Abstract: Response surface methodology (RSM) is a very
efficient tool to provide a good practical insight into developing new
process and optimizing them. This methodology could help
engineers to raise a mathematical model to represent the behavior of
system as a convincing function of process parameters.
Through this paper the sequential nature of the RSM surveyed for process
engineers and its relationship to design of experiments (DOE), regression
analysis and robust design reviewed. The proposed four-step procedure in
two different phases could help system analyst to resolve the parameter
design problem involving responses. In order to check accuracy of the
designed model, residual analysis and prediction error sum of squares
(PRESS) described.
It is believed that the proposed procedure in this study can resolve a
complex parameter design problem with one or more responses. It can be
applied to those areas where there are large data sets and a number of
responses are to be optimized simultaneously. In addition, the proposed
procedure is relatively simple and can be implemented easily by using
ready-made standard statistical packages.
Abstract: This study examines the relationships between foreign
aid, levels of schooling and democracy for Pakistan using the ARDL
cointegration approach. The results of study provide strong evidence
for fairly robust long run as well as short run relationships among
these variables for the period 1973-2008. The results state that
foreign aid and primary school enrollments have negative impact on
democracy index and high school enrollments have positive impact
on democracy index in Pakistan. The study suggests for promotion of
education levels and relies on local resources instead of foreign aid
for a good quality of political institutions in Pakistan.
Abstract: In this paper, the concepts of dichotomous logistic
regression (DLR) with leave-one-out (L-O-O) were discussed. To
illustrate this, the L-O-O was run to determine the importance of the
simulation conditions for robust test of spread procedures with good
Type I error rates. The resultant model was then evaluated. The
discussions included 1) assessment of the accuracy of the model, and
2) parameter estimates. These were presented and illustrated by
modeling the relationship between the dichotomous dependent
variable (Type I error rates) with a set of independent variables (the
simulation conditions). The base SAS software containing PROC
LOGISTIC and DATA step functions can be making used to do the
DLR analysis.
Abstract: Higher education institutions are increasingly opting to outsourcing methods in order to sustain themselves and this creates a gap of literature in terms of how they perceive the relationship. This research paper attempts to identify the behavioral and psychological factors that exist in the engagement thus providing valuable information to practicing and potential clients, and vendors. The determinants were gathered from previous literatures and analyzed to formulate the factors. This study adopts the case study and survey approaches in which interviews and questionnaires are deployed on employees of IT-related department in a Malaysian higher education institution.
Abstract: Mobile Ad hoc networks (MANETs) are collections
of wireless mobile nodes dynamically reconfiguring and collectively
forming a temporary network. These types of networks assume
existence of no fixed infrastructure and are often useful in battle-field
tactical operations or emergency search-and-rescue type of
operations where fixed infrastructure is neither feasible nor practical.
They also find use in ad hoc conferences, campus networks and
commercial recreational applications carrying multimedia traffic. All
of the above applications of MANETs require guaranteed levels of
performance as experienced by the end-user. This paper focuses on
key challenges in provisioning predetermined levels of such Quality
of Service (QoS). It also identifies functional areas where QoS
models are currently defined and used. Evolving functional areas
where performance and QoS provisioning may be applied are also
identified and some suggestions are provided for further research in
this area. Although each of the above functional areas have been
discussed separately in recent research studies, since these QoS
functional areas are highly correlated and interdependent, a
comprehensive and comparative analysis of these areas and their
interrelationships is desired. In this paper we have attempted to
provide such an overview.
Abstract: Mammals are known to use Interaural Intensity Difference (IID) to determine azimuthal position of high frequency sounds. In the Lateral Superior Olive (LSO) neurons have firing behaviours which vary systematicaly with IID. Those neurons receive excitatory inputs from the ipsilateral ear and inhibitory inputs from the contralateral one. The IID sensitivity of a LSO neuron is thought to be due to delay differences between both ears, delays due to different synaptic delays and to intensity-dependent delays. In this paper we model the auditory pathway until the LSO. Inputs to LSO neurons are at first numerous and differ in their relative delays. Spike Timing-Dependent Plasticity is then used to prune those connections. We compare the pruned neuron responses with physiological data and analyse the relationship between IID-s of teacher stimuli and IID sensitivities of trained LSO neurons.
Abstract: Fatigue is the major threat in service of steel structure
subjected to fluctuating loads. With the additional effect of corrosion
and presence of weld joints the fatigue failure may become more
critical in structural steel. One of the apt examples of such structural
is the sailing ship. This is experiencing a constant stress due to
floating and a pulsating bending load due to the waves. This paper
describes an attempt to verify theory of fatigue in fracture mechanics
approach with experimentation to determine the constants of crack
growth curve. For this, specimen is prepared from the ship building
steel and it is subjected to a pulsating bending load with a known
defect. Fatigue crack and its nature is observed in this experiment.
Application of fracture mechanics approach in fatigue with a simple
practical experiment is conducted and constants of crack growth
equation are investigated.
Abstract: One of the main consequences of the ubiquitous usage of Internet as a means to conduct business has been the progressive internationalization of contracts created to support such transactions. As electronic commerce becomes International commerce, the reality is that commercial disputes will occur creating such questions as: "In which country do I bring proceedings?" and "Which law is to be applied to solve disputes?" The decentralized and global structure of the Internet and its decentralized operation have given e-commerce a transnational element that affects two questions essential to any transaction: applicable law and jurisdiction in the event of dispute. The sharing of applicable law and jurisdiction among States in respect of international transactions traditionally has been based on the use of contact factors generally of a territorial nature (the place where real estate is located, customary residence, principal establishment, place of shipping goods). The characteristics of the Internet as a new space sometimes make it difficult to apply these rules, and may make them inoperative or lead to results that are surprising or totally foreign to the contracting parties and other elements and circumstances of the case.
Abstract: The right information at the right time influences the
enterprise and technical success. Sharing knowledge among members
of a big organization may be a complex activity. And as long as the
knowledge is not shared, can not be exploited by the organization.
There are some mechanisms which can originate knowledge sharing.
It is intended, in this paper, to trigger these mechanisms by using
semantic nets. Moreover, the intersection and overlapping of terms
and sub-terms, as well as their relationships will be described through
the mereology science for the whole knowledge sharing system. It is
proposed a knowledge system to supply to operators with the right
information about a specific process and possible risks, e.g. at the
assembly process, at the right time in an automated manufacturing
environment, such as at the automotive industry.
Abstract: The Economic factors are leading to the rise of
infrastructures provides software and computing facilities as a
service, known as cloud services or cloud computing. Cloud services
can provide efficiencies for application providers, both by limiting
up-front capital expenses, and by reducing the cost of ownership over
time. Such services are made available in a data center, using shared
commodity hardware for computation and storage. There is a varied
set of cloud services available today, including application services
(salesforce.com), storage services (Amazon S3), compute services
(Google App Engine, Amazon EC2) and data services (Amazon
SimpleDB, Microsoft SQL Server Data Services, Google-s Data
store). These services represent a variety of reformations of data
management architectures, and more are on the horizon.
Abstract: In the era of great competition, understanding and satisfying
customers- requirements are the critical tasks for a company
to make a profits. Customer relationship management (CRM) thus
becomes an important business issue at present. With the help of
the data mining techniques, the manager can explore and analyze
from a large quantity of data to discover meaningful patterns and
rules. Among all methods, well-known association rule is most
commonly seen. This paper is based on Apriori algorithm and uses
genetic algorithms combining a data mining method to discover fuzzy
classification rules. The mined results can be applied in CRM to
help decision marker make correct business decisions for marketing
strategies.
Abstract: The rapid growth of e-Commerce services is
significantly observed in the past decade. However, the method to
verify the authenticated users still widely depends on numeric
approaches. A new search on other verification methods suitable for
online e-Commerce is an interesting issue. In this paper, a new online
signature-verification method using angular transformation is
presented. Delay shifts existing in online signatures are estimated by
the estimation method relying on angle representation. In the
proposed signature-verification algorithm, all components of input
signature are extracted by considering the discontinuous break points
on the stream of angular values. Then the estimated delay shift is
captured by comparing with the selected reference signature and the
error matching can be computed as a main feature used for verifying
process. The threshold offsets are calculated by two types of error
characteristics of the signature verification problem, False Rejection
Rate (FRR) and False Acceptance Rate (FAR). The level of these two
error rates depends on the decision threshold chosen whose value is
such as to realize the Equal Error Rate (EER; FAR = FRR). The
experimental results show that through the simple programming,
employed on Internet for demonstrating e-Commerce services, the
proposed method can provide 95.39% correct verifications and 7%
better than DP matching based signature-verification method. In
addition, the signature verification with extracting components
provides more reliable results than using a whole decision making.
Abstract: The emergence of networked information and communication has transformed the accessibility and delivery of scholarly information and fundamentally impacted on the processes of research and scholarly communication. The purpose of this study is to investigate disciplinary differences in the use of networked information for research and scholarly communication at Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. This study has produced quantitative data about how and why academics within different disciplines utilize networked information that is made available either internally through the university library, or externally through networked services accessed by the Internet. The results indicate some significant differences between the attitudes and practice of academics in the science disciplines when compared to those from the social sciences and humanities. While respondents from science disciplines show overall longer and more frequent use of networked information, respondents from humanities and social sciences indicated more positive attitudes and a greater degree of satisfaction toward library networked services.
Abstract: This study investigated students- perception of self
efficacy and anxiety in acquiring English language, and consequently
examined the relationship existing among the independent variables,
confounding variables and students- performances in the English
language. The researcher tested the research hypotheses using a
sample group of 318 respondents out of the population size of 400
students. The results obtained revealed that there was a significant
moderate negative relationship between English language anxiety
and performance in English language, but no significant relationship
between self-efficacy and English language performance, among the
middle-school students. There was a significant moderate negative
relationship between English language anxiety and self-efficacy. It
was discovered that general self-efficacy and English language
anxiety represented a significantly more powerful set of predictors
than the set of confounding variables. Thus, the study concluded that
English language anxiety and general self-efficacy were significant
predictors of English language performance among middle-school
students in Satri Si Suriyothai School.
Abstract: School leadership is commonly considered to have a
significant influence on school effectiveness and improvement.
Effective school leaders are expected to successfully introduce and
support change and innovation at the school unit. Despite an
abundance of studies on educational leadership, very few studies
have provided evidence on the link between leadership models, and
specific educational and school outcomes. This is true of a popular
contemporary approach to leadership, namely, distributed leadership.
The paper provides an overview of research findings on the effect of
distributed leadership on educational outcomes. The theoretical basis
for this approach to leadership is presented, with reference to
methodological and research limitations. The paper discusses
research findings and draws their implications for educational
research on school leadership.
Abstract: In contrast to existing methods which do not take into account multiconnectivity in a broad sense of this term, we develop mathematical models and highly effective combination (BIEM and FDM) numerical methods of calculation of stationary and quasistationary temperature field of a profile part of a blade with convective cooling (from the point of view of realization on PC). The theoretical substantiation of these methods is proved by appropriate theorems. For it, converging quadrature processes have been developed and the estimations of errors in the terms of A.Ziqmound continuity modules have been received. For visualization of profiles are used: the method of the least squares with automatic conjecture, device spline, smooth replenishment and neural nets. Boundary conditions of heat exchange are determined from the solution of the corresponding integral equations and empirical relationships. The reliability of designed methods is proved by calculation and experimental investigations heat and hydraulic characteristics of the gas turbine first stage nozzle blade.
Abstract: Earlier studies in kinship networks have primarily
focused on observing the social relationships existing between family
relatives. In this study, we pre-identified hubs in the network to
investigate if they could play a catalyst role in the transfer of physical
information. We conducted a case study of a ceremony performed in
one of the families of a small Hindu community – the Uttar Rarhi
Kayasthas. Individuals (n = 168) who resided in 11 geographically
dispersed regions were contacted through our hub-based
representation. We found that using this representation, over 98% of
the individuals were successfully contacted within the stipulated
period. The network also demonstrated a small-world property, with
an average geodesic distance of 3.56.
Abstract: Modern manufacturing facilities are large scale,
highly complex, and operate with large number of variables under
closed loop control. Early and accurate fault detection and diagnosis
for these plants can minimise down time, increase the safety of plant
operations, and reduce manufacturing costs. Fault detection and
isolation is more complex particularly in the case of the faulty analog
control systems. Analog control systems are not equipped with
monitoring function where the process parameters are continually
visualised. In this situation, It is very difficult to find the relationship
between the fault importance and its consequences on the product
failure. We consider in this paper an approach to fault detection and
analysis of its effect on the production quality using an adaptive
centring and scaling in the pickling process in cold rolling. The fault
appeared on one of the power unit driving a rotary machine, this
machine can not track a reference speed given by another machine.
The length of metal loop is then in continuous oscillation, this affects
the product quality. Using a computerised data acquisition system,
the main machine parameters have been monitored. The fault has
been detected and isolated on basis of analysis of monitored data.
Normal and faulty situation have been obtained by an artificial neural
network (ANN) model which is implemented to simulate the normal
and faulty status of rotary machine. Correlation between the product
quality defined by an index and the residual is used to quality
classification.
Abstract: Students often adopt routine practicing as learning
strategy for mathematics. The reason is they are often bound and
trained to solving conventional-typed questions in Mathematics in
high school. This will be problematic if students further consolidate
this practice in university. Therefore, the Department of Mathematics
emphasized and integrated the Discovery-enriched approach in the
undergraduate curriculum. This paper presents the details of
implementing the Discovery-enriched Curriculum by providing
adequate platform for project-learning, expertise for guidance and
internship opportunities for students majoring in Mathematics. The
Department also provided project-learning opportunities to
mathematics courses targeted for students majoring in other science or
engineering disciplines. The outcome is promising: the research
ability and problem solving skills of students are enhanced.
Abstract: Based on an analysis of the mechanism of degradation of optical characteristics of the ZnO-pigmented white paint by electron irradiation, a model of single molecular color centers is built. An equation that explains the relationship between the changes of variation of the ZnO-pigmented white paint-s spectrum absorptance and electron fluence is derived. The uncertain parameters in the equation can be calculated using the curve fitting by experimental data. The result indicates that the model can be applied to predict the degradation of optical characteristics of ZnO-pigmented white paint by electron radiation.