. Thiolated chitosans are commonly being used for drugdelivery
systems in various routes, because of enhancing
mucoadhesiveness property. U937 cell line was used model cell for
leukaemia. Modifications were achieved by 1 – 15 % binding range.
Increasing binding ratios showed higher radical-scavenging activity
and reducing cell growth, in compared to native chitosan. Caffeic
acid modifications showed higher radical-scavenging activity than
thiolated chitosans at the same concentrations. Caffeic acid and
thioglycolic acid modifications inhibited growth of U937, effectively.
Abstract: In this paper methodology to exploit creeping wave
for body area network BAN communication reliability are described.
Creeping wave propagation effects are visualized & analyzed.
During this work Dipole, IA antennas various antennas were
redesigned using existing designs and their propagation
characteristics were verified for optimum performance when used on
BANs. These antennas were then applied on body shapes-including
rectangular, spherical and cylindrical so that all the effects of actual
human body can be taken nearly into account. Parametric simulation
scheme was devised so that on Body channel characterization can be
visualized at front, curved and back region. In the next phase
multiple inputs multiple output MIMO scheme was introduced where
virtual antennas were used in order to diminish the effects of
antennas on the propagation of waves. Results were, extracted and
analyzed at different heights. Finally based on comparative
measurement and analysis it was concluded that on body propagation
can be exploited to gain spatial diversity.
Abstract: The aim of the present investigation was to compare
sex differences in thyroid gland structure of rabbits. Five adult male
and five adult female (3.1-3.5 kg body weight) New Zealand white
rabbits were used in the experiment. Results showed that at light
microscopic level, there was no sex difference in microscopic
appearance of the thyroid glands. At electron microscopic level,
however, the mitochondria and the microvilli of the follicular cells
are more numerous and the Golgi complex is also more extensive in
male rabbits in comparison to females. Results obtained from
micrometric measurements showed that the volume density of the
follicles is higher in males than in females, but the differences are not
statistically significant .The volume density of epithelium and the
height of follicular cells are significantly greater in males than in
females and reverse is true about the volume density of interstitium
(p
Abstract: The current speech interfaces in many military
applications may be adequate for native speakers. However,
the recognition rate drops quite a lot for non-native speakers
(people with foreign accents). This is mainly because the nonnative
speakers have large temporal and intra-phoneme
variations when they pronounce the same words. This
problem is also complicated by the presence of large
environmental noise such as tank noise, helicopter noise, etc.
In this paper, we proposed a novel continuous acoustic feature
adaptation algorithm for on-line accent and environmental
adaptation. Implemented by incremental singular value
decomposition (SVD), the algorithm captures local acoustic
variation and runs in real-time. This feature-based adaptation
method is then integrated with conventional model-based
maximum likelihood linear regression (MLLR) algorithm.
Extensive experiments have been performed on the NATO
non-native speech corpus with baseline acoustic model trained
on native American English. The proposed feature-based
adaptation algorithm improved the average recognition
accuracy by 15%, while the MLLR model based adaptation
achieved 11% improvement. The corresponding word error
rate (WER) reduction was 25.8% and 2.73%, as compared to
that without adaptation. The combined adaptation achieved
overall recognition accuracy improvement of 29.5%, and
WER reduction of 31.8%, as compared to that without
adaptation.
Abstract: The present work describes an experimental
investigation concerning the determination of viscosity behavior with
shear rate and temperature of edible oils: canola; sunflower; corn;
soybean and the no edible oil: Jatropha curcas. Besides these, it was
tested a blend of canola, corn and sunflower oils as well as sunflower
and soybean biodiesel. Based on experiments, it was obtained shear
stress and viscosity at different shear rates of each sample at 40ºC, as
well as viscosity of each sample at various temperatures in the range
of 24 to 85ºC. Furthermore, it was compared the curves obtained for
the viscosity versus temperature with the curves obtained by
modeling the viscosity dependency on temperature using the Vogel
equation. Also a test in a stationary engine was performed in order to
study the energy generation using blends of soybean oil and soybean
biodiesel with diesel.
Abstract: Congestion control is one of the fundamental issues in computer networks. Without proper congestion control mechanisms there is the possibility of inefficient utilization of resources, ultimately leading to network collapse. Hence congestion control is an effort to adapt the performance of a network to changes in the traffic load without adversely affecting users perceived utilities. AIMD (Additive Increase Multiplicative Decrease) is the best algorithm among the set of liner algorithms because it reflects good efficiency as well as good fairness. Our control model is based on the assumption of the original AIMD algorithm; we show that both efficiency and fairness of AIMD can be improved. We call our approach is New AIMD. We present experimental results with TCP that match the expectation of our theoretical analysis.
Abstract: The product development process (PDP) in the
Technology group plays a very important role in the launch of any
product. While a manufacturing process encourages the use of certain
measures to reduce health, safety and environmental (HSE) risks on
the shop floor, the PDP concentrates on the use of Geometric
Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T) to develop a flawless design.
Furthermore, PDP distributes and coordinates activities between
different departments such as marketing, purchasing, and
manufacturing. However, it is seldom realized that PDP makes a
significant contribution to developing a product that reduces HSE
risks by encouraging the Technology group to use effective GD&T.
The GD&T is a precise communication tool that uses a set of
symbols, rules, and definitions to mathematically define parts to be
manufactured. It is a quality assurance method widely used in the oil
and gas sector. Traditionally it is used to ensure the
interchangeability of a part without affecting its form, fit, and
function. Parts that do not meet these requirements are rejected
during quality audits.
This paper discusses how the Technology group integrates this
quality assurance tool into the PDP and how the tool plays a major
role in helping the HSE department in its goal towards eliminating
HSE incidents. The PDP involves a thorough risk assessment and
establishes a method to address those risks during the design stage.
An illustration shows how GD&T helped reduce safety risks by
ergonomically improving assembling operations. A brief discussion
explains how tolerances provided on a part help prevent finger injury.
This tool has equipped Technology to produce fixtures, which are
used daily in operations as well as manufacturing. By applying
GD&T to create good fits, HSE risks are mitigated for operating
personnel. Both customers and service providers benefit from
reduced safety risks.
Abstract: The hydrodynamic processes in bubbly liquid flowing
in tubes and nozzles are studied theoretically and numerically. The
principal regularities of non-stationary processes of boiling liquid
outflow are established under conditions of experiments when the
depressurization of a tube with high pressure inside occurs. The
steady-state solution of bubbly liquid flow in the nozzle of round
cross section with high pressure and temperature conditions inside
bubbles is studied accounting for phase transition and chemical
reactions.
Abstract: In this paper we proposed the use of Huffman
coding to reduce the PAR of an OFDM system as a distortionless
scrambling technique, and we utilize the amount saved in the
total bit rate by the Huffman coding to send the encoding table
for accurate decoding at the receiver without reducing the
effective throughput. We found that the use of Huffman coding
reduces the PAR by about 6 dB. Also we have investigated the
effect of PAR reduction due to Huffman coding through testing
the spectral spreading and the inband distortion due to HPA with
different IBO values. We found a complete match of our
expectation from the proposed solution with the obtained
simulation results.
Abstract: The wave function at the origin is an important quantity in studying many physical problems concerning heavy quarkonia. This is because that it is using for calculating spin state hyperfine splitting and also crucial to evaluating the production and decay amplitude of the heavy quarkonium. In this paper, we present the variational method by using the single-parameter wave function to estimate the WFO for the ground state of heavy mesons.
Abstract: The interdependences among stock market indices
were studied for a long while by academics in the entire world. The
current financial crisis opened the door to a wide range of opinions
concerning the understanding and measurement of the connections
considered to provide the controversial phenomenon of market
integration. Using data on the log-returns of 17 stock market indices
that include most of the CEE markets, from 2005 until 2009, our
paper studies the problem of these dependences using a new
methodological tool that takes into account both the volatility
clustering effect and the stochastic properties of these linkages
through a Dynamic Conditional System of Simultaneous Equations.
We find that the crisis is well captured by our model as it provides
evidence for the high volatility – high dependence effect.
Abstract: The purpose of this article is to introduce an advanced
system for the support of processing of medical image information,
and the terminology related to this system, which can be an important
element to a faster transition to a fully digitalized hospital.
The core of the system is a set of DICOM compliant applications
running over a dedicated computer network. The whole integrated
system creates a collaborative platform supporting daily routines in
the radiology community, developing communication channels,
supporting the exchange of information and special consultations
among various medical institutions as well as supporting medical
training for practicing radiologists and medical students. It gives the
users outside of hospitals the tools to work in almost the same
conditions as in the radiology departments.