Abstract: Droughts are complex, natural hazards that, to a
varying degree, affect some parts of the world every year. The range
of drought impacts is related to drought occurring in different stages
of the hydrological cycle and usually different types of droughts,
such as meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and socioeconomical
are distinguished. Streamflow drought was analyzed by
the method of truncation level (at 70% level) on daily discharges
measured in 54 hydrometric stations in southwestern Iran. Frequency
analysis was carried out for annual maximum series (AMS) of
drought deficit volume and duration series. Some factors including
physiographic, climatic, geologic, and vegetation cover were studied
as influential factors in the regional analysis. According to the results
of factor analysis, six most effective factors were identified as area,
rainfall from December to February, the percent of area with
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)
Abstract: The distributions of stresses and deflection in
rectangular isotropic and orthotropic plates with central
circular hole under transverse static loading have been studied
using finite element method. The aim of author is to analyze
the effect of D/A ratio (where D is hole diameter and A is plate
width) upon stress concentration factor (SCF) and deflection
in isotropic and orthotropic plates under transverse static
loading. The D/A ratio is varied from 0.01 to 0.9. The analysis
is done for plates of isotropic and two different orthotropic
materials. The results are obtained for three different boundary
conditions. The variations of SCF and deflection with respect
to D/A ratio are presented in graphical form and discussed.
The finite element formulation is carried out in the analysis
section of the ANSYS package.
Abstract: Rapid Prototyping (RP) is a technology that produces models and prototype parts from 3D CAD model data, CT/MRI scan data, and model data created from 3D object digitizing systems. There are several RP process like Stereolithography (SLA), Solid Ground Curing (SGC), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), 3D Printing (3DP) among them SLS and FDM RP processes are used to fabricate pattern of custom cranial implant. RP technology is useful in engineering and biomedical application. This is helpful in engineering for product design, tooling and manufacture etc. RP biomedical applications are design and development of medical devices, instruments, prosthetics and implantation; it is also helpful in planning complex surgical operation. The traditional approach limits the full appreciation of various bony structure movements and therefore the custom implants produced are difficult to measure the anatomy of parts and analyze the changes in facial appearances accurately. Cranioplasty surgery is a surgical correction of a defect in cranial bone by implanting a metal or plastic replacement to restore the missing part. This paper aims to do a comparative study on the dimensional error of CAD and SLS RP Models for reconstruction of cranial defect by comparing the virtual CAD with the physical RP model of a cranial defect.
Abstract: Design of a fixed parameter robust STATCOM controller for a multi-machine power system through an H-? based loop-shaping procedure is presented. The trial and error part of the graphical loop-shaping procedure has been eliminated by embedding a particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique in the design loop. Robust controllers were designed considering the detailed dynamics of the multi-machine system and results were compared with reduced order models. The robust strategy employing loop-shaping and PSO algorithms was observed to provide very good damping profile for a wide range of operation and for various disturbance conditions.
Abstract: With the increase of economic behavior and the upgrade
of living standar, the ratio for people in Taiwan who own automobiles
and motorcycles have recently increased with multiples. Therefore,
parking issues will be a big challenge to facilitate traffic network and
ensure urban life quality. The Parking Guidance and Information
System is one of important systems for Advanced Traveler Information
Services (ATIS). This research proposes a parking guidance and
information system which integrates GPS and 3G network for a map on
the Geographic Information System to solution inadequate of roadside
information kanban. The system proposed in this study mainly includes
Parking Host, Parking Guidance and Information Server, Geographic
Map and Information System as well as Parking Guidance and
Information Browser. The study results show this system can increase
driver-s efficiency to find parking space and efficiently enhance
parking convenience in comparison with roadside kanban system.
Abstract: Dengue is a mosquito-borne infection that has peaked to an alarming rate in recent decades. It can be found in tropical and sub-tropical climate. In Malaysia, dengue has been declared as one of the national health threat to the public. This study aimed to map the spatial distributions of dengue cases in the district of Hulu Langat, Selangor via a combination of Geographic Information System (GIS) and spatial statistic tools. Data related to dengue was gathered from the various government health agencies. The location of dengue cases was geocoded using a handheld GPS Juno SB Trimble. A total of 197 dengue cases occurring in 2003 were used in this study. Those data then was aggregated into sub-district level and then converted into GIS format. The study also used population or demographic data as well as the boundary of Hulu Langat. To assess the spatial distribution of dengue cases three spatial statistics method (Moran-s I, average nearest neighborhood (ANN) and kernel density estimation) were applied together with spatial analysis in the GIS environment. Those three indices were used to analyze the spatial distribution and average distance of dengue incidence and to locate the hot spot of dengue cases. The results indicated that the dengue cases was clustered (p < 0.01) when analyze using Moran-s I with z scores 5.03. The results from ANN analysis showed that the average nearest neighbor ratio is less than 1 which is 0.518755 (p < 0.0001). From this result, we can expect the dengue cases pattern in Hulu Langat district is exhibiting a cluster pattern. The z-score for dengue incidence within the district is -13.0525 (p < 0.0001). It was also found that the significant spatial autocorrelation of dengue incidences occurs at an average distance of 380.81 meters (p < 0.0001). Several locations especially residential area also had been identified as the hot spots of dengue cases in the district.
Abstract: The peculiarities of the nanoscale structure-phase
states formed after electroexplosive carburizing and subsequent
electron-beam treatment of technically pure titanium surface in different regimes are established by methods of transmission electron
diffraction microscopy and physical mechanisms are discussed. Electroexplosive carburizing leads to surface layer formation
(40 m thickness) with increased (in 3.5 times) microhardness. It consists of β-titanium, graphite (monocrystals 100-150 nm,
polycrystals 5-10 nm, amorphous particles 3-5nm), TiC (5-10 nm), β-Ti02 (2-20nm). After electron-beam treatment additionally increasing the microhardness the surface layer consists of TiC.
Abstract: This study aims to propose three evaluation methods to
evaluate the Tokyo Cap and Trade Program when emissions trading is
performed virtually among enterprises, focusing on carbon dioxide
(CO2), which is the only emitted greenhouse gas that tends to increase.
The first method clarifies the optimum reduction rate for the highest
cost benefit, the second discusses emissions trading among enterprises
through market trading, and the third verifies long-term emissions
trading during the term of the plan (2010-2019), checking the validity
of emissions trading partly using Geographic Information Systems
(GIS). The findings of this study can be summarized in the following
three points.
1. Since the total cost benefit is the greatest at a 44% reduction rate, it
is possible to set it more highly than that of the Tokyo Cap and
Trade Program to get more total cost benefit.
2. At a 44% reduction rate, among 320 enterprises, 8 purchasing
enterprises and 245 sales enterprises gain profits from emissions
trading, and 67 enterprises perform voluntary reduction without
conducting emissions trading. Therefore, to further promote
emissions trading, it is necessary to increase the sales volumes of
emissions trading in addition to sales enterprises by increasing the
number of purchasing enterprises.
3. Compared to short-term emissions trading, there are few enterprises
which benefit in each year through the long-term emissions trading
of the Tokyo Cap and Trade Program. Only 81 enterprises at the
most can gain profits from emissions trading in FY 2019. Therefore,
by setting the reduction rate more highly, it is necessary to increase
the number of enterprises that participate in emissions trading and
benefit from the restraint of CO2 emissions.
Abstract: Groups where the discrete logarithm problem (DLP) is believed to be intractable have proved to be inestimable building blocks for cryptographic applications. They are at the heart of numerous protocols such as key agreements, public-key cryptosystems, digital signatures, identification schemes, publicly verifiable secret sharings, hash functions and bit commitments. The search for new groups with intractable DLP is therefore of great importance.The goal of this article is to study elliptic curves over the ring Fq[], with Fq a finite field of order q and with the relation n = 0, n ≥ 3. The motivation for this work came from the observation that several practical discrete logarithm-based cryptosystems, such as ElGamal, the Elliptic Curve Cryptosystems . In a first time, we describe these curves defined over a ring. Then, we study the algorithmic properties by proposing effective implementations for representing the elements and the group law. In anther article we study their cryptographic properties, an attack of the elliptic discrete logarithm problem, a new cryptosystem over these curves.
Abstract: In recent years, everything is trending toward digitalization
and with the rapid development of the Internet technologies,
digital media needs to be transmitted conveniently over the network.
Attacks, misuse or unauthorized access of information is of great
concern today which makes the protection of documents through
digital media a priority problem. This urges us to devise new data
hiding techniques to protect and secure the data of vital significance.
In this respect, steganography often comes to the fore as a tool for
hiding information. Steganography is a process that involves hiding
a message in an appropriate carrier like image or audio. It is of
Greek origin and means "covered or hidden writing". The goal of
steganography is covert communication. Here the carrier can be sent
to a receiver without any one except the authenticated receiver only
knows existence of the information. Considerable amount of work
has been carried out by different researchers on steganography. In this
work the authors propose a novel Steganographic method for hiding
information within the spatial domain of the gray scale image. The
proposed approach works by selecting the embedding pixels using
some mathematical function and then finds the 8 neighborhood of
the each selected pixel and map each bit of the secret message in
each of the neighbor pixel coordinate position in a specified manner.
Before embedding a checking has been done to find out whether the
selected pixel or its neighbor lies at the boundary of the image or not.
This solution is independent of the nature of the data to be hidden
and produces a stego image with minimum degradation.
Abstract: Extensive use of the Internet coupled with the
marvelous growth in e-commerce and m-commerce has created a
huge demand for information security. The Secure Socket Layer
(SSL) protocol is the most widely used security protocol in the
Internet which meets this demand. It provides protection against
eaves droppings, tampering and forgery. The cryptographic
algorithms RC4 and HMAC have been in use for achieving security
services like confidentiality and authentication in the SSL. But recent
attacks against RC4 and HMAC have raised questions in the
confidence on these algorithms. Hence two novel cryptographic
algorithms MAJE4 and MACJER-320 have been proposed as
substitutes for them. The focus of this work is to demonstrate the
performance of these new algorithms and suggest them as dependable
alternatives to satisfy the need of security services in SSL. The
performance evaluation has been done by using practical
implementation method.
Abstract: A bond graph model of a hydroelectric plant is
proposed. In order to analyze the system some structural properties
of a bond graph are used. The structural controllability of
the hydroelctric plant is described. Also, the steady state of the
state variables applying the bond graph in a derivative causality
assignment is obtained. Finally, simulation results of the system
are shown.
Abstract: This paper presents a unified approach based graph
theory and system theory postulates for the modeling and analysis
of Simple open cycle Gas turbine system. In the present paper, the
simple open cycle gas turbine system has been modeled up to its subsystem
level and system variables have been identified to develop the
process subgraphs. The theorems and algorithms of the graph theory
have been used to represent behavioural properties of the system like
rate of heat and work transfers rates, pressure drops and temperature
drops in the involved processes of the system. The processes have
been represented as edges of the process subgraphs and their limits
as the vertices of the process subgraphs. The system across variables
and through variables has been used to develop terminal equations of
the process subgraphs of the system. The set of equations developed
for vertices and edges of network graph are used to solve the system
for its process variables.
Abstract: The rheological properties, structure and potential synergistic interactions of whey proteins (1-6%) and inulin (20%) in mixed gels in the presence of CaCl2 was the aim of this study. Whey proteins have a strong influence on inulin gel formation. At low concentrations (2%) whey proteins did not impair in inulin gel formation. At higher concentration (4%) whey proteins impaired inulin gelation and inulin impaired the formation of a Ca2+-induced whey protein network. The presence of whey proteins at a level allowing for protein gel network formation (6%) significantly increased the rheological parameters values of the gels. SEM micrographs showed that whey protein structure was coated by inulin moieties which could make the mixed gels firmer. The protein surface hydrophobicity measurements did not exclude synergistic interactions between inulin and whey proteins, however. The use of an electrophoretic technique did not show any stable inulin-whey protein complexes.
Abstract: Despite the fact that B2c eCommerce has become
important in numerous economies, its adoption varies from country to
country. This paper aims to identify the factors affecting (enabling or
inhibiting) B2c eCommerce and to determine their quantitative
impact on the diffusion of online sales across countries. A dynamic
panel model analyzing the relationship between 13 factors
(Macroeconomic, Demographic, Socio-Cultural, Infrastructural and
Offer related) stemming from a complete literature analysis and the
B2c eCommerce value in 45 countries over 9 years has been
developed. Having a positive correlation coefficient, GDP, mobile
penetration, Internet user penetration and credit card penetration
resulted as enabling drivers of the B2c eCommerce value across
countries, whereas, having a negative correlation coefficient,equal
distribution of income and the development of traditional retailing
network act as inhibiting factors.
Abstract: Knowledge of patterns of genetic diversity enhances
the efficiency of germplasm conservation and improvement. In this
study 96 Iranian landraces of Triticum turgidum originating from
different geographical areas of Iran, along with 18 durum cultivars
from ten countries were evaluated for variation in morphological and
high molecular weight glutenin subunit (HMW-GS) composition.
The first two principal components clearly separated the Iranian
landraces from cultivars. Three alleles were present at the Glu-A1
locus and 11 alleles at Glu-B1. In both cultivars and landraces of
durum wheat, the null allele (Glu-A1c) was observed more
frequently than the Glu-A1a and Glu-A1b alleles. Two alleles,
namely Glu-B1a (subunit 7) and Glu-B1e (subunit 20) represented
the more frequent alleles at Glu-B1 locus. The results showed that
the evaluated Iranian landraces formed an interesting source of
favourable glutenin subunits that might be very desirable in breeding
activities for improving pasta-making quality.
Abstract: Biologically active peptides are of particular interest
in food science and human nutrition because they have been shown to play several physiological roles. In vitro gastrointestinal digestion of lentil and whey proteins in this study produced high angiotensin-I converting enzyme inhibitory activity with 75.5±1.9 and 91.4±2.3%
inhibition, respectively. High ACE inhibitory activity was observed in lentil after 5 days of germination (84.3±1.2%). Fractionation by
reverse phase chromatography gave inhibitory activities as high as
86.3±2.0 for lentil, 94.8±1.8% for whey and 93.7±1.7% at 5th day of germination. Further purification by HPLC resulted in several
inhibitory peptides with IC50 values ranging from 0.064 to 0.164
mg/ml. These results demonstrate that lentil proteins are a good
source of peptides with ACE inhibitory activity that can be released by germination or gastrointestinal digestion. Despite the lower bioactivity in comparison with whey proteins, incorporation of lentil proteins in functional food formulations and natural drugs look promising.
Abstract: A decomposition of a graph G is a collection ψ of
graphs H1,H2, . . . , Hr of G such that every edge of G belongs
to exactly one Hi. If each Hi is either an induced path in G,
then ψ is called an induced acyclic path decomposition of G and
if each Hi is a (induced) cycle in G then ψ is called a (induced)
cycle decomposition of G. The minimum cardinality of an induced
acyclic path decomposition of G is called the induced acyclic path
decomposition number of G and is denoted by ¤Çia(G). Similarly
the cyclic decomposition number ¤Çc(G) is defined. In this paper we
begin an investigation of these parameters.
Abstract: The morphological parameter of a thin film surface
can be characterized by power spectral density (PSD) functions
which provides a better description to the topography than the RMS
roughness and imparts several useful information of the surface
including fractal and superstructure contributions. Through the
present study Nanoparticle copper/carbon composite films were
prepared by co-deposition of RF-Sputtering and RF-PECVD method
from acetylene gas and copper target. Surface morphology of thin
films is characterized by using atomic force microscopy (AFM). The
Carbon content of our films was obtained by Rutherford Back
Scattering (RBS) and it varied from .4% to 78%. The power values of
power spectral density (PSD) for the AFM data were determined by
the fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithms. We investigate the effect
of carbon on the roughness of thin films surface. Using such
information, roughness contributions of the surface have been
successfully extracted.