Abstract: In this contribution a newly developed e-learning environment is presented, which incorporates Intelligent Agents and Computational Intelligence Techniques. The new e-learning environment is constituted by three parts, the E-learning platform Front-End, the Student Questioner Reasoning and the Student Model Agent. These parts are distributed geographically in dispersed computer servers, with main focus on the design and development of these subsystems through the use of new and emerging technologies. These parts are interconnected in an interoperable way, using web services for the integration of the subsystems, in order to enhance the user modelling procedure and achieve the goals of the learning process.
Abstract: Does the spatial perspective provide a common thread for rural sociology? Have rural sociologists succeeded in bringing order to their data using spatial analysis models and techniques? A trial answer to such questions, as touchstones of theoretical and applied sociological studies in rural areas, is the point at issue in the present paper. Spatial analyses have changed the way rural sociologists approach scientific problems. Rural sociology is spatial by nature because much, if not most, of its research topics has a spatial “awareness." However, such spatial awareness is not quite the same as spatial analysis because it is not typically associated with underlying theories and hypotheses about spatial patterns that are designed to be tested for their specific spatial content. This paper presents pressing issues for future research to reintroduce mainstream rural sociology to the concept of space.
Abstract: Studies on the distribution of traffic demands have
been proceeding by providing traffic information for reducing
greenhouse gases and reinforcing the road's competitiveness in the
transport section, however, since it is preferentially required the
extensive studies on the driver's behavior changing routes and its
influence factors, this study has been developed a discriminant model
for changing routes considering driving conditions including traffic
conditions of roads and driver's preferences for information media. It
is divided into three groups depending on driving conditions in group
classification with the CART analysis, which is statistically
meaningful. And the extent that driving conditions and preferred
media affect a route change is examined through a discriminant
analysis, and it is developed a discriminant model equation to predict a
route change. As a result of building the discriminant model equation,
it is shown that driving conditions affect a route change much more,
the entire discriminant hit ratio is derived as 64.2%, and this
discriminant equation shows high discriminant ability more than a
certain degree.
Abstract: We identify clawback triggers from firms- proxy
statements (Form DEF 14A) and use the likelihood of restatements to
proxy for financial reporting quality. Based on a sample of 578 U.S.
firms that voluntarily adopt clawback provisions during 2003-2009,
when restatement-based triggers could be decomposed into two types:
fraud and unintentional error, and we do observe the evidence that
using fraud triggers is associated with high financial reporting quality.
The findings support that fraud triggers can enhance deterrent effect of
clawback provision by establishing a viable disincentive against fraud,
misconduct, and otherwise harmful acts. These results are robust to
controlling for the compensation components, to different sample
specifications and to a number of sensitivity.
Abstract: The friction between two metal surfaces results in a
high frequency noise (squealing) which also occurs during the
braking of wagons with rail brakes in the process of shunting at a
marshalling yard with a hump. At that point the noise level may
exceed 130dB, which is extremely unpleasant for workers and
inhabitants. In our research we developed a new composite material
which does not change braking properties, is capable of taking
extremely high pressure loads, reduces noise and is environmentally
friendly. The noise reduction results had been very good and had
shown a decrease of the high frequency noise almost completely (by
99%) at its source. With our technology we had also reduced general
noise by more than 30dBA.
Abstract: Within this work High Temperature Single Impact
Studies were performed to evaluate deformation mechanisms at
different energy and momentum levels. To show the influence of
different microstructures and hardness levels and their response to
single impacts four different materials were tested at various
temperatures up to 700°C. One carbide reinforced NiCrBSi based
Metal Matrix Composite and three different steels were tested. The
aim of this work is to determine critical energies for fracture
appearance and the materials response at different energy and
momenta levels. Critical impact loadings were examined at elevated
temperatures to limit operating conditions in impact dominated
regimes at elevated temperatures. The investigations on the
mechanisms were performed using different means of microscopy at
the surface and in metallographic cross sections. Results indicate
temperature dependence of the occurrence of cracks in hardphase
rich materials, such as Metal Matrix Composites High Speed Steels
and the influence of different impact momenta at constant energies
on the deformation of different steels.
Abstract: Management Systems are powerful tools for businesses
to manage quality , environmental and occupational health and safety
requirements . where once these systems were considered as stand
alone control mechanisms , industry is now opting to increase the
efficiency of these documented systems through a more integrated
approach . System integration offers a significant step forward, where
there are similarities between system components , reducing
duplication and adminstration costs and increasing efficiency .
At first , this paper reviews integrated management system structure
and its benefits. The second part of this paper focuses on the one
example implementation of such a system at Imam Khomeini
Hospital and in final part of the paper will be discuss outcomes of
that proccess .
Abstract: Wheat prediction was carried out using different meteorological variables together with agro meteorological indices in Ardebil district for the years 2004-2005 & 2005–2006. On the basis of correlation coefficients, standard error of estimate as well as relative deviation of predicted yield from actual yield using different statistical models, the best subset of agro meteorological indices were selected including daily minimum temperature (Tmin), accumulated difference of maximum & minimum temperatures (TD), growing degree days (GDD), accumulated water vapor pressure deficit (VPD), sunshine hours (SH) & potential evapotranspiration (PET). Yield prediction was done two months in advance before harvesting time which was coincide with commencement of reproductive stage of wheat (5th of June). It revealed that in the final statistical models, 83% of wheat yield variability was accounted for variation in above agro meteorological indices.
Abstract: Present study focuses on studying the oscillatory
behavior of jet diffusion flames. At a particular jet exit velocity, the
flames are seen to exhibit natural flickering. Initially the flickering
process is not continuous. In this transition region as well as in the
continuous flickering regime, the flickering displays multiple
frequency oscillations. The response of the flame to the exit velocity
profile of the burner is also studied using three types of burners. The
entire range of natural flickering is investigated by capturing high
speed digital images and processing them using a MATLAB code.
Abstract: Public sector corruption has long-term and damaging
effects that are deep and broad. Addressing corruption relies on
understanding the drivers that precipitate acts of corruption and
developing educational programs that target areas of vulnerability.
This paper provides an innovative approach to explore the nature of
corruption by drawing on the perceptions and ideas of a group of
public servants who have been part of a corruption investigation. The
paper examines these reflections through the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu
and Alfred Schutz to point to some of the steps that can lead to
corrupt activity. The paper demonstrates that phenomenological
inquiry is useful in the exploration of corruption and, as a theoretical
framework, it highlights that corruption emerges through a
combination of conflict, doubt and uncertainty. The paper calls for
anti-corruption education programs to be attentive to way in which
these conditions can influence the steps into corruption.
Abstract: Green buildings have been commonly cited to be more
expensive than conventional buildings. However, limited research
has been conducted to clearly identify elements that contribute to this
cost differential. The construction cost of buildings can be typically
divided into “hard" costs and “soft" cost elements. Using a review
analysis of existing literature, the study identified six main elements
in green buildings that contribute to the general cost elements that are
“soft" in nature. The six elements found are insurance, developer-s
experience, design cost, certification, commissioning and energy
modeling. Out of the six elements, most literatures have highlighted
the increase in design cost for green design as compared to
conventional design due to additional architectural and engineering
costs, eco-charettes, extra design time, and the further need for a
green consultant. The study concluded that these elements of soft cost
contribute to the green premium or cost differential of green
buildings.
Abstract: This paper suggests a fast and stable Target Tracking
system in collaborative control of UAV and UGV. Wi-Fi communication range is limited in collaborative control of UAV and UGV. Thus, to secure a stable communications, UAV and UGV have
to be kept within a certain distance from each other. But existing
method which uses UAV Vertical Camera to follow the motion of
UGV is likely to lose a target with a sudden movement change.
Eventually, UGV has disadvantages that it could only move at a low
speed and not make any sudden change of direction in order to keep
track of the target. Therefore, we suggest utilizing AR Drone UAV front camera to track fast-moving and Omnidirectional Mecanum
Wheel UGV.
Abstract: In recent years linguistic research has turned
increasing attention to covert/overt strategies to modulate authorial
stance and positioning in scientific texts, and to the recipients'
response. This study discussed some theoretical implications of the
use of rhetoric in scientific communication and analysed qualitative
data from the authoritative The Cognitive Neurosciences III (2004)
volume. Its genre-identity, status and readability were considered, in
the social interactive context of contemporary disciplinary discourses
– in their polyphony of traditional and new, emerging genres.
Evidence was given of the ways its famous authors negotiate and
shape knowledge and research results – explicitly appraising team
work and promoting faith in the fast-paced progress of Cognitive
Neuroscience, also through experiential metaphors – by presenting a
set of examples, ordered according to their dominant rhetorical
quality.
Abstract: Today, transport and logistic systems are often tightly
integrated in the production. Lean production and just-in-time delivering create multiple constraints that have to be fulfilled. As transport networks often have evolved over time they are very
expensive to change. This paper describes a discrete-event-simulation
system which simulates transportation models using real time
resource routing and collision avoidance. It allows for the
specification of own control algorithms and validation of new
strategies. The simulation is integrated into a virtual reality (VR)
environment and can be displayed in 3-D to show the progress.
Simulation elements can be selected through VR metaphors. All data
gathered during the simulation can be presented as a detailed summary afterwards. The included cost-benefit calculation can help to optimize the financial outcome. The operation of this approach is shown by the example of a timber harvest simulation.
Abstract: It is an important task in Korean-English machine
translation to classify the gender of names correctly. When a sentence
is composed of two or more clauses and only one subject is given as a proper noun, it is important to find the gender of the proper noun
for correct translation of the sentence. This is because a singular pronoun has a gender in English while it does not in Korean. Thus,
in Korean-English machine translation, the gender of a proper noun should be determined. More generally, this task can be expanded into the classification of the general Korean names. This paper proposes a statistical method for this problem. By considering a name as just
a sequence of syllables, it is possible to get a statistics for each name from a collection of names. An evaluation of the proposed method
yields the improvement in accuracy over the simple looking-up of the
collection. While the accuracy of the looking-up method is 64.11%, that of the proposed method is 81.49%. This implies that the proposed
method is more plausible for the gender classification of the Korean names.
Abstract: The problem of spam has been seriously troubling the Internet community during the last few years and currently reached an alarming scale. Observations made at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research located in Geneva, Switzerland) show that spam mails can constitute up to 75% of daily SMTP traffic. A naïve Bayesian classifier based on a Bag Of Words representation of an email is widely used to stop this unwanted flood as it combines good performance with simplicity of the training and classification processes. However, facing the constantly changing patterns of spam, it is necessary to assure online adaptability of the classifier. This work proposes combining such a classifier with another NBC (naïve Bayesian classifier) based on pairs of adjacent words. Only the latter will be retrained with examples of spam reported by users. Tests are performed on considerable sets of mails both from public spam archives and CERN mailboxes. They suggest that this architecture can increase spam recall without affecting the classifier precision as it happens when only the NBC based on single words is retrained.
Abstract: Magnetic and semiconductor nanomaterials exhibit
novel magnetic and optical properties owing to their unique size and
shape-dependent effects. With shrinking the size down to nanoscale
region, various anomalous properties that normally not present in bulk
start to dominate. Ability in harnessing of these anomalous properties
for the design of various advance electronic devices is strictly
dependent on synthetic strategies. Hence, current research has focused
on developing a rational synthetic control to produce high quality
nanocrystals by using organometallic approach to tune both size and
shape of the nanomaterials. In order to elucidate the growth
mechanism, transmission electron microscopy was employed as a
powerful tool in performing real time-resolved morphologies and
structural characterization of magnetic (Fe3O4) and semiconductor
(ZnO) nanocrystals. The current synthetic approach is found able to
produce nanostructures with well-defined shapes. We have found that
oleic acid is an effective capping ligand in preparing oxide-based
nanostructures without any agglomerations, even at high temperature.
The oleate-based precursors and capping ligands are fatty acid
compounds, which are respectively originated from natural palm oil
with low toxicity. In comparison with other synthetic approaches in
producing nanostructures, current synthetic method offers an effective
route to produce oxide-based nanomaterials with well-defined shapes
and good monodispersity. The nanocystals are well-separated with
each other without any stacking effect. In addition, the as-synthesized
nanopellets are stable in terms of chemically and physically if
compared to those nanomaterials that are previous reported. Further
development and extension of current synthetic strategy are being
pursued to combine both of these materials into nanocomposite form
that will be used as “smart magnetic nanophotocatalyst" for industry
waste water treatment.
Abstract: Using the concept of measure of noncompactness, we present some results concerning the existence, uniform local attractivity and global attractivity of solutions for a functional integral equation. Our results improve and extend some previous known results and based on weaker conditions. Some examples which show that our results are applicable when the previous results are inapplicable are also included.
Abstract: The Electronic Health Record (EHR) system is very
general and we should pay more attention to a patient-s privacy. The
patient-s consent is one of the elements when dealing with privacy
topics. This study focuses on the creating and managing of patient
consent. The integration of the HL7 standards and the IHE BPPC
profile provides a base for the creation of patient consent. Establishing
the platform offers the patients a way to create, revoke or update their
consents. Through this platform, they can manage their consents in an
easier manner.
Abstract: Salient points are frequently used to represent local
properties of the image in content-based image retrieval. In this paper,
we present a reduction algorithm that extracts the local most salient
points such that they not only give a satisfying representation of an
image, but also make the image retrieval process efficiently. This
algorithm recursively reduces the continuous point set by their
corresponding saliency values under a top-down approach. The
resulting salient points are evaluated with an image retrieval system
using Hausdoff distance. In this experiment, it shows that our method
is robust and the extracted salient points provide better retrieval
performance comparing with other point detectors.