Abstract: In rail vehicles, air springs are very important isolating component, which guarantee good ride comfort for passengers during their trip. In the most new rail–vehicle models, developed by researchers, the thermo–dynamical effects of air springs are ignored and secondary suspension is modeled by simple springs and dampers. As the performance of suspension components have significant effects on rail–vehicle dynamics and ride comfort of passengers, a complete nonlinear thermo–dynamical air spring model, which is a combination of two different models, is introduced. Result from field test shows remarkable agreement between proposed model and experimental data. Effects of air suspension parameters on the system performances are investigated here and then these parameters are tuned to minimize Sperling ride comfort index during the trip. Results showed that by modification of air suspension parameters, passengers comfort is improved and ride comfort index is reduced about 10%.
Abstract: All over the world, including the Middle and East
European countries, sustainable tillage and sowing technologies are
applied increasingly broadly with a view to optimising soil resources,
mitigating soil degradation processes, saving energy resources,
preserving biological diversity, etc. As a result, altered conditions of
tillage and sowing technological processes are faced inevitably. The
purpose of this study is to determine the seedbed topsoil hardness
when using a combined sowing coulter in different sustainable tillage
technologies. The research involved a combined coulter consisting
of two dissected blade discs and a shoe coulter. In order to determine
soil hardness at the seedbed area, a multipenetrometer was used. It
was found by experimental studies that in loosened soil, a combined
sowing coulter equally suppresses the furrow bottom, walls and soil
near the furrow; therefore, here, soil hardness was similar at all
researched depths and no significant differences were established. In
loosened and compacted (double-rolled) soil, the impact of a
combined coulter on the hardness of seedbed soil surface was more
considerable at a depth of 2 mm. Soil hardness at the furrow bottom
and walls to a distance of up to 26 mm was 1.1 MPa. At a depth of 10
mm, the greatest hardness was established at the furrow bottom. In
loosened and heavily compacted (rolled for 6 times) soil, at a depth
of 2 and 10 mm a combined coulter most of all compacted the furrow
bottom, which has a hardness of 1.8 MPa. At a depth of 20 mm, soil
hardness within the whole investigated area varied insignificantly and
fluctuated by around 2.0 MPa. The hardness of furrow walls and soil
near the furrow was by approximately 1.0 MPa lower than that at the
furrow bottom
Abstract: This article presents the developments of efficient
algorithms for tablet copies comparison. Image recognition has
specialized use in digital systems such as medical imaging,
computer vision, defense, communication etc. Comparison between
two images that look indistinguishable is a formidable task. Two
images taken from different sources might look identical but due to
different digitizing properties they are not. Whereas small variation
in image information such as cropping, rotation, and slight
photometric alteration are unsuitable for based matching
techniques. In this paper we introduce different matching
algorithms designed to facilitate, for art centers, identifying real
painting images from fake ones. Different vision algorithms for
local image features are implemented using MATLAB. In this
framework a Table Comparison Computer Tool “TCCT" is
designed to facilitate our research. The TCCT is a Graphical Unit
Interface (GUI) tool used to identify images by its shapes and
objects. Parameter of vision system is fully accessible to user
through this graphical unit interface. And then for matching, it
applies different description technique that can identify exact
figures of objects.
Abstract: Potato is one of the main components of warm meals in Latvia. Consumption of fried potatoes in Latvia is the highest comparing to Nordic and other Baltic countries. Therefore acrylamide (AA) intake coming from fried potatoes in population might be high as well. The aim of the research was to determine AA content in traditionally cooked potatoes bred and cultivated in Latvia. Five common Latvian potato varieties were selected: Lenora, Brasla, Imanta, Zile and Madara. A two-year research was conducted during two periods: just after harvesting and after six months of storage. The following cooking methods were used: shallow frying (150 ± 5 °C); deep-fat frying (180 ± 5 °C) and roasting (210 ± 5 °C). Time and temperature was recorded during frying. AA was extracted from potatoes by solid phase extraction and AA content was determined by LC-MS/MS. AA content significantly differs (p
Abstract: Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) has been
proposed to provide reliable transport of real-time communications.
Due to its attractive features, such as multi-streaming and multihoming,
the SCTP is often expected to be an alternative protocol
for TCP and UDP. In the original SCTP standard, the secondary path
is mainly regarded as a redundancy. Recently, most of researches
have focused on extending the SCTP to enable a host to send its
packets to a destination over multiple paths simultaneously. In order
to transfer packets concurrently over the multiple paths, the SCTP
should be well designed to avoid unnecessary fast retransmission
and the mis-estimation of congestion window size through the paths.
Therefore, we propose an Enhanced Cooperative ACK SCTP (ECASCTP)
to improve the path recovery efficiency of multi-homed host
which is under concurrent multiple transfer mode. We evaluated the
performance of our proposed scheme using ns-2 simulation in terms
of cwnd variation, path recovery time, and goodput. Our scheme
provides better performance in lossy and path asymmetric networks.
Abstract: Leptospirosis occurs worldwide (except the
poles of the earth), urban and rural areas, developed and
developing countries, especially in Thailand. It can be
transmitted to the human by rats through direct and indirect
ways. Human can be infected by either touching the infected rats
or contacting with water, soil containing urine from the infected
rats through skin, eyes and nose. The data of the people who
are infected with this disease indicates that most of the
patients are adults. The transmission of this disease is studied
through mathematical model. The population is separated into human
and rat. The human is divided into two classes, namely juvenile
and adult. The model equation is constructed for each class. The
standard dynamical modeling method is then used for
analyzing the behaviours of solutions. In addition, the
conditions of the parameters for the disease free and endemic
states are obtained. Numerical solutions are shown to support the
theoretical predictions. The results of this study guide the way to
decrease the disease outbreak.
Abstract: Today, the working areas put forward the administration of change. In order to provide this; it is required from the organizations to be creative. Professional creativity in offices depends on an environment that enables the development of the organization only after the individual or collective exertions within the organization. By providing this environment, the organization will gain efficiency, productivity, and work pleasure. In order to bring up the workforce appropriate to the related expectations, the professional creativity of the office management and secretarial profession candidates should be evaluated, education programs appropriate to this and related directly with the service quality should be prepared and the future of this profession should be directed. The aim of this study is to ensure the attention to improve the prepared education program as well as the creative thoughts and their applications, when carrying out an office management and secretarial training. 144 students took place in this research and a questionnaire of 48 questions was carried out.
Abstract: Perceptions of quality from both designers and users
perspective have now stretched beyond the traditional usability,
incorporating abstract and subjective concepts. This has led to a shift
in human computer interaction research communities- focus; a shift
that focuses on achieving user experience (UX) by not only fulfilling
conventional usability needs but also those that go beyond them. The
term UX, although widely spread and given significant importance,
lacks consensus in its unified definition. In this paper, we survey
various UX definitions and modeling frameworks and examine them
as the foundation for proposing a UX evolution lifecycle framework
for understanding UX in detail. In the proposed framework we identify
the building blocks of UX and discuss how UX evolves in various
phases. The framework can be used as a tool to understand experience
requirements and evaluate them, resulting in better UX design and
hence improved user satisfaction.
Abstract: Covering-based rough sets is an extension of rough
sets and it is based on a covering instead of a partition of the
universe. Therefore it is more powerful in describing some practical
problems than rough sets. However, by extending the rough sets,
covering-based rough sets can increase the roughness of each model
in recognizing objects. How to obtain better approximations from
the models of a covering-based rough sets is an important issue.
In this paper, two concepts, determinate elements and indeterminate
elements in a universe, are proposed and given precise definitions
respectively. This research makes a reasonable refinement of the
covering-element from a new viewpoint. And the refinement may
generate better approximations of covering-based rough sets models.
To prove the theory above, it is applied to eight major coveringbased
rough sets models which are adapted from other literature.
The result is, in all these models, the lower approximation increases
effectively. Correspondingly, in all models, the upper approximation
decreases with exceptions of two models in some special situations.
Therefore, the roughness of recognizing objects is reduced. This
research provides a new approach to the study and application of
covering-based rough sets.
Abstract: Little research has examined working memory
capacity (WMC) in signed language interpreters and deaf signers.
This paper presents the findings of a study that investigated WMC in
professional Australian Sign Language (Auslan)/English interpreters
and deaf signers. Thirty-one professional Auslan/English interpreters
(14 hearing native signers and 17 hearing non-native signers)
completed an English listening span task and then an Auslan working
memory span task, which tested their English WMC and their Auslan
WMC, respectively. Moreover, 26 deaf signers (6 deaf native signers
and 20 deaf non-native signers) completed the Auslan working
memory span task. The results revealed a non-significant difference
between the hearing native signers and the hearing non-native signers
in their English WMC, and a non-significant difference between the
hearing native signers and the hearing non-native signers in their
Auslan WMC. Moreover, the results yielded a non-significant
difference between the hearing native signers- English WMC and
their Auslan WMC, and a non-significant difference between the
hearing non-native signers- English WMC and their Auslan WMC.
Furthermore, a non-significant difference was found between the deaf
native signers and the deaf non-native signers in their Auslan WMC.
Abstract: Microarray data profiles gene expression on a whole
genome scale, therefore, it provides a good way to study associations
between gene expression and occurrence or progression of cancer.
More and more researchers realized that microarray data is helpful
to predict cancer sample. However, the high dimension of gene
expressions is much larger than the sample size, which makes this
task very difficult. Therefore, how to identify the significant genes
causing cancer becomes emergency and also a hot and hard research
topic. Many feature selection algorithms have been proposed in
the past focusing on improving cancer predictive accuracy at the
expense of ignoring the correlations between the features. In this
work, a novel framework (named by SGS) is presented for stable gene
selection and efficient cancer prediction . The proposed framework
first performs clustering algorithm to find the gene groups where
genes in each group have higher correlation coefficient, and then
selects the significant genes in each group with Bayesian Lasso and
important gene groups with group Lasso, and finally builds prediction
model based on the shrinkage gene space with efficient classification
algorithm (such as, SVM, 1NN, Regression and etc.). Experiment
results on real world data show that the proposed framework often
outperforms the existing feature selection and prediction methods,
say SAM, IG and Lasso-type prediction model.
Abstract: The paper presents an investigation in to the effect of neural network predictive control of UPFC on the transient stability performance of a multimachine power system. The proposed controller consists of a neural network model of the test system. This model is used to predict the future control inputs using the damped Gauss-Newton method which employs ‘backtracking’ as the line search method for step selection. The benchmark 2 area, 4 machine system that mimics the behavior of large power systems is taken as the test system for the study and is subjected to three phase short circuit faults at different locations over a wide range of operating conditions. The simulation results clearly establish the robustness of the proposed controller to the fault location, an increase in the critical clearing time for the circuit breakers, and an improved damping of the power oscillations as compared to the conventional PI controller.
Abstract: Fruits and vegetables are the essentials of a healthy
diet, mainly because of their antioxidant properties contributing to
disease blockage especially for some certain types of cancer. Being a
favourite fruit, citrus are produced for economic and commercial
purposes worldwide. Particularly, lemon fruit (Citrus limon L.), has
an important place in export products of Turkey. Lemon has a great
importance on human nutrition with regard to being a source of
nutrients, flavonoids, vitamin C and minerals. It is used for food
flavouring and pickling and also processed for lemonade. By
processing citrus into fruit juices, consumption may increase and also
become easier. Like many fruits and vegetables lemons are cheap and
abundant during harvesting period, while they are quite expensive in
other seasons. Lemon juice and concentrate production allows
consumers to get benefits from lemon fruit in any time of the year.
Lemonade is getting in to the focus of consumers’ attention
preferring non-carbonated drinks. The demand of healthy, convenient
functional foods affects consumer trends through innovative
products. For this reason, lemonade could be enriched with different
natural herb extracts such as ginger (Zingiber officinale), linden (Tilia
cordata), and mint (Mentha piperita).
Abstract: Names are important in many societies, even in technologically oriented ones which use e.g. ID systems to identify individual people. Names such as surnames are the most important as they are used in many processes, such as identifying of people and genealogical research. On the other hand variation of names can be a major problem for the identification and search for people, e.g. web search or security reasons. Name matching presumes a-priori that the recorded name written in one alphabet reflects the phonetic identity of two samples or some transcription error in copying a previously recorded name. We add to this the lode that the two names imply the same person. This paper describes name variations and some basic description of various name matching algorithms developed to overcome name variation and to find reasonable variants of names which can be used to further increasing mismatches for record linkage and name search. The implementation contains algorithms for computing a range of fuzzy matching based on different types of algorithms, e.g. composite and hybrid methods and allowing us to test and measure algorithms for accuracy. NYSIIS, LIG2 and Phonex have been shown to perform well and provided sufficient flexibility to be included in the linkage/matching process for optimising name searching.
Abstract: The curriculum of the primary school science course was redesigned on the basis of constructivism in 2005-2006 academic years, in Turkey. In this context, the name of this course has been changed as “Science and Technology"; and both content and course books, students workbooks for this course have been redesigned in light of constructivism. The aim of this study is to determine whether the Science and Technology course books and student work books for primary school 5th grade are appropriate for the constructivism by evaluating them in terms of the fundamental principles of constructivism. In this study, out of qualitative research methods, documentation technique (i.e. document analysis) is applied; while selecting samples, criterion-sampling is used out of purposeful sampling techniques. When the Science and Technology course book and workbook for the 5th grade in primary education are examined, it is seen that both books complete each other in certain areas. Consequently, it can be claimed that in spite of some inadequate and missing points in the course book and workbook of the primary school Science and Technology course for the 5th grade students, these books are attempted to be designed in terms of the principles of constructivism. To overcome the inadequacies in the books, it can be suggested to redesign them. In addition to them, not to ignore the technology dimension of the course, the activities that encourage the students to prepare projects using technology cycle should be included.
Abstract: Web-based cooperative learning focuses on (1) the interaction and the collaboration of community members, and (2) the sharing and the distribution of knowledge and expertise by network technology to enhance learning performance. Numerous research literatures related to web-based cooperative learning have demonstrated that cooperative scripts have a positive impact to specify, sequence, and assign cooperative learning activities. Besides, literatures have indicated that role-play in web-based cooperative learning environments enhances two or more students to work together toward the completion of a common goal. Since students generally do not know each other and they lack the face-to-face contact that is necessary for the negotiation of assigning group roles in web-based cooperative learning environments, this paper intends to further extend the application of genetic algorithm (GA) and propose a GA-based algorithm to tackle the problem of role assignment in web-based cooperative learning environments, which not only saves communication costs but also reduces conflict between group members in negotiating role assignments.
Abstract: Ireland developed a National Strategy 2030 that
argued for the creation of a new form of higher education institution,
a Technological University. The research reported here reviews the
first stage of this partnership development. The study found that
national policy can create system capacity and change, but that
individual partners may have more to gain or lose in collaborating.
When presented as a zero-sum activity, fear among partners is high.
The level of knowledge and networking within the higher education
system possessed by each partner contributed to decisions to
participate or not in a joint proposal for collaboration. Greater
success resulted when there were gains for all partners. This research
concludes that policy mandates can provide motivation to
collaborate, but that the partnership needs to be built more on shared
values versus coercion by mandates.
Abstract: In order to increase in chickpea quality and
agroecosystem sustainability, field experiments were carried out in
2007 and 2008 growing seasons. In this research the effects of
different organic, chemical and biological fertilizers were
investigated on grain yield and quality of chickpea. Experimental
units were arranged in split-split plots based on randomized complete
blocks with three replications. The highest amounts of yield and yield
components were obtained in G1×N5 interaction. Significant
increasing of N, P, K, Fe and Mg content in leaves and grains
emphasized on superiority of mentioned treatment because each one
of these nutrients has an approved role in chlorophyll synthesis and
photosynthesis ability of the crop. The combined application of
compost, farmyard manure and chemical phosphorus (N5) had the
best grain quality due to high protein, starch and total sugar contents,
low crude fiber and reduced cooking time.
Abstract: Laser beam forming is a novel technique developed for the joining of metallic components. In this study, an overview of the laser beam forming process, areas of application, the basic mechanisms of the laser beam forming process, some recent research
studies and the need to focus more research effort on improving the
laser-material interaction of laser beam forming of titanium and its
alloys are presented.
Abstract: Systems Analysis and Design is a key subject in
Information Technology courses, but students do not find it easy to
cope with, since it is not “precise" like programming and not exact
like Mathematics. It is a subject working with many concepts,
modeling ideas into visual representations and then translating the
pictures into a real life system. To complicate matters users who are
not necessarily familiar with computers need to give their inputs to
ensure that they get the system the need. Systems Analysis and
Design also covers two fields, namely Analysis, focusing on the
analysis of the existing system and Design, focusing on the design of
the new system. To be able to test the analysis and design of a
system, it is necessary to develop a system or at least a prototype of
the system to test the validity of the analysis and design. The skills
necessary in each aspect differs vastly. Project Management Skills,
Database Knowledge and Object Oriented Principles are all
necessary. In the context of a developing country where students
enter tertiary education underprepared and the digital divide is alive
and well, students need to be motivated to learn the necessary skills,
get an opportunity to test it in a “live" but protected environment –
within the framework of a university. The purpose of this article is to
improve the learning experience in Systems Analysis and Design
through reviewing the underlying teaching principles used, the
teaching tools implemented, the observations made and the
reflections that will influence future developments in Systems
Analysis and Design. Action research principles allows the focus to
be on a few problematic aspects during a particular semester.