Abstract: The paper applies a discourse analytical approach to investigate important concepts influencing the infrastructure planning process in the region of Scania in southern Sweden. Two discourses, one concerning regional development and one concerning sustainability are identified, discussed and contrasted. It is argued that the perceptions of problems and their suggested solutions related to transportation are based on specific ideas, in turn dependent on the importance given to certain concepts, such as regional enlargement, Scania as a transit region, the national environmental quality goals and regional attractiveness. These concepts, their underlying meaning structures and their relevance for the infrastructure planning process are analyzed. The handling of conflicting interests in the planning process, and the possible implications this may have is also discussed. The results indicate that the regional development discourse is dominant and although the solutions to the problems caused by transport are framed in similar ways in the two discourses a harmonization between conflicting goals is proving difficult to achieve.
Abstract: This paper is concerned with the production of an Arabic word semantic similarity benchmark dataset. It is the first of its kind for Arabic which was particularly developed to assess the accuracy of word semantic similarity measurements. Semantic similarity is an essential component to numerous applications in fields such as natural language processing, artificial intelligence, linguistics, and psychology. Most of the reported work has been done for English. To the best of our knowledge, there is no word similarity measure developed specifically for Arabic. In this paper, an Arabic benchmark dataset of 70 word pairs is presented. New methods and best possible available techniques have been used in this study to produce the Arabic dataset. This includes selecting and creating materials, collecting human ratings from a representative sample of participants, and calculating the overall ratings. This dataset will make a substantial contribution to future work in the field of Arabic WSS and hopefully it will be considered as a reference basis from which to evaluate and compare different methodologies in the field.
Abstract: Monitoring and control of cane sugar crystallization
processes depend on the stability of the supersaturation (σ ) state.
The most widely used information to represent σ is the electrical
conductivity κ of the solutions. Nevertheless, previous studies point
out the shortcomings of this approach: κ may be regarded as
inappropriate to guarantee an accurate estimation of σ in impure
solutions. To improve the process control efficiency, additional
information is necessary. The mass of crystals in the solution ( c m )
and the solubility (mass ratio of sugar to water / s w m m ) are relevant
to complete information. Indeed, c m inherently contains information
about the mass balance and / s w m m contains information about the
supersaturation state of the solution. The main problem is that c m
and / s w m m are not available on-line. In this paper, a model based
soft-sensor is presented for a final crystallization stage (C sugar).
Simulation results obtained on industrial data show the reliability of
this approach, c m and the crystal content ( cc ) being estimated with
a sufficient accuracy for achieving on-line monitoring in industry
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: Investigation of soil properties like Cation Exchange
Capacity (CEC) plays important roles in study of environmental
reaserches as the spatial and temporal variability of this property
have been led to development of indirect methods in estimation of
this soil characteristic. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) provide an
alternative by estimating soil parameters from more readily available
soil data. 70 soil samples were collected from different horizons of
15 soil profiles located in the Ziaran region, Qazvin province, Iran.
Then, multivariate regression and neural network model (feedforward
back propagation network) were employed to develop a
pedotransfer function for predicting soil parameter using easily
measurable characteristics of clay and organic carbon. The
performance of the multivariate regression and neural network model
was evaluated using a test data set. In order to evaluate the models,
root mean square error (RMSE) was used. The value of RMSE and
R2 derived by ANN model for CEC were 0.47 and 0.94 respectively,
while these parameters for multivariate regression model were 0.65
and 0.88 respectively. Results showed that artificial neural network
with seven neurons in hidden layer had better performance in
predicting soil cation exchange capacity than multivariate regression.
Abstract: When a lightning strike falls near an overhead power
line, the intense electromagnetic field radiated by the current of the
lightning return stroke coupled with power lines and there induced
transient overvoltages, which can cause a back-flashover in electrical
network. The indirect lightning represents a major danger owing to
the fact that it is more frequent than that which results from the direct
strikes.
In this paper we present an analysis of the electromagnetic
coupling between an external electromagnetic field generated by the
lightning and an electrical overhead lines, so we give an important
and original contribution: We are based on our experimental
measurements which we carried in the high voltage laboratories of
EPFL in Switzerland during the last trimester of 2005, on the recent
works of other authors and with our mathematical improvement a
new particular analytical expression of the electromagnetic field
generated by the lightning return stroke was developed and presented
in this paper. The results obtained by this new electromagnetic field
formulation were compared with experimental results and give a
reasonable approach.
Abstract: The abnormal increase in the number of applications available for download in Android markets is a good indication that they are being reused. However, little is known about their real reusability potential. A considerable amount of these applications is reported as having a poor quality or being malicious. Hence, in this paper, an approach to measure the reusability potential of classes in Android applications is proposed. The approach is not meant specifically for this particular type of applications. Rather, it is intended for Object-Oriented (OO) software systems in general and aims also to provide means to discard the classes of low quality and defect prone applications from being reused directly through inheritance and instantiation. An empirical investigation is conducted to measure and rank the reusability potential of the classes of randomly selected Android applications. The results obtained are thoroughly analyzed in order to understand the extent of this potential and the factors influencing it.
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: Knowledge is the foundation for growth and development. Investment in knowledge improves new method for originate knowledge society and knowledge economy. Investment in knowledge embraces expenditure on education and R&D and software. Measuring of investment in knowledge is characteristically complicated. We examine the influence of investment in knowledge in multifactor productivity growth and numbers of patent. We analyze the annual growth of investment in knowledge and we estimate portion of each country intended for produce total investment in knowledge on the whole OECD. We determine the relative efficiency of average patent numbers with average investment in knowledge and we compare GDP growth rates and growth of knowledge investment. The main purpose in this paper is to study to evaluate different aspect, influence and output of investment in knowledge in OECD countries.
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: The study of soil for agriculture purposes has
remained the main focus of research since the beginning of civilization as humans- food related requirements remained closely linked with the soil. The study of soil has generated an interest
among the researchers for very similar other reasons including transmission, reflection and refraction of signals for deploying
wireless underground sensor networks or for the monitoring of objects on (or in ) soil in the form of better understanding of soil
electromagnetic characteristics properties. The moisture content has
been very instrumental in such studies as it decides on the resistance of the soil, and hence the attenuation on signals traveling through soil
or the attenuation the signals may suffer upon their impact on soil. This work is related testing and characterizing a measurement circuit
meant for the detection of moisture level content in soil.
Abstract: The objective of this study was to examine the interaction between mode of illness onset and psychiatric comorbidity on the health outcomes of persons with ME/CFS. A total of 114 individuals with ME/CFS participated in this study. Individuals completed a battery of baseline measures including the fatigue severity scale and measures of disability. Findings indicated that those with sudden illness onset had more impaired physical health functioning. In addition, among individuals with sudden onset, those without psychiatric comorbidity had greater fatigue severity and lower overall physical health than those with psychiatric comordibity. In contrast, among individuals with gradual illness onset, those with psychiatric comorbity had higher fatigue severity than those without comorbid psychiatric disorders. The health outcomes of individuals who have ME/CFS with or without psychiatric comorbidity are impacted by the mode of illness onset and this suggest that it is important to examine these factors in future research.
Abstract: This paper presents a mean for reducing the torque
variation during the revolution of a vertical-axis wind turbine
(VAWT) by increasing the blade number. For this purpose, twodimensional
CDF analysis have been performed on a straight-bladed
Darreius-type rotor. After describing the computational model, a
complete campaign of simulations based on full RANS unsteady
calculations is proposed for a three, four and five-bladed rotor
architecture characterized by a NACA 0025 airfoil. For each
proposed rotor configuration, flow field characteristics are
investigated at several values of tip speed ratio, allowing a
quantification of the influence of blade number on flow geometric
features and dynamic quantities, such as rotor torque and power.
Finally, torque and power curves are compared for the analyzed
architectures, achieving a quantification of the effect of blade number
on overall rotor performance.
Abstract: This paper presents a study of laminar to turbulent transition on a profile specifically designed for wind turbine blades, the DU91-W2-250, which belongs to a class of wind turbine dedicated airfoils, developed by Delft University of Technology. A comparison between the experimental behavior of the airfoil studied at Delft wind tunnel and the numerical predictions of the commercial CFD solver ANSYS FLUENT® has been performed. The prediction capabilities of the Spalart-Allmaras turbulence model and of the γ-θ Transitional model have been tested. A sensitivity analysis of the numerical results to the spatial domain discretization has also been performed using four different computational grids, which have been created using the mesher GAMBIT®. The comparison between experimental measurements and CFD results have allowed to determine the importance of the numerical prediction of the laminar to turbulent transition, in order not to overestimate airfoil friction drag due to a fully turbulent-regime flow computation.
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: This research project aims to investigate difference in
relative rates concerning phosphoryl transfer relevant to biological
catalysis of DNA and RNA in the pH-independent reactions.
Activated Models of DNA and RNA for alkyl-aryl phosphate diesters
(with 4-nitrophenyl as a good leaving group) have successfully been
prepared to gather kinetic parameters. Eyring plots for the pH–
independent hydrolysis of 1 and 2 were established at different
temperatures in the range 100–160 °C. These measurements have
been used to provide a better estimate for the difference in relative
rates between the reactivity of DNA and RNA cleavage. Eyring plot
gave an extrapolated rate of kH2O = 1 × 10-10 s -1 for 1 (RNA model)
and 2 (DNA model) at 25°C. Comparing the reactivity of RNA
model and DNA model shows that the difference in relative rates in
the pH-independent reactions is surprisingly very similar at 25°. This
allows us to obtain chemical insights into how biological catalysts
such as enzymes may have evolved to perform their current
functions.
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 order to achieve competitive advantage and better
performance of firm, supply chain management (SCM) strategy
should support and drive forward business strategy. It means that
supply chain should be aligned with business strategy, at the same
time supply chain (SC) managers need to use appropriate information
system (IS) solution to support their strategy, which would lead to
stay competitive. There are different kinds of IS strategies which
enable managers to meet the SC requirement by selecting the best IS
strategy. Therefore, it is important to align IS strategies and practices
with SC strategies and practices, which could help us to plan for an
IS application that supports and enhances a SCMS. In this study,
aligning IS with SC in strategy level is considered. The main aim of
this paper is to align the various IS strategies with SCM strategies
and demonstrate their impact on SC and firm performance.
Abstract: The potential of entomopathogenic nematodes in suppressing T. squalida population on cauliflower from transplanting to harvest was evaluated. Significant reductions in plant infestation percentage and population density (/m2) were recorded throughout the plantation seasons, 2011 and 2012 before and after spraying the plants. The percent reduction in numbers/m2 was the highest in March for the treatments with Heterorhabditis indica Behera and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora Giza during the plantation season 2011, while at the plantation season 2012, the reduction in population density was the highest in January for Heterorhabditis Indica Behera and in February for H . bacteriophora Giza treatments. In a comparison test with conventional insecticides Hostathion and Lannate, there were no significant differences in control measures resulting from treatments with H. indica Behera, H. bacteriophora Giza and Lannate. At the plantation season is 2012. Also, the treatments reduced the economic threshold of T. squalida on cauliflower in this experiment as compared with before and after spraying with both the two entomopathogenic nematodes at both seasons 2011 and 2012. This means an increase in the marketability of heads harvested as a consequence of monthly treatments.
Abstract: Data clustering is an important data exploration
technique with many applications in data mining. The k-means
algorithm is well known for its efficiency in clustering large data
sets. However, this algorithm is suitable for spherical shaped clusters
of similar sizes and densities. The quality of the resulting clusters
decreases when the data set contains spherical shaped with large
variance in sizes. In this paper, we introduce a competent procedure
to overcome this problem. The proposed method is based on shifting
the center of the large cluster toward the small cluster, and recomputing
the membership of small cluster points, the experimental
results reveal that the proposed algorithm produces satisfactory
results.