Abstract: This research was conducted for the first time at the
southeastern coasts of the Caspian Sea in order to evaluate the
performance of osteichthyes cooperatives through production (catch)
function. Using one of the indirect valuation methods in this research,
contributory factors in catch were identified and were inserted into
the function as independent variables. In order to carry out this
research, the performance of 25 Osteichthyes catching cooperatives
in the utilization year of 2009 which were involved in fishing in
Miankale wildlife refuge region. The contributory factors in catch
were divided into groups of economic, ecological and biological
factors. In the mentioned function, catch rate of the cooperative were
inserted into as the dependant variable and fourteen partial variables
in terms of nine general variables as independent variables. Finally,
after function estimation, seven variables were rendered significant at
99 percent reliably level. The results of the function estimation
indicated that human resource (fisherman quantity) had the greatest
positive effect on catch rate with an influence coefficient of 1.7 while
weather conditions had the greatest negative effect on the catch rate
of cooperatives with an influence coefficient of -2.07. Moreover,
factors like member's share, experience and fisherman training and
fishing effort played the main roles in the catch rate of cooperative
with influence coefficients of 0.81, 0.5 and 0.21, respectively.
Abstract: By introducing the concept of Oracle we propose an approach for improving the performance of genetic algorithms for large-scale asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problems. The results have shown that the proposed approach allows overcoming some traditional problems for creating efficient genetic algorithms.
Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to show a possibility, how to solve numerically elliptic boundary value problems arising in 2D linear elasticity by using the fictitious domain method (FDM) and the Total-FETI domain decomposition method. We briefly mention the theoretical background of these methods and demonstrate their performance on a benchmark.
Abstract: We propose that Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) should be designed by taking into account the characteristics, the special needs and the specific operating rules of the academic institutions in which they are employed. In this context, we describe a VLE module that extends the support of the organization and delivery of course material by including administration activities related to the various stages of teaching. These include the co-ordination, collaboration and monitoring of the course material development process and institution-specific course material delivery modes. Our specialized module, which enhances VLE capabilities by Helping Educators and Learners through a Laboratory Assistance System, is willing to assist the Greek tertiary technological sector, which includes Technological Educational Institutes (T.E.I.).
Abstract: The overall penumbra is usually defined as the
distance, p20–80, separating the 20% and 80% of the dose on the beam axis at the depth of interest. This overall penumbra accounts
also for the fact that some photons emitted by the distal parts of the source are only partially attenuated by the collimator. Medulloblastoma is the most common type of childhood brain tumor
and often spreads to the spine. Current guidelines call for surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible, followed by radiation of the brain and spinal cord, and finally treatment with chemotherapy.
The purpose of this paper was to present results on an Uniformity of dose distribution in radiation fields surrounding the spine using film
dosimetry and comparison with 3D treatment planning software.
Abstract: This study investigates the relationship between 10
year bond value, Yen/U.S dollar exchange rate, non-farm payrolls (all
employs) and crude oil to U.S. Dow Jones Sustainability Index. A
GARCH model is used to test these relationships for the period
January 1st 1999 to January 31st 2008 using monthly data. Results
show that an increase of the 10 year bond and non farm payrolls (all
employs) lead to an increase of the D.J.S.I returns. On the contrary
the volatility of the Yen/U.S dollar exchange rates as well as the
increase of crude oil returns has negative effects on the U.S D.J.S.I
returns. This study aims at assisting investors to understand the
influences certain macroeconomic indicators have on the companies-
stock returns as reported by the D.J.S.I.
Abstract: A satured liquid is warmed until boiling in a parallelepipedic boiler. The heat is supplied in a liquid through the horizontal bottom of the boiler, the other walls being adiabatic. During the process of boiling, the liquid evaporates through its free surface by deforming it. This surface which subdivides the boiler into two regions occupied on both sides by the boiled liquid (broth) and its vapor which surmounts it. The broth occupying the region and its vapor the superior region. A two- fluids model is used to describe the dynamics of the broth, its vapor and their interface. In this model, the broth is treated as a monophasic fluid (homogeneous model) and form with its vapor adiphasic pseudo fluid (two-fluid model). Furthermore, the interface is treated as a zone of mixture characterized by superficial void fraction noted α* . The aim of this article is to describe the dynamics of the interface between the boiled fluid and its vapor within a boiler. The resolution of the problem allowed us to show the evolution of the broth and the level of the liquid.
Abstract: Basic objective of this study is to create a regression
analysis method that can estimate the length of a plastic hinge which
is an important design parameter, by making use of the outcomes of
(lateral load-lateral displacement hysteretic curves) the experimental
studies conducted for the reinforced square concrete columns. For
this aim, 170 different square reinforced concrete column tests results
have been collected from the existing literature. The parameters
which are thought affecting the plastic hinge length such as crosssection
properties, features of material used, axial loading level,
confinement of the column, longitudinal reinforcement bars in the
columns etc. have been obtained from these 170 different square
reinforced concrete column tests. In the study, when determining the
length of plastic hinge, using the experimental test results, a
regression analysis have been separately tested and compared with
each other. In addition, the outcome of mentioned methods on
determination of plastic hinge length of the reinforced concrete
columns has been compared to other methods available in the
literature.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose an algorithm to compute
initial cluster centers for K-means clustering. Data in a cell is
partitioned using a cutting plane that divides cell in two smaller cells.
The plane is perpendicular to the data axis with the highest variance
and is designed to reduce the sum squared errors of the two cells as
much as possible, while at the same time keep the two cells far apart
as possible. Cells are partitioned one at a time until the number of
cells equals to the predefined number of clusters, K. The centers of
the K cells become the initial cluster centers for K-means. The
experimental results suggest that the proposed algorithm is effective,
converge to better clustering results than those of the random
initialization method. The research also indicated the proposed
algorithm would greatly improve the likelihood of every cluster
containing some data in it.
Abstract: The main objective of this paper is applying a
comparison between the Wolf Pack Search (WPS) as a newly
introduced intelligent algorithm with several other known algorithms
including Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Shuffled Frog
Leaping (SFL), Binary and Continues Genetic algorithms. All
algorithms are applied on two benchmark cost functions. The aim is
to identify the best algorithm in terms of more speed and accuracy in
finding the solution, where speed is measured in terms of function
evaluations. The simulation results show that the SFL algorithm with
less function evaluations becomes first if the simulation time is
important, while if accuracy is the significant issue, WPS and PSO
would have a better performance.
Abstract: The production of ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE) was
simulated through Aspen Plus. The objective of this work was to use
the simulation results to be an alternative platform for ETBE
production from naphtha cracking wastes for the industry to develop.
ETBE is produced from isobutylene which is one of the wastes in
naphtha cracking process. The content of isobutylene in the waste is
less than 30% weight. The main part of this work was to propose a
process to save the environment and to increase the product value by
converting a great majority of the wastes into ETBE. Various
processes were considered to determine the optimal production of
ETBE. The proposed process increased ETBE production yield by
100% from conventional process with the purity of 96% weight. The
results showed a great promise for developing this proposed process
in an industrial scale.
Abstract: This article explores the sociological perspectives on
social problems and the role of the media which has a delicate role to
tread in balancing its duty to the public and the victim Whilst social
problems have objective conditions, it is the subjective definition of
such problems that ensure which social problem comes to the fore
and which doesn-t. Further it explores the roles and functions of
policymakers when addressing social problems and the impact of the
inception of media profiling as well as the advantages and
disadvantages of media profiling towards social problems. It focuses
on the inception of media profiling due to its length and a follow up
article will explore how current media profiling towards social
problems have evolved since its inception.
Abstract: Bagging and boosting are among the most popular resampling ensemble methods that generate and combine a diversity of classifiers using the same learning algorithm for the base-classifiers. Boosting algorithms are considered stronger than bagging on noisefree data. However, there are strong empirical indications that bagging is much more robust than boosting in noisy settings. For this reason, in this work we built an ensemble using a voting methodology of bagging and boosting ensembles with 10 subclassifiers in each one. We performed a comparison with simple bagging and boosting ensembles with 25 sub-classifiers, as well as other well known combining methods, on standard benchmark datasets and the proposed technique was the most accurate.
Abstract: In very narrow pathways, the speed of sound propagation and the phase of sound waves change due to the air viscosity. We have developed a new finite element method (FEM) that includes the effects of air viscosity for modeling a narrow sound pathway. This method is developed as an extension of the existing FEM for porous sound-absorbing materials. The numerical calculation results for several three-dimensional slit models using the proposed FEM are validated against existing calculation methods.
Abstract: Wind farms (WFs) with high level of penetration are
being established in power systems worldwide more rapidly than
other renewable resources. The Independent System Operator (ISO),
as a policy maker, should propose appropriate places for WF
installation in order to maximize the benefits for the investors. There
is also a possibility of congestion relief using the new installation of
WFs which should be taken into account by the ISO when proposing
the locations for WF installation. In this context, efficient wind farm
(WF) placement method is proposed in order to reduce burdens on
congested lines. Since the wind speed is a random variable and load
forecasts also contain uncertainties, probabilistic approaches are used
for this type of study. AC probabilistic optimal power flow (P-OPF)
is formulated and solved using Monte Carlo Simulations (MCS). In
order to reduce computation time, point estimate methods (PEM) are
introduced as efficient alternative for time-demanding MCS.
Subsequently, WF optimal placement is determined using generation
shift distribution factors (GSDF) considering a new parameter
entitled, wind availability factor (WAF). In order to obtain more
realistic results, N-1 contingency analysis is employed to find the
optimal size of WF, by means of line outage distribution factors
(LODF). The IEEE 30-bus test system is used to show and compare
the accuracy of proposed methodology.
Abstract: The aim of every software product is to achieve an
appropriate level of software quality. Developers and designers are
trying to produce readable, reliable, maintainable, reusable and
testable code. To help achieve these goals, several approaches have
been utilized. In this paper, refactoring technique was used to
evaluate software quality with a quality index. It is composed of
different metric sets which describes various quality aspects.
Abstract: This study uses GIS (Geographic Information
Systems) to conduct an evaluation of the degree of the sufficiency of
public green spaces such as parks and urban green areas as an
indicator of the density of metropolitan areas, in particular the Chubu
metropolitan area, in Japan. To that end, it first grasps the distribution
situation of green spaces in the three metropolitan areas in Japan,
especially in the Chubu metropolitan area, using GIS digital maps.
And based on this result, it conducts a GIS evaluation of the degree of
sufficiency of public green spaces and arranges the result for every
distance belt from the central part to compare and exam for every
distance belt away from the center in the Chubu metropolitan area.
Furthermore, after pointing out the insufficient areas of public green
spaces based on the result, it also proposes the improvement policy
which can be introduced in the Chubu metropolitan area.
Abstract: The present work faces the problem of automatic enumeration and recognition of an unknown and time-varying number of environmental sound sources while using a single microphone. The assumption that is made is that the sound recorded is a realization of sound sources belonging to a group of audio classes which is known a-priori. We describe two variations of the same principle which is to calculate the distance between the current unknown audio frame and all possible combinations of the classes that are assumed to span the soundscene. We concentrate on categorizing environmental sound sources, such as birds, insects etc. in the task of monitoring the biodiversity of a specific habitat.
Abstract: Serious games have proven to be a useful instrument
to engage learners and increase motivation. Nevertheless, a broadly
accepted, practical instructional design approach to serious games
does not exist. In this paper, we introduce the use of an instructional
design model that has not been applied to serious games yet, and has
some advantages compared to other design approaches. We present
the case of mechanics mechatronics education to illustrate the close
match with timing and role of knowledge and information that the
instructional design model prescribes and how this has been
translated to a rigidly structured game design. The structured
approach answers the learning needs of applicable knowledge within
the target group. It combines advantages of simulations with
strengths of entertainment games to foster learner-s motivation in the
best possible way. A prototype of the game will be evaluated along a
well-respected evaluation method within an advanced test setting
including test and control group.
Abstract: In this study, inhibition of Microcystis aeruginosa by
antialgal alleochemical gramine, was studied by analyzing algal
metabolic activity (represented by esterase and total dehydrogenase
activities) and cell ultrastructure (showing morphological and
ultrastructure alterations using transmission electron microscopy and
DNA ladder analysis). After gramine exposure, esterase and total
dehydrogenase activities were increased firstly but decreased later. In
contrast with the controls, the cells exposed to gramine showed
apparent ultrastructure alterations with thylakoids in breakage,
phycobilins in decrease, lipid and cyanophycin granules abundant
firstly but dissolved afterwards, DNA in fragementation. The
occurrence of increase of metabolic activity and specific granules
reflected that the resistance of cellular response to gramine was
initiated. DNA fragementation associated with the increase of
metabolic activity and specific granules hinted that gramine caused M.
aeruginosa cells to initiate some morphotype of programmed cell
death.