Abstract: This paper discusses ways to foster cooperative learning through the integration of online communication technology. While the education experts believe constructivism produces a more positive learning experience, the educators are still facing problems in getting students to participate due to numerous reasons such as shy personality, language and cultural barriers. This paper will look into the factors that lead to lack of participations among students and how technology can be implemented to overcome these issues.
Abstract: Performance of a dual maximal ratio combining
receiver has been analyzed for M-ary coherent and non-coherent
modulations over correlated Nakagami-m fading channels with nonidentical
and arbitrary fading parameter. The classical probability
density function (PDF) based approach is used for analysis.
Expressions for outage probability and average symbol error
performance for M-ary coherent and non-coherent modulations have
been obtained. The obtained results are verified against the special
case published results and found to be matching. The effect of the
unequal fading parameters, branch correlation and unequal input
average SNR on the receiver performance has been studied.
Abstract: In this paper a novel method for finding the fault zone
on a Thyristor Controlled Series Capacitor (TCSC) incorporated
transmission line is presented. The method makes use of the Support
Vector Machine (SVM), used in the classification mode to
distinguish between the zones, before or after the TCSC. The use of
Discrete Wavelet Transform is made to prepare the features which
would be given as the input to the SVM. This method was tested on a
400 kV, 50 Hz, 300 Km transmission line and the results were highly
accurate.
Abstract: In construction of any structure, the aesthetic and utility values should be considered in such a way as to make the structure cost-effective. Most structures are composed of elements and joints which are very critical in any skeletal space structure because they majorly determine the performance of the structure. In early times, most space structures were constructed using rigid joints which had the advantage of better performing structures as compared to pin-jointed structures but with the disadvantage of requiring all the construction work to be done on site. The discovery of semi-rigid joints now enables connections to be prefabricated and quickly assembled on site while maintaining good performance. In this paper, cost-effective is discussed basing on strength of connectors at the joints, buckling of joints and overall structure, and the effect of initial geometrical imperfections. Several existing joints are reviewed by classifying them into categories and discussing where they are most suited and how they perform structurally. Also, finite element modeling using ABAQUS is done to determine the buckling behavior. It is observed that some joints are more economical than others. The rise to span ratio and imperfections are also found to affect the buckling of the structures. Based on these, general principles that guide the design of cost-effective joints and structures are discussed.
Abstract: Pattern recognition is the research area of Artificial
Intelligence that studies the operation and design of systems that
recognize patterns in the data. Important application areas are image
analysis, character recognition, fingerprint classification, speech
analysis, DNA sequence identification, man and machine
diagnostics, person identification and industrial inspection. The
interest in improving the classification systems of data analysis is
independent from the context of applications. In fact, in many
studies it is often the case to have to recognize and to distinguish
groups of various objects, which requires the need for valid
instruments capable to perform this task. The objective of this article
is to show several methodologies of Artificial Intelligence for data
classification applied to biomedical patterns. In particular, this work
deals with the realization of a Computer-Aided Detection system
(CADe) that is able to assist the radiologist in identifying types of
mammary tumor lesions. As an additional biomedical application of
the classification systems, we present a study conducted on blood
samples which shows how these methods may help to distinguish
between carriers of Thalassemia (or Mediterranean Anaemia) and
healthy subjects.
Abstract: This paper presents the use of a semi-classical signal
analysis method that has been developed recently for the analysis of
turbomachinery flow unsteadiness. We will focus on the correlation
between theSemi-Classical Signal Analysis parameters and some
physical parameters in relation with turbomachinery features. To
demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach, a static pressure
signal issued from a rotor/stator interaction of a centrifugal pump is
studied. Several configurations of the pump are compared.
Abstract: The one of best robust search technique on large scale
search area is heuristic and meta heuristic approaches. Especially in
issue that the exploitation of combinatorial status in the large scale
search area prevents the solution of the problem via classical
calculating methods, so such problems is NP-complete. in this
research, the problem of winner determination in combinatorial
auctions have been formulated and by assessing older heuristic
functions, we solve the problem by using of genetic algorithm and
would show that this new method would result in better performance
in comparison to other heuristic function such as simulated annealing
greedy approach.
Abstract: The corrugated steel cladding used to cover most of
steel buildings is considered as non-structural element. This research
will reflect the effect of cladding as a shear diaphragm in increasing
the normal elastic capacity of columns. This study is important
because of the lack of information of the behavior of cladding and
secondary members in various codes. Mathematical models for six
different cases are carried by software. The results extracted from the
program have been plotted showing the effects of different variables
on the ultimate load of column. The variables considered in our
research are the spacing between columns and the thickness of the
corrugated sheet representing the sheet stiffness.
Abstract: The study aimed to identify the nature of autistic
talent, the manifestations of their weak central coherence, and their
sensory characteristics. The case study consisted of four talented
autistic males. Two of them in drawing, one in clay formation and
one in jigsaw puzzle. Tools of data collection were Group Embedded
Figures Test, Block Design Test, Sensory Profile Checklist Revised,
Interview forms and direct observation. Results indicated that talent
among autistics emerges in limited domain and being extraordinary
for each case. Also overlapping construction properties. Indeed, they
show three perceptual aspects of weak central coherence: The weak
in visual spatial-constructional coherence, the weak in perceptual
coherence and the weak in verbal – semantic coherence. Moreover,
the majority of the study cases used the three strategies of weak
central coherence (segmentation, obliqueness and rotation). As for
the sensory characteristics, all study cases have numbers of that
characteristics that especially emerges in the visual system.
Abstract: In this paper, a new adaptive Fourier decomposition
(AFD) based time-frequency speech analysis approach is proposed.
Given the fact that the fundamental frequency of speech signals often
undergo fluctuation, the classical short-time Fourier transform (STFT)
based spectrogram analysis suffers from the difficulty of window size
selection. AFD is a newly developed signal decomposition theory. It is
designed to deal with time-varying non-stationary signals. Its
outstanding characteristic is to provide instantaneous frequency for
each decomposed component, so the time-frequency analysis becomes
easier. Experiments are conducted based on the sample sentence in
TIMIT Acoustic-Phonetic Continuous Speech Corpus. The results
show that the AFD based time-frequency distribution outperforms the
STFT based one.
Abstract: The seismic feedback experiences in Algeria have
shown higher percentage of damages for non-code conforming
reinforced concrete (RC) buildings. Furthermore, the vulnerability of
these buildings was further aggravated due to presence of many
factors (e.g. weak the seismic capacity of these buildings, shorts
columns, Pounding effect, etc.).
Consequently Seismic risk assessments were carried out on
populations of buildings to identify the buildings most likely to
undergo losses during an earthquake. The results of such studies are
important in the mitigation of losses under future seismic events as
they allow strengthening intervention and disaster management plans
to be drawn up.
Within this paper, the state of the existing structures is assessed using
"the vulnerability index" method. This method allows the
classification of RC constructions taking into account both, structural
and non structural parameters, considered to be ones of the main
parameters governing the vulnerability of the structure. Based on
seismic feedback from past earthquakes DPM (damage probability
matrices) were developed too.
Abstract: The game of Maundy Block is the three-player variant
of Maundy Cake, a classical combinatorial game. Even though to
determine the solution of Maundy Cake is trivial, solving Maundy
Block is challenging because of the identification of queer games,
i.e., games where no player has a winning strategy.
Abstract: Conventional approaches in the implementation of logic programming applications on embedded systems are solely of software nature. As a consequence, a compiler is needed that transforms the initial declarative logic program to its equivalent procedural one, to be programmed to the microprocessor. This approach increases the complexity of the final implementation and reduces the overall system's performance. On the contrary, presenting hardware implementations which are only capable of supporting logic programs prevents their use in applications where logic programs need to be intertwined with traditional procedural ones, for a specific application. We exploit HW/SW codesign methods to present a microprocessor, capable of supporting hybrid applications using both programming approaches. We take advantage of the close relationship between attribute grammar (AG) evaluation and knowledge engineering methods to present a programmable hardware parser that performs logic derivations and combine it with an extension of a conventional RISC microprocessor that performs the unification process to report the success or failure of those derivations. The extended RISC microprocessor is still capable of executing conventional procedural programs, thus hybrid applications can be implemented. The presented implementation is programmable, supports the execution of hybrid applications, increases the performance of logic derivations (experimental analysis yields an approximate 1000% increase in performance) and reduces the complexity of the final implemented code. The proposed hardware design is supported by a proposed extended C-language called C-AG.
Abstract: Since 1992, year where Hugo de Garis has published
the first paper on Evolvable Hardware (EHW), a period of intense
creativity has followed. It has been actively researched, developed
and applied to various problems. Different approaches have been
proposed that created three main classifications: extrinsic, mixtrinsic
and intrinsic EHW. Each of these solutions has a real interest.
Nevertheless, although the extrinsic evolution generates some
excellent results, the intrinsic systems are not so advanced. This
paper suggests 3 possible solutions to implement the run-time
configuration intrinsic EHW system: FPGA-based Run-Time
Configuration system, JBits-based Run-Time Configuration system
and Multi-board functional-level Run-Time Configuration system.
The main characteristic of the proposed architectures is that they are
implemented on Field Programmable Gate Array. A comparison of
proposed solutions demonstrates that multi-board functional-level
run-time configuration is superior in terms of scalability, flexibility
and the implementation easiness.
Abstract: The purpose of this research is to study motivation
factors and also to study factors relation to job performance to
compare motivation factors under the personal factor classification
such as gender, age, income, educational level, marital status, and
working duration; and to study the relationship between Motivation
Factors and Job Performance with job satisfactions. The sample
groups utilized in this research were 400 Suan Sunandha Rajabhat
University employees. This research is a quantitative research using
questionnaires as research instrument. The statistics applied for data
analysis including percentage, mean, and standard deviation. In
addition, the difference analysis was conducted by t value computing,
one-way analysis of variance and Pearson’s correlation coefficient
computing. The findings of the study results were as follows the
findings showed that the aspects of job promotion and salary were at
the moderate levels. Additionally, the findings also showed that the
motivations that affected the revenue branch chiefs’ job performance
were job security, job accomplishment, policy and management, job
promotion, and interpersonal relation.
Abstract: Malaria is transmitted to the human by biting of
infected Anopheles mosquitoes. This disease is a serious, acute and
chronic relapsing infection to humans. Fever, nausea, vomiting, back
pain, increased sweating anemia and splenomegaly (enlargement of
the spleen) are the symptoms of the patients who infected with this
disease. It is caused by the multiplication of protozoa parasite of the
genus Plasmodium. Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium vivax,
Plasmodium malariae and Plasmodium ovale are the four types of
Plasmodium malaria. A mathematical model for the transmission of
Plasmodium Malaria is developed in which the human and vector
population are divided into two classes, the susceptible and the
infectious classes. In this paper, we formulate the dynamical model
of Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium vivax malaria. The
standard dynamical analysis is used for analyzing the behavior for
the transmission of this disease. The Threshold condition is found
and numerical results are shown to confirm the analytical results.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a new approach for flexible document categorization according to the document type or genre instead of topic. Our approach implements two homogenous classifiers: contextual classifier and logical classifier. The contextual classifier is based on the document URL, whereas, the logical classifier use the logical structure of the document to perform the categorization. The final categorization is obtained by combining contextual and logical categorizations. In our approach, each document is assigned to all predefined categories with different membership degrees. Our experiments demonstrate that our approach is best than other genre categorization approaches.
Abstract: The electrolyte stirring method of anodization etching
process for manufacturing porous silicon (PS) is reported in this work.
Two experimental setups of nature air stirring (PS-ASM) and
electrolyte stirring (PS-ESM) are employed to clarify the influence of
stirring mechanisms on electrochemical etching process. Compared to
traditional fabrication without any stirring apparatus (PS-TM), a large
plateau region of PS surface structure is obtained from samples with
both stirring methods by the 3D-profiler measurement. Moreover, the
light emission response is also improved by both proposed electrolyte
stirring methods due to the cycling force in electrolyte could
effectively enhance etch-carrier distribution while the electrochemical
etching process is made. According to the analysis of statistical
calculation of photoluminescence (PL) intensity, lower standard
deviations are obtained from PS-samples with studied stirring methods,
i.e. the uniformity of PL-intensity is effectively improved. The
calculated deviations of PL-intensity are 93.2, 74.5 and 64,
respectively, for PS-TM, PS-ASM and PS-ESM.
Abstract: Traffic enforcement units (the Police) are partly
responsible for the severity and frequency of the traffic accidents via
the effectiveness of their safety measures. The Police claims that the
reductions in accidents and their severities occur largely by their
timely interventions at the black spots, through traffic management
or temporary changes in the road design (guiding, reducing speeds
and eliminating sight obstructions, etc.). Yet, some other external
factors than the Police measures may intervene into which such
claims require a statistical confirmation. In order to test the net
impact of the Police contribution in the reduction of the number of
crashes, Chi square test was applied for 25 spots (streets and
intersections) and an average evaluation was achieved for general
conclusion in the case study of Izmir city. Separately, the net impact
of economic crisis in the reduction of crashes is assessed by the
trend analysis for the case of the economic crisis with the probable
reduction effects on the trip generation or modal choice. Finally, it
was proven that the Police measures were effective to some degree as
they claimed, though the economic crisis might have only negligible
contribution to the reductions in the same period observed.
Abstract: Serial Analysis of Gene Expression is a powerful
quantification technique for generating cell or tissue gene expression
data. The profile of the gene expression of cell or tissue in several
different states is difficult for biologists to analyze because of the large
number of genes typically involved. However, feature selection in
machine learning can successfully reduce this problem. The method
allows reducing the features (genes) in specific SAGE data, and
determines only relevant genes. In this study, we used a genetic
algorithm to implement feature selection, and evaluate the
classification accuracy of the selected features with the K-nearest
neighbor method. In order to validate the proposed method, we used
two SAGE data sets for testing. The results of this study conclusively
prove that the number of features of the original SAGE data set can be
significantly reduced and higher classification accuracy can be
achieved.