Abstract: In this paper, experimental testing and numerical analysis were used to investigate the effect of tube thickness on the face bending for concrete filled hollow sections connected to other structural members using Extended Hollobolts. Six samples were tested experimentally by applying pull-out load on the bolts. These samples were designed to fail by column face bending. The main variable in all tests is the column face thickness. Finite element analyses were also performed using ABAQUS 6.11 to extend the experimental results and to quantify the effect of column face thickness. Results show that, the column face thickness has a clear impact on the connection strength and stiffness. However, the amount of improvement in the connection stiffness by changing the column face thickness from 5mm to 6.3mm seems to be higher than that when increasing it from 6.3mm to 8mm. The displacement at which the bolts start pulling-out from their holes increased with the use of thinner column face due to the high flexibility of the section. At the ultimate strength, the yielding of the column face propagated to the column corner and there was no yielding in its walls. After the ultimate resistance is reached, the propagation of the yielding was mainly in the column face with a miner yielding in the walls.
Abstract: Electrocardiogram (ECG) data compression algorithm
is needed that will reduce the amount of data to be transmitted, stored
and analyzed, but without losing the clinical information content. A
wavelet ECG data codec based on the Set Partitioning In Hierarchical
Trees (SPIHT) compression algorithm is proposed in this paper. The
SPIHT algorithm has achieved notable success in still image coding.
We modified the algorithm for the one-dimensional (1-D) case and
applied it to compression of ECG data.
By this compression method, small percent root mean square
difference (PRD) and high compression ratio with low
implementation complexity are achieved. Experiments on selected
records from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database revealed that the
proposed codec is significantly more efficient in compression and in
computation than previously proposed ECG compression schemes.
Compression ratios of up to 48:1 for ECG signals lead to acceptable
results for visual inspection.
Abstract: In this study the effect of incorporation of recycled
glass-fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) waste materials, obtained by
means of milling processes, on mechanical behaviour of polyester
polymer mortars was assessed. For this purpose, different contents of
recycled GFRP waste powder and fibres, with distinct size gradings,
were incorporated into polyester based mortars as sand aggregates
and filler replacements. Flexural and compressive loading capacities
were evaluated and found better than unmodified polymer mortars.
GFRP modified polyester based mortars also show a less brittle
behaviour, with retention of some loading capacity after peak load.
Obtained results highlight the high potential of recycled GFRP waste
materials as efficient and sustainable reinforcement and admixture for
polymer concrete and mortars composites, constituting an emergent
waste management solution.
Abstract: This study is purely qualitative. The objectives of this study can be identified as two main factors: traditionally explanation and economically studying. The study of weddings, both in traditional beauty and the aggressively strong competitive in the wedding business market has limited population of the study only Thailand internal wedding consumers. Focus group with the new marriage couple and in-depth interview with fully experiences wedding businessman were used. Traditionally, Thai weddings are very various; therefore, the recent patterns were briefly concluded to be processes of traditional Thai wedding will be revealed and explained then give more details in the formal procedures. Economically, weddings business are related to many types of businesses from catering business, hospitality and tourism business, pre-wedding photography, and the complete full-serviced wedding organizer for examples. The situations, changes and obstacles of the wedding related business will be discussed.
Abstract: Gradual patterns have been studied for many years as
they contain precious information. They have been integrated in
many expert systems and rule-based systems, for instance to reason
on knowledge such as “the greater the number of turns, the greater
the number of car crashes”. In many cases, this knowledge has been
considered as a rule “the greater the number of turns → the greater
the number of car crashes” Historically, works have thus been
focused on the representation of such rules, studying how implication
could be defined, especially fuzzy implication. These rules were
defined by experts who were in charge to describe the systems they
were working on in order to turn them to operate automatically. More
recently, approaches have been proposed in order to mine databases
for automatically discovering such knowledge. Several approaches
have been studied, the main scientific topics being: how to determine
what is an relevant gradual pattern, and how to discover them as
efficiently as possible (in terms of both memory and CPU usage).
However, in some cases, end-users are not interested in raw level
knowledge, and are rather interested in trends. Moreover, it may be
the case that no relevant pattern can be discovered at a low level of
granularity (e.g. city), whereas some can be discovered at a higher
level (e.g. county). In this paper, we thus extend gradual pattern
approaches in order to consider multiple level gradual patterns. For
this purpose, we consider two aggregation policies, namely
horizontal and vertical.
Abstract: This paper presents the development techniques
for a complete autonomous design model of an advanced train
control system and gives a new approach for the
implementation of multi-agents based system. This research
work proposes to develop a novel control system to enhance
the efficiency of the vehicles under constraints of various
conditions, and contributes in stability and controllability
issues, considering relevant safety and operational
requirements with command control communication and
various sensors to avoid accidents. The approach of speed
scheduling, management and control in local and distributed
environment is given to fulfill the dire needs of modern trend
and enhance the vehicles control systems in automation. These
techniques suggest the state of the art microelectronic
technology with accuracy and stability as forefront goals.
Abstract: In the planning point of view, it is essential to have
mode choice, due to the massive amount of incurred in transportation
systems. The intercity travellers in Libya have distinct features, as
against travellers from other countries, which includes cultural and
socioeconomic factors. Consequently, the goal of this study is to
recognize the behavior of intercity travel using disaggregate models,
for projecting the demand of nation-level intercity travel in Libya.
Multinomial Logit Model for all the intercity trips has been
formulated to examine the national-level intercity transportation in
Libya. The Multinomial logit model was calibrated using nationwide
revealed preferences (RP) and stated preferences (SP) survey. The
model was developed for deference purpose of intercity trips (work,
social and recreational). The variables of the model have been
predicted based on maximum likelihood method. The data needed for
model development were obtained from all major intercity corridors
in Libya. The final sample size consisted of 1300 interviews. About
two-thirds of these data were used for model calibration, and the
remaining parts were used for model validation. This study, which is
the first of its kind in Libya, investigates the intercity traveler’s
mode-choice behavior. The intercity travel mode-choice model was
successfully calibrated and validated. The outcomes indicate that, the
overall model is effective and yields higher precision of estimation.
The proposed model is beneficial, due to the fact that, it is receptive
to a lot of variables, and can be employed to determine the impact of
modifications in the numerous characteristics on the need for various
travel modes. Estimations of the model might also be of valuable to
planners, who can estimate possibilities for various modes and
determine the impact of unique policy modifications on the need for
intercity travel.
Abstract: Since after the historical moment of Malaysia
Independence Day on the year of 1957, the government had been trying hard in order to find the most efficient methods in learning.
However, it is hard to actually access and evaluate students whom will then be called an excellent student. It because in our realtime
student who excellent is only excel in academic. This evaluation
become a problem because it not balance in our real life interm of to get an excellent student in whole area in their involvement of curiculum and co-curiculum. To overcome this scenario, we
proposed a method called Student Idol to evaluate student through
three categories which are academic, co-curiculum and leadership.
All the categories have their own merit point. Using this method, student will be evaluated more accurate compared to the previously.
So, teacher can easily evaluate their student without having any emotion factor, relation factor and others. As conclustion this method will helps student evaluation more accurate and valid.
Abstract: An innovative approach utilizing highly alkaline oil
shale waste ash and carbon dioxide gas (CO2), associated with power
production, as a resource for production of precipitated calcium
carbonate (PCC) is introduced in this paper. The specifics and
feasibility of the integrated ash valorization and CO2 sequestration
process by indirect aqueous carbonation of lime-consisting ash were
elaborated and the main parameters established. Detailed description
of the formed precipitates was included. Complimentary carbonation
experiments with commercial CaO fine powder were conducted for
comparative characterization of the final products obtained on the
basis of two different raw materials. Finally, the expected CO2
uptake was evaluated.
Abstract: The state of the art in instructional design for
computer-assisted learning has been strongly influenced by advances
in information technology, Internet and Web-based systems. The
emphasis of educational systems has shifted from training to
learning. The course delivered has also been changed from large
inflexible content to sequential small chunks of learning objects. The
concepts of learning objects together with the advanced technologies
of Web and communications support the reusability, interoperability,
and accessibility design criteria currently exploited by most learning
systems. These concepts enable just-in-time learning. We propose to
extend theses design criteria further to include the learnability
concept that will help adapting content to the needs of learners. The
learnability concept offers a better personalization leading to the
creation and delivery of course content more appropriate to
performance and interest of each learner. In this paper we present a
new framework of learning environments containing knowledge
discovery as a tool to automatically learn patterns of learning
behavior from learners' profiles and history.
Abstract: Mechanical design of the thin-film solar framed
module and mounting system is important to enhance module
reliability and to increase areas of applications. The stress induced by
different mounting positions played a main role controlling the
stability of the whole mechanical structure. From the finite element
method, under the pressure from the back of module, the stress at Lc
(center point of the Long frame) increased and the stresses at Center,
Corner and Sc (center point of the Short frame) decreased while the
mounting position was away from the center of the module. In addition,
not only the stress of the glass but also the stress of the frame
decreased. Accordingly it was safer to mount in the position away
from the center of the module. The emphasis of designing frame
system of the module was on the upper support of the Short frame.
Strength of the overall structure and design of the corner were also
important due to the complexity of the stress in the Long frame.
Abstract: Named Entity Recognition (NER) aims to classify each word of a document into predefined target named entity classes and is now-a-days considered to be fundamental for many Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks such as information retrieval, machine translation, information extraction, question answering systems and others. This paper reports about the development of a NER system for Bengali and Hindi using Support Vector Machine (SVM). Though this state of the art machine learning technique has been widely applied to NER in several well-studied languages, the use of this technique to Indian languages (ILs) is very new. The system makes use of the different contextual information of the words along with the variety of features that are helpful in predicting the four different named (NE) classes, such as Person name, Location name, Organization name and Miscellaneous name. We have used the annotated corpora of 122,467 tokens of Bengali and 502,974 tokens of Hindi tagged with the twelve different NE classes 1, defined as part of the IJCNLP-08 NER Shared Task for South and South East Asian Languages (SSEAL) 2. In addition, we have manually annotated 150K wordforms of the Bengali news corpus, developed from the web-archive of a leading Bengali newspaper. We have also developed an unsupervised algorithm in order to generate the lexical context patterns from a part of the unlabeled Bengali news corpus. Lexical patterns have been used as the features of SVM in order to improve the system performance. The NER system has been tested with the gold standard test sets of 35K, and 60K tokens for Bengali, and Hindi, respectively. Evaluation results have demonstrated the recall, precision, and f-score values of 88.61%, 80.12%, and 84.15%, respectively, for Bengali and 80.23%, 74.34%, and 77.17%, respectively, for Hindi. Results show the improvement in the f-score by 5.13% with the use of context patterns. Statistical analysis, ANOVA is also performed to compare the performance of the proposed NER system with that of the existing HMM based system for both the languages.
Abstract: We present on the method of inverse coherence matrix for the estimation of network connectivity from multivariate time series of a complex system. In a model system of coupled chaotic oscillators, it is shown that the inverse coherence matrix defined as the inverse of cross coherence matrix is proportional to the network connectivity. Therefore the inverse coherence matrix could be used for the distinction between the directly connected links from indirectly connected links in a complex network. We compare the result of network estimation using the method of the inverse coherence matrix with the results obtained from the coherence matrix and the partial coherence matrix.
Abstract: The present study was done primarily to address two major research gaps: firstly, development of an empirical measure of life meaningfulness for substance users and secondly, to determine the psychosocial determinants of life meaningfulness among the substance users. The study is classified into two phases: the first phase which dealt with development of Life Meaningfulness Scale and the second phase which examined the relationship between life meaningfulness and social support, abstinence self efficacy and depression. Both qualitative and quantitative approaches were used for framing items. A Principal Component Analysis yielded three components: Overall Goal Directedness, Striving for healthy lifestyle and Concern for loved ones which collectively accounted for 42.06% of the total variance. The scale and its subscales were also found to be highly reliable. Multiple regression analyses in the second phase of the study revealed that social support and abstinence self efficacy significantly predicted life meaningfulness among 48 recovering inmates of a de-addiction center while level of depression failed to predict life meaningfulness.
Abstract: This research is aimed to compare the percentages of correct classification of Empirical Bayes method (EB) to Classical method when data are constructed as near normal, short-tailed and long-tailed symmetric, short-tailed and long-tailed asymmetric. The study is performed using conjugate prior, normal distribution with known mean and unknown variance. The estimated hyper-parameters obtained from EB method are replaced in the posterior predictive probability and used to predict new observations. Data are generated, consisting of training set and test set with the sample sizes 100, 200 and 500 for the binary classification. The results showed that EB method exhibited an improved performance over Classical method in all situations under study.
Abstract: Planning community has been long discussing emerging paradigms within the planning theory in the face of the changing conditions of the world order. The paradigm shift concept was introduced by Thomas Kuhn, in 1960, who claimed the necessity of shifting within scientific knowledge boundaries; and following him in 1970 Imre Loktas also gave priority to the emergence of multi-paradigm societies [24]. Multi-paradigm is changing our predetermined lifeworld through uncertainties. Those uncertainties are reflected in two sides, the first one is uncertainty as a concept of possibility and creativity in public sphere and the second one is uncertainty as a risk. Therefore, it is necessary to apply a resilience planning approach to be more dynamic in controlling uncertainties which have the potential to transfigure present time and space definitions. In this way, stability of system can be achieved. Uncertainty is not only an outcome of worldwide changes but also a place-specific issue, i.e. it changes from continent to continent, a country to country; a region to region. Therefore, applying strategic spatial planning with respect to resilience principle contributes to: control, grasp and internalize uncertainties through place-specific strategies. In today-s fast changing world, planning system should follow strategic spatial projects to control multi-paradigm societies with adaptability capacities. Here, we have selected two alternatives to demonstrate; these are; 1.Tehran (Iran) from the Middle East 2.Bath (United Kingdom) from Europe. The study elaborates uncertainties and particularities in their strategic spatial planning processes in a comparative manner. Through the comparison, the study aims at assessing place-specific priorities in strategic planning. The approach is to a two-way stream, where the case cities from the extreme end of the spectrum can learn from each other. The structure of this paper is to firstly compare semi-periphery (Tehran) and coreperiphery (Bath) cities, with the focus to reveal how they equip to face with uncertainties according to their geographical locations and local particularities. Secondly, the key message to address is “Each locality requires its own strategic planning approach to be resilient.--
Abstract: In this paper an average number of re-handlings
analysis is proposed to solve the problem of finding bays
configuration in small container terminal in Gliwice, Poland.
Rehandlings in this terminal can be performed only by reachstackers.
The goal of the heuristic is to plan the reachstacter moves in the
terminal, assuming that the target containers are reached and the
number of re-handings is minimized. The real situation requires also
to take into account the model of the problem environment
uncertainty caused by the fact that many containers are not delivered
to the terminal on time, or can not be sent on scheduled time. To
enable this, the heuristic uses some assumptions to simplify problem
analysis.
Abstract: The analysis of Acoustic Emission (AE) signal
generated from metal cutting processes has often approached
statistically. This is due to the stochastic nature of the emission
signal as a result of factors effecting the signal from its generation
through transmission and sensing. Different techniques are applied in
this manner, each of which is suitable for certain processes. In metal
cutting where the emission generated by the deformation process is
rather continuous, an appropriate method for analysing the AE signal
based on the root mean square (RMS) of the signal is often used and
is suitable for use with the conventional signal processing systems.
The aim of this paper is to set a strategy in tool failure detection in
turning processes via the statistic analysis of the AE generated from
the cutting zone. The strategy is based on the investigation of the
distribution moments of the AE signal at predetermined sampling.
The skews and kurtosis of these distributions are the key elements in
the detection. A normal (Gaussian) distribution has first been
suggested then this was eliminated due to insufficiency. The so
called Beta distribution was then considered, this has been used with
an assumed β density function and has given promising results with
regard to chipping and tool breakage detection.
Abstract: Titanium oxide hollow microspheres were synthesized from organic precursor titanium tetraisopropoxide (TTIP) using continuous spray pyrolysis reactor. Effects of precursor concentration, applied voltage and annealing have been investigated. It was observed that the annealing of the as-synthesized TiO2 hollow microspheres at 2500C, which had an average external diameter of 200 nm, leads to an increase in the size and also more spherical shape. The precursor concentration was found to have a direct impact on the size of the microspheres, which is also evident in the absorption spectrum. The as-prepared TiO2 hollow microspheres exhibited good photocatalytic activity for the degradation of MO.
Abstract: In present study, two kinds of thermal power plant ashes; one the fly ash and the other waste ash are mixed with adhesive tragacanth and cement to produce new composite materials. 48 new samples are produced by varying the percentages of the fly ash, waste ash, cement and tragacanth. The new samples are subjected to some tests to find out their properties such as thermal conductivity, compressive strength, tensile strength and sucking capability of water. It is found that; the thermal conductivity decreases with increasing amount of tragacanth in the mixture. The compressive, tensile strength increases when the rate of tragacanth is up to 1%, whilst as the amount of tragacanth increases up to 1.5%, the compressive, tensile strength decreases slightly. The rate of water absorption of samples was more than 30%. From this result, it is concluded that these materials can not be used as external plaster or internal plaster material that faces to water. They can be used in internal plaster unless touching water and they can be used as cover plaster under roof and riprap material in sandwich panels. It is also found that, these materials can be cut with saw, drilled with screw and painted with any kind of paint.