Abstract: The study investigated the effects of Teaching Games
for Understanding approach on students ‘cognitive learning outcome.
The study was a quasi-experimental non-equivalent pretest-posttest
control group design whereby 10 year old primary school students
(n=72) were randomly assigned to an experimental and a control
group. The experimental group students were exposed with TGfU
approach and the control group with the Traditional Skill approach of
handball game. Game Performance Assessment Instrument (GPAI)
was used to measure students' tactical understanding and decision
making in 3 versus 3 handball game situations. Analysis of
covariance (ANCOVA) was used to analyze the data. The results
reveal that there was a significant difference between the TGfU
approach group and the traditional skill approach group students on
post test score (F (1, 69) = 248.83, p < .05). The findings of this
study suggested the importance of TGfU approach to improve
primary students’ tactical understanding and decision making in
handball game.
Abstract: A new OTA-based logarithmic-control variable gain
current amplifier (LCCA) is presented. It consists of two Operational
Transconductance Amplifier (OTA) and two PMOS transistors
biased in weak inversion region. The circuit operates from 0.6V DC
power supply and consumes 0.6 μW. The linear-dB controllable
output range is 43 dB with maximum error less than 0.5dB. The
functionality of the proposed design was confirmed using HSPICE in
0.35μm CMOS process technology.
Abstract: Breast skin-line estimation and breast segmentation is an important pre-process in mammogram image processing and computer-aided diagnosis of breast cancer. Limiting the area to be processed into a specific target region in an image would increase the accuracy and efficiency of processing algorithms. In this paper we are presenting a new algorithm for estimating skin-line and breast segmentation using fast marching algorithm. Fast marching is a partial-differential equation based numerical technique to track evolution of interfaces. We have introduced some modifications to the traditional fast marching method, specifically to improve the accuracy of skin-line estimation and breast tissue segmentation. Proposed modifications ensure that the evolving front stops near the desired boundary. We have evaluated the performance of the algorithm by using 100 mammogram images taken from mini-MIAS database. The results obtained from the experimental evaluation indicate that this algorithm explains 98.6% of the ground truth breast region and accuracy of the segmentation is 99.1%. Also this algorithm is capable of partially-extracting nipple when it is available in the profile.
Abstract: In blended learning environments, the Internet can be combined with other technologies. The aim of this research was to design, introduce and validate a model to support synchronous and asynchronous activities by managing content domains in an Adaptive Hypermedia System (AHS). The application is based on information recovery techniques, clustering algorithms and adaptation rules to adjust the user's model to contents and objects of study. This system was applied to blended learning in higher education. The research strategy used was the case study method. Empirical studies were carried out on courses at two universities to validate the model. The results of this research show that the model had a positive effect on the learning process. The students indicated that the synchronous and asynchronous scenario is a good option, as it involves a combination of work with the lecturer and the AHS. In addition, they gave positive ratings to the system and stated that the contents were adapted to each user profile.
Abstract: Knowledge bases are basic components of expert
systems or intelligent computational programs. Knowledge bases
provide knowledge, events that serve deduction activity,
computation and control. Therefore, researching and developing of
models for knowledge representation play an important role in
computer science, especially in Artificial Intelligence Science and
intelligent educational software. In this paper, the extensive
deduction computational model is proposed to design knowledge
bases whose attributes are able to be real values or functional values.
The system can also solve problems based on knowledge bases.
Moreover, the models and algorithms are applied to produce the
educational software for solving alternating current problems or
solving set of equations automatically.
Abstract: This paper reports on an effort to address the issue of
inequality in girls- and women-s access to science, engineering and
technology (SET) education and careers through raising awareness on
SET among secondary school girls in South Africa. Girls participated
in hands-on high-tech rapid prototyping environment of a fabrication
laboratory that was aimed at stimulating creativity and innovation as
part of a Fab Kids initiative. The Fab Kids intervention is about
creating a SET pipeline as part of the Young Engineers and Scientists
of Africa Initiative.The methodology was based on a real world
situation and a hands-on approach. In the process, participants
acquired a number of skills including computer-aided design,
research skills, communication skills, teamwork skills, technical
drawing skills, writing skills and problem-solving skills. Exposure to
technology enhanced the girls- confidence in being able to handle
technology-related tasks.
Abstract: Quantitative trait loci (QTL) experiments have yielded
important biological and biochemical information necessary for
understanding the relationship between genetic markers and
quantitative traits. For many years, most QTL algorithms only
allowed one observation per genotype. Recently, there has been an
increasing demand for QTL algorithms that can accommodate more
than one observation per genotypic distribution. The Bayesian
hierarchical model is very flexible and can easily incorporate this
information into the model. Herein a methodology is presented that
uses a Bayesian hierarchical model to capture the complexity of the
data. Furthermore, the Markov chain Monte Carlo model composition
(MC3) algorithm is used to search and identify important markers. An
extensive simulation study illustrates that the method captures the
true QTL, even under nonnormal noise and up to 6 QTL.
Abstract: The overall objective of this research is a strain
improvement technology for efficient pectinase production. A novel
cells cultivation technology by immobilization of fungal cells has
been studied in long time continuous fermentations. Immobilization
was achieved by using of new material for absorption of stores of
immobilized cultures which was for the first time used for
immobilization of microorganisms. Effects of various conditions of
nitrogen and carbon nutrition on the biosynthesis of pectolytic
enzymes in Aspergillus awamori 1-8 strain were studied. Proposed
cultivation technology along with optimization of media components
for pectinase overproduction led to increased pectinase productivity
in Aspergillus awamori 1-8 from 7 to 8 times. Proposed technology
can be applied successfully for production of major industrial
enzymes such as α-amylase, protease, collagenase etc.
Abstract: Video-on-demand (VOD) is designed by using content delivery networks (CDN) to minimize the overall operational cost and to maximize scalability. Estimation of the viewing pattern (i.e., the relationship between the number of viewings and the ranking of VOD contents) plays an important role in minimizing the total operational cost and maximizing the performance of the VOD systems. In this paper, we have analyzed a large body of commercial VOD viewing data and found that the viewing rank distribution fits well with the parabolic fractal distribution. The weighted linear model fitting function is used to estimate the parameters (coefficients) of the parabolic fractal distribution. This paper presents an analytical basis for designing an optimal hierarchical VOD contents distribution system in terms of its cost and performance.
Abstract: Expression data analysis is based mostly on the
statistical approaches that are indispensable for the study of
biological systems. Large amounts of multidimensional data resulting
from the high-throughput technologies are not completely served by
biostatistical techniques and are usually complemented with visual,
knowledge discovery and other computational tools. In many cases,
in biological systems we only speculate on the processes that are
causing the changes, and it is the visual explorative analysis of data
during which a hypothesis is formed. We would like to show the
usability of multidimensional visualization tools and promote their
use in life sciences. We survey and show some of the
multidimensional visualization tools in the process of data
exploration, such as parallel coordinates and radviz and we extend
them by combining them with the self-organizing map algorithm. We
use a time course data set of transitional cell carcinoma of the bladder
in our examples. Analysis of data with these tools has the potential to
uncover additional relationships and non-trivial structures.
Abstract: In this paper the strength of adhesive joint under
tension and bending is discussed on the basis of intensity of
singular stress by the application of FEM. A useful method is
presented with focusing on the stress at the edge of interface
between the adhesive and adherent obtained by FEM. After
analyzing the adhesive joint strength with all material
combinations, it is found that to improve the interface strength,
thin adhesive layers are desirable because the intensity of
singular stress decreases with decreasing the thickness.
Abstract: In-place sorting algorithms play an important role in many fields such as very large database systems, data warehouses, data mining, etc. Such algorithms maximize the size of data that can be processed in main memory without input/output operations. In this paper, a novel in-place sorting algorithm is presented. The algorithm comprises two phases; rearranging the input unsorted array in place, resulting segments that are ordered relative to each other but whose elements are yet to be sorted. The first phase requires linear time, while, in the second phase, elements of each segment are sorted inplace in the order of z log (z), where z is the size of the segment, and O(1) auxiliary storage. The algorithm performs, in the worst case, for an array of size n, an O(n log z) element comparisons and O(n log z) element moves. Further, no auxiliary arithmetic operations with indices are required. Besides these theoretical achievements of this algorithm, it is of practical interest, because of its simplicity. Experimental results also show that it outperforms other in-place sorting algorithms. Finally, the analysis of time and space complexity, and required number of moves are presented, along with the auxiliary storage requirements of the proposed algorithm.
Abstract: The ability of information systems to operate in conjunction with each other encompassing communication protocols, hardware, software, application, and data compatibility layers. There has been considerable work in industry on the development of component interoperability models, such as CORBA, (D)COM and JavaBeans. These models are intended to reduce the complexity of software development and to facilitate reuse of off-the-shelf components. The focus of these models is syntactic interface specification, component packaging, inter-component communications, and bindings to a runtime environment. What these models lack is a consideration of architectural concerns – specifying systems of communicating components, explicitly representing loci of component interaction, and exploiting architectural styles that provide well-understood global design solutions. The development of complex business applications is now focused on an assembly of components available on a local area network or on the net. These components must be localized and identified in terms of available services and communication protocol before any request. The first part of the article introduces the base concepts of components and middleware while the following sections describe the different up-todate models of communication and interaction and the last section shows how different models can communicate among themselves.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects
of modality principles in instructional software among first grade
pupils- achievements in the learning of Arabic Language. Two modes
of instructional software were systematically designed and
developed, audio with images (AI), and text with images (TI). The
quasi-experimental design was used in the study. The sample
consisted of 123 male and female pupils from IRBED Education
Directorate, Jordan. The pupils were randomly assigned to any one of
the two modes. The independent variable comprised the two modes
of the instructional software, the students- achievement levels in the
Arabic Language class and gender. The dependent variable was the
achievements of the pupils in the Arabic Language test. The
theoretical framework of this study was based on Mayer-s Cognitive
Theory of Multimedia Learning. Four hypotheses were postulated
and tested. Analyses of Variance (ANOVA) showed that pupils using
the (AI) mode performed significantly better than those using (TI)
mode. This study concluded that the audio with images mode was an
important aid to learning as compared to text with images mode.
Abstract: In this experimental investigation shake table tests
were conducted on two reduced models that represent normal single
room building constructed by Compressed Stabilized Earth Block
(CSEB) from locally available soil. One model was constructed with
earthquake resisting features (EQRF) having sill band, lintel band and
vertical bands to control the building vibration and another one was
without Earthquake Resisting Features. To examine the seismic
capacity of the models particularly when it is subjected to long-period
ground motion by large amplitude by many cycles of repeated
loading, the test specimen was shaken repeatedly until the failure.
The test results from Hi-end Data Acquisition system show that
model with EQRF behave better than without EQRF. This modified
masonry model with new material combined with new bands is used
to improve the behavior of masonry building.
Abstract: Calibration estimation is a method of adjusting the
original design weights to improve the survey estimates by using
auxiliary information such as the known population total (or mean)
of the auxiliary variables. A calibration estimator uses calibrated
weights that are determined to minimize a given distance measure to
the original design weights while satisfying a set of constraints
related to the auxiliary information. In this paper, we propose a new
multivariate calibration estimator for the population mean in the
stratified sampling design, which incorporates information available
for more than one auxiliary variable. The problem of determining the
optimum calibrated weights is formulated as a Mathematical
Programming Problem (MPP) that is solved using the Lagrange
multiplier technique.
Abstract: A well balanced numerical scheme based on
stationary waves for shallow water flows with arbitrary topography
has been introduced by Thanh et al. [18]. The scheme was
constructed so that it maintains equilibrium states and tests indicate
that it is stable and fast. Applying the well-balanced scheme for the
one-dimensional shallow water equations, we study the early shock
waves propagation towards the Phuket coast in Southern Thailand
during a hypothetical tsunami. The initial tsunami wave is generated
in the deep ocean with the strength that of Indonesian tsunami of
2004.
Abstract: All Text processing systems allow their users to
search a pattern of string from a given text. String matching is
fundamental to database and text processing applications. Every text
editor must contain a mechanism to search the current document for
arbitrary strings. Spelling checkers scan an input text for words in the
dictionary and reject any strings that do not match. We store our
information in data bases so that later on we can retrieve the same
and this retrieval can be done by using various string matching
algorithms. This paper is describing a new string matching algorithm
for various applications. A new algorithm has been designed with the
help of Rabin Karp Matcher, to improve string matching process.
Abstract: In this paper the use of sequential machines for recognizing actions taken by the objects detected by a general tracking algorithm is proposed. The system may deal with the uncertainty inherent in medium-level vision data. For this purpose, fuzzification of input data is performed. Besides, this transformation allows to manage data independently of the tracking application selected and enables adding characteristics of the analyzed scenario. The representation of actions by means of an automaton and the generation of the input symbols for finite automaton depending on the object and action compared are described. The output of the comparison process between an object and an action is a numerical value that represents the membership of the object to the action. This value is computed depending on how similar the object and the action are. The work concludes with the application of the proposed technique to identify the behavior of vehicles in road traffic scenes.
Abstract: Since water resources of desert Naein City are very
limited, a approach which saves water resources and meanwhile
meets the needs of the greenspace for water is to use city-s sewage
wastewater. Proper treatment of Naein-s sewage up to the standards
required for green space uses may solve some of the problems of
green space development of the city. The present paper closely
examines available statistics and information associated with city-s
sewage system, and determines complementary stages of sewage
treatment facilities of the city. In the present paper, population, per
capita water use, and required discharge for various greenspace
pieces including different plants are calculated. Moreover, in order to
facilitate the application of water resources, a Crude water
distribution network apart from drinking water distribution network is
designed, and a plan for mixing municipal wells- water with sewage
wastewater in proposed mixing tanks is suggested. Hence, following
greenspace irrigation reform and complementary plan, per capita
greenspace of the city will be increased from current amount of 13.2
square meters to 32 square meters.