Abstract: Islam has a general principle of increase in
population. But the Muslims are equally obliged to take care of
health, education and the provisions etc. for their offspring and wives
in the best possible way. The Muslims would have to regulate and
manage the number of children, if any situation affects their duties
regarding their wives or children. Islam accomplishes permissibility
of temporary blockade in human fertility if someone faces any
problem regarding health of mother or children. During the life of the
Holy Prophet (SAW), Azl (coitus interruptus) was the only way for
temporary spacing between the children. In technologically
developed environment, the same can be resort through some
advanced methodology or instrument of temporary blockade. Solid
grounds are available in Islam that the fertility rate should be
managed if any of the aspect of human quality is being affected.
Abstract: Reasonably priced and well-constructed housing must
be an integral and element supporting a healthy society. The absence
of housing everyone in society can afford negatively affects the
people's health, education, ability to get jobs, develop their
community. Without access to decent housing, economic
development, integration of immigrants and inclusiveness, the society
is negatively impacted. Canada has a sterling record in creating
housing compared to many other nations around the globe. Canadian
housing gets support from a mature and responsive mortgage network
and a top-quality construction industry as well as safe and excellent
quality building materials that are readily available. Yet 1.7 million
Canadian households occupy substandard abodes. During the past
hundred years, Canada's government has made a wide variety of
attempts to provide decent residential facilities every Canadian can
afford. Despite these laudable efforts, today Canada is left with
housing that is inadequate for many Canadians. People who own their
housing are given all kinds of privileges and perks, while people with
relatively low incomes who rent their apartments or houses are
discriminated against.
To help solve these problems, zoning that is based on an
"inclusionary" philosophy is tool developed to help provide people
the affordable residences that they need. No, thirty years after its
introduction, this type of zoning has been shown effective in helping
build and provide Canadians with a houses or apartments they can
afford to pay for. Using this form of zoning can have different results
+depending on where and how it is used. After examining Canadian
affordable housing and four American cases where this type of
zoning was enforced in the USA, this makes various
recommendations for expanding Canadians' access to housing they
can afford.
Abstract: This paper describes an automated event detection and location system for water distribution pipelines which is based upon low-cost sensor technology and signature analysis by an Artificial
Neural Network (ANN). The development of a low cost failure sensor which measures the opacity or cloudiness of the local water
flow has been designed, developed and validated, and an ANN based system is then described which uses time series data produced by
sensors to construct an empirical model for time series prediction and
classification of events. These two components have been installed,
tested and verified in an experimental site in a UK water distribution
system. Verification of the system has been achieved from a series of
simulated burst trials which have provided real data sets. It is concluded that the system has potential in water distribution network
management.
Abstract: The Learning Management Systems present learning
environment which offers a collection of e-learning tools in a
package that allows a common interface and information sharing
among the tools. South East European University initial experience
in LMS was with the usage of the commercial LMS-ANGEL. After a
three year experience on ANGEL usage because of expenses that
were very high it was decided to develop our own software. As part
of the research project team for the in-house design and development
of the new LMS, we primarily had to select the features that would
cover our needs and also comply with the actual trends in the area of
software development, and then design and develop the system. In
this paper we present the process of LMS in-house development for
South East European University, its architecture, conception and
strengths with a special accent on the process of migration and
integration with other enterprise applications.
Abstract: The aim of this work is to study the possible use of
stone cutting sludge waste in concrete production, which would
reduce both the environmental impact and the production cost .Slurry
sludge was used a source of water in concrete production, which was
obtained from Samara factory/Jordan, The physico-chemical and
mineralogical characterization of the sludge was carried out to
identify the major components and to compare it with the typical
sand used to produce concrete. Samples analysis showed that 96% of
slurry sludge volume is water, so it should be considered as an
important source of water. Results indicated that the use of slurry
sludge as water source in concrete production has insignificant effect
on compression strength, while it has a sharp effect on the slump
values. Using slurry sludge with a percentage of 25% of the total
water content obtained successful concrete samples regarding slump
and compression tests. To clarify slurry sludge, settling process can
be used to remove the suspended solid. A settling period of 30 min.
obtained 99% removal efficiency. The clarified water is suitable for
using in concrete mixes, which reduce water consumption, conserve
water recourses, increase the profit, reduce operation cost and save
the environment. Additionally, the dry sludge could be used in the
mix design instead of the fine materials with sizes < 160 um. This
application could conserve the natural materials and solve the
environmental and economical problem caused by sludge
accumulation.
Abstract: This paper presents a system for tracking the movement of laparoscopic instruments which is based on an orthogonal system of webcams and video image processing. The movements are captured with two webcams placed orthogonally inside of the physical trainer. On the image, the instruments were detected by using color markers placed on the distal tip of each instrument. The 3D position of the tip of the instrument within the work space was obtained by linear triangulation method. Preliminary results showed linearity and repeatability in the motion tracking with a resolution of 0.616 mm in each axis; the accuracy of the system showed a 3D instrument positioning error of 1.009 ± 0.101 mm. This tool is a portable and low-cost alternative to traditional tracking devices and a trustable method for the objective evaluation of the surgeon’s surgical skills.
Abstract: Evaluation of contact pressure, surface and
subsurface contact stresses are essential to know the functional
response of surface coatings and the contact behavior mainly depends
on surface roughness, material property, thickness of layer and the
manner of loading. Contact parameter evaluation of real rough
surface contacts mostly relies on statistical single asperity contact
approaches. In this work, a three dimensional layered solid rough
surface in contact with a rigid flat is modeled and analyzed using
finite element method. The rough surface of layered solid is
generated by FFT approach. The generated rough surface is exported
to a finite element method based ANSYS package through which the
bottom up solid modeling is employed to create a deformable solid
model with a layered solid rough surface on top. The discretization
and contact analysis are carried by using the same ANSYS package.
The elastic, elastoplastic and plastic deformations are continuous in
the present finite element method unlike many other contact models.
The Young-s modulus to yield strength ratio of layer is varied in the
present work to observe the contact parameters effect while keeping
the surface roughness and substrate material properties as constant.
The contacting asperities attain elastic, elastoplastic and plastic states
with their continuity and asperity interaction phenomena is inherently
included. The resultant contact parameters show that neighboring
asperity interaction and the Young-s modulus to yield strength ratio
of layer influence the bulk deformation consequently affect the
interface strength.
Abstract: This paper describes a prototype aircraft that can fly
slowly, safely and transmit wireless video for tasks like reconnaissance,
surveillance and target acquisition. The aircraft is designed to
fly in closed quarters like forests, buildings, caves and tunnels which
are often spacious but GPS reception is poor. Envisioned is that a
small, safe and slow flying vehicle can assist in performing dull,
dangerous and dirty tasks like disaster mitigation, search-and-rescue
and structural damage assessment.
Abstract: In this paper, genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed for
the design of an optimization algorithm to achieve the bandwidth
allocation of ATM network. In Broadband ISDN, the ATM is a highbandwidth;
fast packet switching and multiplexing technique. Using
ATM it can be flexibly reconfigure the network and reassign the
bandwidth to meet the requirements of all types of services. By
dynamically routing the traffic and adjusting the bandwidth
assignment, the average packet delay of the whole network can be
reduced to a minimum. M/M/1 model can be used to analyze the
performance.
Abstract: Space exploration is a highly visible endeavour of
humankind to seek profound answers to questions about the origins
of our solar system, whether life exists beyond Earth, and how we
could live on other worlds. Different platforms have been utilized in
planetary exploration missions, such as orbiters, landers, rovers, and
penetrators.
Having low mass, good mechanical contact with the surface,
ability to acquire high quality scientific subsurface data, and ability to
be deployed in areas that may not be conducive to landers or rovers,
Penetrators provide an alternative and complimentary solution that
makes possible scientific exploration of hardly accessible sites (icy
areas, gully sites, highlands etc.).
The Canadian Space Agency (CSA) has put space exploration as
one of the pillars of its space program, and established ExCo program
to prepare Canada for future international planetary exploration.
ExCo sets surface mobility as its focus and priority, and invests
mainly in the development of rovers because of Canada's niche space
robotics technology. Meanwhile, CSA is also investigating how
micro-penetrators can help Canada to fulfill its scientific objectives
for planetary exploration.
This paper presents a review of the micro-penetrator technologies,
past missions, and lessons learned. It gives a detailed analysis of the
technical challenges of micro-penetrators, such as high impact
survivability, high precision guidance navigation and control, thermal
protection, communications, and etc. Then, a Canadian perspective of
a possible micro-penetrator mission is given, including Canadian
scientific objectives and priorities, potential instruments, and flight
opportunities.
Abstract: This paper presents a method for determining the
uniaxial tensile properties such as Young-s modulus, yield strength
and the flow behaviour of a material in a virtually non-destructive
manner. To achieve this, a new dumb-bell shaped miniature
specimen has been designed. This helps in avoiding the removal of
large size material samples from the in-service component for the
evaluation of current material properties. The proposed miniature
specimen has an advantage in finite element modelling with respect
to computational time and memory space. Test fixtures have been
developed to enable the tension tests on the miniature specimen in a
testing machine. The studies have been conducted in a chromium
(H11) steel and an aluminum alloy (AR66). The output from the
miniature test viz. load-elongation diagram is obtained and the finite
element simulation of the test is carried out using a 2D plane stress
analysis. The results are compared with the experimental results. It is
observed that the results from the finite element simulation
corroborate well with the miniature test results. The approach seems
to have potential to predict the mechanical properties of the
materials, which could be used in remaining life estimation of the
various in-service structures.
Abstract: This paper describes new computer vision algorithms
that have been developed to track moving objects as part of a
long-term study into the design of (semi-)autonomous vehicles. We
present the results of a study to exploit variable kernels for tracking in
video sequences. The basis of our work is the mean shift
object-tracking algorithm; for a moving target, it is usual to define a
rectangular target window in an initial frame, and then process the data
within that window to separate the tracked object from the background
by the mean shift segmentation algorithm. Rather than use the
standard, Epanechnikov kernel, we have used a kernel weighted by the
Chamfer distance transform to improve the accuracy of target
representation and localization, minimising the distance between the
two distributions in RGB color space using the Bhattacharyya
coefficient. Experimental results show the improved tracking
capability and versatility of the algorithm in comparison with results
using the standard kernel. These algorithms are incorporated as part of
a robot test-bed architecture which has been used to demonstrate their
effectiveness.
Abstract: The main goal of this paper is to establish a
methodology for testing and optimizing GPRS performance over
Libya GSM network as well as to propose a suitable optimization
technique to improve performance. Some measurements of
download, upload, throughput, round-trip time, reliability, handover,
security enhancement and packet loss over a GPRS access network
were carried out. Measured values are compared to the theoretical
values that could be calculated beforehand. This data should be
processed and delivered by the server across the wireless network to
the client. The client on the fly takes those pieces of the data and
process immediately. Also, we illustrate the results by describing the
main parameters that affect the quality of service. Finally, Libya-s
two mobile operators, Libyana Mobile Phone and Al-Madar al-
Jadeed Company are selected as a case study to validate our
methodology.
Abstract: Feature and model selection are in the center of
attention of many researches because of their impact on classifiers-
performance. Both selections are usually performed separately but
recent developments suggest using a combined GA-SVM approach to
perform them simultaneously. This approach improves the
performance of the classifier identifying the best subset of variables
and the optimal parameters- values. Although GA-SVM is an
effective method it is computationally expensive, thus a rough
method can be considered. The paper investigates a joined approach
of Genetic Algorithm and kernel matrix criteria to perform
simultaneously feature and model selection for SVM classification
problem. The purpose of this research is to improve the classification
performance of SVM through an efficient approach, the Kernel
Matrix Genetic Algorithm method (KMGA).
Abstract: The excessive consumption of fossil energies (electrical energy) during summer caused by the technological development involves more and more climate warming.
In order to reduce the worst impact of gas emissions produced from classical air conditioning, heat driven solar absorption chiller is pretty promising; it consists on using solar as motive energy which is clean and environmentally friendly to provide cold.
Solar absorption machine is composed by four components using Lithium Bromide /water as a refrigerating couple. LiBr- water is the most promising in chiller applications due to high safety, high volatility ratio, high affinity, high stability and its high latent heat. The lithium bromide solution is constitute by the salt lithium bromide which absorbs water under certain conditions of pressure and temperature however if the concentration of the solution is high in the absorption chillers; which exceed 70%, the solution will crystallize.
The main aim of this article is to study the phenomena of the crystallization and to evaluate how the dependence between the electric conductivity and the concentration which should be controlled.
Abstract: The production of activated carbon from low or zero cost of agricultural by-products or wastes has received great attention from academics and practitioners due to its economic and environmental benefits. In the production of bamboo furniture, a significant amount of bamboo waste is inevitably generated. Therefore, this research aimed to prepare activated carbons from bamboo furniture waste by chemical (KOH) activation and determine their properties and adsorption capacities for water treatment. The influence of carbonization time on the properties and adsorption capacities of activated carbons was also investigated. The finding showed that the bamboo-derived activated carbons had microporous characteristics. They exhibited high tendency for the reduction of impurities present in effluent water. Their adsorption capacities were comparable to the adsorption capacity of a commercial activated carbon regarding to the reduction in COD, TDS and turbidity of the effluent water.
Abstract: Purpose of this work is to develop an automatic classification system that could be useful for radiologists in the breast cancer investigation. The software has been designed in the framework of the MAGIC-5 collaboration. In an automatic classification system the suspicious regions with high probability to include a lesion are extracted from the image as regions of interest (ROIs). Each ROI is characterized by some features based generally on morphological lesion differences. A study in the space features representation is made and some classifiers are tested to distinguish the pathological regions from the healthy ones. The results provided in terms of sensitivity and specificity will be presented through the ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curves. In particular the best performances are obtained with the Neural Networks in comparison with the K-Nearest Neighbours and the Support Vector Machine: The Radial Basis Function supply the best results with 0.89 ± 0.01 of area under ROC curve but similar results are obtained with the Probabilistic Neural Network and a Multi Layer Perceptron.
Abstract: Traffic density, an indicator of traffic
conditions, is one of the most critical characteristics to
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). This paper investigates
recursive traffic density estimation using the information
provided from inductive loop detectors. On the basis of the
phenomenological relationship between speed and density, the
existing studies incorporate a state space model and update the
density estimate using vehicular speed observations via the
extended Kalman filter, where an approximation is made
because of the linearization of the nonlinear observation
equation. In practice, this may lead to substantial estimation
errors. This paper incorporates a suitable transformation to
deal with the nonlinear observation equation so that the
approximation is avoided when using Kalman filter to
estimate the traffic density. A numerical study is conducted. It
is shown that the developed method outperforms the existing
methods for traffic density estimation.
Abstract: Text categorization techniques are widely used to many Information Retrieval (IR) applications. In this paper, we proposed a simple but efficient method that can automatically find the relationship between any pair of terms and documents, also an indexing matrix is established for text categorization. We call this method Indexing Matrix Categorization Machine (IMCM). Several experiments are conducted to show the efficiency and robust of our algorithm.
Abstract: In this present study, experimental work was
conducted to study the effectiveness of newly innovated steel-CFRP
composite (CFRP laminates sandwiched between two steel strips) as
stirrups. A total numbers of eight concrete beams were tested under
four point loads. Each beam measured 1600 mm long, 160mm width
and 240 mm depth. The beams were reinforced with different shear
reinforcements; one without stirrups, one with steel stirrups and six
with different types and numbers of steel-CRFR stirrups. Test results
indicated that the steel-CFRP stirrups had enhanced the shear
strength capacity of beams. Moreover, the tests revealed that steel-
CFRP stirrups reached to their ultimate tensile strength unlike FRP
stirrups which rupture at much lower level than their ultimate
strength as werereported in various researches.