Abstract: Open urban public spaces comprise an important
element for the development of social, cultural and economic
activities of the population in the modern cities. These spaces are also
considered regulators of the region-s climate conditions, providing
better thermal, visual and auditory conditions which can be optimized
by the application of appropriate strategies of bioclimatic design. The
paper focuses on the analysis and evaluation of the recent unification
of the open spaces in the centre of Xanthi, a medium – size city in
northern Greece, from a bioclimatic perspective, as well as in the
creation of suitable methodology. It is based both on qualitative
observation of the interventions by fieldwork research and
assessment and on quantitative analysis and modeling of the research
area.
Abstract: Visualizing “Courses – Pre – Required -
Architecture" on the screen has proven to be useful and helpful for
university actors and specially for students. In fact, these students
can easily identify courses and their pre required, perceive the
courses to follow in the future, and then can choose rapidly the
appropriate course to register in. Given a set of courses and their prerequired,
we present an algorithm for visualization a graph entitled
“Courses-Pre-Required-Graph" that present courses and their prerequired
in order to help students to recognize, lonely, what courses
to take in the future and perceive the contain of all courses that they
will study. Our algorithm using “Force Directed Placement"
technique visualizes the “Courses-Pre-Required-Graph" in such way
that courses are easily identifiable. The time complexity of our
drawing algorithm is O (n2), where n is the number of courses in the
“Courses-Pre-Required-Graph".
Abstract: The main objective of this paper is to provide an efficient tool for delineating brain tumors in three-dimensional magnetic resonance images and set up compression-transmit schemes to distribute result to the remote doctor. To achieve this goal, we use basically a level-sets approach to delineating brain tumors in threedimensional. Then introduce a new compression and transmission plan of 3D brain structures based for the meshes simplification, adapted for time to the specific needs of the telemedicine and to the capacities restricted by wireless network communication. We present here the main stages of our system, and preliminary results which are very encouraging for clinical practice.
Abstract: To evaluate genetic variation of wheat (Triticum
aestivum) affected by heat and drought stress on eight Australian
wheat genotypes that are parents of Doubled Haploid (HD) mapping
populations at the vegetative stage, the water stress experiment was
conducted at 65% field capacity in growth room. Heat stress
experiment was conducted in the research field under irrigation over
summer. Result show that water stress decreased dry shoot weight
and RWC but increased osmolarity and means of Fv/Fm values in all
varieties except for Krichauff. Krichauff and Kukri had the
maximum RWC under drought stress. Trident variety was shown
maximum WUE, osmolarity (610 mM/Kg), dry mater, quantum yield
and Fv/Fm 0.815 under water stress condition. However, the
recovery of quantum yield was apparent between 4 to 7 days after
stress in all varieties. Nevertheless, increase in water stress after that
lead to strong decrease in quantum yield. There was a genetic
variation for leaf pigments content among varieties under heat stress.
Heat stress decreased significantly the total chlorophyll content that
measured by SPAD. Krichauff had maximum value of Anthocyanin
content (2.978 A/g FW), chlorophyll a+b (2.001 mg/g FW) and
chlorophyll a (1.502 mg/g FW). Maximum value of chlorophyll b
(0.515 mg/g FW) and Carotenoids (0.234 mg/g FW) content
belonged to Kukri. The quantum yield of all varieties decreased
significantly, when the weather temperature increased from 28 ÔùªC to
36 ÔùªC during the 6 days. However, the recovery of quantum yield
was apparent after 8th day in all varieties. The maximum decrease
and recovery in quantum yield was observed in Krichauff. Drought
and heat tolerant and moderately tolerant wheat genotypes were
included Trident, Krichauff, Kukri and RAC875. Molineux, Berkut
and Excalibur were clustered into most sensitive and moderately
sensitive genotypes. Finally, the results show that there was a
significantly genetic variation among the eight varieties that were
studied under heat and water stress.
Abstract: Electrocardiogram (ECG) data compression algorithm
is needed that will reduce the amount of data to be transmitted, stored
and analyzed, but without losing the clinical information content. A
wavelet ECG data codec based on the Set Partitioning In Hierarchical
Trees (SPIHT) compression algorithm is proposed in this paper. The
SPIHT algorithm has achieved notable success in still image coding.
We modified the algorithm for the one-dimensional (1-D) case and
applied it to compression of ECG data.
By this compression method, small percent root mean square
difference (PRD) and high compression ratio with low
implementation complexity are achieved. Experiments on selected
records from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database revealed that the
proposed codec is significantly more efficient in compression and in
computation than previously proposed ECG compression schemes.
Compression ratios of up to 48:1 for ECG signals lead to acceptable
results for visual inspection.
Abstract: We study in this paper the effect of the scene
changing on image sequences coding system using Embedded
Zerotree Wavelet (EZW). The scene changing considered here is the
full motion which may occurs. A special image sequence is generated
where the scene changing occurs randomly. Two scenarios are
considered: In the first scenario, the system must provide the
reconstruction quality as best as possible by the management of the
bit rate (BR) while the scene changing occurs. In the second scenario,
the system must keep the bit rate as constant as possible by the
management of the reconstruction quality. The first scenario may be
motivated by the availability of a large band pass transmission
channel where an increase of the bit rate may be possible to keep the
reconstruction quality up to a given threshold. The second scenario
may be concerned by the narrow band pass transmission channel
where an increase of the bit rate is not possible. In this last case,
applications for which the reconstruction quality is not a constraint
may be considered. The simulations are performed with five scales
wavelet decomposition using the 9/7-tap filter bank biorthogonal
wavelet. The entropy coding is performed using a specific defined
binary code book and EZW algorithm. Experimental results are
presented and compared to LEAD H263 EVAL. It is shown that if
the reconstruction quality is the constraint, the system increases the
bit rate to obtain the required quality. In the case where the bit rate
must be constant, the system is unable to provide the required quality
if the scene change occurs; however, the system is able to improve
the quality while the scene changing disappears.
Abstract: For stricter drinking water regulations in the future, reducing the humic acid and disinfection byproducts in raw water, namely, trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) is worthy for research. To investigate the removal of waterborne organic material using a lab-scale of bio-activated carbon filter under different EBCT, the concentrations of humic acid prepared were 0.01, 0.03, 0.06, 0.12, 0.17, 0.23, and 0.29 mg/L. Then we conducted experiments using a pilot plant with in-field of the serially connected bio-activated carbon filters and hollow fiber membrane processes employed in traditional water purification plants. Results showed under low TOC conditions of humic acid in influent (0.69 to 1.03 mg TOC/L) with an EBCT of 30 min, 40 min, and 50 min, TOC removal rates increases with greater EBCT, attaining about 39 % removal rate. The removal rate of THMs and HAAs by BACF was 54.8 % and 89.0 %, respectively.
Abstract: Variable ordering heuristics are used in constraint satisfaction algorithms. Different characteristics of various variable ordering heuristics are complementary. Therefore we have tried to get the advantages of all heuristics to improve search algorithms performance for solving constraint satisfaction problems. This paper considers combinations based on products and quotients, and then a newer form of combination based on weighted sums of ratings from a set of base heuristics, some of which result in definite improvements in performance.
Abstract: This study reports the preparation of soft magnetic ribbons of Fe-based amorphous alloys using the single-roller melt-spinning technique. Ribbon width varied from 142 mm to 213 mm and, with a thickness of approximately 22 μm 2 μm. The microstructure and magnetic properties of the ribbons were characterized by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM), and electrical resistivity measurements (ERM). The amorphous material properties dependence of the cooling rate and nozzle pressure have uneven surface in ribbon thicknesses are investigated. Magnetic measurement results indicate that some region of the ribbon exhibits good magnetic properties, higher saturation induction and lower coercivity. However, due to the uneven surface of 213 mm wide ribbon, the magnetic responses are not uniformly distributed. To understand the transformer magnetic performances, this study analyzes the measurements of a three-phase 2 MVA amorphous-cored transformer. Experimental results confirm that the transformer with a ribbon width of 142 mm has better magnetic properties in terms of lower core loss, exciting power, and audible noise.
Abstract: In this paper we present a hybrid search algorithm for
solving constraint satisfaction and optimization problems. This
algorithm combines ideas of two basic approaches: complete and
incomplete algorithms which also known as systematic search and
local search algorithms. Different characteristics of systematic search
and local search methods are complementary. Therefore we have
tried to get the advantages of both approaches in the presented
algorithm. The major advantage of presented algorithm is finding
partial sound solution for complicated problems which their complete
solution could not be found in a reasonable time. This algorithm
results are compared with other algorithms using the well known
n-queens problem.
Abstract: There are multiple reasons to expect that detecting the
word order errors in a text will be a difficult problem, and detection
rates reported in the literature are in fact low. Although grammatical
rules constructed by computer linguists improve the performance of
grammar checker in word order diagnosis, the repairing task is still
very difficult. This paper presents an approach for repairing word
order errors in English text by reordering words in a sentence and
choosing the version that maximizes the number of trigram hits
according to a language model. The novelty of this method concerns
the use of an efficient confusion matrix technique for reordering the
words. The comparative advantage of this method is that works with
a large set of words, and avoids the laborious and costly process of
collecting word order errors for creating error patterns.
Abstract: Emotion in speech is an issue that has been attracting
the interest of the speech community for many years, both in the
context of speech synthesis as well as in automatic speech
recognition (ASR). In spite of the remarkable recent progress in
Large Vocabulary Recognition (LVR), it is still far behind the
ultimate goal of recognising free conversational speech uttered by
any speaker in any environment. Current experimental tests prove
that using state of the art large vocabulary recognition systems the
error rate increases substantially when applied to
spontaneous/emotional speech. This paper shows that recognition
rate for emotionally coloured speech can be improved by using a
language model based on increased representation of emotional
utterances.
Abstract: Influence diagrams (IDs) are one of the most commonly used graphical decision models for reasoning under uncertainty. The quantification of IDs which consists in defining conditional probabilities for chance nodes and utility functions for value nodes is not always obvious. In fact, decision makers cannot always provide exact numerical values and in some cases, it is more easier for them to specify qualitative preference orders. This work proposes an adaptation of standard IDs to the qualitative framework based on possibility theory.
Abstract: Composites based on a biodegradable polycaprolactone (PCL) containing 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 wt % of titanium dioxide (TiO2) micro and nanoparticles were prepared by melt mixing and the effect of filler type and contents on the thermal properties, dynamic-mechanical behaviour and morphology were investigated. Measurements of storage modulus and loss modulus by dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) showed better results for microfilled PCL/TiO2 composites than nanofilled composites, with the same filler content. DSC analysis showed that the Tg and Tc of micro and nanocomposites were slightly lower than those of neat PCL. The crystallinity of the PCL increased with the addition of TiO2 micro and nanoparticles; however, the cc for the PCL was unchanged with micro TiO2 content. The thermal stability of PCL/TiO2 composites were characterized using thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The initial weight loss (5 wt %) occurs at slightly higher temperature with micro and nano TiO2 addition and with increasing TiO2 content.
Abstract: In recent years, a new numerical method has been
developed, the extended finite element method (X-FEM). The
objective of this work is to exploit the (X-FEM) for the treatment of
the fracture mechanics problems on 3D geometries, where we
showed the ability of this method to simulate the fatigue crack
growth into two cases: edge and central crack. In the results we
compared the six first natural frequencies of mode shapes uncracking
with the cracking initiation in the structure, and showed the stress
intensity factor (SIF) evolution function as crack size propagation
into structure, the analytical validation of (SIF) is presented. For to
evidence the aspects of this method, all result is compared between
FEA and X-FEM.
Abstract: A study was conducted to determine the effect of
feeding glycerol on dairy cows performance. Twenty four Holstein
Friesian crossbred (>87.5% Holstein Friesian) lactating dairy cows in
early lactation; averaging 13+2.4 kg of milk, 64+45 days in milk,
55+16 months old and 325+26 kg live weight, were stratified for
milk yield, days in milk, age, stage of lactation and body weight, and
then randomly allocated to three treatment groups. All cows were fed
approximate 8 kg of concentrate together with ad libitum corn silage
and freely access to clean water. Nil or 150 and 300g of glycerol
were supplemented to the cows according to treatment groups. All
cows consumed similar concentrate, corn silage and total DM and
NELP. There were no significant differences in DM intake, CP intake,
NELP intake, milk and milk composition yields. All cows had similar
fat, protein, lactose, solid not fat and total solid percentage. All cows
gain similar live weight. The present study indicated that,
supplementation of glycerol did not enhance milk yield, milk
composition and live weight change.
Abstract: A design flow of multi-standard down-conversion
CMOS mixers for three modern standards: Global System Mobile,
Digital Enhanced Cordless Telephone and Universal Mobile
Telecommunication Systems is presented. Three active mixer-s
structures are studied. The first is based on the Gilbert cell which
gives a tolerable noise figure and linearity with a low conversion
gain. The second and third structures use the current bleeding and
charge injection techniques in order to increase the conversion gain.
An improvement of about 2 dB of the conversion gain is achieved
without a considerable degradation of the other characteristics. The
models used for noise figure, conversion gain and IIP3 used are
studied. This study describes the nature of trade-offs inherent in such
structures and gives insights that help in identifying which structure
is better for given conditions.
Abstract: This paper presents the climatic range calculations for
comfort evaporative cooling for Tehran. In this study the minimum
climatic conditions required to achieve an appropriate comfort zone
will be presented.
Physiologically uncomfortable conditions in arid climates are
mainly caused by the extreme heat and dryness. Direct evaporative
cooling adds moisture to the air stream until the air stream is close to
saturation. The dry bulb temperature is reduced, while the wet bulb
temperature stays the same. Evaporative cooling is economical,
effective, environmentally friendly, and healthy.
Comfort cooling by direct evaporative cooling (passive or fan
forced) in the 35. 41 N (such as Tehran) latitude requires design
wet-bulb temperature not over 25.4 C. Evaporative cooling outside
this limit cannot achieve the required 26.7 ET, and is recommended
for relief cooling only.
Abstract: In recent years, the underground water sources in
southern Taiwan have become salinized because of saltwater
intrusions. This study explores the adsorption characteristics of
activated carbon on salinizing inorganic salts using isothermal
adsorption experiments and provides a model analysis. The
temperature range for the isothermal adsorption experiments ranged
between 5 to 45 ℃, and the amount adsorbed varied between 28.21 to
33.87 mg/g. All experimental data of adsorption can be fitted to both
the Langmuir and the Freundlich models. The thermodynamic
parameters for per chlorate onto granular activated carbon were
calculated as -0.99 to -1.11 kcal/mol for DG°, -0.6 kcal/mol for DH°,
and 1.21 to 1.84 kcal/mol for DS°. This shows that the adsorption
process of granular activated carbon is spontaneously exothermic. The
observation of adsorption behaviors under low ionic strength, low pH
values, and low temperatures is beneficial to the adsorption removal of
perchlorate with granular activated carbon.
Abstract: The aim of the article is extending and developing
econometrics and network structure based methods which are able to
distinguish price manipulation in Tehran stock exchange. The
principal goal of the present study is to offer model for
approximating price manipulation in Tehran stock exchange. In order
to do so by applying separation method a sample consisting of 397
companies accepted at Tehran stock exchange were selected and
information related to their price and volume of trades during years
2001 until 2009 were collected and then through performing runs
test, skewness test and duration correlative test the selected
companies were divided into 2 sets of manipulated and non
manipulated companies. In the next stage by investigating
cumulative return process and volume of trades in manipulated
companies, the date of starting price manipulation was specified and
in this way the logit model, artificial neural network, multiple
discriminant analysis and by using information related to size of
company, clarity of information, ratio of P/E and liquidity of stock
one year prior price manipulation; a model for forecasting price
manipulation of stocks of companies present in Tehran stock
exchange were designed. At the end the power of forecasting models
were studied by using data of test set. Whereas the power of
forecasting logit model for test set was 92.1%, for artificial neural
network was 94.1% and multi audit analysis model was 90.2%;
therefore all of the 3 aforesaid models has high power to forecast
price manipulation and there is no considerable difference among
forecasting power of these 3 models.