Abstract: Soil microbial activity is adversely affected by pollutants such as heavy metals, antibiotics and pesticides. Organic amendments including sewage sludge, municipal compost and vermicompost are recently used to improve soil structure and fertility. But, these materials contain heavy metals including Pb, Cd, Zn, Ni and Cu that are toxic to soil microorganisms and may lead to occurrence of more tolerant microbes. Among these, Pb is the most abundant and has more negative effect on soil microbial ecology. In this study, Pb levels of 0, 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500 mg Pb [as Pb(NO3)2] per kg soil were added to the pots containing 2 kg of a loamy soil and incubated for 6 months at 25°C with soil moisture of - 0.3 MPa. Dehydrogenase activity of soil as a measure of microbial activity was determined on 15, 30, 90 and 180 days after incubation. Triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) was used as an electron acceptor in this assay. PICTs (IC50 values) were calculated for each Pb level and incubation time. Soil microbial activity was decreased by increasing Pb level during 30 days of incubation but the induced tolerance appeared on day 90 and thereafter. During 90 to 180 days of incubation, the PICT was gradually developed by increasing Pb level up to 200 mg kg-1, but the rate of enhancement was steeper at higher concentrations.
Abstract: The scientific achievements coming from molecular
biology depend greatly on the capability of computational
applications to analyze the laboratorial results. A comprehensive
analysis of an experiment requires typically the simultaneous study
of the obtained dataset with data that is available in several distinct
public databases. Nevertheless, developing a centralized access to
these distributed databases rises up a set of challenges such as: what
is the best integration strategy, how to solve nomenclature clashes,
how to solve database overlapping data and how to deal with huge
datasets. In this paper we present GeNS, a system that uses a simple and yet innovative approach to address several biological data integration issues. Compared with existing systems, the main
advantages of GeNS are related to its maintenance simplicity and to its coverage and scalability, in terms of number of supported
databases and data types. To support our claims we present the current use of GeNS in two concrete applications. GeNS currently contains more than 140 million of biological relations and it can be
publicly downloaded or remotely access through SOAP web services.
Abstract: In the normal operation conditions of a pico satellite,
conventional Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) gives sufficiently good
estimation results. However, if the measurements are not reliable
because of any kind of malfunction in the estimation system, UKF
gives inaccurate results and diverges by time. This study, introduces
Robust Unscented Kalman Filter (RUKF) algorithms with the filter
gain correction for the case of measurement malfunctions. By the use
of defined variables named as measurement noise scale factor, the
faulty measurements are taken into the consideration with a small
weight and the estimations are corrected without affecting the
characteristic of the accurate ones. Two different RUKF algorithms,
one with single scale factor and one with multiple scale factors, are
proposed and applied for the attitude estimation process of a pico
satellite. The results of these algorithms are compared for different
types of measurement faults in different estimation scenarios and
recommendations about their applications are given.
Abstract: Nanotechnology is the science of creating, using and
manipulating objects which have at least one dimension in range of
0.1 to 100 nanometers. In other words, nanotechnology is
reconstructing a substance using its individual atoms and arranging
them in a way that is desirable for our purpose.
The main reason that nanotechnology has been attracting
attentions is the unique properties that objects show when they are
formed at nano-scale. These differing characteristics that nano-scale
materials show compared to their nature-existing form is both useful
in creating high quality products and dangerous when being in
contact with body or spread in environment.
In order to control and lower the risk of such nano-scale particles,
the main following three topics should be considered:
1) First of all, these materials would cause long term diseases that
may show their effects on body years after being penetrated in human
organs and since this science has become recently developed in
industrial scale not enough information is available about their
hazards on body.
2) The second is that these particles can easily spread out in
environment and remain in air, soil or water for very long time,
besides their high ability to penetrate body skin and causing new
kinds of diseases.
3) The third one is that to protect body and environment against
the danger of these particles, the protective barriers must be finer than
these small objects and such defenses are hard to accomplish.
This paper will review, discuss and assess the risks that human and
environment face as this new science develops at a high rate.
Abstract: The dynamics of Min proteins plays a center role in
accurate cell division. Although the nucleoids may presumably play
an important role in prokaryotic cell division, there is a lack of
models to account for its participation. In this work, we apply the
lattice Boltzmann method to investigate protein oscillation based on a
mesoscopic model that takes into account the nucleoid-s role. We
found that our numerical results are in reasonably good agreement
with the previous experimental results On comparing with the other
computational models without the presence of nucleoids, the
highlight of our finding is that the local densities of MinD and MinE
on the cytoplasmic membrane increases, especially along the cell
width, when the size of the obstacle increases, leading to a more
distinct cap-like structure at the poles. This feature indicated the
realistic pattern and reflected the combination of Min protein
dynamics and nucleoid-s role.
Abstract: ICT and supply chain management (SCM) are two
notions, which have attracted much attention among both
academicians and practitioners during the last decade. However, the
discussion of the relationship between the two notions has been
limited and fragmented. In this paper, we will present a summary of
the discussion of ICT components and SCM on an extensive
literature review. Then, we will discuss the interrelation between ICT
and SCM from some major components and applications of ICT
perspective. After all, we can introduce e-SCM concept, that arisen
recently in management literature, in order to cover the whole topic.
The authors look at all of the major components of electronic supply
chain management and demonstrate that the future holds tremendous
opportunity for those firms that take advantage of all of its
possibilities.
Abstract: Sensor network applications are often data centric and
involve collecting data from a set of sensor nodes to be delivered
to various consumers. Typically, nodes in a sensor network are
resource-constrained, and hence the algorithms operating in these
networks must be efficient. There may be several algorithms available
implementing the same service, and efficient considerations may
require a sensor application to choose the best suited algorithm. In
this paper, we present a systematic evaluation of a set of algorithms
implementing the data gathering service. We propose a modular
infrastructure for implementing such algorithms in TOSSIM with
separate configurable modules for various tasks such as interest
propagation, data propagation, aggregation, and path maintenance.
By appropriately configuring these modules, we propose a number
of data gathering algorithms, each of which incorporates a different
set of heuristics for optimizing performance. We have performed
comprehensive experiments to evaluate the effectiveness of these
heuristics, and we present results from our experimentation efforts.
Abstract: A universal current-mode biquad is described which
represents an economical variant of well-known KHN (Kerwin,
Huelsman, Newcomb) voltage-mode filter. The circuit consists of
two multiple-output OTAs and of two grounded capacitors. Utilizing
simple splitter of the input current and a pair of jumpers, all the basic
2nd-order transfer functions can be implemented. The principle is
verified by Spice simulation on the level of a CMOS structure of
OTAs.
Abstract: Qualification of doctoral students- and the candidates for a scientific degree is evaluated by the ability to solve scientific ideas in an innovative way, consequently, being a potential of research and science they play a significant role in the sustainability context of the society. The article deals with the analysis of the results of the pilot project, the aim of which has been to study the structure of doctoral students- research competences in the sustainability context. With the existance of variety of theories on research competence development, their analysis focuses on the attained aim approach. Three competence groups have been identified in this study: informative, communicative and instrumental. Within the study the doctoral students and candidates for a scientific degree (N=64) made their self-assessment of research competences. The study results depict their present research competence development level and its dynamics according to the aim to attain.
Abstract: Wireless sensor networks can be used to measure and monitor many challenging problems and typically involve in monitoring, tracking and controlling areas such as battlefield monitoring, object tracking, habitat monitoring and home sentry systems. However, wireless sensor networks pose unique security challenges including forgery of sensor data, eavesdropping, denial of service attacks, and the physical compromise of sensor nodes. Node in a sensor networks may be vanished due to power exhaustion or malicious attacks. To expand the life span of the sensor network, a new node deployment is needed. In military scenarios, intruder may directly organize malicious nodes or manipulate existing nodes to set up malicious new nodes through many kinds of attacks. To avoid malicious nodes from joining the sensor network, a security is required in the design of sensor network protocols. In this paper, we proposed a security framework to provide a complete security solution against the known attacks in wireless sensor networks. Our framework accomplishes node authentication for new nodes with recognition of a malicious node. When deployed as a framework, a high degree of security is reachable compared with the conventional sensor network security solutions. A proposed framework can protect against most of the notorious attacks in sensor networks, and attain better computation and communication performance. This is different from conventional authentication methods based on the node identity. It includes identity of nodes and the node security time stamp into the authentication procedure. Hence security protocols not only see the identity of each node but also distinguish between new nodes and old nodes.
Abstract: In large Internet backbones, Service Providers
typically have to explicitly manage the traffic flows in order to
optimize the use of network resources. This process is often referred
to as Traffic Engineering (TE). Common objectives of traffic
engineering include balance traffic distribution across the network
and avoiding congestion hot spots. Raj P H and SVK Raja designed
the Bayesian network approach to identify congestion hors pots in
MPLS. In this approach for every node in the network the
Conditional Probability Distribution (CPD) is specified. Based on
the CPD the congestion hot spots are identified. Then the traffic can
be distributed so that no link in the network is either over utilized or
under utilized. Although the Bayesian network approach has been
implemented in operational networks, it has a number of well known
scaling issues.
This paper proposes a new approach, which we call the Pragati
(means Progress) Node Popularity (PNP) approach to identify the
congestion hot spots with the network topology alone. In the new
Pragati Node Popularity approach, IP routing runs natively over the
physical topology rather than depending on the CPD of each node as
in Bayesian network. We first illustrate our approach with a simple
network, then present a formal analysis of the Pragati Node
Popularity approach. Our PNP approach shows that for any given
network of Bayesian approach, it exactly identifies the same result
with minimum efforts. We further extend the result to a more
generic one: for any network topology and even though the network
is loopy. A theoretical insight of our result is that the optimal routing
is always shortest path routing with respect to some considerations of
hot spots in the networks.
Abstract: The effect of thermally induced stress on the modal
properties of highly elliptical core optical fibers is studied in this
work using a finite element method. The stress analysis is carried out
and anisotropic refractive index change is calculated using both the
conventional plane strain approximation and the generalized plane
strain approach. After considering the stress optical effect, the modal
analysis of the fiber is performed to obtain the solutions of
fundamental and higher order modes. The modal effective index,
modal birefringence, group effective index, group birefringence, and
dispersion of different modes of the fiber are presented. For
propagation properties, it can be seen that the results depend much on
the approach of stress analysis.
Abstract: The anomalous generation of plasma blocks by
interaction of petawatt-picosecond laser pulses permits side-on
ignition of uncompressed solid fusion fuel following an improved
application of the hydrodynamic Chu-model for deuterium-tritium.
The new possibility of side-on laser ignition depends on accelerated
ions and produced ions beams of high energy particles by the
nonlinear ponderomotive force of the laser pulse in the plasma block,
a re-evaluation of the early hydrodynamic analysis for ignition of
inertial fusion by including inhibition factor, collective effect of
stopping power of alpha particles and the energy loss rate
reabsorption to plasma by the protons of plasma blocks being
reduced by about a factor 40.
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to compare the original
intra-oral digital dental radiograph images with images that are
enhanced using a combination of image processing algorithms. Intraoral
digital dental radiograph images are often noisy, blur edges and
low in contrast. A combination of sharpening and enhancement
method are used to overcome these problems. Three types of
proposed compound algorithms used are Sharp Adaptive Histogram
Equalization (SAHE), Sharp Median Adaptive Histogram
Equalization (SMAHE) and Sharp Contrast adaptive histogram
equalization (SCLAHE). This paper presents an initial study of the
perception of six dentists on the details of abnormal pathologies and
improvement of image quality in ten intra-oral radiographs. The
research focus on the detection of only three types of pathology
which is periapical radiolucency, widen periodontal ligament space
and loss of lamina dura. The overall result shows that SCLAHE-s
slightly improve the appearance of dental abnormalities- over the
original image and also outperform the other two proposed
compound algorithms.
Abstract: Oral health is particular important to the hospitalized
patients with chronic schizophrenia for an extreme high potential of the respiratory infections. Due to the degeneration of physical capability, patients of this kind typically fall dependent in the activity of daily living (ADL). A very high percentage of patients had dental
problems of which mostly could be easily avoid by easy regular tooth brushing. Purpose of the project is to develop a mechanism in helping the schizophrenia patients in rebuilding a tooth-cleaning habit. The
project observed and evaluated the tooth-cleaning behavior of 100
male patients in a psychiatric hospital, and found the majority of them
ignored such an activity in a three-month period of time. In the meantime, the primary care-givers were not aware or not convinced
the importance of such a need of dental hygiene, and thus few if any
tooth cleaning training or knowledge on dental hygiene were given to
the patients. The project then developed a program based on the numerous observations and discussions. The improvement program
included patients- group education, care-givers- training, and a
tool-kit for tooth-brush holding was erected. The project launched
with some incentive package. The outcomes were encouraging with
87% of the patients had rebuilt their tooth-brushing habits against
previous 22%, and the tooth cleaning kits were 100% kept against 22%
in the past. This project had significantly improved the oral health of
the patients. The project, included the procedure and the tool-kit
holder specific for this purpose, was a good examples for psychiatric
hospitals.
Abstract: Zeolite A and MCM-41 have extensive applications in basic science, petrochemical science, energy conservation/storage, medicine, chemical sensor, air purification, environmentally benign composite structure and waste remediation. However, the use of zeolite A and MCM-41 in these areas, especially environmental remediation, are restricted due to prohibitive production cost. Efficient recycling of and resource recovery from coal fly ash has been a major topic of current international research interest, aimed at achieving sustainable development of human society from the viewpoints of energy, economy, and environmental strategy. This project reported an original, novel, green and fast methods to produce nano-porous zeolite A and MCM-41 materials from coal fly ash. For zeolite A, this novel production method allows a reduction by half of the total production time while maintaining a high degree of crystallinity of zeolite A which exists in a narrower particle size distribution. For MCM-41, this remarkably green approach, being an environmentally friendly process and reducing generation of toxic waste, can produce pure and long-range ordered MCM-41 materials from coal fly ash. This approach took 24 h at 25 oC to produce 9 g of MCM-41 materials from 30 g of the coal fly ash, which is the shortest time and lowest reaction temperature required to produce pure and ordered MCM-41 materials (having the largest internal surface area) compared to the values reported in the literature. Performance evaluation of the produced zeolite A and MCM-41 materials in wastewater treatment and air pollution control were reported. The residual fly ash was also converted to zeolite Na-P1 which showed good performance in removal of multi-metal ions in wastewater. In wastewater treatment, compared to commercial-grade zeolite A, adsorbents produced from coal fly ash were effective in removing multi heavy metal ions in water and could be an alternative material for treatment of wastewater. In methane emission abatement, the zeolite A (produced from coal fly ash) achieved similar methane removal efficiency compared to the zeolite A prepared from pure chemicals. This report provides the guidance for production of zeolite A and MCM-41 from coal fly ash by a cost-effective approach which opens potential applications of these materials in environmental industry. Finally, environmental and economic aspects of production of zeolite A and MCM-41 from coal fly ash were discussed.
Abstract: In this paper, a novel wave equation for electromagnetic
waves in a medium having anisotropic permittivity has been derived
with the help of Maxwell-s curl equations. The x and y components
of the Maxwell-s equations are written with the permittivity () being
a 3 × 3 symmetric matrix. These equations are solved for Ex , Ey,
Hx, Hy in terms of Ez, Hz, and the partial derivatives. The Z
components of the Maxwell-s curl are then used to arrive to the
generalized Helmholtz equations for Ez and Hz.
Abstract: A theoretical study of the rigidities of slabs with
circular voids oriented in the longitudinal and in the transverse
direction is discussed. Equations are presented for predicting the
bending and torsional rigidities of the voided slabs. This paper
summarizes the results of an extensive literature search and initial
review of the current methods of analyzing voided slab. The various
methods of calculating the equivalent plate parameters, which are
necessary for two-dimensional analysis, are also reviewed. Static
deflections on voided slabs are shown to be in good agreement with
proposed equation.
Abstract: Currently WWW is the first solution for scholars in
finding information. But, analyzing and interpreting this volume of
information will lead to researchers overload in pursuing their
research.
Trend detection in scientific publication retrieval systems helps
scholars to find relevant, new and popular special areas by
visualizing the trend of input topic.
However, there are few researches on trend detection in scientific
corpora while their proposed models do not appear to be suitable.
Previous works lack of an appropriate representation scheme for
research topics.
This paper describes a method that combines Semantic Web and
ontology to support advance search functions such as trend detection
in the context of scholarly Semantic Web system (SSWeb).
Abstract: The realization of current-mode quadrature oscillators
using current controlled current conveyor transconductance
amplifiers (CCCCTAs) and grounded capacitors is presented. The
proposed oscillators can provide 2 sinusoidal output currents with 90º
phase difference. It is enabled non-interactive dual-current control for
both the condition of oscillation and the frequency of oscillation.
High output impedances of the configurations enable the circuit to be
cascaded without additional current buffers. The use of only
grounded capacitors is ideal for integration. The circuit performances
are depicted through PSpice simulations, they show good agreement
to theoretical anticipation.