Abstract: Climate change has profound consequences for the agriculture of south-eastern Australia and its climate-induced water shortage in the Murray-Darling Basin. Post Keynesian Economics (PKE) macro-dynamics, along with Kaleckian investment and growth theory, are used to develop an ecological-economic system dynamics model of this complex nonlinear river basin system. The Murray- Darling Basin Simulation Model (MDB-SM) uses the principles of PKE to incorporate the fundamental uncertainty of economic behaviors of farmers regarding the investments they make and the climate change they face, particularly as regards water ecosystem services. MDB-SM provides a framework for macroeconomic policies, especially for long-term fiscal policy and for policy directed at the sustainability of agricultural water, as measured by socio-economic well-being considerations, which include sustainable consumption and investment in the river basin. The model can also reproduce other ecological and economic aspects and, for certain parameters and initial values, exhibit endogenous business cycles and ecological sustainability with realistic characteristics. Most importantly, MDBSM provides a platform for the analysis of alternative economic policy scenarios. These results reveal the importance of understanding water ecosystem adaptation under climate change by integrating a PKE macroeconomic analytical framework with the system dynamics modelling approach. Once parameterised and supplied with historical initial values, MDB-SM should prove to be a practical tool to provide alternative long-term policy simulations of agricultural water and socio-economic well-being.
Abstract: The concept of order reduction by least-squares moment matching and generalised least-squares methods has been extended about a general point ?a?, to obtain the reduced order models for linear, time-invariant dynamic systems. Some heuristic criteria have been employed for selecting the linear shift point ?a?, based upon the means (arithmetic, harmonic and geometric) of real parts of the poles of high order system. It is shown that the resultant model depends critically on the choice of linear shift point ?a?. The validity of the criteria is illustrated by solving a numerical example and the results are compared with the other existing techniques.
Abstract: This research work proposed a study of fruit bruise detection by means of a biospeckle method, selecting the papaya fruit (Carica papaya) as testing body. Papaya is recognized as a fruit of outstanding nutritional qualities, showing high vitamin A content, calcium, carbohydrates, exhibiting high popularity all over the world, considering consumption and acceptability. The commercialization of papaya faces special problems which are associated to bruise generation during harvesting, packing and transportation. Papaya is classified as climacteric fruit, permitting to be harvested before the maturation is completed. However, by one side bruise generation is partially controlled once the fruit flesh exhibits high mechanical firmness. By the other side, mechanical loads can set a future bruise at that maturation stage, when it can not be detected yet by conventional methods. Mechanical damages of fruit skin leave an entrance door to microorganisms and pathogens, which will cause severe losses of quality attributes. Traditional techniques of fruit quality inspection include total soluble solids determination, mechanical firmness tests, visual inspections, which would hardly meet required conditions for a fully automated process. However, the pertinent literature reveals a new method named biospeckle which is based on the laser reflectance and interference phenomenon. The laser biospeckle or dynamic speckle is quantified by means of the Moment of Inertia, named after its mechanical counterpart due to similarity between the defining formulae. Biospeckle techniques are able to quantify biological activities of living tissues, which has been applied to seed viability analysis, vegetable senescence and similar topics. Since the biospeckle techniques can monitor tissue physiology, it could also detect changes in the fruit caused by mechanical damages. The proposed technique holds non invasive character, being able to generate numerical results consistent with an adequate automation. The experimental tests associated to this research work included the selection of papaya fruit at different maturation stages which were submitted to artificial mechanical bruising tests. Damages were visually compared with the frequency maps yielded by the biospeckle technique. Results were considered in close agreement.
Abstract: Geometric design is an important part of planning
process design for physical highway to fill up basic function of roads,
to give good traffic service. It is found that most of the road safety
problems occur at the horizontal curves and complex-compound
curves. In this paper, review on Sagarinn-Myinsain Portion of Nay
Pyi Taw - Mandalay highway has been conducted in aspect of
geometric design induced road safety condition. Horizontal
alignment of geometric features and curve details are reviewed based
on (AASHTO) standard and revised by Autodesk Land Desktop
Software. Moreover, 85th Percentile Operation Speeds (V85) with
driver confidence on horizontal curves is evaluated in order to obtain
the range of highway safety factor (FS). The length of the selected
highway portion is 13.65 miles and 8 lanes. The results of this study
can be used to investigate the possible hazardous locations in
advance and to revise how design radius and super elevation should
be for better road safety performance for the selected portion.
Moreover, the relationship between highway safety and highway
geometry characteristics can also be known.
Abstract: Application of flexible structures has been
significantly, increased in industry and aerospace missions due to
their contributions and unique advantages over the rigid counterparts.
In this paper, vibration analysis of a flexible structure i.e., automobile
wiper blade is investigated and controlled. The wiper generates
unwanted noise and vibration during the wiping the rain and other
particles on windshield which may cause annoying noise in different
ranges of frequency. A two dimensional analytical modeled wiper
blade whose model accuracy is verified by numerical studies in
literature is considered in this study. Particle swarm optimization
(PSO) is employed in alliance with input shaping (IS) technique in
order to control or to attenuate the amplitude level of unwanted
noise/vibration of the wiper blade.
Abstract: Edge detection is usually the first step in medical
image processing. However, the difficulty increases when a
conventional kernel-based edge detector is applied to ultrasonic
images with a textural pattern and speckle noise. We designed an
adaptive diffusion filter to remove speckle noise while preserving the
initial edges detected by using a Sobel edge detector. We also propose
a genetic algorithm for edge selection to form complete boundaries of
the detected entities. We designed two fitness functions to evaluate
whether a criterion with a complex edge configuration can render a
better result than a simple criterion such as the strength of gradient.
The edges obtained by using a complex fitness function are thicker and
more fragmented than those obtained by using a simple fitness
function, suggesting that a complex edge selecting scheme is not
necessary for good edge detection in medical ultrasonic images;
instead, a proper noise-smoothing filter is the key.
Abstract: Sickle cell anemia is a recessive genetic disease
caused by the presence in the red blood cell, of abnormal hemoglobin
called hemoglobin S. It results from the replacement in the beta chain
of the acid glutamic acid by valin at position 6. Topics may be
homozygous (SS) or heterozygous (AS) most often
asymptomatic. Other mutations result in compound heterozygous:
- Synthesis of hemoglobin C mutation in the sixth leucin codon
(heterozygous SC);
- ß-thalassemia (heterozygous S-ß thalassemia).
SS homozygous, heterozygous SC and S- ß -thalassemia are grouped
under the major sickle cell syndromes.
To make a laboratory diagnosis of hemoglobinopathies in a
portion of the population in region of Batna, our study was
conducted on 115 patients with suspected sickle cell anemia, all cases
have benefited from hematological tests as blood count (count RBC,
calculated erythrocyte indices, MCV and MCHC, measuring the
hemoglobin concentration) and a biochemical test in this case
electrophoresis CAPILLARYS HEMOGLOBIN (E).
The results showed:
27 cases of sickle cell anemia were found on 115 suspected cases,
73,03% homozygous sickle cell disease and 59,25% sickle cell trait.
Finally, the double heterozygous S/C, represent the incidence rate of
3, 70%.
Abstract: An evolutionary computing technique for solving initial value problems in Ordinary Differential Equations is proposed in this paper. Neural network is used as a universal approximator while the adaptive parameters of neural networks are optimized by genetic algorithm. The solution is achieved on the continuous grid of time instead of discrete as in other numerical techniques. The comparison is carried out with classical numerical techniques and the solution is found with a uniform accuracy of MSE ≈ 10-9 .
Abstract: Evaluation of crop plants resistance to environmental
stresses specially in germination stage is a critical factor in their
selection in different conditions of cultivation. Therefore use of a
procedure in controllable situation can help to evaluate plants
reaction to stress quickly and precisely. In order to study germination
characteristics of flax in water and salinity stress conditions were
conducted two laboratories experimental. The two experimental were
conducted in 4-replicant completing random design for salinity and
water stress. The treatment, for salinity and water stress was three
potential (zero, 40, 80 mM) of NaCl and three potential (zero, -2, -4
bar) of PEG respectively. Germination percentage and rate, in
addition to Radical and plumule length and dry-weight and
plumule/Radical ration were measured. All of characteristics reduce
under water stress conditions. salinity stress significant reduce
germination rate and Radical and plumule length of flax seeds.
Hydropriming and osmopriming significant increased germination
rate, plumule length and plumule/Radical ration ration of flax seeds.
But germination percentage and Radical and plumule dry weight
significant increased only in hydropriming treat. Hydropriming and
osmopriming could not be used to improved germination under saline
and drought stress. But has more tolerance in salinity and drought
stress in flax by less reduce in Radical and plumule length under
saline and drought stress.
Abstract: This paper investigates the problem of automated defect
detection for textile fabrics and proposes a new optimal filter design
method to solve this problem. Gabor Wavelet Network (GWN) is
chosen as the major technique to extract the texture features from
textile fabrics. Based on the features extracted, an optimal Gabor filter
can be designed. In view of this optimal filter, a new semi-supervised
defect detection scheme is proposed, which consists of one real-valued
Gabor filter and one smoothing filter. The performance of the scheme
is evaluated by using an offline test database with 78 homogeneous
textile images. The test results exhibit accurate defect detection with
low false alarm, thus showing the effectiveness and robustness of the
proposed scheme. To evaluate the detection scheme comprehensively,
a prototyped detection system is developed to conduct a real time test.
The experiment results obtained confirm the efficiency and
effectiveness of the proposed detection scheme.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to determine the accuracy to estimation fetal weight by Johnson-s method and compares it with actual birth weight. The sample group was 126 infants delivered in Dan KhunThot hospital from January March 2012. Fetal weight was estimated by measuring fundal height according to Johnson-s method. The information was collected by studying historical delivery records and then analyzed by using the statistics of frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. Finally, the difference was analyzed by a paired t-test.The results showed had an average birth weight was 3093.57 ± 391.03 g (mean ± SD) and 3,455 ± 454.55 g average estimated fetal weight by Johnson-s method higher than average actual birth weight was 384.09 grams. When classifying the infants according to birth weight found that low birth weight ( 4000 g) actual birth weight was more than estimated fetal weight. The difference was found between actual birth weight and estimation fetal weight of the minimum weight in high birth weight ( > 4000 g) , the appropriate birth weight (2500-3999g) and low birth weight (
Abstract: Nowadays the construction industry is growing specially among developing counties. Iran also has a critical role in these industries in terms of workers disorders. Work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) assign 7% of the whole diseases in the society, which make some limitations. One of the main factors, which are ended to WMSDs, is awkward posture. Steel bar bending is considered as one of the prominent performance among construction workers. In this case study we conducted to find the major tasks of bar benders and the most important related risk factors. This study was carried out among twenty workers (18-45 years) as our volunteer samples in some construction sites with less than 6 floors in two regions of Tehran municipality. The data was gathered through in depth observation, interview and questionnaire. Also postural analysis was done by OWAS. In another part of study we used NMQ for gathering some data about psychosocial effects of work related disorders. Our findings show that 64% of workers were not aware of work risks, also about 59% of workers had troubles in their wrists, hands, and especially among workers who worked in steel bar bending. In 46% cases low back pain were prevalence. Considering with gathered data and results, awkward postures and long term tasks and its duration are known as the main risk factors in WMSDs among construction workers, so work-rest schedule and also tools design should be considered to make an ergonomic condition for the mentioned workers.
Abstract: The objective of this paper is to establish a possible relationship between sustainable business practice and firm performance. Using a field survey methodology, a sample of sixty manufacturing companies in Nigeria was studied. The firms were categorised into two groups, environmentally 'responsible' and 'irresponsible' firms. An investigation was undertaken into the possible relationship between firm performance and three selected indicators of sustainable business practice: employee health and safety (EHS), waste management (WM), and community development (CD), common within the 30 'responsible' firms. Findings from empirical results reveal that the sustainable practices of the 'responsible' firms are significantly related with firm performance. In addition, sustainable practices are inversely related with fines and penalties. The paper concludes that, within the Nigerian setting at least, sustainability affects corporate performance and sustainability may be a possible tool for corporate conflict resolution as evidenced in the reduction of fines, penalties and compensations. The paper therefore recommends research into the relationship between sustainability and conflict management.
Abstract: The alumosilicate ceramics with mullite crystalline phase are used in various branches of science and technique. The mullite refractory ceramics with high porosity serve as a heat insulator and as a constructional materials [1], [2]. The purpose of the work was to sinter high porosity ceramic and to increase the quantity of mullite phase in this mullite, mullite-corundum ceramics. Two types of compositions were prepared at during the experiment. The first type is compositions with commercial alumina and silica oxides. The second type is from mixing these oxides with 10, 20 and 30 wt.%. of kaolin. In all samples the Al2O3 and SiO2 were in 2.57:1 ratio, because that was conformed to mullite stechiometric compositions (3Al2O3.2SiO2). The types of alumina oxides were α-Al2O3 (d50=4µm) and γ-Al2O3 (d50=80µm). Ratios of α-: γ-Al2O3 were (1:1) or (1:3). The porous materials were prepared by slip casting of suspension of raw materials. The aluminium paste (0.18 wt.%) was used as a pore former. Water content in the suspensions was 26-47 wt.%. Pore formation occurred as a result of hydrogen formation in chemical reaction between aluminium paste and water [2]. The samples were sintered at the temperature of 1650°C and 1750°C for one hour. The increasing amount of kaolin, α-: γ-Al2O3 at the ratio (1:3) and sintering at the highest temperature raised the quantity of mullite phase. The mullite phase began to dominate over the corundum phase.
Abstract: Policy management in organizations became rising issue in the last decade. It’s because of today’s regulatory requirements in the organizations. To manage policies in large organizations is an imperative work. However, major challenges facing organizations in the last decade is managing all the policies in the organization and making them an active documents rather than simple (inactive) documents stored in computer hard drive or on a shelf. Because of this challenge, organizations need policy management program. This policy management program can be either manual or automated. This paper presents suggestions towards managing policies in organizations. As well as possible policy management solution or program to be utilized, manual or automated. The research first examines the models and frameworks used for managing policies from various perspectives in the literature of the research area/domain. At the end of this paper, a policy management framework is proposed for managing enterprise policies effectively and in a simplified manner.
Abstract: There have been numerous implementations of
security system using biometric, especially for identification and
verification cases. An example of pattern used in biometric is the iris
pattern in human eye. The iris pattern is considered unique for each
person. The use of iris pattern poses problems in encoding the human
iris.
In this research, an efficient iris recognition method is proposed.
In the proposed method the iris segmentation is based on the
observation that the pupil has lower intensity than the iris, and the
iris has lower intensity than the sclera. By detecting the boundary
between the pupil and the iris and the boundary between the iris and
the sclera, the iris area can be separated from pupil and sclera. A step
is taken to reduce the effect of eyelashes and specular reflection of
pupil. Then the four levels Coiflet wavelet transform is applied to the
extracted iris image. The modified Hamming distance is employed to
measure the similarity between two irises.
This research yields the identification success rate of 84.25% for
the CASIA version 1.0 database. The method gives an accuracy of
77.78% for the left eyes of MMU 1 database and 86.67% for the
right eyes. The time required for the encoding process, from the
segmentation until the iris code is generated, is 0.7096 seconds.
These results show that the accuracy and speed of the method is
better than many other methods.
Abstract: Phase locked loops in 10 Gb/s and faster data links are
low phase noise devices. Characterization of their phase jitter
transfer functions is difficult because the intrinsic noise of the PLLs
is comparable to the phase noise of the reference clock signal. The
problem is solved by using a linear model to account for the intrinsic
noise. This study also introduces a novel technique for measuring the
transfer function. It involves the use of the reference clock as a
source of wideband excitation, in contrast to the commonly used
sinusoidal excitations at discrete frequencies. The data reported here
include the intrinsic noise of a PLL for 10 Gb/s links and the jitter
transfer function of a PLL for 12.8 Gb/s links. The measured transfer
function suggests that the PLL responded like a second order linear
system to a low noise reference clock.
Abstract: In this study, the problem of discriminating between interictal epileptic and non- epileptic pathological EEG cases, which present episodic loss of consciousness, investigated. We verify the accuracy of the feature extraction method of autocross-correlated coefficients which extracted and studied in previous study. For this purpose we used in one hand a suitable constructed artificial supervised LVQ1 neural network and in other a cross-correlation technique. To enforce the above verification we used a statistical procedure which based on a chi- square control. The classification and the statistical results showed that the proposed feature extraction is a significant accurate method for diagnostic discrimination cases between interictal and non-interictal EEG events and specifically the classification procedure showed that the LVQ neural method is superior than the cross-correlation one.
Abstract: This paper presents a new method for estimating the nonstationary
noise power spectral density given a noisy signal. The
method is based on averaging the noisy speech power spectrum using
time and frequency dependent smoothing factors. These factors are
adjusted based on signal-presence probability in individual frequency
bins. Signal presence is determined by computing the ratio of the
noisy speech power spectrum to its local minimum, which is updated
continuously by averaging past values of the noisy speech power
spectra with a look-ahead factor. This method adapts very quickly to
highly non-stationary noise environments. The proposed method
achieves significant improvements over a system that uses voice
activity detector (VAD) in noise estimation.
Abstract: This paper presents an on-going research work on the
implementation of feature-based machining via macro programming.
Repetitive machining features such as holes, slots, pockets etc can
readily be encapsulated in macros. Each macro consists of methods
on how to machine the shape as defined by the feature. The macro
programming technique comprises of a main program and
subprograms. The main program allows user to select several
subprograms that contain features and define their important
parameters. With macros, complex machining routines can be
implemented easily and no post processor is required. A case study
on machining of a part that comprised of planar face, hole and pocket
features using the macro programming technique was carried out. It
is envisaged that the macro programming technique can be extended
to other feature-based machining fields such as the newly developed
STEP-NC domain.