Abstract: Group contribution based models are widely used in
industrial applications for its convenience and flexibility. Although a
number of group contribution models have been proposed, there were
certain limitations inherent to those models. Models based on group
contribution excess Gibbs free energy are limited to low pressures and
models based on equation of state (EOS) cannot properly describe
highly nonideal mixtures including acids without introducing
additional modification such as chemical theory. In the present study
new a new approach derived from quantum chemistry have been used
to calculate necessary EOS group interaction parameters. The
COSMO-RS method, based on quantum mechanics, provides a
reliable tool for fluid phase thermodynamics. Benefits of the group
contribution EOS are the consistent extension to hydrogen-bonded
mixtures and the capability to predict polymer-solvent equilibria up to
high pressures. The authors are confident that with a sufficient
parameter matrix the performance of the lattice EOS can be improved
significantly.
Abstract: Adolescents in Northern Uganda are at risk of teenage
pregnancies, unsafe abortions and sexually transmitted infections
(STIs). There is silence on sex both at home and school. This cross
sectional descriptive analytical study interviews a random sample of
827 students and 13 teachers on knowledge, perception and
acceptability to a comprehensive adolescent sexual and reproductive
health education in “O” and “A” level secondary schools in Gulu
District. Quantitative data was analyzed using SPSS 16.0. Directed
content analysis of themes of transcribed qualitative data was
conducted manually for common codes, sub-categories and
categories. Of the 827 students; 54.3% (449) reported being in a
sexual relationship especially those aged 15-17 years. Majority
96.1% (807) supported the teaching of a comprehensive ASRHE,
citing no negative impact 71.5% (601). Majority 81.6% (686) agreed
that such education could help prevention of STIs, abortions and
teenage pregnancies, and that it should be taught by health workers
69.0% (580). Majority 76.6% (203) reported that ASRHE was not
currently being taught in their schools. Students had low knowledge
levels and misconceptions about ASRHE. ASRHE was highly
acceptable though not being emphasized; its success in school
settings requires multidisciplinary culturally sensitive approaches
amongst which health workers should be frontiers.
Abstract: Wavelet transforms are multiresolution
decompositions that can be used to analyze signals and images.
Image compression is one of major applications of wavelet
transforms in image processing. It is considered as one of the most
powerful methods that provides a high compression ratio. However,
its implementation is very time-consuming. At the other hand,
parallel computing technologies are an efficient method for image
compression using wavelets. In this paper, we propose a parallel
wavelet compression algorithm based on quadtrees. We implement
the algorithm using MatlabMPI (a parallel, message passing version
of Matlab), and compute its isoefficiency function, and show that it is
scalable. Our experimental results confirm the efficiency of the
algorithm also.
Abstract: Service identification is one of the main activities in
the modeling of a service-oriented solution, and therefore errors
made during identification can flow down through detailed design
and implementation activities that may necessitate multiple
iterations, especially in building composite applications. Different
strategies exist for how to identify candidate services that each of
them has its own benefits and trade offs. The approach presented in
this paper proposes a selective identification of services approach,
based on in depth business process analysis coupled with use cases
and existing assets analysis and goal service modeling. This article
clearly emphasizes the key activities need for the analysis and
service identification to build a optimized service oriented
architecture. In contrast to other approaches this article mentions
some best practices and steps, wherever appropriate, to point out the
vagueness involved in service identification.
Abstract: A considerable progress has been achieved in transient
stability analysis (TSA) with various FACTS controllers. But, all
these controllers are associated with single transmission line. This
paper is intended to discuss a new approach i.e. a multi-line FACTS
controller which is interline power flow controller (IPFC) for TSA of
a multi-machine power system network. A mathematical model of
IPFC, termed as power injection model (PIM) presented and this
model is incorporated in Newton-Raphson (NR) power flow
algorithm. Then, the reduced admittance matrix of a multi-machine
power system network for a three phase fault without and with IPFC
is obtained which is required to draw the machine swing curves. A
general approach based on L-index has also been discussed to find
the best location of IPFC to reduce the proximity to instability of a
power system. Numerical results are carried out on two test systems
namely, 6-bus and 11-bus systems. A program in MATLAB has
been written to plot the variation of generator rotor angle and speed
difference curves without and with IPFC for TSA and also a simple
approach has been presented to evaluate critical clearing time for test
systems. The results obtained without and with IPFC are compared
and discussed.
Abstract: This paper proposes an auto-classification algorithm
of Web pages using Data mining techniques. We consider the
problem of discovering association rules between terms in a set of
Web pages belonging to a category in a search engine database, and
present an auto-classification algorithm for solving this problem that
are fundamentally based on Apriori algorithm. The proposed
technique has two phases. The first phase is a training phase where
human experts determines the categories of different Web pages, and
the supervised Data mining algorithm will combine these categories
with appropriate weighted index terms according to the highest
supported rules among the most frequent words. The second phase is
the categorization phase where a web crawler will crawl through the
World Wide Web to build a database categorized according to the
result of the data mining approach. This database contains URLs and
their categories.
Abstract: Innovation is more important in any companies.
However, it is not easy to measure the innovation performance
correctly. Patent is one of measuring index nowadays. This paper
wants to purpose an approach for valuing patents based on market
reaction to patent infringement litigations. The interesting
phenomenon is found from collection of patent infringement litigation
events. That is if any patent litigation event occurs the stock value will
follow changing. The plaintiffs- stock value raises some percentage.
According to this interesting phenomenon, the relationship between
patent litigation and stock value is tested and verified. And then, the
stock value variation is used to deduce the infringed patents- value.
The purpose of this study is providing another concept model to
evaluate the infringed patents. This study can provide a decision assist
system to help drafting patent litigation strategy and determine the
technology value
Abstract: A topologically oriented neural network is very
efficient for real-time path planning for a mobile robot in changing
environments. When using a recurrent neural network for this
purpose and with the combination of the partial differential equation
of heat transfer and the distributed potential concept of the network,
the problem of obstacle avoidance of trajectory planning for a
moving robot can be efficiently solved. The related dimensional
network represents the state variables and the topology of the robot's
working space. In this paper two approaches to problem solution are
proposed. The first approach relies on the potential distribution of
attraction distributed around the moving target, acting as a unique
local extreme in the net, with the gradient of the state variables
directing the current flow toward the source of the potential heat. The
second approach considers two attractive and repulsive potential
sources to decrease the time of potential distribution. Computer
simulations have been carried out to interrogate the performance of
the proposed approaches.
Abstract: One of the major cause of eye strain and other
problems caused while watching television is the relative illumination between the screen and its surrounding. This can be
overcome by adjusting the brightness of the screen with respect to the surrounding light. A controller based on fuzzy logic is proposed
in this paper. The fuzzy controller takes in the intensity of light
surrounding the screen and the present brightness of the screen as input. The output of the fuzzy controller is the grid voltage corresponding to the required brightness. This voltage is given to CRT and brightness is controller dynamically. For the given test system data, different de-fuzzifier methods have been implemented and the results are compared. In order to validate the effectiveness of
the proposed approach, a fuzzy controller has been designed by obtaining a test data from a real time system. The simulations are
performed in MATLAB and are verified with standard system data. The proposed approach can be implemented for real time
applications.
Abstract: Over the past few years, a number of efforts have
been exerted to build parallel processing systems that utilize the idle
power of LAN-s and PC-s available in many homes and corporations.
The main advantage of these approaches is that they provide cheap
parallel processing environments for those who cannot afford the
expenses of supercomputers and parallel processing hardware.
However, most of the solutions provided are not very flexible in the
use of available resources and very difficult to install and setup.
In this paper, a multi-level web-based parallel processing system
(MWPS) is designed (appendix). MWPS is based on the idea of
volunteer computing, very flexible, easy to setup and easy to use.
MWPS allows three types of subscribers: simple volunteers (single
computers), super volunteers (full networks) and end users. All of
these entities are coordinated transparently through a secure web site.
Volunteer nodes provide the required processing power needed by
the system end users. There is no limit on the number of volunteer
nodes, and accordingly the system can grow indefinitely. Both
volunteer and system users must register and subscribe. Once, they
subscribe, each entity is provided with the appropriate MWPS
components. These components are very easy to install.
Super volunteer nodes are provided with special components that
make it possible to delegate some of the load to their inner nodes.
These inner nodes may also delegate some of the load to some other
lower level inner nodes .... and so on. It is the responsibility of the
parent super nodes to coordinate the delegation process and deliver
the results back to the user.
MWPS uses a simple behavior-based scheduler that takes into
consideration the current load and previous behavior of processing
nodes. Nodes that fulfill their contracts within the expected time get a
high degree of trust. Nodes that fail to satisfy their contract get a
lower degree of trust.
MWPS is based on the .NET framework and provides the minimal
level of security expected in distributed processing environments.
Users and processing nodes are fully authenticated. Communications
and messages between nodes are very secure. The system has been
implemented using C#.
MWPS may be used by any group of people or companies to
establish a parallel processing or grid environment.
Abstract: Electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings are often
contaminated with ocular and muscle artifacts. In this paper, the
canonical correlation analysis (CCA) is used as blind source
separation (BSS) technique (BSS-CCA) to decompose the artifact
contaminated EEG into component signals. We combine the BSSCCA
technique with wavelet filtering approach for minimizing both
ocular and muscle artifacts simultaneously, and refer the proposed
method as wavelet enhanced BSS-CCA. In this approach, after
careful visual inspection, the muscle artifact components are
discarded and ocular artifact components are subjected to wavelet
filtering to retain high frequency cerebral information, and then clean
EEG is reconstructed. The performance of the proposed wavelet
enhanced BSS-CCA method is tested on real EEG recordings
contaminated with ocular and muscle artifacts, for which power
spectral density is used as a quantitative measure. Our results suggest
that the proposed hybrid approach minimizes ocular and muscle
artifacts effectively, minimally affecting underlying cerebral activity
in EEG recordings.
Abstract: Multiparty voice over IP (MVoIP) systems allows a group of people to freely communicate each other via the internet, which have many applications such as online gaming, teleconferencing, online stock trading etc. Peertalk is a peer to peer multiparty voice over IP system (MVoIP) which is more feasible than existing approaches such as p2p overlay multicast and coupled distributed processing. Since the stream mixing and distribution are done by the peers, it is vulnerable to major security threats like nodes misbehavior, eavesdropping, Sybil attacks, Denial of Service (DoS), call tampering, Man in the Middle attacks etc. To thwart the security threats, a security framework called PEERTS (PEEred Reputed Trustworthy System for peertalk) is implemented so that efficient and secure communication can be carried out between peers.
Abstract: In this paper present a sensorless maximum wind power extraction for variable speed constant frequency (VSCF) wind power generation systems with a doubly-fed induction generators (DFIG), to ensure stability and to impose the ideal feedback control solution despite of model uncertainties , using the principles of an active and reactive power controller (DPC) a robust sliding mode power control has been proposed to guarantees fast response times and precise control actions for control the active and reactive power independently. The simulation results in MATLAB/Simulink platform confirmed the good dynamic performance of power control approach for DFIGbased variable speed wind turbines.
Abstract: The focus of the study is to understand the factors of
curriculum innovation from the perspective of Language teacher
education. The overall aim of the study is to investigate Language
educators- perceptions of factors of curriculum innovation. In the
theoretical framework the main focus is on discussion about different
curriculum approaches for language teacher education and limiting
and facilitating factors of innovation. In order to achieve the aim of
the study, an observational research is employed. The empirical basis
of the study consists of questionnaire with sixty-three language
teachers from eight Romanian higher education institutions. The
findings reveal variation in Language teachers- conceptions of the
dominant factors of curricular innovation.
Abstract: The distance protection mainly the impedance relay which is considered as the main protection for transmission lines can be subjected to impedance measurement error which is, mainly, due to the fault resistance and to the power fluctuation. Thus, the impedance relay may not operate for a short circuit at the far end of the protected line (case of the under reach) or operates for a fault beyond its protected zone (case of overreach). In this paper, an approach to fault detection by a distance protection, which distinguishes between the faulty conditions and the effect of overload operation mode, has been developed. This approach is based on the symmetrical components; mainly the negative sequence, and it is taking into account both the effect of fault resistance and the overload situation which both have an effect upon the reliability of the protection in terms of dependability for the former and security for the latter.
Abstract: Because of the increasing business pressures, companies must be adaptable and flexible in order to withstand them. Inadequate business processes and low level of business process orientation, that in its core accentuates business processes as opposed to business functions and focuses on process performance and customer satisfaction, hider the ability to adapt to changing environment. It has been shown in previous studies that the companies which have reached higher business process maturity level consistently outperform those that have not reached them. The aim of this paper is to provide a basic understanding of business process orientation concept and business process maturity model. Besides that the paper presents the state of business process orientation in Croatia that has been captured with a study conducted in 2013. Based on the results some practical implications and guidelines for managers are given.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a selective mutation method
for improving the performances of genetic algorithms. In selective
mutation, individuals are first ranked and then additionally mutated
one bit in a part of their strings which is selected corresponding to
their ranks. This selective mutation helps genetic algorithms to fast
approach the global optimum and to quickly escape local optima.
This results in increasing the performances of genetic algorithms.
We measured the effects of selective mutation with four function
optimization problems. It was found from extensive experiments that
the selective mutation can significantly enhance the performances of
genetic algorithms.
Abstract: In this paper we study different similarity based approaches for the development of QSAR model devoted to the prediction of activity of antiobesity drugs. Classical similarity approaches are compared regarding to dissimilarity models based on the consideration of the calculation of Euclidean distances between the nonisomorphic fragments extracted in the matching process. Combining the classical similarity and dissimilarity approaches into a new similarity measure, the Approximate Similarity was also studied, and better results were obtained. The application of the proposed method to the development of quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR) has provided reliable tools for predicting of inhibitory activity of drugs. Acceptable results were obtained for the models presented here.
Abstract: Wikis are promoted as collaborative writing tools that
allow students to transform a text into a collective document by
information sharing and group reflection. However, despite the
promising collaborative capabilities of wikis, their pedagogical value
regarding collaborative writing is still questionable. Wiki alone
cannot make collaborative writing happen, and students do not
automatically become more active, participate, and collaborate with
others when they use wikis. To foster collaborative writing and active
involvement in wiki development there is a need for a systematic
approach to wikis. Themain goal of this paper is to propose and
evaluate a co-writing approach to the development of wikis, along
with the study of three wiki applications to report on pedagogical
implications of collaborative writing in higher education.
Abstract: In this paper, a Web-based e-Training platform that is dedicated to multimodal breast imaging is presented. The assets of this platform are summarised in (i) the efficient representation of the curriculum flow that will permit efficient training; (ii) efficient tagging of multimodal content appropriate for the completion of realistic cases and (iii) ubiquitous accessibility and platform independence via a web-based approach.