Abstract: This paper investigated the impact of ceiling height and window head heights variation on daylighting inside architectural teaching studio with a full width window. In architectural education, using the studio is more than normal classroom in most credit hours. Therefore, window position, size and dimension of studio have direct influence on level of daylighting. Daylighting design is a critical factor that improves student learning, concentration and behavior, in addition to these, it also reduces energy consumption. The methodology of analysis involves using Radiance in IES software under overcast and cloudy sky in Malaysia. It has been established that presentation of daylighting of architecture studio can be enhanced by changing the ceiling heights and window level, because, different ceiling heights and window head heights can contribute to different range of daylight levels.
Abstract: Lately, an interest has grown greatly in the usages of
RFID in an un-presidential applications. It is shown in the adaptation
of major software companies such as Microsoft, IBM, and Oracle
the RFID capabilities in their major software products. For example
Microsoft SharePoints 2010 workflow is now fully compatible with
RFID platform. In addition, Microsoft BizTalk server is also capable
of all RFID sensors data acquisition. This will lead to applications
that required high bit rate, long range and a multimedia content in
nature. Higher frequencies of operation have been designated for
RFID tags, among them are the 2.45 and 5.8 GHz. The higher the
frequency means higher range, and higher bit rate, but the drawback
is the greater cost. In this paper we present a single layer, low
profile patch antenna operates at 5.8 GHz with pure resistive input
impedance of 50 and close to directive radiation. Also, we propose
a modification to the design in order to improve the operation band
width from 8.7 to 13.8
Abstract: In modern agriculture, polymeric hydrogels are
known as a component able to hold an amount of water due to their
3-dimensional network structure and their tendency to absorb water
in humid environments. In addition, these hydrogels are able to
controllably release the fertilisers and pesticides loaded in them.
Therefore, they deliver these materials to the plants' roots and help
them with growing. These hydrogels also reduce the pollution of
underground water sources by preventing the active components
from leaching. In this study, sIPN acrylamide based hydrogels are
synthesised by using acrylamide free radical, potassium acrylate, and
linear polyvinyl alcohol. Ammonium nitrate is loaded in the hydrogel
as the fertiliser. The effect of various amounts of monomers and
linear polymer, measured in molar ratio, on the swelling rate,
equilibrium swelling, and release of ammonium nitrate is studied.
Abstract: A techno-economic evaluation for efficient use of
energy in a large scale industrial plant of methanol is carried out.
This assessment is based on integration of a gas turbine with an
existing plant of methanol in which the outlet gas products of
exothermic reactor is expanded to power generation. Also, it is
decided that methanol production rate is constant through addition of
power generation system to the existing methanol plant. Having
incorporated a gas turbine with the existing plant, the economic
results showed total investment of MUSD 16.9, energy saving of 3.6
MUSD/yr with payback period of approximately 4.7 years.
Abstract: Nanoemulsions are a class of emulsions with a droplet
size in the range of 50–500 nm and have attracted a great deal of
attention in recent years because it is unique characteristics. The
physicochemical properties of nanoemulsion suggests that it can be
successfully used to recover the residual oil which is trapped in the
fine pore of reservoir rock by capillary forces after primary and
secondary recovery. Oil-in-water nanoemulsion which can be formed
by high-energy emulsification techniques using specific surfactants
can reduce oil-water interfacial tension (IFT) by 3-4 orders of
magnitude. The present work is aimed on characterization of oil-inwater
nanoemulsion in terms of its phase behavior, morphological
studies; interfacial energy; ability to reduce the interfacial tension and
understanding the mechanisms of mobilization and displacement of
entrapped oil blobs by lowering interfacial tension both at the
macroscopic and microscopic level. In order to investigate the
efficiency of oil-water nanoemulsion in enhanced oil recovery
(EOR), experiments were performed to characterize the emulsion in
terms of their physicochemical properties and size distribution of the
dispersed oil droplet in water phase. Synthetic mineral oil and a series
of surfactants were used to prepare oil-in-water emulsions.
Characterization of emulsion shows that it follows pseudo-plastic
behaviour and drop size of dispersed oil phase follows lognormal
distribution. Flooding experiments were also carried out in a
sandpack system to evaluate the effectiveness of the nanoemulsion as
displacing fluid for enhanced oil recovery. Substantial additional
recoveries (more than 25% of original oil in place) over conventional
water flooding were obtained in the present investigation.
Abstract: In this paper, an algorithm for detecting and attenuating
puff noises frequently generated under the mobile environment is
proposed. As a baseline system, puff detection system is designed
based on Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM), and 39th Mel Frequency
Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) is extracted as feature parameters. To
improve the detection performance, effective acoustic features for puff
detection are proposed. In addition, detected puff intervals are
attenuated by high-pass filtering. The speech recognition rate was
measured for evaluation and confusion matrix and ROC curve are used
to confirm the validity of the proposed system.
Abstract: This paper explores the plant maintenance management system that has been used by giant oil and gas company in Malaysia. The system also called as PMMS used to manage the upstream operations for more than 100 plants of the case study company. Moreover, from the observations, focus group discussion with PMMS personnel and application through simulation (SAP R/3), the paper reviews the step-by-step approach and the elements that required for the PMMS. The findings show that the PMMS integrates the overall business strategy in upstream operations that consist of asset management, work management and performance management. In addition, PMMS roles are to help operations personnel organize and plan their daily activities, to improve productivity and reduce equipment downtime and to help operations management analyze the facilities and create performance, and to provide and maintain the operational effectiveness of the facilities.
Abstract: In this paper, two centrifugal model tests (case 1: raft
foundation, case 2: 2x2 piled raft foundation) were conducted in
order to evaluate the effect of ground subsidence on load sharing
among piles and raft and settlement of raft and piled raft
foundations. For each case, two conditions consisting of undrained
(without groundwater pumping) and drained (with groundwater
pumping) conditions were considered. Vertical loads were applied
to the models after the foundations were completely consolidated by
selfweight at 50g. The results show that load sharing by the piles in
piled raft foundation (piled load share) for drained condition
decreases faster than that for undrained condition. Settlement of
both raft and piled raft foundations for drained condition increases
more quickly than that for undrained condition. In addition, the
settlement of raft foundation increases more largely than the
settlement of piled raft foundation for drained condition.
Abstract: Pattern matching based on regular tree grammars have been widely used in many areas of computer science. In this paper, we propose a pattern matcher within the framework of code generation, based on a generic and a formalized approach. According to this approach, parsers for regular tree grammars are adapted to a general pattern matching solution, rather than adapting the pattern matching according to their parsing behavior. Hence, we first formalize the construction of the pattern matches respective to input trees drawn from a regular tree grammar in a form of the so-called match trees. Then, we adopt a recently developed generic parser and tightly couple its parsing behavior with such construction. In addition to its generality, the resulting pattern matcher is characterized by its soundness and efficient implementation. This is demonstrated by the proposed theory and by the derived algorithms for its implementation. A comparison with similar and well-known approaches, such as the ones based on tree automata and LR parsers, has shown that our pattern matcher can be applied to a broader class of grammars, and achieves better approximation of pattern matches in one pass. Furthermore, its use as a machine code selector is characterized by a minimized overhead, due to the balanced distribution of the cost computations into static ones, during parser generation time, and into dynamic ones, during parsing time.
Abstract: The problem of wastewater treatment in Egypt is a two-fold problem; the first part concerning the existing rural areas, the second one dealing with new industrial/domestic areas. In Egypt several agricultural projects have been initiated by the government and the private sector as well, in order to change its infrastructure. As a reliable energy source, photovoltaic pumping systems have contributed to supply water for local rural communities worldwide; they can also be implemented to solve the problem “wastewater environment pollution". The solution of this problem can be categorised as recycle process. In addition, because of regional conditions past technologies are being reexamined to select a smallscale treatment system requiring low construction and maintenance costs. This paper gives the design guidelines of a Photovoltaic Small- Scale Wastewater Treatment Plant (PVSSWTP) based on technologies that can be transferred.
Abstract: This work involved the use of phytoremediation to
remediate an aged soil contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls
(PCBs). At microcosm scale, tests were prepared using soil samples
that have been collected in an industrial area with a total PCBs
concentration of about 250 μg kg-1. Medicago sativa and Lolium
italicum were the species selected in this study that is used as
“feasibility test" for full scale remediation. The experiment was
carried out with the addition of a mixture of randomly methylatedbeta-
cyclodextrins (RAMEB). At the end of the experiment analysis
of soil samples showed that in general the presence of plants has led
to a higher degradation of most congeners with respect to not
vegetated soil. The two plant species efficiencies were comparable
and improved by RAMEB addition with a final reduction of total
PCBs near to 50%. With increasing the chlorination of the congeners
the removal percentage of PCBs progressively decreased.
Abstract: Task of object localization is one of the major
challenges in creating intelligent transportation. Unfortunately, in
densely built-up urban areas, localization based on GPS only
produces a large error, or simply becomes impossible. New
opportunities arise for the localization due to the rapidly emerging
concept of a wireless ad-hoc network. Such network, allows
estimating potential distance between these objects measuring
received signal level and construct a graph of distances in which
nodes are the localization objects, and edges - estimates of the
distances between pairs of nodes. Due to the known coordinates of
individual nodes (anchors), it is possible to determine the location of
all (or part) of the remaining nodes of the graph. Moreover, road
map, available in digital format can provide localization routines
with valuable additional information to narrow node location search.
However, despite abundance of well-known algorithms for solving
the problem of localization and significant research efforts, there are
still many issues that currently are addressed only partially. In this
paper, we propose localization approach based on the graph mapped
distances on the digital road map data basis. In fact, problem is
reduced to distance graph embedding into the graph representing area
geo location data. It makes possible to localize objects, in some cases
even if only one reference point is available. We propose simple
embedding algorithm and sample implementation as spatial queries
over sensor network data stored in spatial database, allowing
employing effectively spatial indexing, optimized spatial search
routines and geometry functions.
Abstract: In most rule-induction algorithms, the only operator used against nominal attributes is the equality operator =. In this paper, we first propose the use of the inequality operator, ≠, in addition to the equality operator, to increase the expressiveness of induced rules. Then, we present a new method, Binary Coding, which can be used along with an arbitrary rule-induction algorithm to make use of the inequality operator without any need to change the algorithm. Experimental results suggest that the Binary Coding method is promising enough for further investigation, especially in cases where the minimum number of rules is desirable.
Abstract: Keystroke authentication is a new access control system
to identify legitimate users via their typing behavior. In this paper,
machine learning techniques are adapted for keystroke authentication.
Seven learning methods are used to build models to differentiate user
keystroke patterns. The selected classification methods are Decision
Tree, Naive Bayesian, Instance Based Learning, Decision Table, One
Rule, Random Tree and K-star. Among these methods, three of them
are studied in more details. The results show that machine learning
is a feasible alternative for keystroke authentication. Compared to
the conventional Nearest Neighbour method in the recent research,
learning methods especially Decision Tree can be more accurate. In
addition, the experiment results reveal that 3-Grams is more accurate
than 2-Grams and 4-Grams for feature extraction. Also, combination
of attributes tend to result higher accuracy.
Abstract: Study investigates the level and extent of voluntary disclosure practice in Croatia. The research was conducted on the sample of 130 medium and large companies. Findings indicate that two thirds of the companies analyzed disclose below-average number of additional information. The explanatory analyses has shown that firm size, listing status and industrial sector significantly and positively affect the level and extent of voluntary disclosure in the annual report of Croatian companies. On the other hand, profitability and ownership structure were found statistically insignificant. Unlike previous studies, this paper deals with level of voluntary disclosure of medium and large companies, as well as companies whose shares are not listed on the organized capital market, which can be found as our contribution. Also, the research makes contribution by providing the insights into voluntary disclosure practices in Croatia, as a case of macro-oriented accounting system economy, i.e. bank oriented economy with an emerging capital market.
Abstract: Sequential pattern mining is a challenging task in data mining area with large applications. One among those applications is mining patterns from weblog. Recent times, weblog is highly dynamic and some of them may become absolute over time. In addition, users may frequently change the threshold value during the data mining process until acquiring required output or mining interesting rules. Some of the recently proposed algorithms for mining weblog, build the tree with two scans and always consume large time and space. In this paper, we build Revised PLWAP with Non-frequent Items (RePLNI-tree) with single scan for all items. While mining sequential patterns, the links related to the nonfrequent items are not considered. Hence, it is not required to delete or maintain the information of nodes while revising the tree for mining updated transactions. The algorithm supports both incremental and interactive mining. It is not required to re-compute the patterns each time, while weblog is updated or minimum support changed. The performance of the proposed tree is better, even the size of incremental database is more than 50% of existing one. For evaluation purpose, we have used the benchmark weblog dataset and found that the performance of proposed tree is encouraging compared to some of the recently proposed approaches.
Abstract: In this paper we present, propose and examine
additional membership functions for the Smoothing Transition
Autoregressive (STAR) models. More specifically, we present the
tangent hyperbolic, Gaussian and Generalized bell functions.
Because Smoothing Transition Autoregressive (STAR) models
follow fuzzy logic approach, more fuzzy membership functions
should be tested. Furthermore, fuzzy rules can be incorporated or
other training or computational methods can be applied as the error
backpropagation or genetic algorithm instead to nonlinear squares.
We examine two macroeconomic variables of US economy, the
inflation rate and the 6-monthly treasury bills interest rates.
Abstract: Recent developments in information and
communication technologies (ICT) have created excellent conditions
for profoundly enhancing the traditional learning and teaching
practices. New modes of teaching in higher education subjects can
profoundly enhance ones ability to proactively constructing his or her
personal learning universe. These developments have contributed to
digital learning environments becoming widely available and
accessible. In addition, there is a trend towards enlargement and
specialization in higher education in Europe. With as a result that
existing Master of Science (MSc) programmes are merged or new
programmes have been established that are offered as joint MSc
programmes to students. In these joint MSc programmes, the need for
(common) digital learning environments capable of surmounting the
barriers of time and location has become evident. This paper
discusses the past and ongoing efforts to establish such common
digital learning environments in two joint MSc programmes in
Europe and discusses the way technology-based learning
environments affect the traditional way of learning.
Abstract: In diversity rich environments, such as in Ultra-
Wideband (UWB) applications, the a priori determination of the
number of strong diversity branches is difficult, because of the considerably large number of diversity paths, which are characterized
by a variety of power delay profiles (PDPs). Several
Rake implementations have been proposed in the past, in order to reduce the number of the estimated and combined paths. To this
aim, we introduce two adaptive Rake receivers, which combine
a subset of the resolvable paths considering simultaneously the
quality of both the total combining output signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and the individual SNR of each path. These schemes achieve
better adaptation to channel conditions compared to other known receivers, without further increasing the complexity. Their performance
is evaluated in different practical UWB channels, whose models are based on extensive propagation measurements. The
proposed receivers compromise between the power consumption,
complexity and performance gain for the additional paths, resulting in important savings in power and computational resources.
Abstract: In this work, we propose a hybrid heuristic in order to
solve the Team Orienteering Problem (TOP). Given a set of points (or
customers), each with associated score (profit or benefit), and a team
that has a fixed number of members, the problem to solve is to visit a
subset of points in order to maximize the total collected score. Each
member performs a tour starting at the start point, visiting distinct
customers and the tour terminates at the arrival point. In addition,
each point is visited at most once, and the total time in each tour
cannot be greater than a given value. The proposed heuristic combines
beam search and a local optimization strategy. The algorithm was
tested on several sets of instances and encouraging results were
obtained.