Abstract: The major aim of this paper is to investigate the opposition politics in Africa. The paper also examines the status and the role, the contributions and the weaknesses of opposition1 political parties in Africa, particularly in transitional democracies that emerged in the 1990s. In Africa, many of the opposition parties appear or become active only during an election, and disappear when the election is over. It is found out that most of the opposition parties in Africa are established around the personalities of individuals, lack internal democracy, suffer from inter-party and intra-party conflicts, have severe shortage of finance, and lack strong base and experience. Their weaknesses also include bad organization and weak connection with the popular constituencies. The paper concludes that most of the weaknesses of the African opposition parties emanate from the incumbents- hostile policies, which are mostly aimed at fragmenting and weakening the opposition groups.
Abstract: Environment-assisted cracking (EAC) is one of the most serious causes of structural failure over a broad range of industrial applications including offshore structures. In EAC condition there is not a definite relation such as Paris equation in Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM). According to studying and searching a lot what the researchers said either a material has contact with hydrogen or any other corrosive environment, phenomenon of electrical and chemical reactions of material with its environment will be happened. In the literature, there are many different works to consider fatigue crack growing and solve it but they are experimental works. Thus, in this paper, authors have an aim to evaluate mathematically the pervious works in LEFM. Obviously, if an environment is more sour and corrosive, the changes of stress intensity factor is more and the calculation of stress intensity factor is difficult. A mathematical relation to deal with the stress intensity factor during the diffusion of sour environment especially hydrogen in a marine pipeline is presented. By using this relation having and some experimental relation an analytical formulation will be presented which enables the fatigue crack growth and critical crack length under cyclic loading to be predicted. In addition, we can calculate KSCC and stress intensity factor in the pipeline caused by EAC.
Abstract: Nowadays, OCR systems have got several
applications and are increasingly employed in daily life. Much
research has been done regarding the identification of Latin,
Japanese, and Chinese characters. However, very little investigation
has been performed regarding Farsi/Arabic characters recognition.
Probably the reason is difficulty and complexity of those characters
identification compared to the others and limitation of IT activities in
Farsi and Arabic speaking countries. In this paper, a technique has
been employed to identify isolated Farsi/Arabic characters. A chain
code based algorithm along with other significant peculiarities such
as number and location of dots and auxiliary parts, and the number of
holes existing in the isolated character has been used in this study to
identify Farsi/Arabic characters. Experimental results show the
relatively high accuracy of the method developed when it is tested on
several standard Farsi fonts.
Abstract: The Improved Generalized Diversity Index (IGDI)
has been proposed as a tool that can be used to identify areas that
have high conservation value and measure the ecological condition of
an area. IGDI is based on the species relative abundances. This paper
is concerned with particular attention is given to comparisons
involving the MacArthur model of species abundances. The
properties and performance of various species indices were assessed.
Both IGDI and species richness increased with sampling area
according to a power function. IGDI were also found to be acceptable
ecological indicators of conditions and consistently outperformed
coefficient of conservatism indices.
Abstract: Neural networks offer an alternative approach both
for identification and control of nonlinear processes in process
engineering. The lack of software tools for the design of controllers
based on neural network models is particularly pronounced in this
field. SIMULINK is properly a widely used graphical code
development environment which allows system-level developers to
perform rapid prototyping and testing. Such graphical based
programming environment involves block-based code development
and offers a more intuitive approach to modeling and control task in
a great variety of engineering disciplines. In this paper a
SIMULINK based Neural Tool has been developed for analysis and
design of multivariable neural based control systems. This tool has
been applied to the control of a high purity distillation column
including non linear hydrodynamic effects. The proposed control
scheme offers an optimal response for both theoretical and practical
challenges posed in process control task, in particular when both,
the quality improvement of distillation products and the operation
efficiency in economical terms are considered.
Abstract: Soil chemical and physical properties have important
roles in compartment of the environment and agricultural
sustainability and human health. The objectives of this research is
determination of spatial distribution patterns of Cd, Zn, K, pH, TNV,
organic material and electrical conductivity (EC) in agricultural soils
of Natanz region in Esfehan province. In this study geostatistic and
non-geostatistic methods were used for prediction of spatial
distribution of these parameters. 64 composite soils samples were
taken at 0-20 cm depth. The study area is located in south of
NATANZ agricultural lands with area of 21660 hectares. Spatial
distribution of Cd, Zn, K, pH, TNV, organic material and electrical
conductivity (EC) was determined using geostatistic and geographic
information system. Results showed that Cd, pH, TNV and K data
has normal distribution and Zn, OC and EC data had not normal
distribution. Kriging, Inverse Distance Weighting (IDW), Local
Polynomial Interpolation (LPI) and Redial Basis functions (RBF)
methods were used to interpolation. Trend analysis showed that
organic carbon in north-south and east to west did not have trend
while K and TNV had second degree trend. We used some error
measurements include, mean absolute error(MAE), mean squared
error (MSE) and mean biased error(MBE). Ordinary
kriging(exponential model), LPI(Local polynomial interpolation),
RBF(radial basis functions) and IDW methods have been chosen as
the best methods to interpolating of the soil parameters. Prediction
maps by disjunctive kriging was shown that in whole study area was
intensive shortage of organic matter and more than 63.4 percent of
study area had shortage of K amount.
Abstract: Droughts are complex, natural hazards that, to a
varying degree, affect some parts of the world every year. The range
of drought impacts is related to drought occurring in different stages
of the hydrological cycle and usually different types of droughts,
such as meteorological, agricultural, hydrological, and socioeconomical
are distinguished. Streamflow drought was analyzed by
the method of truncation level (at 70% level) on daily discharges
measured in 54 hydrometric stations in southwestern Iran. Frequency
analysis was carried out for annual maximum series (AMS) of
drought deficit volume and duration series. Some factors including
physiographic, climatic, geologic, and vegetation cover were studied
as influential factors in the regional analysis. According to the results
of factor analysis, six most effective factors were identified as area,
rainfall from December to February, the percent of area with
Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI)
Abstract: Rapid Prototyping (RP) is a technology that produces models and prototype parts from 3D CAD model data, CT/MRI scan data, and model data created from 3D object digitizing systems. There are several RP process like Stereolithography (SLA), Solid Ground Curing (SGC), Selective Laser Sintering (SLS), Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM), 3D Printing (3DP) among them SLS and FDM RP processes are used to fabricate pattern of custom cranial implant. RP technology is useful in engineering and biomedical application. This is helpful in engineering for product design, tooling and manufacture etc. RP biomedical applications are design and development of medical devices, instruments, prosthetics and implantation; it is also helpful in planning complex surgical operation. The traditional approach limits the full appreciation of various bony structure movements and therefore the custom implants produced are difficult to measure the anatomy of parts and analyze the changes in facial appearances accurately. Cranioplasty surgery is a surgical correction of a defect in cranial bone by implanting a metal or plastic replacement to restore the missing part. This paper aims to do a comparative study on the dimensional error of CAD and SLS RP Models for reconstruction of cranial defect by comparing the virtual CAD with the physical RP model of a cranial defect.
Abstract: Uterine and oviducal fluids are necessary for
capacitation of the spermatozoa and early embryonic development.
The aim of the present study was to determine the effects of estrous
cycle phases (follicular and luteal) on some biological parameters
(enzymes, electrolytes and total proteins) in uterine and oviducal
secretions of ewes. Oviducal and uterine fluids were collected,
diluted and centrifuged. According to our results, concentrations of
GPT, G6PDH, total proteins, K and Na were significantly (P
Abstract: Over 90% of the world trade is carried by the
international shipping industry. As most of the countries are
developing, seaborne trade continues to expand to bring benefits for
consumers across the world. Studies show that world trade will
increase 70-80% through shipping in the next 15-20 years. Present
global fleet of 70000 commercial ships consumes approximately 200
million tonnes of diesel fuel a year and it is expected that it will be
around 350 million tonnes a year by 2020. It will increase the
demand for fuel and also increase the concentration of CO2 in the
atmosphere. So, it-s essential to control this massive fuel
consumption and CO2 emission. The idea is to utilize a diesel-wind
hybrid system for ship propulsion. Use of wind energy by installing
modern wing-sails in ships can drastically reduce the consumption of
diesel fuel. A huge amount of wind energy is available in oceans.
Whenever wind is available the wing-sails would be deployed and
the diesel engine would be throttled down and still the same forward
speed would be maintained. Wind direction in a particular shipping
route is not same throughout; it changes depending upon the global
wind pattern which depends on the latitude. So, the wing-sail
orientation should be such that it optimizes the use of wind energy.
We have made a computer programme in which by feeding the data
regarding wind velocity, wind direction, ship-motion direction; we
can find out the best wing-sail position and fuel saving for
commercial ships. We have calculated net fuel saving in certain
international shipping routes, for instance, from Mumbai in India to
Durban in South Africa. Our estimates show that about 8.3% diesel
fuel can be saved by utilizing the wind. We are also developing an
experimental model of the ship employing airfoils (small scale wingsail)
and going to test it in National Wind Tunnel Facility in IIT
Kanpur in order to develop a control mechanism for a system of
airfoils.
Abstract: This paper critiques several exiting strategic
international human resource management (SIHRM) frameworks and
discusses their limitations to apply directly to emerging multinational
enterprises (EMNEs), especially those generated from China and
other BRICS nations. To complement the existing SIHRM
frameworks, key variables relevant to emerging economies are
identified and the extended model with particular reference to
EMNEs is developed with several research propositions. It is
believed that the extended model would better capture the recent
development of MNEs in transition, and alert emerging international
managers to address several human resource management challenges
in the global context
Abstract: Prostate cancer is one of the most frequent cancers in men and is a major cause of mortality in the most of countries. In many diagnostic and treatment procedures for prostate disease accurate detection of prostate boundaries in transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) images is required. This is a challenging and difficult task due to weak prostate boundaries, speckle noise and the short range of gray levels. In this paper a novel method for automatic prostate segmentation in TRUS images is presented. This method involves preprocessing (edge preserving noise reduction and smoothing) and prostate segmentation. The speckle reduction has been achieved by using stick filter and top-hat transform has been implemented for smoothing. A feed forward neural network and local binary pattern together have been use to find a point inside prostate object. Finally the boundary of prostate is extracted by the inside point and an active contour algorithm. A numbers of experiments are conducted to validate this method and results showed that this new algorithm extracted the prostate boundary with MSE less than 4.6% relative to boundary provided manually by physicians.
Abstract: With the exponential progress of technological
development comes a strong sense that events are moving too quickly
for our schools and that teachers may be losing control of them in the
process. This paper examines the impact of e-learning and e-teaching
in universities, from both the student and teacher perspective. In
particular, it is shown that e-teachers should focus not only on the
technical capacities and functions of IT materials and activities, but
must attempt to more fully understand how their e-learners perceive
the learning environment. From the e-learner perspective, this paper
indicates that simply having IT tools available does not automatically
translate into all students becoming effective learners. More
evidence-based evaluative research is needed to allow e-learning and
e-teaching to reach full potential.
Abstract: The counting and analysis of blood cells allows the
evaluation and diagnosis of a vast number of diseases. In particular,
the analysis of white blood cells (WBCs) is a topic of great interest to
hematologists. Nowadays the morphological analysis of blood cells is
performed manually by skilled operators. This involves numerous
drawbacks, such as slowness of the analysis and a nonstandard
accuracy, dependent on the operator skills. In literature there are only
few examples of automated systems in order to analyze the white
blood cells, most of which only partial. This paper presents a
complete and fully automatic method for white blood cells
identification from microscopic images. The proposed method firstly
individuates white blood cells from which, subsequently, nucleus and
cytoplasm are extracted. The whole work has been developed using
MATLAB environment, in particular the Image Processing Toolbox.
Abstract: In modern distributed software systems, the issue of communication among composing parts represents a critical point, but the idea of extending conventional programming languages with general purpose communication constructs seems difficult to realize. As a consequence, there is a (growing) gap between the abstraction level required by distributed applications and the concepts provided by platforms that enable communication. This work intends to discuss how the Model Driven Software Development approach can be considered as a mature technology to generate in automatic way the schematic part of applications related to communication, by providing at the same time high level specialized languages useful in all the phases of software production. To achieve the goal, a stack of languages (meta-meta¬models) has been introduced in order to describe – at different levels of abstraction – the collaborative behavior of generic entities in terms of communication actions related to a taxonomy of messages. Finally, the generation of platforms for communication is viewed as a form of specification of language semantics, that provides executable models of applications together with model-checking supports and effective runtime environments.
Abstract: This paper explores the opportunity of using tri-axial
wireless accelerometers for supervised monitoring of sports
movements. A motion analysis system for the upper extremities of
lawn bowlers in particular is developed. Accelerometers are placed
on parts of human body such as the chest to represent the shoulder
movements, the back to capture the trunk motion, back of the hand,
the wrist and one above the elbow, to capture arm movements. These
sensors placement are carefully designed in order to avoid restricting
bowler-s movements. Data is acquired from these sensors in soft-real
time using virtual instrumentation; the acquired data is then
conditioned and converted into required parameters for motion
regeneration. A user interface was also created to facilitate in the
acquisition of data, and broadcasting of commands to the wireless
accelerometers. All motion regeneration in this paper deals with the
motion of the human body segment in the X and Y direction, looking
into the motion of the anterior/ posterior and lateral directions
respectively.
Abstract: A high-frequency low-power sinusoidal quadrature
oscillator is presented through the use of two 2nd-order low-pass
current-mirror (CM)-based filters, a 1st-order CM low-pass filter and
a CM bilinear transfer function. The technique is relatively simple
based on (i) inherent time constants of current mirrors, i.e. the
internal capacitances and the transconductance of a diode-connected
NMOS, (ii) a simple negative resistance RN formed by a resistor load
RL of a current mirror. Neither external capacitances nor inductances
are required. As a particular example, a 1.9-GHz, 0.45-mW, 2-V
CMOS low-pass-filter-based all-current-mirror sinusoidal quadrature
oscillator is demonstrated. The oscillation frequency (f0) is 1.9 GHz
and is current-tunable over a range of 370 MHz or 21.6 %. The
power consumption is at approximately 0.45 mW. The amplitude
matching and the quadrature phase matching are better than 0.05 dB
and 0.15°, respectively. Total harmonic distortions (THD) are less
than 0.3 %. At 2 MHz offset from the 1.9 GHz, the carrier to noise
ratio (CNR) is 90.01 dBc/Hz whilst the figure of merit called a
normalized carrier-to-noise ratio (CNRnorm) is 153.03 dBc/Hz. The
ratio of the oscillation frequency (f0) to the unity-gain frequency (fT)
of a transistor is 0.25. Comparisons to other approaches are also
included.
Abstract: Car failure detection is a complicated process and
requires high level of expertise. Any attempt of developing an expert
system dealing with car failure detection has to overcome various
difficulties. This paper describes a proposed knowledge-based
system for car failure detection. The paper explains the need for an
expert system and the some issues on developing knowledge-based
systems, the car failure detection process and the difficulties involved
in developing the system. The system structure and its components
and their functions are described. The system has about 150 rules for
different types of failures and causes. It can detect over 100 types of
failures. The system has been tested and gave promising results.
Abstract: An empirical study of web applications that use
software frameworks is presented here. The analysis is based on two
approaches. In the first, developers using such frameworks are
required, based on their experience, to assign weights to parameters
such as database connection. In the second approach, a performance
testing tool, OpenSTA, is used to compute start time and other such
measures. From such an analysis, it is concluded that open source
software is superior to proprietary software. The motivation behind
this research is to examine ways in which a quantitative assessment
can be made of software in general and frameworks in particular.
Concepts such as metrics and architectural styles are discussed along
with previously published research.
Abstract: The hand is one of the essential parts of the body for
carrying out Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). Individuals use their
hands and fingers in everyday activities in the both the workplace
and home. Hand-intensive tasks require diverse and sometimes
extreme levels of exertion, depending on the action, movement or
manipulation involved. The authors have undertaken several studies
looking at grip choice and comfort. It is hoped that in providing
improved understanding of discomfort during ADLs this will aid in
the design of consumer products.
Previous work by the authors outlined a methodology for
calculating pain frequency and pain level for a range of tasks. From
an online survey undertaken by the authors with regards
manipulating objects during everyday tasks, tasks involving
gripping were seen to produce the highest levels of pain and
discomfort. Questioning of the participants showed that cleaning
tasks were seen to be ADL's that produced the highest levels of
discomfort, with women feeling higher levels of discomfort than
men.
This paper looks at the methodology for calculating pain
frequency and pain level with particular regards to gripping
activities. This methodology shows that activities such as mopping,
sweeping and hoovering shows the highest numbers of pain
frequency and pain level at 3112.5 frequency per month while the
pain level per person doing this action was 0.78.The study then uses
thin-film force sensors to analyze the force distribution in the hand
whilst hoovering and compares this for differing grip styles and
genders. Women were seen to have more of their hand under a
higher pressure than men when undertaking hoovering. This
suggests that women may feel greater discomfort than men since
their hand is at a higher pressure more of the time.