Abstract: This paper is a continuation of our interest in the influence of temperature on specific retention volumes and the resulting infinite dilution activity coefficients. This has a direct effect in the design of absorption and stripping columns for the abatement of volatile organic compounds. The interaction of 13 volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) at varying temperatures was studied by gas liquid chromatography (GLC). Infinite dilution activity coefficients and specific retention volumes obtained in this study were found to be in agreement with those obtained from static headspace and group contribution methods by the authors as well as literature values for similar systems. Temperature variation also allows for transport calculations for different seasons. The results of this work confirm that PDMS is well suited for the scrubbing of VOCs from waste gas streams. Plots of specific retention volumes against temperature gave linear van-t Hoff plots.
Abstract: Extracting and elaborating software requirements and
transforming them into viable software architecture are still an
intricate task. This paper defines a solution architecture which is
based on the blurred amalgamation of problem space and solution
space. The dependencies between domain constraints, requirements
and architecture and their importance are described that are to be
considered collectively while evolving from problem space to
solution space. This paper proposes a revised version of Twin Peaks
Model named Win Peaks Model that reconciles software
requirements and architecture in more consistent and adaptable
manner. Further the conflict between stakeholders- win-requirements
is resolved by proposed Voting methodology that is simple
adaptation of win-win requirements negotiation model and QARCC.
Abstract: Certain tRNA synthetases have developed highly accurate molecular machinery to discriminate their cognate amino acids. Those aaRSs achieve their goal via editing reaction in the Connective Polypeptide 1 (CP1). Recently mutagenesis studies have revealed the critical importance of residues in the CP1 domain for editing activity and X-ray structures have shown binding mode of noncognate amino acids in the editing domain. To pursue molecular mechanism for amino acid discrimination, molecular modeling studies were performed. Our results suggest that aaRS bind the noncognate amino acid more tightly than the cognate one. Finally, by comparing binding conformations of the amino acids in three systems, the amino acid binding mode was elucidated and a discrimination mechanism proposed. The results strongly reveal that the conserved threonines are responsible for amino acid discrimination. This is achieved through side chain interactions between T252 and T247/T248 as well as between those threonines and the incoming amino acids.
Abstract: The link between coordinate transformations in the plane and their effects on the graph of a function can be difficult for students studying college level mathematics to comprehend. To solidify this conceptual link in the mind of a student Microsoft Excel can serve as a convenient graphing tool and pedagogical aid. The authors of this paper describe how various transformations and their related functional symmetry properties can be graphically displayed with an Excel spreadsheet.
Abstract: There are increasingly plagiarism offences for
students in higher education in the digital educational world. On the
other hand, various and competitive online assessment and
plagiarism detection tools are available in the market. Taking the
University of Glamorgan as a case study, this paper describes and
introduces an institutional journey on electronic plagiarism detection
to inform the initial experience of an innovative tool and method
which could be further explored in the future research. The
comparative study and system workflow for e-plagiarism detection
tool are discussed. Benefits for both academics and students are also
presented. Electronic plagiarism detection tools brought great
benefits to both academics and students in Glamorgan. On the other
hand, the debates raised in such initial experience are discussed.
Abstract: In parallel, broadcasting has changed rapidly with the
changing of the world at the same area. Broadcasting is also
influenced and reshaped in terms of the emergence of new
communication technologies. These developments have resulted a lot
of economic and social consequences. The most important
consequences of these results are those of the powers of the
governments to control over the means of communication and control
mechanisms related to the descriptions of the new issues. For this
purpose, autonomous and independent regulatory bodies have been
established by the state. One of these regulatory bodies is the Radio
and Television Supreme Council, which to be established in 1994,
with the Code no 3984. Today’s Radio and Television Supreme
Council which is responsible for the regulation of the radio and
television broadcasts all across Turkey has an important and effective
position as autonomous and independent regulatory body. The Radio
and Television Supreme Council acts as being a remarkable organizer
for a sensitive area of radio and television broadcasting on one hand,
and the area of democratic, liberal and keep in mind the concept of
the public interest by putting certain principles for the functioning of
the Board control, in the context of media policy as one of the central
organs, on the other hand.
In this study, the role of the Radio and Television Supreme
Council is examined in accordance with the Code no 3894 in order to
control over the communication and control mechanisms as well as
the examination of the changes in the duties of the Code No. 6112,
dated 2011.
Abstract: Simultaneous recovery of copper and DCA from
simulated MEUF concentrated stream was investigated. Effects of
surfactant (DCA) and metal (copper) concentrations, surfactant to
metal molar ratio (S/M ratio), electroplating voltage, EDTA
concentration, solution pH, and salt concentration on metal recovery
and current efficiency were studied. Electric voltage of -0.5 V was
shown to be optimum operation condition in terms of Cu recovery,
current efficiency, and surfactant recovery. Increasing Cu recovery and
current efficiency were observed with increases of Cu concentration
while keeping concentration of DCA constant. However, increasing
both Cu and DCA concentration while keeping S/M ratio constant at
2.5 showed detrimental effect on Cu recovery at DCA concentration
higher than 15 mM. Cu recovery decreases with increasing pH while
current efficiency showed an opposite trend. It is believed that
conductivity is the main cause for discrepancy of Cu recovery and
current efficiency observed at different pH. Finally, it was shown that
EDTA had adverse effect on both Cu recovery and current efficiency
while addition of NaCl salt had negative impact on current efficiency
at concentration higher than 8000 mg/L.
Abstract: Partial discharge (PD) detection is an important
method to evaluate the insulation condition of metal-clad apparatus.
Non-intrusive sensors which are easy to install and have no
interruptions on operation are preferred in onsite PD detection.
However, it often lacks of accuracy due to the interferences in PD
signals. In this paper a novel PD extraction method that uses frequency
analysis and entropy based time-frequency (TF) analysis is introduced.
The repetitive pulses from convertor are first removed via frequency
analysis. Then, the relative entropy and relative peak-frequency of
each pulse (i.e. time-indexed vector TF spectrum) are calculated and
all pulses with similar parameters are grouped. According to the
characteristics of non-intrusive sensor and the frequency distribution
of PDs, the pulses of PD and interferences are separated. Finally the
PD signal and interferences are recovered via inverse TF transform.
The de-noised result of noisy PD data demonstrates that the
combination of frequency and time-frequency techniques can
discriminate PDs from interferences with various frequency
distributions.
Abstract: A new digital watermarking technique for images that
are sensitive to blocking artifacts is presented. Experimental results
show that the proposed MDCT based approach produces highly
imperceptible watermarked images and is robust to attacks such as
compression, noise, filtering and geometric transformations. The
proposed MDCT watermarking technique is applied to fingerprints
for ensuring security. The face image and demographic text data of
an individual are used as multiple watermarks. An AFIS system was
used to quantitatively evaluate the matching performance of the
MDCT-based watermarked fingerprint. The high fingerprint
matching scores show that the MDCT approach is resilient to
blocking artifacts. The quality of the extracted face and extracted text
images was computed using two human visual system metrics and
the results show that the image quality was high.
Abstract: Tofurther advance research on immune-related genes
from T. molitor, we constructed acDNA library and analyzed
expressed sequence taq (EST) sequences from 1,056 clones. After
removing vector sequence and quality checkingthrough thePhred
program (trim_alt 0.05 (P-score>20), 1039 sequences were generated.
The average length of insert was 792 bp. In addition, we identified 162
clusters, 167 contigs and 391 contigs after clustering and assembling
process using a TGICL package. EST sequences were searchedagainst
NCBI nr database by local BLAST (blastx, E
Abstract: Toughening of polyamide 6 (PA6)/ Nanoclay (NC) nanocomposites with styrene-ethylene/butadiene-styrene copolymer (SEBS) using maleated styrene-ethylene/butadiene-styrene copolymer (mSEBS)/ as a compatibilizer were investigated by blending them in a co-rotating twin-screw extruder. Response surface method of experimental design was used for optimizing the material and processing parameters. Effect of four factors, including SEBS, mSEBS and NC contents as material variables and order of mixing as a processing factor, on toughness of hybrid nanocomposites were studied. All the prepared samples showed ductile behavior and low temperature Izod impact toughness of some of the hybrid nanocomposites demonstrated 900% improvement compared to the PA6 matrix while the modulus showed maximum enhancement of 20% compared to the pristine PA6 resin.
Abstract: Subjective loneliness describes people who feel a
disagreeable or unacceptable lack of meaningful social relationships,
both at the quantitative and qualitative level. The studies to be
presented tested an Italian 18-items self-report loneliness measure,
that included items adapted from scales previously developed,
namely a short version of the UCLA (Russell, Peplau and Cutrona,
1980), and the 11-items Loneliness scale by De Jong-Gierveld &
Kamphuis (JGLS; 1985). The studies aimed at testing the developed
scale and at verifying whether loneliness is better conceptualized as a
unidimensional (so-called 'general loneliness') or a bidimensional
construct, namely comprising the distinct facets of social and
emotional loneliness. The loneliness questionnaire included 2 singleitem
criterion measures of sad mood, and social contact, and asked
participants to supply information on a number of socio-demographic
variables. Factorial analyses of responses obtained in two
preliminary studies, with 59 and 143 Italian participants respectively,
showed good factor loadings and subscale reliability and confirmed
that perceived loneliness has clearly two components, a social and an
emotional one, the latter measured by two subscales, a 7-item
'general' loneliness subscale derived from UCLA, and a 6–item
'emotional' scale included in the JGLS. Results further showed that
type and amount of loneliness are related, negatively, to frequency of
social contacts, and, positively, to sad mood. In a third study data
were obtained from a nation-wide sample of 9.097 Italian subjects,
12 to about 70 year-olds, who filled the test on-line, on the Italian
web site of a large-audience magazine, Focus. The results again
confirmed the reliability of the component subscales, namely social,
emotional, and 'general' loneliness, and showed that they were
highly correlated with each other, especially the latter two.
Loneliness scores were significantly predicted by sex, age, education
level, sad mood and social contact, and, less so, by other variables –
e.g., geographical area and profession. The scale validity was
confirmed by the results of a fourth study, with elderly men and
women (N 105) living at home or in residential care units. The three
subscales were significantly related, among others, to depression, and
to various measures of the extension of, and satisfaction with, social
contacts with relatives and friends. Finally, a fifth study with 315
career-starters showed that social and emotional loneliness correlate
with life satisfaction, and with measures of emotional intelligence.
Altogether the results showed a good validity and reliability in the
tested samples of the entire scale, and of its components.
Abstract: Cellular networks provide voice and data services to the users with mobility. To deliver services to the mobile users, the cellular network is capable of tracking the locations of the users, and allowing user movement during the conversations. These capabilities are achieved by the location management. Location management in mobile communication systems is concerned with those network functions necessary to allow the users to be reached wherever they are in the network coverage area. In a cellular network, a service coverage area is divided into smaller areas of hexagonal shape, referred to as cells. The cellular concept was introduced to reuse the radio frequency. Continued expansion of cellular networks, coupled with an increasingly restricted mobile spectrum, has established the reduction of communication overhead as a highly important issue. Much of this traffic is used in determining the precise location of individual users when relaying calls, with the field of location management aiming to reduce this overhead through prediction of user location. This paper describes and compares various location management schemes in the cellular networks.
Abstract: The design of a complete expansion that allows for
compact representation of certain relevant classes of signals is a
central problem in signal processing applications. Achieving such a
representation means knowing the signal features for the purpose of
denoising, classification, interpolation and forecasting. Multilayer
Neural Networks are relatively a new class of techniques that are
mathematically proven to approximate any continuous function
arbitrarily well. Radial Basis Function Networks, which make use of
Gaussian activation function, are also shown to be a universal
approximator. In this age of ever-increasing digitization in the
storage, processing, analysis and communication of information,
there are numerous examples of applications where one needs to
construct a continuously defined function or numerical algorithm to
approximate, represent and reconstruct the given discrete data of a
signal. Many a times one wishes to manipulate the data in a way that
requires information not included explicitly in the data, which is
done through interpolation and/or extrapolation.
Tidal data are a very perfect example of time series and many
statistical techniques have been applied for tidal data analysis and
representation. ANN is recent addition to such techniques. In the
present paper we describe the time series representation capabilities
of a special type of ANN- Radial Basis Function networks and
present the results of tidal data representation using RBF. Tidal data
analysis & representation is one of the important requirements in
marine science for forecasting.
Abstract: This paper discusses coordinated reactive power -
voltage (Q-V) control in a multi machine steam power plant. The
drawbacks of manual Q-V control are briefly listed, and the design
requirements for coordinated Q-V controller are specified.
Theoretical background and mathematical model of the new
controller are presented next followed by validation of developed
Matlab/Simulink model through comparison with recorded
responses in real steam power plant and description of practical
realisation of the controller. Finally, the performance of
commissioned controller is illustrated on several examples of
coordinated Q-V control in real steam power plant and compared
with manual control.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to describe the process of
setting up a learning community within an elementary school in
Ontario, Canada. The description is provided through reflection and
examination of field notes taken during the yearlong training and
implementation process. Specifically the impact of teachers- capacity
on the creation of a learning community was of interest. This paper is
intended to inform and add to the debate around the tensions that
exist in implementing a bottom-up professional development model
like the learning community in a top-down organizational structure.
My reflections of the process illustrate that implementation of the
learning community professional development model may be
difficult and yet transformative in the professional lives of the
teachers, students, and administration involved in the change process.
I conclude by suggesting the need for a new model of professional
development that requires a transformative shift in power dynamics
and a shift in the view of what constitutes effective professional
learning.
Abstract: Diabetes is one of the high prevalence diseases
worldwide with increased number of complications, with retinopathy
as one of the most common one. This paper describes how data
mining and case-based reasoning were integrated to predict
retinopathy prevalence among diabetes patients in Malaysia. The
knowledge base required was built after literature reviews and
interviews with medical experts. A total of 140 diabetes patients- data
were used to train the prediction system. A voting mechanism selects
the best prediction results from the two techniques used. It has been
successfully proven that both data mining and case-based reasoning
can be used for retinopathy prediction with an improved accuracy of
85%.
Abstract: A computationally simple approach of model order
reduction for single input single output (SISO) and linear timeinvariant
discrete systems modeled in frequency domain is proposed
in this paper. Denominator of the reduced order model is determined
using fuzzy C-means clustering while the numerator parameters are
found by matching time moments and Markov parameters of high
order system.
Abstract: In [4], Kipnis and Shamir have cryptanalised
a version of HFE of degree 2. In this paper, we describe the
generalization of this attack of HFE of degree more than 2.
We are based on Fourier Transformation to acheive partially
this attack.
Abstract: UML is a collection of notations for capturing a software system specification. These notations have a specific syntax defined by the Object Management Group (OMG), but many of their constructs only present informal semantics. They are primarily graphical, with textual annotation. The inadequacies of standard UML as a vehicle for complete specification and implementation of real-time embedded systems has led to a variety of competing and complementary proposals. The Real-time UML profile (UML-RT), developed and standardized by OMG, defines a unified framework to express the time, scheduling and performance aspects of a system. We present in this paper a framework approach aimed at deriving a complete specification of a real-time system. Therefore, we combine two methods, a semiformal one, UML-RT, which allows the visual modeling of a realtime system and a formal one, CSP+T, which is a design language including the specification of real-time requirements. As to show the applicability of the approach, a correct design of a real-time system with hard real time constraints by applying a set of mapping rules is obtained.