Abstract: In order to improve the simulation effects of space cold
black environment, this paper described a rectangular channel plate
heat sink. By using fluid mechanics theory and finite element method,
the internal fluid flow and heat transfer in heat sink was numerically
simulated to analyze the impact of channel structural on fluid flow and
heat transfer. The result showed that heat sink temperature uniformity
is well, and the impact of channel structural on the heat sink
temperature uniformity is not significant. The channel depth and
spacing are important factors which affect the fluid flow and heat
transfer in the heat sink. The two factors of heat transfer and resistance
need to be considered comprehensively to determine the optimal flow
structure parameters.
Abstract: In this paper we introduce an efficient solution
method for the Eigen-decomposition of bisymmetric and per
symmetric matrices of symmetric structures. Here we decompose
adjacency and Laplacian matrices of symmetric structures to submatrices
with low dimension for fast and easy calculation of
eigenvalues and eigenvectors. Examples are included to show the
efficiency of the method.
Abstract: Mammography is the most effective procedure for an
early diagnosis of the breast cancer. Nowadays, people are trying to
find a way or method to support as much as possible to the
radiologists in diagnosis process. The most popular way is now being
developed is using Computer-Aided Detection (CAD) system to
process the digital mammograms and prompt the suspicious region to
radiologist. In this paper, an automated CAD system for detection
and classification of massive lesions in mammographic images is
presented. The system consists of three processing steps: Regions-Of-
Interest detection, feature extraction and classification. Our CAD
system was evaluated on Mini-MIAS database consisting 322
digitalized mammograms. The CAD system-s performance is
evaluated using Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) and Freeresponse
ROC (FROC) curves. The archived results are 3.47 false
positives per image (FPpI) and sensitivity of 85%.
Abstract: The purpose of this research is the analysis of the
impact of ICT-related training in the adoption of a learning
management systems (LMS) for teaching practicesby faculties in a
higher education institution. Based on comparative analyses the
impact will be obtained by the number of LMS courses created and
managed by participants in ICT for teaching workshops and those
who have not attended to any workshops. Involving near 1320 LMS
courses and 265 faculties, the results evidence that(i) faculties who
have not attend any workshop present a larger distribution of empty
courses and (ii) faculties who have attended three or more workshops
managed a higher distribution of courses with a considerable level of
use intensity, when compared to the others groups. These findings
supportthe idea that faculty training is a crucial factor in the process
of LMS integration in higher education institutions and that faculties
who have been enrolled in three or more workshops develop a higher
level of technical and pedagogical proficiency in LMS.
Abstract: As privacy becomes a major concern for consumers
and enterprises, many research have been focused on the privacy
protecting technology in recent years. In this paper, we present a
comprehensive approach for usage access control based on the notion
purpose. In our model, purpose information associated with a given
data element specifies the intended use of the subjects and objects in
the usage access control model. A key feature of our model is that it
allows when an access is required, the access purpose is checked
against the intended purposes for the data item. We propose an
approach to represent purpose information to support access control
based on purpose information. Our proposed solution relies on usage
access control (UAC) models as well as the components which based
on the notions of the purpose information used in subjects and
objects. Finally, comparisons with related works are analyzed.
Abstract: Lake Nasser is one of the largest reservoirs in the
world. Over 120 million metric tons of sediments are deposited in its
dead storage zone every year. The main objective of the present work
was to determine the physical and chemical characteristics of Lake
Nasser sediments. The sample had a relatively low surface area of 2.9
m2/g which increased more than 3-fold upon chemical activation. The
main chemical elements of the raw sediments were C, O and Si with
some traces of Al, Fe and Ca. The organic functional groups for the
tested sample included O-H, C=C, C-H and C-O, with indications of
Si-O and other metal-C and/or metal-O bonds normally associated
with clayey materials. Potentiometric titration of the sample in
different ionic strength backgrounds revealed an alkaline material with
very strong positive surface charge at pH values just a little less than
the pH of zero charge which is ~9. Surface interactions of the
sediments with the background electrolyte were significant. An
advanced surface complexation model was able to capture these
effects, employing a single-site approach to represent protolysis
reactions in aqueous solution, and to determine the significant surface
species in the pH range of environmental interest.
Abstract: For relatively small particles of aluminum (5%) is observed to
corrode before passivation occurs at moderate temperatures (>50oC)
in de-ionized water within one hour. Physical contact with alumina
powder results in a significant increase in both the rate of corrosion
and the extent of corrosion before passivation. Whereas the resulting
release of hydrogen gas could be of commercial interest for portable
hydrogen supply systems, the fundamental aspects of Al corrosion
acceleration in presence of dispersed alumina particles are equally
important. This paper investigates the effects of various amounts of
alumina on the corrosion rate of aluminum powders in water and the
effect of multiple additions of aluminum into a single reactor.
Abstract: Employee-s task performance has been recognized as a
core contributor to overall organizational effectiveness. Hence,
verifying the determinants of task performance is one of the most
important research issues. This study tests the influence of perceived
organizational support, abusive supervision, and exchange ideology
on employee-s task performance. We examined our hypotheses by
collecting self-reported data from 413 Korean employees in different
organizations. Our all hypotheses gained support from the results.
Implications for research and directions for future research are
discussed.
Abstract: Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most prevalent and far common debilitating form of arthritis which can be defined as a degenerative condition affecting synovial joint. Patients suffering from osteoarthritis often complain of dull ache pain on movement.
Physical agents can fight the painful process when correctly indicated and used such as heat or cold therapy Aim. This study was carried out to: Compare the effect of cold, warm and contrast therapy on controlling knee osteoarthritis associated problems. Setting: The study was carried out in orthopedic outpatient clinics of Menoufia University and teaching Hospitals, Egypt. Sample: A convenient sample of 60 adult patients with unilateral knee osteoarthritis. Tools: three tools were utilized to collect the data. Tool I : An interviewing questionnaire. It comprised of three parts covering sociodemographic data, medical data and adverse effects of the treatment protocol. Tool II : Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) It consists of five main parts. Tool II1 : 0-10 Numeric pain rating scale. Results: reveled that the total knee symptoms score was decreased from moderate symptoms pre intervention to mild symptoms after warm and contrast method of therapy, but the contrast therapy had significant effect in reducing the knee symptoms and pain than the other symptoms. Conclusions: all of the three
methods of therapy resulted in improvement in all knee symptoms and pain but the most appropriate protocol of treatment to relive symptoms and pain was contrast therapy.
Abstract: The solitary wave solution of the quadratic nonlinear Schrdinger equation is determined by the iterative method called Petviashvili method. This solution is also used for the initial condition for the time evolution to study the stability analysis. The spectral method is applied for the time evolution.
Abstract: Economic dispatch problem is an optimization problem where objective function is highly non linear, non-convex, non-differentiable and may have multiple local minima. Therefore, classical optimization methods may not converge or get trapped to any local minima. This paper presents a comparative study of four different evolutionary algorithms i.e. genetic algorithm, bacteria foraging optimization, ant colony optimization and particle swarm optimization for solving the economic dispatch problem. All the methods are tested on IEEE 30 bus test system. Simulation results are presented to show the comparative performance of these methods.
Abstract: In this paper, a new algorithm for generating codebook is proposed for vector quantization (VQ) in image coding. The significant features of the training image vectors are extracted by using the proposed Orthogonal Polynomials based transformation. We propose to generate the codebook by partitioning these feature vectors into a binary tree. Each feature vector at a non-terminal node of the binary tree is directed to one of the two descendants by comparing a single feature associated with that node to a threshold. The binary tree codebook is used for encoding and decoding the feature vectors. In the decoding process the feature vectors are subjected to inverse transformation with the help of basis functions of the proposed Orthogonal Polynomials based transformation to get back the approximated input image training vectors. The results of the proposed coding are compared with the VQ using Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) and Pairwise Nearest Neighbor (PNN) algorithm. The new algorithm results in a considerable reduction in computation time and provides better reconstructed picture quality.
Abstract: Optimization plays an important role in most real
world applications that support decision makers to take the right
decision regarding the strategic directions and operations of the
system they manage. Solutions for traffic management and traffic
congestion problems are considered major problems that most
decision making authorities for cities around the world are looking
for. This review paper gives a full description of the traffic problem
as part of the transportation planning process and present a view as a
framework of urban transportation system analysis where the core of
the system is a transportation network equilibrium model that is
based on optimization techniques and that can also be used for
evaluating an alternative solution or a combination of alternative
solutions for the traffic congestion. Different transportation network
equilibrium models are reviewed from the sequential approach to the
multiclass combining trip generation, trip distribution, modal split,
trip assignment and departure time model. A GIS-Based intelligent
decision support system framework for urban transportation system
analysis is suggested for implementation where the selection of
optimized alternative solutions, single or packages, will be based on
an intelligent agent rather than human being which would lead to
reduction in time, cost and the elimination of the difficulty, by
human being, for finding the best solution to the traffic congestion
problem.
Abstract: We show that Chebyshev Polynomials are a practical representation of computable functions on the computable reals. The paper presents error estimates for common operations and demonstrates that Chebyshev Polynomial methods would be more efficient than Taylor Series methods for evaluation of transcendental functions.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to determine the supersonic
nozzle profiles used in propulsion, for the launchers or embarked
with the satellites. This design has as a role firstly, to give a
important propulsion, i.e. with uniform and parallel flow at exit,
secondly to find a short length profiles without modification of the
flow in the nozzle. The first elaborate program is used to determine
the profile of divergent by using the characteristics method for an
axisymmetric flow. The second program is conceived by using the
finite volume method to determine and test the profile found
connected to a convergent.
Abstract: Three-dimensional reconstruction of small objects has
been one of the most challenging problems over the last decade.
Computer graphics researchers and photography professionals have
been working on improving 3D reconstruction algorithms to fit the
high demands of various real life applications. Medical sciences,
animation industry, virtual reality, pattern recognition, tourism
industry, and reverse engineering are common fields where 3D
reconstruction of objects plays a vital role. Both lack of accuracy and
high computational cost are the major challenges facing successful
3D reconstruction. Fringe projection has emerged as a promising 3D
reconstruction direction that combines low computational cost to both
high precision and high resolution. It employs digital projection,
structured light systems and phase analysis on fringed pictures.
Research studies have shown that the system has acceptable
performance, and moreover it is insensitive to ambient light.
This paper presents an overview of fringe projection approaches. It
also presents an experimental study and implementation of a simple
fringe projection system. We tested our system using two objects
with different materials and levels of details. Experimental results
have shown that, while our system is simple, it produces acceptable
results.
Abstract: Sustainable development is highly dependent on the
implementation of environmental education programs, which has as
its ultimate goal to produce environmentally literate citizens that
undertake environmentally friendly actions. Efforts on environmental
education along past years are now perceived on the increase of
citizens awareness on European countries and, particularly, in
Portugal. However, we still have a lack of information on the
prevalence of specific behaviors that contributes to sustainability,
influenced by a new attitude toward the environment. The
determination of pro-environmental behaviors prevalence in higher
education students is an important approach to understand to which
extend the next leading generation is, in practice, committed with the
goals of sustainable development. Therefore, present study evaluates
the prevalence of a specific set of behaviors (water savings, energy
savings, environmental criteria on shopping, and mobility) on the
University of Madeira students and discusses their commitment with
sustainable development.
Abstract: Face detection and recognition has many applications
in a variety of fields such as security system, videoconferencing and
identification. Face classification is currently implemented in
software. A hardware implementation allows real-time processing,
but has higher cost and time to-market.
The objective of this work is to implement a classifier based on
neural networks MLP (Multi-layer Perceptron) for face detection.
The MLP is used to classify face and non-face patterns. The systm is
described using C language on a P4 (2.4 Ghz) to extract weight
values. Then a Hardware implementation is achieved using VHDL
based Methodology. We target Xilinx FPGA as the implementation
support.
Abstract: Biological, psychological and social experiences and
perceptions of healthcare services in patients medically diagnosed of
coronary heart disease were investigated using a sample of 10
participants whose responses to the in-depth interview questions
were analyzed based on inter-and-intra-case analyses. The results
obtained revealed that advancing age, single status, divorce and/or
death of spouse and the issue of single parenting negatively impacted
patients- biopsychosocial experiences. The patients- experiences of
physical signs and symptoms, anxiety and depression, past serious
medical conditions, use of self-prescribed medications, family
history of poor mental/medical or physical health, nutritional
problems and insufficient physical activities heightened their risk of
coronary attack. Collectivist culture served as a big source of relieve
to the patients. Patients- temperament, experience of different
chronic life stresses/challenges, mood alteration, regular drinking,
smoking/gambling, and family/social impairments compounded their
health situation. Patients were satisfied with the biomedical services
rendered by the healthcare personnel, whereas their psychological
and social needs were not attended to. Effective procedural treatment
model, a holistic and multidimensional approach to the treatment of
heart disease patients was proposed.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to develop and compare alternative prediction equations of lean meat proportion (LMP) of lamb carcasses. Forty (40) male lambs, 22 of Churra Galega Bragançana Portuguese local breed and 18 of Suffolk breed were used. Lambs were slaughtered, and carcasses weighed approximately 30 min later in order to obtain hot carcass weight (HCW). After cooling at 4º C for 24-h a set of seventeen carcass measurements was recorded. The left side of carcasses was dissected into muscle, subcutaneous fat, inter-muscular fat, bone, and remainder (major blood vessels, ligaments, tendons, and thick connective tissue sheets associated with muscles), and the LMP was evaluated as the dissected muscle percentage. Prediction equations of LMP were developed, and fitting quality was evaluated through the coefficient of determination of estimation (R2 e) and standard error of estimate (SEE). Models validation was performed by k-fold crossvalidation and the coefficient of determination of prediction (R2 p) and standard error of prediction (SEP) were computed. The BT2 measurement was the best single predictor and accounted for 37.8% of the LMP variation with a SEP of 2.30%. The prediction of LMP of lamb carcasses can be based simple models, using as predictors the HCW and one fat thickness measurement.