Abstract: Five vegetables (spinach, lettuce, cabbage, tomato, and onion) were freshly harvested from the Alau Dam and Gongulong agricultural areas for the determination of some organochlorine pesticide residues (o, p-DDE, p,p’-DDD, o,p’-DDD, p,p’-DDT, α-BHC, γ-BHC, metoxichlor, lindane, endosulfan dieldrin, and aldrin.) Soil samples were also collected at different depths for the determination of the above pesticides. Samples collection and preparation were conducted using standard procedures. The concentrations of all the pesticides in the soil and vegetable samples were determined using GC/MS SHIMADZU (GC-17A) equipped with electron capture detector (ECD). The highest concentration was that of p,p’-DDD (132.4±13.45µg/g) which was observed in the leaf of cabbage, while the lowest concentration was that of p,p’-DDT (2.34µg/g) was observed in the root of spinach. Similar trends were observed at the Gongulong agricultural area, with p,p’-DDD having the highest concentration of 153.23µg/g in the leaf of cabbage, while the lowest concentration was that of p,p’-DDT (12.45µg/g) which was observed in the root of spinach. α-BHC, γ-BHC, Methoxychlor, and lindane were detected in all the vegetable samples studied. The concentrations of all the pesticides in the soil samples were observed to be higher at a depth of 21-30cm, while the lowest concentrations were observed at a depth of 0-10cm. The concentrations of all the pesticides in the vegetables and soil samples from the two agricultural sites were observed to be at alarming levels, much higher than the maximum residue limits (MRLs) and acceptable daily intake values (ADIs) .The levels of the pesticides observed in the vegetables and soil samples investigated, are of such a magnitude that calls for special attention and laws to regulate the use and circulation of such chemicals. Routine monitoring of pesticide residues in these study areas is necessary for the prevention, control and reduction of environmental pollution, so as to minimize health risks.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to understand how
consumers react to a company's promotional offers with mobile
applications (APP) as premiums. This paper presents the results of an
experimental study where five features of APP were involved: the
cost (free/discounted) for earning APP, the relationship between APP
and the promoted product, the perceived usefulness, the perceived
ease of use, and the perceived playfulness of APP in the context of
light foods purchase. The results support that the above features,
except perceived ease of use, have substantial influences on
consumers' intention to adopt the APP. Among the five features, the
cost for earning APP has the most impact on the adopting intention
of APP. The study also found a positive influence of adopting
intention of APP on the consumer's purchase intention of the
promoted product. Thus, APP-based premiums may enhance the
consumer's purchase intention of a company's promoted products.
Abstract: As the Textile Industry is the second largest industry
in Egypt and as small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) make up
a great portion of this industry therein it is essential to apply the
concept of Cleaner Production for the purpose of reducing pollution.
In order to achieve this goal, a case study concerned with ecofriendly
stone-washing of jeans-garments was investigated. A raw
material-substitution option was adopted whereby the toxic
potassium permanganate and sodium sulfide were replaced by the
environmentally compatible hydrogen peroxide and glucose
respectively where the concentrations of both replaced chemicals
together with the operating time were optimized. In addition, a
process-rationalization option involving four additional processes
was investigated. By means of criteria such as product quality,
effluent analysis, mass and heat balance; and cost analysis with the
aid of a statistical model, a process optimization treatment revealed
that the superior process optima were 50%, 0.15% and 50min for
H2O2 concentration, glucose concentration and time, respectively.
With these values the superior process ought to reduce the annual
cost by about EGP 105 relative to the currently used conventional
method.
Abstract: Retinal vascularity assessment plays an important role in diagnosis of ophthalmic pathologies. The employment of digital images for this purpose makes possible a computerized approach and has motivated development of many methods for automated vascular tree segmentation. Metrics based on contingency tables for binary classification have been widely used for evaluating performance of these algorithms and, concretely, the accuracy has been mostly used as measure of global performance in this topic. However, this metric shows very poor matching with human perception as well as other notable deficiencies. Here, a new similarity function for measuring quality of retinal vessel segmentations is proposed. This similarity function is based on characterizing the vascular tree as a connected structure with a measurable area and length. Tests made indicate that this new approach shows better behaviour than the current one does. Generalizing, this concept of measuring descriptive properties may be used for designing functions for measuring more successfully segmentation quality of other complex structures.
Abstract: The present study investigates numerically the
phenomenon of vortex-shedding and its suppression in twodimensional
mixed convective flow past a square cylinder under the
joint influence of buoyancy and free-stream orientation with respect
to gravity. The numerical experiments have been conducted at a
fixed Reynolds number (Re) of 100 and Prandtl number (Pr) of 0.71,
while Richardson number (Ri) is varied from 0 to 1.6 and freestream
orientation, α, is kept in the range 0o≤ α ≤ 90o, with 0o
corresponding to an upward flow and 90o representing a cross-flow
scenario, respectively. The continuity, momentum and energy
equations, subject to Boussinesq approximation, are discretized using
a finite difference method and are solved by a semi-explicit pressure
correction scheme. The critical Richardson number, leading to the
suppression of the vortex-shedding (Ric), is estimated by using
Stuart-Landau theory at various free-stream orientations and the
neutral curve is obtained in the Ri-α plane. The neutral curve
exhibits an interesting non-monotonic behavior with Ric first
increasing with increasing values of α upto 45o and then decreasing
till 70o. Beyond 70o, the neutral curve again exhibits a sharp
increasing asymptotic trend with Ric approaching very large values
as α approaches 90o. The suppression of vortex shedding is not
observed at α = 90o (cross-flow). In the unsteady flow regime, the
Strouhal number (St) increases with the increase in Richardson
number.
Abstract: An embedded system for SEU(single event upset) test
needs to be designed to prevent system failure by high-energy particles
during measuring SEU. SEU is a phenomenon in which the data is changed temporary in semiconductor device caused by high-energy particles. In this paper, we present an embedded system for
SRAM(static random access memory) SEU test. SRAMs are on the DUT(device under test) and it is separated from control board which
manages the DUT and measures the occurrence of SEU. It needs to
have considerations for preventing system failure while managing the
DUT and making an accurate measurement of SEUs. We measure the occurrence of SEUs from five different SRAMs at three different
cyclotron beam energies 30, 35, and 40MeV. The number of SEUs of SRAMs ranges from 3.75 to 261.00 in average.
Abstract: Recently, distributed generation technologies have received much attention for the potential energy savings and reliability assurances that might be achieved as a result of their widespread adoption. Fueling the attention have been the possibilities of international agreements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, electricity sector restructuring, high power reliability requirements for certain activities, and concern about easing transmission and distribution capacity bottlenecks and congestion. So it is necessary that impact of these kinds of generators on distribution feeder reconfiguration would be investigated. This paper presents an approach for distribution reconfiguration considering Distributed Generators (DGs). The objective function is summation of electrical power losses A Tabu search optimization is used to solve the optimal operation problem. The approach is tested on a real distribution feeder.
Abstract: The present article comprises a theoretical study of
structures Performat radical (HCO3) with H2O molecule. We make
use of ab initio quantum chemical methods. Unrestricted Hartee-Fock
(UHF) with the basis set6-311+g(2df,2p) and density functional
theory (B3LYP) with the basis set 6-311+g(2df,2p) and also we done
atoms in molecules (AIM) theory for them. We have found four
stable geometries the PerformatRadical(HCO3) with H2O.
Abstract: Multi-user interference (MUI) is the main reason of system deterioration in the Spectral Amplitude Coding Optical Code Division Multiple Access (SAC-OCDMA) system. MUI increases with the number of simultaneous users, resulting into higher probability bit rate and limits the maximum number of simultaneous users. On the other hand, Phase induced intensity noise (PIIN) problem which is originated from spontaneous emission of broad band source from MUI severely limits the system performance should be addressed as well. Since the MUI is caused by the interference of simultaneous users, reducing the MUI value as small as possible is desirable. In this paper, an extensive study for the system performance specified by MUI and PIIN reducing is examined. Vectors Combinatorial (VC) codes families are adopted as a signature sequence for the performance analysis and a comparison with reported codes is performed. The results show that, when the received power increases, the PIIN noise for all the codes increases linearly. The results also show that the effect of PIIN can be minimized by increasing the code weight leads to preserve adequate signal to noise ratio over bit error probability. A comparison study between the proposed code and the existing codes such as Modified frequency hopping (MFH), Modified Quadratic- Congruence (MQC) has been carried out.
Abstract: This article describes Uruk, the virtual museum of
Iraq that we developed for visual exploration and retrieval of image
collections. The system largely exploits the loosely-structured
hierarchy of XML documents that provides a useful representation
method to store semi-structured or unstructured data, which does not
easily fit into existing database. The system offers users the
capability to mine and manage the XML-based image collections
through a web-based Graphical User Interface (GUI). Typically, at an
interactive session with the system, the user can browse a visual
structural summary of the XML database in order to select interesting
elements. Using this intermediate result, queries combining structure
and textual references can be composed and presented to the system.
After query evaluation, the full set of answers is presented in a visual
and structured way.
Abstract: This paper reports the three-phase (gas + liquid +
hydrate) equilibrium pressure versus temperature data for a (O3 + O2 +
CO2 + H2O) system for developing the hydrate-based technology to
preserve ozone, a chemically unstable substance, for various
industrial, medical and consumer uses. These data cover the
temperature range from 272 K to 277 K, corresponding to pressures
from 1.6 MPa to 3.1 MPa, for each of the three different (O3 +
O2)-to-CO2 or O2-to-CO2 molar ratios in the gas phase, which are
approximately 4 : 6, 5 : 5, respectively. The mole fraction of ozone in
the gas phase was ~0.03 , which are the densest ozone fraction to
artificially form O3 containing hydrate ever reported in the literature.
Based on these data, the formation of hydrate containing
high-concentration ozone, as high as 1 mass %, will be expected.
Abstract: This paper deals with e-government issues at several
levels. Initially we look at the concept of e-government itself in order
to give it a sound framework. Than we look at the e-government
issues at three levels, first we analyse it at the global level, second we
analyse it at the level of transition economies, and finally we take a
closer look on developments in Croatia. The analysis includes actual
progress being made in selected transition economies given the Euro
area averages, along with e-government potential in future
demanding period.
Abstract: This paper describes an automatic algorithm to restore
the shape of three-dimensional (3D) left ventricle (LV) models created
from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data using a geometry-driven
optimization approach. Our basic premise is to restore the LV shape
such that the LV epicardial surface is smooth after the restoration. A
geometrical measure known as the Minimum Principle Curvature (κ2)
is used to assess the smoothness of the LV. This measure is used to
construct the objective function of a two-step optimization process.
The objective of the optimization is to achieve a smooth epicardial
shape by iterative in-plane translation of the MRI slices.
Quantitatively, this yields a minimum sum in terms of the magnitude
of κ
2, when κ2 is negative. A limited memory quasi-Newton algorithm,
L-BFGS-B, is used to solve the optimization problem. We tested our
algorithm on an in vitro theoretical LV model and 10 in vivo
patient-specific models which contain significant motion artifacts. The
results show that our method is able to automatically restore the shape
of LV models back to smoothness without altering the general shape of
the model. The magnitudes of in-plane translations are also consistent
with existing registration techniques and experimental findings.
Abstract: Construction projects generally take place in
uncontrolled and dynamic environments where construction waste is
a serious environmental problem in many large cities. The total
amount of waste and carbon dioxide emissions from transportation
vehicles are still out of control due to increasing construction
projects, massive urban development projects and the lack of
effective tools for minimizing adverse environmental impacts in
construction. This research is about utilization of the integrated
applications of automated advanced tracking and data storage
technologies in the area of environmental management to monitor
and control adverse environmental impacts such as construction
waste and carbon dioxide emissions. Radio Frequency Identification
(RFID) integrated with the Global Position System (GPS) provides
an opportunity to uniquely identify materials, components, and
equipments and to locate and track them using minimal or no worker
input. The transmission of data to the central database will be carried
out with the help of Global System for Mobile Communications
(GSM).
Abstract: This paper proposes the use of Bayesian belief
networks (BBN) as a higher level of health risk assessment for a
dumping site of lead battery smelter factory. On the basis of the
epidemiological studies, the actual hospital attendance records and
expert experiences, the BBN is capable of capturing the probabilistic
relationships between the hazardous substances and their adverse
health effects, and accordingly inferring the morbidity of the adverse
health effects. The provision of the morbidity rates of the related
diseases is more informative and can alleviate the drawbacks of
conventional methods.
Abstract: In this work, bending fatigue life of notched
specimens with various notch geometries and dimensions is
investigated by experiment and Manson-Caffin theoretical method. In
this theoretical method, fatigue life of notched specimens is
calculated using the fatigue life obtained from the experiments for
plain specimens (without notch). Three notch geometries including
∪-shape, ∨-shape and C -shape notches are considered in this
investigation. The experiments are conducted on a rotary bending
Moore machine. The specimens are made of a low carbon steel alloy,
which has wide application in industry. The stress- life curves are
captured for all notched specimen by experiment. The results indicate
that Manson-Caffin analytical method cannot adequately predict
the fatigue life of notched specimen. However, it seems that the
difference between the experiments and Manson-Caffin predictions
can be compensated by a proportional factor.
Abstract: In this paper we improve the quasilinearization method by barycentric Lagrange interpolation because of its numerical stability and computation speed to achieve a stable semi analytical solution. Then we applied the improved method for solving the Fin problem which is a nonlinear equation that occurs in the heat transferring. In the quasilinearization approach the nonlinear differential equation is treated by approximating the nonlinear terms by a sequence of linear expressions. The modified QLM is iterative but not perturbative and gives stable semi analytical solutions to nonlinear problems without depending on the existence of a smallness parameter. Comparison with some numerical solutions shows that the present solution is applicable.
Abstract: PARIS (Personal Archiving and Retrieving Image
System) is an experiment personal photograph library, which includes
more than 80,000 of consumer photographs accumulated within a
duration of approximately five years, metadata based on our proposed
MPEG-7 annotation architecture, Dozen Dimensional Digital Content
(DDDC), and a relational database structure. The DDDC architecture
is specially designed for facilitating the managing, browsing and
retrieving of personal digital photograph collections. In annotating
process, we also utilize a proposed Spatial and Temporal Ontology
(STO) designed based on the general characteristic of personal
photograph collections. This paper explains PRAIS system.
Abstract: One way for optimum loading of overdimensioning
conveyers is speed (capacity) decrement, with attention for
production capabilities and demands. At conveyers which drives with
three phase slip-ring induction motor, technically reasonable solution
for conveyer (driving motors) speed regulation is using constant
torque subsynchronous cascade with static semiconductor converter
and transformer for energy reversion to the power network. In the
paper is described mathematical model for parameter calculation of
two-motors 6 kV subsynchronous cascade. It is also demonstrated
that applying of this cascade gave several good properties, foremost
in electrical energy saving, also in improving of other energy
indexes, and finally that results in cost reduction of complete
electrical motor drive.
Abstract: Biomimicry has many potential benefits as many
technologies found in nature are superior to their man-made
counterparts. As technological device components approach the micro
and nanoscale, surface properties such as surface adhesion and friction
may need to be taken into account. Lowering surface adhesion by
manipulating chemistry alone might no longer be sufficient for such
components and thus physical manipulation may be required.
Adhesion reduction is only one of the many surface functions
displayed by micro/nano-structured cuticles of insects. Here, we
present a mini review of our understanding of insect cuticle structures
and the relationship between the structure dimensions and the
corresponding functional mechanisms. It may be possible to introduce
additional properties to material surfaces (indeed multi-functional
properties) based on the design of natural surfaces.