Abstract: Nanotechnology is the science of creating, using and
manipulating objects which have at least one dimension in range of
0.1 to 100 nanometers. In other words, nanotechnology is
reconstructing a substance using its individual atoms and arranging
them in a way that is desirable for our purpose.
The main reason that nanotechnology has been attracting
attentions is the unique properties that objects show when they are
formed at nano-scale. These differing characteristics that nano-scale
materials show compared to their nature-existing form is both useful
in creating high quality products and dangerous when being in
contact with body or spread in environment.
In order to control and lower the risk of such nano-scale particles,
the main following three topics should be considered:
1) First of all, these materials would cause long term diseases that
may show their effects on body years after being penetrated in human
organs and since this science has become recently developed in
industrial scale not enough information is available about their
hazards on body.
2) The second is that these particles can easily spread out in
environment and remain in air, soil or water for very long time,
besides their high ability to penetrate body skin and causing new
kinds of diseases.
3) The third one is that to protect body and environment against
the danger of these particles, the protective barriers must be finer than
these small objects and such defenses are hard to accomplish.
This paper will review, discuss and assess the risks that human and
environment face as this new science develops at a high rate.
Abstract: Several methods have been proposed for color image
compression but the reconstructed image had very low signal to noise
ratio which made it inefficient. This paper describes a lossy
compression technique for color images which overcomes the
drawbacks. The technique works on spatial domain where the pixel
values of RGB planes of the input color image is mapped onto two
dimensional planes. The proposed technique produced better results
than JPEG2000, 2DPCA and a comparative study is reported based
on the image quality measures such as PSNR and MSE.Experiments
on real time images are shown that compare this methodology with
previous ones and demonstrate its advantages.
Abstract: In this paper a novel method for multiple one dimensional real valued sinusoidal signal frequency estimation in the presence of additive Gaussian noise is postulated. A computationally simple frequency estimation method with efficient statistical performance is attractive in many array signal processing applications. The prime focus of this paper is to combine the subspace-based technique and a simple peak search approach. This paper presents a variant of the Propagator Method (PM), where a collaborative approach of SUMWE and Propagator method is applied in order to estimate the multiple real valued sine wave frequencies. A new data model is proposed, which gives the dimension of the signal subspace is equal to the number of frequencies present in the observation. But, the signal subspace dimension is twice the number of frequencies in the conventional MUSIC method for estimating frequencies of real-valued sinusoidal signal. The statistical analysis of the proposed method is studied, and the explicit expression of asymptotic (large-sample) mean-squared-error (MSE) or variance of the estimation error is derived. The performance of the method is demonstrated, and the theoretical analysis is substantiated through numerical examples. The proposed method can achieve sustainable high estimation accuracy and frequency resolution at a lower SNR, which is verified by simulation by comparing with conventional MUSIC, ESPRIT and Propagator Method.
Abstract: Renewable water resources are crucial production
variables in arid and semi-arid regions where intensive agriculture is
practiced to meet ever-increasing demand for food and fiber. This is
crucial for the Dez and Moghan command areas where water delivery
problems and adverse environmental issues are widespread. This
paper aims to identify major problems areas using on-farm surveys of
200 farmers, agricultural extensionists and water suppliers which was
complemented by secondary data and field observations during 2010-
2011 cultivating season. The SPSS package was used to analyze and
synthesis data. Results indicated inappropriate canal operations in
both schemes, though there was no unanimity about the underlying
causes. Inequitable and inflexible distribution was found to be rooted
in deficient hydraulic structures particularly in the main and
secondary canals. The inadequacy and inflexibility of water
scheduling regime was the underlying causes of recurring pest and
disease spread which often led to the decline of crop yield and
quality, although these were not disputed, the water suppliers were
not prepared to link with the deficiencies in the operation of the main
and secondary canals. They rather attributed these to the prevailing
salinity; alkalinity, water table fluctuations and leaching of the
valuable agro-chemical inputs from the plants- route zone with farreaching
consequences. Examples of these include the pollution of
ground and surface resources due to over-irrigation at the farm level
which falls under the growers- own responsibility. Poor irrigation
efficiency and adverse environmental problems were attributed to
deficient and outdated farming practices that were in turn rooted in
poor extension programs and irrational water charges.
Abstract: ICT and supply chain management (SCM) are two
notions, which have attracted much attention among both
academicians and practitioners during the last decade. However, the
discussion of the relationship between the two notions has been
limited and fragmented. In this paper, we will present a summary of
the discussion of ICT components and SCM on an extensive
literature review. Then, we will discuss the interrelation between ICT
and SCM from some major components and applications of ICT
perspective. After all, we can introduce e-SCM concept, that arisen
recently in management literature, in order to cover the whole topic.
The authors look at all of the major components of electronic supply
chain management and demonstrate that the future holds tremendous
opportunity for those firms that take advantage of all of its
possibilities.
Abstract: this article conducts a research about the relationship between cash dividend policy and enterprise value based on the data coming from the A-share listed companies over period 2005-2009. In conclusion, the enterprise value has a negative correlation with the incremental and the degressive cash dividend per share, and has a positive correlation with the stable cash dividend per share.
Abstract: The burst noise is a kind of noises that are destructive
and frequently found in semiconductor devices and ICs, yet detecting
and removing the noise has proved challenging for IC designers or users. According to the properties of burst noise, a methodological
approach is presented (proposed) in the paper, by which the burst noise
can be analysed and detected in time domain. In this paper, principles
and properties of burst noise are expounded first, Afterwards,
feasibility (viable) of burst noise detection by means of wavelet
transform in the time domain is corroborated in the paper, and the multi-resolution characters of Gaussian noise, burst noise and blurred
burst noise are discussed in details by computer emulation. Furthermore, the practical method to decide parameters of wavelet
transform is acquired through a great deal of experiment and data statistics. The methodology may yield an expectation in a wide variety of applications.
Abstract: In spite of the advent of new materials, clay bricks
remain, arguably, the most popular construction materials today.
Nevertheless the low cost and versatility of clay bricks cannot always
be associated with high environmental and sustainable values,
especially in terms of raw material sources and manufacturing
processes. At the same time, the worldwide agricultural footprint is
fast growing, with vast agricultural land cultivation and active
expansion of the agro-based industry. The resulting large quantities of
agricultural wastes, unfortunately, are not always well managed or
utilised. These wastes can be recycled, such as by retrieving fibres
from disposed leaves and fruit bunches, and then incorporated in
brick-making. This way the clay bricks are made a 'greener' building
material and the discarded natural wastes can be reutilised, avoiding
otherwise wasteful landfill and harmful open incineration. This study
examined the physical and mechanical properties of clay bricks made
by adding two natural fibres to a clay-water mixture, with baked and
non-baked conditions. The fibres were sourced from pineapple leaves
(PF) and oil palm fruit bunch (OF), and added within the range of
0.25-0.75 %. Cement was added as a binder to the mixture at 5-15 %.
Although the two fibres had different effects on the bricks produced,
cement appeared to dominate the compressive strength. The
non-baked bricks disintegrated when submerged in water, while the
baked ones displayed cement-dependent characteristics in
water-absorption and density changes. Interestingly, further increase
in fibre content did not cause significant density decrease in both the
baked and non-baked bricks.
Abstract: The combustion of liquid fuel in the porous burner
(PB) was experimented to investigate evaporation mechanism and
combustion behavior. The diesel oil was used as fuel and the pebbles
carefully chosen in the same size like the solid sphere homogeneously
was adopted as the porous media. Two structures of the liquid porous
burner, i.e. the PB without and with installation of porous emitter
(PE), were performed. PE was installed by lower than PB with
distance of 20 cm. The pebbles having porosity (φ) of 0.45 and 0.52
were, respectively, used in PB and PE. The fuel was supplied dropwise
from the top through the PB and the combustion was occurred between
PB and PE. Axial profiles of temperature along the burner length were
measured to clarify the evaporation and combustion phenomena. The
pollutant emission characteristics were monitored at the burner exit.
From the experiment, it was found that the temperature profiles of both
structures decreased with the three ways swirling air flows (QA)
increasing. On the other hand, the temperature profiles increased with
fuel heat input (QF). Obviously, the profile of the porous burner
installed with PE was higher than that of the porous burner without
PE
Abstract: The use of composite materials in offshore engineering for deep sea oil production riser systems has drawn considerable interest due to the potential weight savings and improvement in durability. The design of composite risers consists of two stages: (1) local design based on critical local load cases, and (2) global analysis of the full length composite riser under global loads and assessment of critical locations. In the first stage, eight different material combinations were selected and their laminate configurations optimised under local load considerations. Stage two includes a final local stress analysis of the critical sections of the riser under the combined loads determined in the global analysis. This paper describes two design methodologies of the composite riser to provide minimum structural weight and shows that the use of off angle fibre orientations in addition to axial and hoop reinforcements offer substantial weight savings and ensure the structural capacity.
Abstract: Integrative teaching methodology is based on
connecting and summarizing knowledge from different subjects in
order to create better understanding of different disciplines and
improvement of competences in general. Integrative teaching
methodology was implemented and realised during one academic
year in 17 Latvian schools according with specially worked out
programme by specialists of different fields for adaptation in social
environment of children and young people with learning, cognitive
functions and motor disorders. Implemented integrative teaching
methodology consisted from three subsections which were
specialised for adaptation in social environment, improvement of
cognitive functions and improvement and harmonization of
personality. The results of investigation showed that the use of
integrative teaching methodology is an effective way for
improvement of learning motivation and negotiation of learning
disorders of different age schoolchildren.
Abstract: Support Vector Machine (SVM) is a statistical
learning tool developed to a more complex concept of
structural risk minimization (SRM). In this paper, SVM is
applied to signal detection in communication systems in the
presence of channel noise in various environments in the form
of Rayleigh fading, additive white Gaussian background noise
(AWGN), and interference noise generalized as additive color
Gaussian noise (ACGN). The structure and performance of
SVM in terms of the bit error rate (BER) metric is derived and
simulated for these advanced stochastic noise models and the
computational complexity of the implementation, in terms of
average computational time per bit, is also presented. The
performance of SVM is then compared to conventional binary
signaling optimal model-based detector driven by binary
phase shift keying (BPSK) modulation. We show that the
SVM performance is superior to that of conventional matched
filter-, innovation filter-, and Wiener filter-driven detectors,
even in the presence of random Doppler carrier deviation,
especially for low SNR (signal-to-noise ratio) ranges. For
large SNR, the performance of the SVM was similar to that of
the classical detectors. However, the convergence between
SVM and maximum likelihood detection occurred at a higher
SNR as the noise environment became more hostile.
Abstract: Various sounds generated in the chest are included in
auscultation sound. Adaptive Noise Canceller (ANC) is one of the
useful techniques for biomedical signal. But the ANC is not suitable
for auscultation sound. Because the ANC needs two input channels as
a primary signal and a reference signals, but a stethoscope can
provide just one input sound. Therefore, in this paper, it was
proposed the Single Input ANC (SIANC) for suppression of breath
sound in a cardiac auscultation sound. For the SIANC, it was
proposed that the reference generation system which included Heart
Sound Detector, Control and Reference Generator. By experiment
and comparison, it was confirmed that the proposed SIANC was
efficient for heart sound enhancement and it was independent of
variations of a heartbeat.
Abstract: This research focus on developing a new segmentation method for improving forecasting model which is call trend based segmentation method (TBSM). Generally, the piece-wise linear representation (PLR) can finds some of pair of trading points is well for time series data, but in the complicated stock environment it is not well for stock forecasting because of the stock has more trends of trading. If we consider the trends of trading in stock price for the trading signal which it will improve the precision of forecasting model. Therefore, a TBSM with SVR model used to detect the trading points for various stocks of Taiwanese and America under different trend tendencies. The experimental results show our trading system is more profitable and can be implemented in real time of stock market
Abstract: Aiming at the problems existing in low-carbon technology of Chinese manufacturing industries, such as irrational energy structure, lack of technological innovation, financial constraints, this paper puts forward the suggestion that the leading role of the government is combined with the roles of enterprises and market. That is, through increasing the governmental funding the adjustment of the industrial structures and enhancement of the legal supervision are supported. Technological innovation is accelerated by the enterprises, and the carbon trading will be promoted so as to trigger the low-carbon revolution in Chinese manufacturing field.
Abstract: CIM is the standard formalism for modeling management
information developed by the Distributed Management Task
Force (DMTF) in the context of its WBEM proposal, designed to
provide a conceptual view of the managed environment. In this
paper, we propose the inclusion of formal knowledge representation
techniques, based on Description Logics (DLs) and the Web Ontology
Language (OWL), in CIM-based conceptual modeling, and then we
examine the benefits of such a decision. The proposal is specified
as a CIM metamodel level mapping to a highly expressive subset
of DLs capable of capturing all the semantics of the models. The
paper shows how the proposed mapping provides CIM diagrams with
precise semantics and can be used for automatic reasoning about the
management information models, as a design aid, by means of newgeneration
CASE tools, thanks to the use of state-of-the-art automatic
reasoning systems that support the proposed logic and use algorithms
that are sound and complete with respect to the semantics. Such a
CASE tool framework has been developed by the authors and its
architecture is also introduced. The proposed formalization is not
only useful at design time, but also at run time through the use of
rational autonomous agents, in response to a need recently recognized
by the DMTF.
Abstract: The three steps of the standard one-way nested grid
for a regional scale of the third generation WAve Model Cycle 4
(WAMC4) is scrutinized. The model application is enabled to solve
the energy balance equation on a coarse resolution grid in order to
produce boundary conditions for a smaller area by the nested grid
technique. In the present study, the model takes a full advantage of the
fine resolution of wind fields in space and time produced by the available
U.S. Navy Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS)
model with 1 degree resolution. The nested grid application of the
model is developed in order to gradually increase the resolution from
the open ocean towards the South China Sea (SCS) and the Gulf of
Thailand (GoT) respectively. The model results were compared with
buoy observations at Ko Chang, Rayong and Huahin locations which
were obtained from the Seawatch project. In addition, the results were
also compared with Satun based weather station which was provided
from Department of Meteorology, Thailand. The data collected from
this station presented the significant wave height (Hs) reached 12.85
m. The results indicated that the tendency of the Hs from the model
in the spherical coordinate propagation with deep water condition in
the fine grid domain agreed well with the Hs from the observations.
Abstract: Wireless sensor networks can be used to measure and monitor many challenging problems and typically involve in monitoring, tracking and controlling areas such as battlefield monitoring, object tracking, habitat monitoring and home sentry systems. However, wireless sensor networks pose unique security challenges including forgery of sensor data, eavesdropping, denial of service attacks, and the physical compromise of sensor nodes. Node in a sensor networks may be vanished due to power exhaustion or malicious attacks. To expand the life span of the sensor network, a new node deployment is needed. In military scenarios, intruder may directly organize malicious nodes or manipulate existing nodes to set up malicious new nodes through many kinds of attacks. To avoid malicious nodes from joining the sensor network, a security is required in the design of sensor network protocols. In this paper, we proposed a security framework to provide a complete security solution against the known attacks in wireless sensor networks. Our framework accomplishes node authentication for new nodes with recognition of a malicious node. When deployed as a framework, a high degree of security is reachable compared with the conventional sensor network security solutions. A proposed framework can protect against most of the notorious attacks in sensor networks, and attain better computation and communication performance. This is different from conventional authentication methods based on the node identity. It includes identity of nodes and the node security time stamp into the authentication procedure. Hence security protocols not only see the identity of each node but also distinguish between new nodes and old nodes.
Abstract: Reactiondiffusion systems are mathematical models that describe how the concentration of one or more substances distributed in space changes under the influence of local chemical reactions in which the substances are converted into each other, and diffusion which causes the substances to spread out in space. The classical representation of a reaction-diffusion system is given by semi-linear parabolic partial differential equations, whose general form is ÔêétX(x, t) = DΔX(x, t), where X(x, t) is the state vector, D is the matrix of the diffusion coefficients and Δ is the Laplace operator. If the solute move in an homogeneous system in thermal equilibrium, the diffusion coefficients are constants that do not depend on the local concentration of solvent and of solutes and on local temperature of the medium. In this paper a new stochastic reaction-diffusion model in which the diffusion coefficients are function of the local concentration, viscosity and frictional forces of solvent and solute is presented. Such a model provides a more realistic description of the molecular kinetics in non-homogenoeus and highly structured media as the intra- and inter-cellular spaces. The movement of a molecule A from a region i to a region j of the space is described as a first order reaction Ai k- → Aj , where the rate constant k depends on the diffusion coefficient. Representing the diffusional motion as a chemical reaction allows to assimilate a reaction-diffusion system to a pure reaction system and to simulate it with Gillespie-inspired stochastic simulation algorithms. The stochastic time evolution of the system is given by the occurrence of diffusion events and chemical reaction events. At each time step an event (reaction or diffusion) is selected from a probability distribution of waiting times determined by the specific speed of reaction and diffusion events. Redi is the software tool, developed to implement the model of reaction-diffusion kinetics and dynamics. It is a free software, that can be downloaded from http://www.cosbi.eu. To demonstrate the validity of the new reaction-diffusion model, the simulation results of the chaperone-assisted protein folding in cytoplasm obtained with Redi are reported. This case study is redrawing the attention of the scientific community due to current interests on protein aggregation as a potential cause for neurodegenerative diseases.
Abstract: Stochastic resonance (SR) is a phenomenon whereby
the signal transmission or signal processing through certain nonlinear
systems can be improved by adding noise. This paper discusses SR in
nonlinear signal detection by a simple test statistic, which can be
computed from multiple noisy data in a binary decision problem based
on a maximum a posteriori probability criterion. The performance of
detection is assessed by the probability of detection error Per . When
the input signal is subthreshold signal, we establish that benefit from
noise can be gained for different noises and confirm further that the
subthreshold SR exists in nonlinear signal detection. The efficacy of
SR is significantly improved and the minimum of Per can
dramatically approach to zero as the sample number increases. These
results show the robustness of SR in signal detection and extend the
applicability of SR in signal processing.