Abstract: The objective of this study was to evaluate the
physical and chemical characteristics of Serra da Estrela cheese and
compare these results with those of the sensory analysis. For the
study were taken six samples of Serra da Estrela cheese produced
with 6 different ecotypes of thistle in a dairy situated in Penalva do
Castelo. The chemical properties evaluated were moisture content,
protein, fat, ash, chloride and pH; the physical properties studied
were color and texture; and finally a sensory evaluation was
undertaken. The results showed moisture varying in the range 40-
48%, protein in the range 15-20%, fat between 41-45%, ash between
3.9-5.0% and chlorides varying from 1.2 to 3.0%. The pH varied
from 4.8 to 5.4. The textural properties revealed that the crust
hardness is relatively low (maximum 7.3 N), although greater than
flesh firmness (maximum 1.7 N), and also that these cheeses are in
fact soft paste type, with measurable stickiness and intense
adhesiveness. The color analysis showed that the crust is relatively
light (L* over 50), and with a predominant yellow coloration (b*
around 20 or over) although with a slight greenish tone (a* negative).
The results of the sensory analysis did not show great variability for
most of the attributes measured, although some differences were
found in attributes such as crust thickness, crust uniformity, and
creamy flesh.
Abstract: Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF, Mw=6,045) has been
reported to have high efficiency of wound repair and anti-wrinkle
effect. However, the half-life of EGF in the body is too short to exert
the biological activity effectively when applied in free form. Growth
Factors can be stabilized by immobilization with carbohydrates from
thermal and proteolytic degradation. Low molecular weight chitosan
(LMCS) and its derivate prepared by hydrogen peroxide has high
solubility. LM6A6DC was successfully prepared as a reactive
carbohydrate for the stabilization of EGF by the reactions of LMCS
with alkalization, tosylation, azidation and reduction. The structure of
LM6A6DC was confirmed by FT-IR, 1H NMR and elementary
analysis. For enhancing the stability of free EGF, EGF was attached
with LM6A6DC by using water-soluble carbodiimide.
EGF-LM6A6DC conjugates did not show any cytotoxicity on the
Normal Human Dermal Fibroblast (NHDF) 3T3 proliferation at least
under 100 μg/ml. In the result, it was considered that LM6A6DC is
suitable to immobilize of growth factor.
Abstract: Over the past few years, the online multimedia
collection has grown at a fast pace. Several companies showed
interest to study the different ways to organise the amount of audio
information without the need of human intervention to generate
metadata. In the past few years, many applications have emerged on
the market which are capable of identifying a piece of music in a
short time. Different audio effects and degradation make it much
harder to identify the unknown piece. In this paper, an audio
fingerprinting system which makes use of a non-parametric based
algorithm is presented. Parametric analysis is also performed using
Gaussian Mixture Models (GMMs). The feature extraction methods
employed are the Mel Spectrum Coefficients and the MPEG-7 basic
descriptors. Bin numbers replaced the extracted feature coefficients
during the non-parametric modelling. The results show that nonparametric
analysis offer potential results as the ones mentioned in
the literature.
Abstract: Natural hydrocarbon seepage has helped petroleum
exploration as a direct indicator of gas and/or oil subsurface
accumulations. Surface macro-seeps are generally an indication of a
fault in an active Petroleum Seepage System belonging to a Total
Petroleum System. This paper describes a case study in which
multiple analytical techniques were used to identify and characterize
trace petroleum-related hydrocarbons and other volatile organic
compounds in groundwater samples collected from Sousse aquifer
(Central Tunisia). The analytical techniques used for analyses of
water samples included gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GCMS),
capillary GC with flame-ionization detection, Compound
Specific Isotope Analysis, Rock Eval Pyrolysis. The objective of the
study was to confirm the presence of gasoline and other petroleum
products or other volatile organic pollutants in those samples in order
to assess the respective implication of each of the potentially
responsible parties to the contamination of the aquifer. In addition,
the degree of contamination at different depths in the aquifer was also
of interest. The oil and gas seeps have been investigated using
biomarker and stable carbon isotope analyses to perform oil-oil and
oil-source rock correlations. The seepage gases are characterized by
high CH4 content, very low δ13CCH4 values (-71,9 ‰) and high
C1/C1–5 ratios (0.95–1.0), light deuterium–hydrogen isotope ratios (-
198 ‰) and light δ13CC2 and δ13CCO2 values (-23,8‰ and-23,8‰
respectively) indicating a thermogenic origin with the contribution of
the biogenic gas. An organic geochemistry study was carried out on
the more ten oil seep samples. This study includes light hydrocarbon
and biomarkers analyses (hopanes, steranes, n-alkanes, acyclic
isoprenoids, and aromatic steroids) using GC and GC-MS. The
studied samples show at least two distinct families, suggesting two
different types of crude oil origins: the first oil seeps appears to be
highly mature, showing evidence of chemical and/or biological
degradation and was derived from a clay-rich source rock deposited
in suboxic conditions. It has been sourced mainly by the lower
Fahdene (Albian) source rocks. The second oil seeps was derived
from a carbonate-rich source rock deposited in anoxic conditions,
well correlated with the Bahloul (Cenomanian-Turonian) source rock.
Abstract: In this paper, performances of shuffled frog leaping
algorithm was investigated on the stealth laser dicing process. Effect
of problem on the performance of the algorithm was based on the
tolerance of meandering data. From the customer specification it
could be less than five microns with the target of zero microns.
Currently, the meandering levels are unsatisfactory when compared
to the customer specification. Firstly, the two-level factorial design
was applied to preliminarily study the statistically significant effects
of five process variables. In this study one influential process variable
is integer. From the experimental results, the new operating condition
from the algorithm was superior when compared to the current
manufacturing condition.
Abstract: The composite pavement system considered in this
paper is composed of a functional surface layer, a fiber reinforced
asphalt middle layer and a fiber reinforced lean concrete base layer.
The mix design of the fiber reinforced lean concrete corresponds to the
mix composition of conventional lean concrete but reinforced by
fibers. The quasi-absence of research on the durability or long-term
performances (fatigue, creep, etc.) of such mix design stresses the
necessity to evaluate experimentally the long-term characteristics of
this layer composition. This study tests the creep characteristics as one
of the long-term characteristics of the fiber reinforced lean concrete
layer for composite pavement using a new creep device. The test
results reveal that the lean concrete mixed with fiber reinforcement
and fly ash develops smaller creep than the conventional lean
concrete. The results of the application of the CEB-FIP prediction
equation indicate that a modified creep prediction equation should be
developed to fit with the new mix design of the layer.
Abstract: The present work analyses different parameters of end
milling to minimize the surface roughness for AISI D2 steel. D2 Steel
is generally used for stamping or forming dies, punches, forming
rolls, knives, slitters, shear blades, tools, scrap choppers, tyre
shredders etc. Surface roughness is one of the main indices that
determines the quality of machined products and is influenced by
various cutting parameters. In machining operations, achieving
desired surface quality by optimization of machining parameters, is a
challenging job. In case of mating components the surface roughness
become more essential and is influenced by the cutting parameters,
because, these quality structures are highly correlated and are
expected to be influenced directly or indirectly by the direct effect of
process parameters or their interactive effects (i.e. on process
environment). In this work, the effects of selected process parameters
on surface roughness and subsequent setting of parameters with the
levels have been accomplished by Taguchi’s parameter design
approach. The experiments have been performed as per the
combination of levels of different process parameters suggested by
L9 orthogonal array. Experimental investigation of the end milling of
AISI D2 steel with carbide tool by varying feed, speed and depth of
cut and the surface roughness has been measured using surface
roughness tester. Analyses of variance have been performed for mean
and signal-to-noise ratio to estimate the contribution of the different
process parameters on the process.
Abstract: This study estimates the seismic demands of tall
buildings with central symmetric setbacks by using nonlinear time
history analysis. Three setback structures, all 60-story high with
setback in three levels, are used for evaluation. The effects of
irregularities occurred by setback are evaluated by determination of
global-drift, story-displacement and story drift. Story-displacement is
modified by roof displacement and first story displacement and story
drift is modified by global drift. All results are calculated at the
center of mass and in x and y direction. Also the absolute values of
these quantities are determined. The results show that increasing of
vertical irregularities increases the global drift of the structure and
enlarges the deformations in the height of the structure. It is also
observed that the effects of geometry irregularity in the seismic
deformations of setback structures are higher than those of mass
irregularity.
Abstract: Facing the understanding problem of update and
preservation of urban history space under background of rapid Chinese
urbanization, so at first there is a need to dig the philosophic principles
of “antithesis” and “unification” which are contained in the traditional
Chinese literature known as “antithesis” and do the job of planning
translation by personal understanding in order to form understanding
and value systems of dialectical urban history space under the
foundation of “antithesis”. Then we could put forward a “context”
concept for urban history space under the foregoing basis. After that,
we will take the update and preservation of Ningbo Tianyi Pavilion’s
historical district as an example to discuss problems related to
understanding of urban history area under the basis of Chinese
tradition culture, improvement of value system, construction of urban
trait space and Chinese “localization” of planning theory.
Abstract: Due to the rapid increase of Internet, web opinion
sources dynamically emerge which is useful for both potential
customers and product manufacturers for prediction and decision
purposes. These are the user generated contents written in natural
languages and are unstructured-free-texts scheme. Therefore, opinion
mining techniques become popular to automatically process customer
reviews for extracting product features and user opinions expressed
over them. Since customer reviews may contain both opinionated and
factual sentences, a supervised machine learning technique applies
for subjectivity classification to improve the mining performance. In
this paper, we dedicate our work is the task of opinion
summarization. Therefore, product feature and opinion extraction is
critical to opinion summarization, because its effectiveness
significantly affects the identification of semantic relationships. The
polarity and numeric score of all the features are determined by
Senti-WordNet Lexicon. The problem of opinion summarization
refers how to relate the opinion words with respect to a certain
feature. Probabilistic based model of supervised learning will
improve the result that is more flexible and effective.
Abstract: Quantification of cardiac function is performed by
calculating blood volume and ejection fraction in routine clinical
practice. However, these works have been performed by manual
contouring, which requires computational costs and varies on the
observer. In this paper, an automatic left ventricle segmentation
algorithm on cardiac magnetic resonance images (MRI) is presented.
Using knowledge on cardiac MRI, a K-mean clustering technique is
applied to segment blood region on a coil-sensitivity corrected image.
Then, a graph searching technique is used to correct segmentation
errors from coil distortion and noises. Finally, blood volume and
ejection fraction are calculated. Using cardiac MRI from 15 subjects,
the presented algorithm is tested and compared with manual
contouring by experts to show outstanding performance.
Abstract: The pursuit of the MPPT has led to the development of many kinds of controllers, one of which is the Fuzzy Logic controller, which has proven its worth. To further tune this controller this paper will discuss and analyze the use of Genetic Algorithms to tune the Fuzzy Logic Controller. It will provide an introduction to both systems, and test their compatibility and performance.
Abstract: We propose a code acquisition scheme called improved
multiple-shift (IMS) for optical code division multiple access
systems, where the optical orthogonal code is used instead of the
pseudo noise code. Although the IMS algorithm has a similar process
to that of the conventional MS algorithm, it has a better code
acquisition performance than the conventional MS algorithm. We
analyze the code acquisition performance of the IMS algorithm and
compare the code acquisition performances of the MS and the IMS
algorithms in single-user and multi-user environments.
Abstract: The impact of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) has
been analyzed for many years by researchers. There are lot of
theoretical studies proving the SEZs importance for regional
development, however, there is lack of empirical studies (and they
are mainly focused on China market) that are based on available data.
The theoretical studies indicate the various impacts of enterprises
operating within SEZs on the economy. The article proves that, in
case of Poland, locating SEZs in municipalities is an important part
of increasing municipalities’ income. Therefore SEZs have a positive
impact on regional development. Municipality income is understood
as taxes paid by taxpayers who depend on SEZ companies’
performance. The analysis includes the Corporate Income Tax (CIT),
Personal Income Tax (PIT) and real estate tax. The effects of SEZs
on regional development were narrowed to a few variables that are
most significant for the financial system. The analysis indicates the
significant impact of SEZs on the amount of taxes influencing the
municipality budget.
Abstract: Future mobile networks following 5th generation will
be characterized by one thousand times higher gains in capacity;
connections for at least one hundred billion devices; user experience
capable of extremely low latency and response times. To be close to
the capacity requirements and higher reliability, advanced
technologies have been studied, such as multiple connectivity, small
cell enhancement, heterogeneous networking, and advanced
interference and mobility management. This paper is focused on the
multiple connectivity in heterogeneous cellular networks. We
investigate the performance of coverage and user throughput in several
deployment scenarios. Using the stochastic geometry approach, the
SINR distributions and the coverage probabilities are derived in case
of dual connection. Also, to compare the user throughput enhancement
among the deployment scenarios, we calculate the spectral efficiency
and discuss our results.
Abstract: A new concept of response system is proposed for
filling the gap that exists in reducing vulnerability during immediate
response to natural disasters. Real Time Early Response Systems
(RTERSs) incorporate real time information as feedback data for
closing control loop and for generating real time situation assessment.
A review of the state of the art on works that fit the concept of
RTERS is presented, and it is found that they are mainly focused on
manmade disasters. At the same time, in response phase of natural
disaster management many works are involved in creating early
warning systems, but just few efforts have been put on deciding what
to do once an alarm is activated. In this context a RTERS arises as a
useful tool for supporting people in their decision making process
during natural disasters after an event is detected, and also as an
innovative context for applying well-known automation technologies
and automatic control concepts and tools.
Abstract: IEEE 802.11a/b/g standards provide multiple
transmission rates, which can be changed dynamically according to the
channel condition. Cooperative communications were introduced to
improve the overall performance of wireless LANs with the help of
relay nodes with higher transmission rates. The cooperative
communications are based on the fact that the transmission is much
faster when sending data packets to a destination node through a relay
node with higher transmission rate, rather than sending data directly to
the destination node at low transmission rate. To apply the cooperative
communications in wireless LAN, several MAC protocols have been
proposed. Some of them can result in collisions among relay nodes in a
dense network. In order to solve this problem, we propose a new
protocol. Relay nodes are grouped based on their transmission rates.
And then, relay nodes only in the highest group try to get channel
access. Performance evaluation is conducted using simulation, and
shows that the proposed protocol significantly outperforms the
previous protocol in terms of throughput and collision probability.
Abstract: In this study, the root of the name Lykaonia and the geographical area defined as Lykaonia Region are mentioned. In this context, information concerning the settlements of Paleolithic Age, Neolithic Age and Chalcolithic Age are given place. Particularly the settlements belonging to Classical Age are localized and brief information about the history of these settlements is provided. In the light of this information, roads of Antique period in the region are evaluated.
Abstract: Nowadays, it is a globalization era which social media
plays an important role to the lifestyle as an information source, tools
to connect people together and etc. This research is object to find out
about the significant level of the social media as a distribution
channel to the agriculture product of Thailand. In this research, the
agriculture product is the Rice Berry which is the cross-bred unmilled
rice producing dark violet grain, is a combination of Hom Nin Rice
and Thai Jasmine/ Fragrant Rice 105. Rice Berry has a very high
nutrition and nice aroma so the product is in the growth stage of the
product cycle. The problem for the Rice Berry product in Thailand is
the production and the distribution channel. This study is to confirm
that the social media is another option as the distribution channel for
the product which is not a mass production product. This will be the
role model for the other niche market product to select the
distribution channel.
Abstract: The elastic period has a primary role in the seismic
assessment of buildings. Reliable calculations and/or estimates of the
fundamental frequency of a building and its site are essential during
analysis and design process. Various code formulas based on
empirical data are generally used to estimate the fundamental
frequency of a structure. For existing structures, in addition to code
formulas and available analytical tools such as modal analyses,
various methods of testing including ambient and forced vibration
testing procedures may be used to determine dynamic characteristics.
In this study, the dynamic properties of the 32 buildings located in
the Madinah of Saudi Arabia were identified using ambient motions
recorded at several, spatially-distributed locations within each
building. Ambient vibration measurements of buildings have been
analyzed and the fundamental longitudinal and transverse periods for
all tested buildings are presented. The fundamental mode of vibration
has been compared in plots with codes formulae (Saudi Building
Code, EC8, and UBC1997). The results indicate that measured
periods of existing buildings are shorter than that given by most
empirical code formulas. Recommendations are given based on the
common design and construction practice in Madinah city.