Abstract: In this paper, we propose an algorithm to compute
initial cluster centers for K-means clustering. Data in a cell is
partitioned using a cutting plane that divides cell in two smaller cells.
The plane is perpendicular to the data axis with the highest variance
and is designed to reduce the sum squared errors of the two cells as
much as possible, while at the same time keep the two cells far apart
as possible. Cells are partitioned one at a time until the number of
cells equals to the predefined number of clusters, K. The centers of
the K cells become the initial cluster centers for K-means. The
experimental results suggest that the proposed algorithm is effective,
converge to better clustering results than those of the random
initialization method. The research also indicated the proposed
algorithm would greatly improve the likelihood of every cluster
containing some data in it.
Abstract: Given the motivation of maps impact in enhancing the
perception of the quality of life in a region, this work examines the
use of spatial analytical techniques in exploring the role of space in
shaping human development patterns in Assiut governorate.
Variations of human development index (HDI) of the governorate-s
villages, districts and cities are mapped using geographic information
systems (GIS). Global and local spatial autocorrelation measures are
employed to assess the levels of spatial dependency in the data and to
map clusters of human development. Results show prominent
disparities in HDI between regions of Assiut. Strong patterns of
spatial association were found proving the presence of clusters on the
distribution of HDI. Finally, the study indicates several "hot-spots" in
the governorate to be area of more investigations to explore the
attributes of such levels of human development. This is very
important for accomplishing the development plan of poorest regions
currently adopted in Egypt.
Abstract: In the present study, a heterogeneous and
homogeneous gas flow dispersion model for simulation and
optimisation of a large-scale catalytic slurry reactor for the direct
synthesis of dimethyl ether (DME) from syngas and CO2, using a
churn-turbulent regime was developed. In the heterogeneous gas flow
model the gas phase was distributed into two bubble phases: small
and large, however in the homogeneous one, the gas phase was
distributed into only one large bubble phase. The results indicated
that the heterogeneous gas flow model was in more agreement with
experimental pilot plant data than the homogeneous one.
Abstract: The purposes of this paper are to (1) promote excellence in computer science by suggesting a cohesive innovative approach to fill well documented deficiencies in current computer science education, (2) justify (using the authors' and others anecdotal evidence from both the classroom and the real world) why this approach holds great potential to successfully eliminate the deficiencies, (3) invite other professionals to join the authors in proof of concept research. The authors' experiences, though anecdotal, strongly suggest that a new approach involving visual modeling technologies should allow computer science programs to retain a greater percentage of prospective and declared majors as students become more engaged learners, more successful problem-solvers, and better prepared as programmers. In addition, the graduates of such computer science programs will make greater contributions to the profession as skilled problem-solvers. Instead of wearily rememorizing code as they move to the next course, students will have the problem-solving skills to think and work in more sophisticated and creative ways.
Abstract: Although in sustainable development field, innovative
solutions have been sought worldwide by environmental groups,
academia, governments and companies for many years, recently,
citizens and communities have emerged as a new group and taken
more and more active role in this field. Many scholars call for more
research on the role of community and community innovation in
sustainable development. This paper is to respond to the calls. In
this paper, we first summarize a comprehensive set of innovation
principles. Then, we do a qualitative cross case study by comparing
three community innovation cases in three different areas of sustainable
development according to the innovation principles. Finally,
we summarize the case comparison and discuss the implications
to sustainable development. A unified role model and innovation
distribution map of community innovation are developed to better
understand community innovation in sustainable development..
Abstract: Measurement of competitiveness between countries or regions is an important topic of many economic analysis and scientific papers. In European Union (EU), there is no mainstream approach of competitiveness evaluation and measuring. There are many opinions and methods of measurement and evaluation of competitiveness between states or regions at national and European level. The methods differ in structure of using the indicators of competitiveness and ways of their processing. The aim of the paper is to analyze main sources of competitive potential of the EU Member States with the help of Factor analysis (FA) and to classify the EU Member States to homogeneous units (clusters) according to the similarity of selected indicators of competitiveness factors by Cluster analysis (CA) in reference years 2000 and 2011. The theoretical part of the paper is devoted to the fundamental bases of competitiveness and the methodology of FA and CA methods. The empirical part of the paper deals with the evaluation of competitiveness factors in the EU Member States and cluster comparison of evaluated countries by cluster analysis.
Abstract: The distribution, enrichment, and accumulation of zinc
(Zn) in the sediments of Kaohsiung Ocean Disposal Site (KODS),
Taiwan were investigated. Sediment samples from two outer disposal
site stations and nine disposed stations in the KODS were collected per
quarterly in 2009 and characterized for Zn, aluminum, organic matter,
and grain size. Results showed that the mean Zn concentrations varied
from 48 mg/kg to 456 mg/kg. Results from the enrichment factor (EF)
and geo-accumulation index (Igeo) analyses imply that the sediments
collected from the KODS can be characterized between moderate and
moderately severe degree enrichment and between none and none to
medium accumulation of Zn, respectively. However, results of
potential ecological risk index indicate that the sediment has low
ecological potential risk. The EF, Igeo, and Zn concentrations at the
disposed stations were slightly higher than those at outer disposal site.
This indicated that the disposed area centers may be subjected to the
disposal impaction of harbor dredged sediments.
Abstract: HSDPA is a new feature which is introduced in
Release-5 specifications of the 3GPP WCDMA/UTRA standard to
realize higher speed data rate together with lower round-trip times.
Moreover, the HSDPA concept offers outstanding improvement of
packet throughput and also significantly reduces the packet call
transfer delay as compared to Release -99 DSCH. Till now the
HSDPA system uses turbo coding which is the best coding technique
to achieve the Shannon limit. However, the main drawbacks of turbo
coding are high decoding complexity and high latency which makes
it unsuitable for some applications like satellite communications,
since the transmission distance itself introduces latency due to
limited speed of light. Hence in this paper it is proposed to use LDPC
coding in place of Turbo coding for HSDPA system which decreases
the latency and decoding complexity. But LDPC coding increases the
Encoding complexity. Though the complexity of transmitter
increases at NodeB, the End user is at an advantage in terms of
receiver complexity and Bit- error rate. In this paper LDPC Encoder
is implemented using “sparse parity check matrix" H to generate a
codeword at Encoder and “Belief Propagation algorithm "for LDPC
decoding .Simulation results shows that in LDPC coding the BER
suddenly drops as the number of iterations increase with a small
increase in Eb/No. Which is not possible in Turbo coding. Also same
BER was achieved using less number of iterations and hence the
latency and receiver complexity has decreased for LDPC coding.
HSDPA increases the downlink data rate within a cell to a theoretical
maximum of 14Mbps, with 2Mbps on the uplink. The changes that
HSDPA enables includes better quality, more reliable and more
robust data services. In other words, while realistic data rates are
only a few Mbps, the actual quality and number of users achieved
will improve significantly.
Abstract: The main objective of this paper is applying a
comparison between the Wolf Pack Search (WPS) as a newly
introduced intelligent algorithm with several other known algorithms
including Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Shuffled Frog
Leaping (SFL), Binary and Continues Genetic algorithms. All
algorithms are applied on two benchmark cost functions. The aim is
to identify the best algorithm in terms of more speed and accuracy in
finding the solution, where speed is measured in terms of function
evaluations. The simulation results show that the SFL algorithm with
less function evaluations becomes first if the simulation time is
important, while if accuracy is the significant issue, WPS and PSO
would have a better performance.
Abstract: augmented reality is a technique used to insert virtual objects in real scenes. One of the most used libraries in the area is the ARToolkit library. It is based on the recognition of the markers that are in the form of squares with a pattern inside. This pattern which is mostly textual is source of confusing. In this paper, we present the results of a classification of Latin characters as a pattern on the ARToolkit markers to know the most distinguishable among them.
Abstract: Using data of listed Croatian firms from the Zagreb
Stock Exchange we analyze the relationship between firm ownership
(ownership concentration and type) and performance (ROA).
Empirical research was conducted for the period 2003-2010, yielding
with the total of 1,430 observations. Empirical findings based on
dynamic panel analysis indicate that ownership concentration
variable - CR4 is negatively related with performance, i.e. listed firms
with dispersed ownership perform better than firms with concentrated
ownership. Also, the research indicated that foreign controlled listed
firms perform better than domestically controlled firms. Majority
state owned firms perform worse than privately held firms but
dummy variable for privately controlled firms was not statistically
significant in the estimated panel model.
Abstract: Results are presented from a combined experimental
and modeling study undertaken to understand the effect of fuel spray
angle on soot production in turbulent liquid spray flames. The
experimental work was conducted in a cylindrical laboratory furnace
at fuel spray cone angle of 30º, 45º and 60º. Soot concentrations
inside the combustor are measured by filter paper technique. The soot
concentration is modeled by using the soot particle number density
and the mass density based acetylene concentrations. Soot oxidation
occurred by both hydroxide radicals and oxygen molecules. The
comparison of calculated results against experimental measurements
shows good agreement. Both the numerical and experimental results
show that the peak value of soot and its location in the furnace
depend on fuel spray cone angle. An increase in spray angle enhances
the evaporating rate and peak temperature near the nozzle. Although
peak soot concentration increase with enhance of fuel spray angle but
soot emission from the furnace decreases.
Abstract: Generally, administrative systems in an academic
environment are disjoint and support independent queries. The
objective in this work is to semantically connect these independent
systems to provide support to queries run on the integrated platform.
The proposed framework, by enriching educational material in the
legacy systems, provides a value-added semantics layer where
activities such as annotation, query and reasoning can be carried out
to support management requirements. We discuss the development of
this ontology framework with a case study of UAE University
program administration to show how semantic web technologies can
be used by administration to develop student profiles for better
academic program management.
Abstract: The cinema in Turkey during the 1940s was shaped
under the Second World War conditions. The amateur film makers
from different socioeconomic roots experienced movie production in
those years. Having similar socioeconomic characteristics and
autobiographies, each of them has a different understanding of
cinema. Nevertheless, they joined in making movies which address
native culture and audience. They narrated indigenous stories with
native music, amateur players and simple settings. Although the
martial law, censorship and economical deficiencies, they started to
produce films in the Second World War. The cinematographers of the
1940s usually called as thetransition period cinematographers in
Turkey, producing in the passage between the period of thetheatre
playersand the period of thenational cinema. But, 1940- 1950 period
of Turkish cinema should be defined not as a transition but a period
of forming the professional conscioussness in cinema.
Abstract: This investigation examines the effect of the sintering
temperature curve in manufactured nickel powder capillary structure
(wick) for a loop heat pipe (LHP). The sintering temperature curve is
composed of a region of increasing temperature; a region of constant
temperature and a region of declining temperature. The most important
region is that in which the temperature increases, as an index in the
stage in which the temperature increases. The wick of nickel powder is
manufactured in the stage of fixed sintering temperature and the time
between the stage of constant temperature and the stage of falling
temperature. When the slope of the curve in the region of increasing
temperature is unity (equivalent to 10 °C/min), the structure of the
wick is complete and the heat transfer performance is optimal. The
result of experiment test demonstrates that the heat transfer
performance is optimal at 320W; the minimal total thermal resistance
is approximately 0.18°C/W, and the heat flux is 17W/cm2; the internal
parameters of the wick are an effective pore radius of 3.1 μm, a
permeability of 3.25×10-13m2 and a porosity of 71%.
Abstract: In this paper, a generalized form of the Banzhaf-Owen value for cooperative fuzzy games with a coalition structure is proposed. Its axiomatic system is given by extending crisp case. In order to better understand the Banzhaf-Owen value for fuzzy games with a coalition structure, we briefly introduce the Banzhaf-Owen values for two special kinds of fuzzy games with a coalition structure, and give their explicit forms.
Abstract: This paper unifies power optimization approaches in
various energy converters, such as: thermal, solar, chemical, and
electrochemical engines, in particular fuel cells. Thermodynamics
leads to converter-s efficiency and limiting power. Efficiency
equations serve to solve problems of upgrading and downgrading of
resources. While optimization of steady systems applies the
differential calculus and Lagrange multipliers, dynamic optimization
involves variational calculus and dynamic programming. In reacting
systems chemical affinity constitutes a prevailing component of an
overall efficiency, thus the power is analyzed in terms of an active
part of chemical affinity. The main novelty of the present paper in the
energy yield context consists in showing that the generalized heat
flux Q (involving the traditional heat flux q plus the product of
temperature and the sum products of partial entropies and fluxes of
species) plays in complex cases (solar, chemical and electrochemical)
the same role as the traditional heat q in pure heat engines.
The presented methodology is also applied to power limits in fuel
cells as to systems which are electrochemical flow engines propelled
by chemical reactions. The performance of fuel cells is determined by
magnitudes and directions of participating streams and mechanism of
electric current generation. Voltage lowering below the reversible
voltage is a proper measure of cells imperfection. The voltage losses,
called polarization, include the contributions of three main sources:
activation, ohmic and concentration. Examples show power maxima
in fuel cells and prove the relevance of the extension of the thermal
machine theory to chemical and electrochemical systems. The main
novelty of the present paper in the FC context consists in introducing
an effective or reduced Gibbs free energy change between products p
and reactants s which take into account the decrease of voltage and
power caused by the incomplete conversion of the overall reaction.
Abstract: Reduction of Single Input Single Output (SISO) discrete systems into lower order model, using a conventional and an evolutionary technique is presented in this paper. In the conventional technique, the mixed advantages of Modified Cauer Form (MCF) and differentiation are used. In this method the original discrete system is, first, converted into equivalent continuous system by applying bilinear transformation. The denominator of the equivalent continuous system and its reciprocal are differentiated successively, the reduced denominator of the desired order is obtained by combining the differentiated polynomials. The numerator is obtained by matching the quotients of MCF. The reduced continuous system is converted back into discrete system using inverse bilinear transformation. In the evolutionary technique method, Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is employed to reduce the higher order model. PSO method is based on the minimization of the Integral Squared Error (ISE) between the transient responses of original higher order model and the reduced order model pertaining to a unit step input. Both the methods are illustrated through numerical example.
Abstract: Understanding the cell's large-scale organization is an
interesting task in computational biology. Thus, protein-protein
interactions can reveal important organization and function of the
cell. Here, we investigated the correspondence between protein
interactions and function for the yeast. We obtained the correlations
among the set of proteins. Then these correlations are clustered using
both the hierarchical and biclustering methods. The detailed analyses
of proteins in each cluster were carried out by making use of their
functional annotations. As a result, we found that some functional
classes appear together in almost all biclusters. On the other hand, in
hierarchical clustering, the dominancy of one functional class is
observed. In brief, from interaction data to function, some correlated
results are noticed about the relationship between interaction and
function which might give clues about the organization of the
proteins.
Abstract: Detection and tracking of the lip contour is an important
issue in speechreading. While there are solutions for lip tracking
once a good contour initialization in the first frame is available,
the problem of finding such a good initialization is not yet solved
automatically, but done manually. We have developed a new tracking
solution for lip contour detection using only few landmarks (15
to 25) and applying the well known Active Shape Models (ASM).
The proposed method is a new LMS-like adaptive scheme based on
an Auto regressive (AR) model that has been fit on the landmark
variations in successive video frames. Moreover, we propose an extra
motion compensation model to address more general cases in lip
tracking. Computer simulations demonstrate a fair match between
the true and the estimated spatial pixels. Significant improvements
related to the well known LMS approach has been obtained via a
defined Frobenius norm index.