Abstract: Success is a European project that will implement several clean transport offers in three European cities and evaluate the environmental impacts. The goal of these measures is to improve urban mobility or the displacement of residents inside cities. For e.g. park and ride, electric vehicles, hybrid bus and bike sharing etc. A list of 28 criteria and 60 measures has been established for evaluation of these transport projects. The evaluation criteria can be grouped into: Transport, environment, social, economic and fuel consumption. This article proposes a decision support system based that encapsulates a hybrid approach based on fuzzy logic, multicriteria analysis and belief theory for the evaluation of impacts of urban mobility solutions. A web-based tool called DeSSIA (Decision Support System for Impacts Assessment) has been developed that treats complex data. The tool has several functionalities starting from data integration (import of data), evaluation of projects and finishes by graphical display of results. The tool development is based on the concept of MVC (Model, View, and Controller). The MVC is a conception model adapted to the creation of software's which impose separation between data, their treatment and presentation. Effort is laid on the ergonomic aspects of the application. It has codes compatible with the latest norms (XHTML, CSS) and has been validated by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). The main ergonomic aspect focuses on the usability of the application, ease of learning and adoption. By the usage of technologies such as AJAX (XML and Java Script asynchrones), the application is more rapid and convivial. The positive points of our approach are that it treats heterogeneous data (qualitative, quantitative) from various information sources (human experts, survey, sensors, model etc.).
Abstract: In data mining, the association rules are used to search
for the relations of items of the transactions database. Following the
data is collected and stored, it can find rules of value through
association rules, and assist manager to proceed marketing strategy
and plan market framework. In this paper, we attempt fuzzy partition
methods and decide membership function of quantitative values of
each transaction item. Also, by managers we can reflect the
importance of items as linguistic terms, which are transformed as
fuzzy sets of weights. Next, fuzzy weighted frequent pattern growth
(FWFP-Growth) is used to complete the process of data mining. The
method above is expected to improve Apriori algorithm for its better
efficiency of the whole association rules. An example is given to
clearly illustrate the proposed approach.
Abstract: This qualitative, quantitative mixed-method study explores how students- motivation and interest in creative hands-on activities affected their conceptual understanding of science. The objectives of this research include developing a greater understanding about how creative activities, incorporated into the classroom as instructional strategies, increase student motivation and their learning or mastery of science concepts. The creative activities are viewed as a motivational tool, a specific type of task, which have an impact on student goals. Pre-and-post tests, pre-and-post interviews, and student responses measure motivational-goal theory variables, interest in the activity, and conceptual change. Implications for education and future research will be discussed.
Abstract: Sonogram images of normal and lymphocyte thyroid tissues have considerable overlap which makes it difficult to interpret and distinguish. Classification from sonogram images of thyroid gland is tackled in semiautomatic way. While making manual diagnosis from images, some relevant information need not to be recognized by human visual system. Quantitative image analysis could be helpful to manual diagnostic process so far done by physician. Two classes are considered: normal tissue and chronic lymphocyte thyroid (Hashimoto's Thyroid). Data structure is analyzed using K-nearest-neighbors classification. This paper is mentioned that unlike the wavelet sub bands' energy, histograms and Haralick features are not appropriate to distinguish between normal tissue and Hashimoto's thyroid.
Abstract: Speech enhancement is the process of eliminating
noise and increasing the quality of a speech signal, which is
contaminated with other kinds of distortions. This paper is on
developing an optimum cascaded system for speech enhancement.
This aim is attained without diminishing any relevant speech
information and without much computational and time complexity.
LMS algorithm, Spectral Subtraction and Kalman filter have been
deployed as the main de-noising algorithms in this work. Since these
algorithms suffer from respective shortcomings, this work has been
undertaken to design cascaded systems in different combinations and
the evaluation of such cascades by qualitative (listening) and
quantitative (SNR) tests.
Abstract: The elution process for the removal of Co and Cu from clinoptilolite as an ion-exchanger was investigated using three parameters: bed volume, pH and contact time. The present paper study has shown quantitatively that acid concentration has a significant effect on the elution process. The favorable eluant concentration was found to be 2 M HCl and 2 M H2SO4, respectively. The multi-component equilibrium relationship in the process can be very complex, and perhaps ill-defined. In such circumstances, it is preferable to use a non-parametric technique such as Neural Network to represent such an equilibrium relationship.
Abstract: Intelligent Transportation System integrates various modern advanced technologies into the ground transportation system, and it will be the goal of urban transport system in the future because of its comprehensive effects. However, it also brings some problems, such as project performance assessment, fairness of benefiting groups, fund management, which are directly related to its operation and implementation. Wuhan has difficulties in organizing transportation because of its nature feature (river and lake), therefore, calling Service of Taxi plays an important role in transportation. This paper researches on calling Service of Taxi in Wuhan, based on quantitative and qualitative analysis. It analyzes its operations management systematically, including business model, finance, usage analysis and users evaluation. As for business model, it is that the government leads the operation at the initial stage, and the third part dominates the operation at the mature stage, which not only eases the pressure of the third part and benefits the spread of the calling service at the initial stage, but also alleviates financial pressure of government and improve the efficiency of the operation at the mature stage. As for finance, it draws that this service will bring heavy financial burden of equipments, but it will be alleviated in the future because of its spread. As for usage analysis, through data comparison, this service can bring some benefits for taxi drivers, and time and spatial distribution of usage have certain features. As for user evaluation, it analyzes using group and the reason why choosing it. At last, according to the analysis above, the paper puts forward the potentials, limitations, and future development strategies for it.
Abstract: This paper compares six approaches of object serialization
from qualitative and quantitative aspects. Those are object
serialization in Java, IDL, XStream, Protocol Buffers, Apache Avro,
and MessagePack. Using each approach, a common example is
serialized to a file and the size of the file is measured. The qualitative
comparison works are investigated in the way of checking whether
schema definition is required or not, whether schema compiler is
required or not, whether serialization is based on ascii or binary, and
which programming languages are supported. It is clear that there
is no best solution. Each solution makes good in the context it was
developed.
Abstract: This paper argues that fostering mutual understanding in landscape planning is as much about the planners educating stakeholder groups as the stakeholders educating the planners. In other words it is an epistemological agreement as to the meaning and nature of place, especially where an effort is made to go beyond the quantitative aspects, which can be achieved by the phenomenological experience of the Virtual Reality (VR) environment. This education needs to be a bi-directional process in which distance can be both temporal as well as spatial separation of participants, that there needs to be a common framework of understanding in which neither 'side' is disadvantaged during the process of information exchange and it follows that a medium such as VR offers an effective way of overcoming some of the shortcomings of traditional media by taking advantage of continuing technological advances in Information, Technology and Communications (ITC). In this paper we make particular reference to this as an extension to Geographical Information Systems (GIS). VR as a two-way communication tool offers considerable potential particularly in the area of Public Participation GIS (PPGIS). Information rich virtual environments that can operate over broadband networks are now possible and thus allow for the representation of large amounts of qualitative and quantitative information 'side-by-side'. Therefore, with broadband access becoming standard for households and enterprises alike, distributed virtual reality environments have great potential to contribute to enabling stakeholder participation and mutual learning within the planning context.
Abstract: Cytogenetic analysis still remains the gold standard method for prenatal diagnosis of trisomy 21 (Down syndrome, DS). Nevertheless, the conventional cytogenetic analysis needs live cultured cells and is too time-consuming for clinical application. In contrast, molecular methods such as FISH, QF-PCR, MLPA and quantitative Real-time PCR are rapid assays with results available in 24h. In the present study, we have successfully used a novel MGB TaqMan probe-based real time PCR assay for rapid diagnosis of trisomy 21 status in Down syndrome samples. We have also compared the results of this molecular method with corresponding results obtained by the cytogenetic analysis. Blood samples obtained from DS patients (n=25) and normal controls (n=20) were tested by quantitative Real-time PCR in parallel to standard G-banding analysis. Genomic DNA was extracted from peripheral blood lymphocytes. A high precision TaqMan probe quantitative Real-time PCR assay was developed to determine the gene dosage of DSCAM (target gene on 21q22.2) relative to PMP22 (reference gene on 17p11.2). The DSCAM/PMP22 ratio was calculated according to the formula; ratio=2 -ΔΔCT. The quantitative Real-time PCR was able to distinguish between trisomy 21 samples and normal controls with the gene ratios of 1.49±0.13 and 1.03±0.04 respectively (p value
Abstract: Postgraduate education is generally aimed at providing in-depth knowledge and understanding that include general philosophy in the world sciences, management, technologies, applications and other elements closely related to specific areas. In most universities, besides core and non-core subjects, a thesis is one of the requirements for the postgraduate student to accomplish before graduating. This paper reports on the empirical investigation into attributes that are associated with the obstacles to thesis accomplishment among postgraduate students. Using the quantitative approach the experiences of postgraduate students were tapped. Findings clearly revealed that information seeking, writing skills and other factors which refer to supervisor and time management, in particular, are recognized as contributory factors which positively or negatively influence postgraduates’ thesis accomplishment. Among these, writing skills dimensions were found to be the most difficult process in thesis accomplishment compared to information seeking and other factors. This pessimistic indication has provided some implications not only for the students but supervisors and institutions as a whole.
Abstract: Determining depth of anesthesia is a challenging problem
in the context of biomedical signal processing. Various methods
have been suggested to determine a quantitative index as depth of
anesthesia, but most of these methods suffer from high sensitivity
during the surgery. A novel method based on energy scattering of
samples in the wavelet domain is suggested to represent the basic
content of electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. In this method, first
EEG signal is decomposed into different sub-bands, then samples
are squared and energy of samples sequence is constructed through
each scale and time, which is normalized and finally entropy of the
resulted sequences is suggested as a reliable index. Empirical Results
showed that applying the proposed method to the EEG signals can
classify the awake, moderate and deep anesthesia states similar to
BIS.
Abstract: In this paper, an automatic detecting algorithm for
QRS complex detecting was applied for analyzing ECG recordings
and five criteria for dangerous arrhythmia diagnosing are applied for a
protocol type of automatic arrhythmia diagnosing system. The
automatic detecting algorithm applied in this paper detected the
distribution of QRS complexes in ECG recordings and related
information, such as heart rate and RR interval. In this investigation,
twenty sampled ECG recordings of patients with different pathologic
conditions were collected for off-line analysis. A combinative
application of four digital filters for bettering ECG signals and
promoting detecting rate for QRS complex was proposed as
pre-processing. Both of hardware filters and digital filters were
applied to eliminate different types of noises mixed with ECG
recordings. Then, an automatic detecting algorithm of QRS complex
was applied for verifying the distribution of QRS complex. Finally,
the quantitative clinic criteria for diagnosing arrhythmia were
programmed in a practical application for automatic arrhythmia
diagnosing as a post-processor. The results of diagnoses by automatic
dangerous arrhythmia diagnosing were compared with the results of
off-line diagnoses by experienced clinic physicians. The results of
comparison showed the application of automatic dangerous
arrhythmia diagnosis performed a matching rate of 95% compared
with an experienced physician-s diagnoses.
Abstract: Genome profiling (GP), a genotype based technology, which exploits random PCR and temperature gradient gel electrophoresis, has been successful in identification/classification of organisms. In this technology, spiddos (Species identification dots) and PaSS (Pattern similarity score) were employed for measuring the closeness (or distance) between genomes. Based on the closeness (PaSS), we can buildup phylogenetic trees of the organisms. We noticed that the topology of the tree is rather robust against the experimental fluctuation conveyed by spiddos. This fact was confirmed quantitatively in this study by computer-simulation, providing the limit of the reliability of this highly powerful methodology. As a result, we could demonstrate the effectiveness of the GP approach for identification/classification of organisms.
Abstract: Internet addiction has become a critical problem on
adolescents in Taiwan, and its negative effects on various dimensions
of adolescent development caught the attention of educational and
psychological experts. This study examined the correlation between
cognitive (locus of control) and emotion (emotion venting strategies)
factors on internet addiction of adolescents in Taiwan. Using the
Compulsive Internet Use (CIU) and the Emotion Venting Strategy
scales, a survey was conducted and 215 effective samples (students
ranging from12 to14 years old) returned. Quantitative analysis
methods such as descriptive statistics, t-test, ANOVA, Pearson
correlations and multiple regression were adopted. The results were as
follows: 1. Severity of Internet addiction has significant gender
differences; boys were at a higher risk than girls in becoming addicted
to the Internet. 2. Emotion venting, locus of control and internet
addiction have been shown to be positive correlated with one another.
3. Setting the locus of control as the control variable, emotion venting
strategy has positive and significant contribution to internet addiction.
The results of this study suggest that coaching deconstructive emotion
strategies and cognitive believes are encouraged to integrate with
actual field work.
Abstract: Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) has emerged as a cost-effective transport system for urban mobility. However its ability to stimulate land development remains largely unexplored. The study makes use of qualitative (interview method) and quantitative analysis (questionnaire survey and longitudinal analysis of property data) to investigate land development impact resulting from BRT in Beijing, China. The empirical analysis suggests that BRT has a positive impact on the residential and commercial property attractiveness along the busway corridor. The statistical analysis suggests that accessibility advantage conferred by BRT is capitalized into higher property price. The average price of apartments adjacent to a BRT station has gained a relatively faster increase than those not served by the BRT system. The capitalization effect mostly occurs after the full operation of BRT, and is more evident over time and particularly observed in areas which previously lack alternative mobility opportunity.
Abstract: This work aims to explore the factors that have an incidence in reading comprehension process, with different type of texts. In a recent study with 2nd, 3rd and 4th grade children, it was observed that reading comprehension of narrative texts was better than comprehension of expository texts. Nevertheless it seems that not only the type of text but also other textual factors would account for comprehension depending on the cognitive processing demands posed by the text. In order to explore this assumption, three narrative and three expository texts were elaborated with different degree of complexity. A group of 40 fourth grade Spanish-speaking children took part in the study. Children were asked to read the texts and answer orally three literal and three inferential questions for each text. The quantitative and qualitative analysis of children responses showed that children had difficulties in both, narrative and expository texts. The problem was to answer those questions that involved establishing complex relationships among information units that were present in the text or that should be activated from children’s previous knowledge to make an inference. Considering the data analysis, it could be concluded that there is some interaction between the type of text and the cognitive processing load of a specific text.
Abstract: The main objective of this study was to determine the effects
of vermicompost and amino acids on the qualitative and quantitative yield of
chamomile. The experiment was conducted during the growing season of
2010 at the Alborz Medical Research Center. The Treatment groups consisted
of vermicompost (0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 tons/ha) and the sprays of amino acids
(budding stag, flowering stage, and budding + flowering stage). The
experimental design was a factorial experiment based on Randomized
Complete Block Design (RCBD) with three replications. The present results
have shown that the highest plant height, flower head diameter, fresh and dry
flower yield and significant essential oil content were obtained by using 20-
ton vermicompost per hectare. Effects of amino acids were similar to those
seen in vermicompost treatment and all measured traits were seen to be
significant after the spray of amino acids at the budding + flowering stage).
Abstract: Segmentation, filtering out of measurement errors and
identification of breakpoints are integral parts of any analysis of
microarray data for the detection of copy number variation (CNV).
Existing algorithms designed for these tasks have had some successes
in the past, but they tend to be O(N2) in either computation time or
memory requirement, or both, and the rapid advance of microarray
resolution has practically rendered such algorithms useless. Here we
propose an algorithm, SAD, that is much faster and much less thirsty
for memory – O(N) in both computation time and memory requirement
-- and offers higher accuracy. The two key ingredients of SAD are the
fundamental assumption in statistics that measurement errors are
normally distributed and the mathematical relation that the product of
two Gaussians is another Gaussian (function). We have produced a
computer program for analyzing CNV based on SAD. In addition to
being fast and small it offers two important features: quantitative
statistics for predictions and, with only two user-decided parameters,
ease of use. Its speed shows little dependence on genomic profile.
Running on an average modern computer, it completes CNV analyses
for a 262 thousand-probe array in ~1 second and a 1.8 million-probe
array in 9 seconds
Abstract: Today the intangible assets are the capital of knowledge and are the most important and the most valuable resource for organizations. All employees have knowledge independently of the kind of jobs they do. Knowledge is thus an asset, which influences business operations. The objective of this article is to identify knowledge continuity as an objective of business continuity management. The article has been prepared based on the analysis of secondary sources and the evaluation of primary sources of data by means of a quantitative survey conducted in the Czech Republic. The conclusion of the article is that organizations that apply business continuity management do not focus on the preservation of the knowledge of key employees. Organizations ensure knowledge continuity only intuitively, on a random basis, non-systematically and discontinuously. The non-ensuring of knowledge continuity represents a threat of loss of key knowledge for organizations and can also negatively affect business continuity.