Abstract: In this study, an analysis has been performed for
conjugate heat and mass transfer of a steady laminar boundary-layer
mixed convection of magnetic hydrodynamic (MHD) flow with
radiation effect of second grade subject to suction past a stretching
sheet. Parameters E Nr, Gr, Gc, Ec and Sc represent the dominance of
the viscoelastic fluid heat and mass transfer effect which have
presented in governing equations, respectively. The similar
transformation and the finite-difference method have been used to
analyze the present problem. The conjugate heat and mass transfer
results show that the non-Newtonian viscoelastic fluid has a better heat
transfer effect than the Newtonian fluid. The free convection with a
larger r G or c G has a good heat transfer effect better than a smaller
r G or c G , and the radiative convection has a good heat transfer
effect better than non-radiative convection.
Abstract: The expectation of network performance from the
early days of ARPANET until now has been changed significantly.
Every day, new advancement in technological infrastructure opens
the doors for better quality of service and accordingly level of
perceived quality of network services have been increased over the
time. Nowadays for many applications, late information has no value
or even may result in financial or catastrophic loss, on the other hand,
demands for some level of guarantee in providing and maintaining
quality of service are ever increasing. Based on this history, having a
QoS aware routing system which is able to provide today's required
level of quality of service in the networks and effectively adapt to the
future needs, seems as a key requirement for future Internet. In this
work we have extended the traditional AntNet routing system to
support QoS with multiple metrics such as bandwidth and delay
which is named Q-Net. This novel scalable QoS routing system aims
to provide different types of services in the network simultaneously.
Each type of service can be provided for a period of time in the
network and network nodes do not need to have any previous
knowledge about it. When a type of quality of service is requested,
Q-Net will allocate required resources for the service and will
guarantee QoS requirement of the service, based on target objectives.
Abstract: The virulent debates that have dogged research on,
and the diffusion of, a wide range of technologies indicate a growing
loss of confidence in what we might call, the techno-scientific
endeavour to reshape the world. Utopian images of a world rendered
ever more amenable to human desires are now closely shadowed by
just as compelling dystopian visions of monstrosity and disaster that
are nevertheless constructed from the same cultural material. The
paper uses the case of the debates over developments in reproductive
technology to offer some observations on the ways in which such
technologies routinely become enmirred in cultural ambivalence.
Abstract: In this paper we propose a segmentation system for unconstrained Arabic online handwriting. An essential problem addressed by analytical-based word recognition system. The system is composed of two-stages the first is a newly special designed hidden Markov model (HMM) and the second is a rules based stage. In our system, handwritten words are broken up into characters by simultaneous segmentation-recognition using HMMs of unique design trained using online features most of which are novel. The HMM output characters boundaries represent the proposed segmentation points (PSP) which are then validated by rules-based post stage without any contextual information help to solve different segmentation errors. The HMM has been designed and tested using a self collected dataset (OHASD) [1]. Most errors cases are cured and remarkable segmentation enhancement is achieved. Very promising word and character segmentation rates are obtained regarding the unconstrained Arabic handwriting difficulty and not using context help.
Abstract: Virtual environments are a hot topic in academia and more importantly in courses offered via distance education. Today-s gaming generation view virtual worlds as strong social and interactive mediums for communicating and socializing. And while institutions of higher education are challenged with increasing enrollment while balancing budget cuts, offering effective courses via distance education become a valid option. Educators can utilize virtual worlds to offer students an enhanced learning environment which has the power to alleviate feelings of isolation through the promotion of communication, interaction, collaboration, teamwork, feedback, engagement and constructivists learning activities. This paper focuses on the use of virtual environments to facilitate interaction in distance education courses so as to produce positive learning outcomes for students. Furthermore, the instructional strategies were reviewed and discussed for use in virtual worlds to enhance learning within a social context.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to examine the financing
practices of SMEs in Libya in two different phases of business life
cycle: start-up and matured stages. Moreover, SMEs- accessing bank
loan issues is also identified. The study was conducted by taking into
account the aspect of demand. The findings are based on a sample of
76 SMEs in Libya through the adoption of questionnaires. The results
have pinpointed several things- evidently, SMEs use informal
financing sources which prefer personal savings; SME owners are
willing to apply for bank loan, that the most pressing problem has
been identified, not to apply bank loan is loan with interest (religion
factor).
Abstract: Although electrical motors are still the main devices
used in vehicular exhaust comprises more than 95 percent of the air
pollution in Taiwan's largest city, Taipei. On average, all commuters in Taipei travel 13.6 km daily, while motorcycle commuters travel 12.2 km. The convenience and mobility of motorcycles makes them
irreplaceable in Taiwan city traffic but they add significantly to air pollution problems. In order to improve air pollution conditions, some
new types of vehicles have been proposed, such as fuel cell driven and
hybrid energy vehicles. In this study, we develop a model pneumatic hybrid motorcycle system and simulate its acceleration and mileage
(km/L) performance. The results show that the pneumatic hybrid
motorcycle can improve efficiency.
Abstract: Exposure to ambient air pollution has been linked to a
number of health outcomes, starting from modest transient changes in
the respiratory tract and impaired pulmonary function, continuing to
restrict activity/reduce performance and to the increase emergency
rooms visits, hospital admissions or mortality. The increase of
allergenic symptoms has been associated with air contaminants such
as ozone, particulate matter, fungal spores and pollen.
Considering the potential relevance of crossed effects of nonbiological
pollutants and airborne pollens and fungal spores on
allergy worsening, the aim of this work was to evaluate the influence
of non-biological pollutants (O3 and PM10) and meteorological
parameters on the concentrations of pollen and fungal spores using
multiple linear regressions.
The data considered in this study were collected in Oporto which
is the second largest Portuguese city, located in the North. Daily
mean of O3, PM10, pollen and fungal spore concentrations,
temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind velocity, pollen
and fungal spore concentrations, for 2003, 2004 and 2005 were
considered. Results showed that the 90th percentile of the adjusted
coefficient of determination, P90 (R2aj), of the multiple regressions
varied from 0.613 to 0.916 for pollen and from 0.275 to 0.512 for
fungal spores. O3 and PM10 showed to have some influence on the
biological pollutants. Among the meteorological parameters
analysed, temperature was the one that most influenced the pollen
and fungal spores airborne concentrations. Relative humidity also
showed to have some influence on the fungal spore dispersion.
Nevertheless, the models for each pollen and fungal spore were
different depending on the analysed period, which means that the
correlations identified as statistically significant can not be, even so,
consistent enough.
Abstract: This research was to study on background and social
and cultural context of Kamchanoad community for sustainable
tourism management. All data was collected through in-depth
interview with village headmen, community committees, teacher,
monks, Kamchanoad forest field officers and respected senior citizen
above 60 years old in the community who have lived there for more
than 40 years. Altogether there were 30 participants for this research.
After analyzing the data, content from interview and discussion,
Kamchanoad has both high land and low land in the region as well as
swamps that are very capable of freshwater animals’ conservation.
Kamchanoad is also good for agriculture and animal farming. 80% of
Kamchanoad’s land are forest, freshwater and rice farms.
Kamchanoad was officially set up as community in 1994 as “Baan
Nonmuang”. Inhabitants in Kamchanoad make a living by farming
based on sufficiency economy. They have rice farm, eucalyptus farm,
cassava farm and rubber tree farm. Local people in Kamchanoad still
believe in the myth of Srisutto Naga. They are still religious and love
to preserve their traditional way of life. In order to understand how to
create successful tourism business in Kamchanoad, we have to study
closely on local culture and traditions. Outstanding event in
Kamchanoad is the worship of Grand Srisutto, which is on the fullmoon
day of 6th month or Visakhabucha Day. Other big events are
also celebration at the end of Buddhist lent, Naga firework, New
Year celebration, Boon Mahachart, Songkran, Buddhist Lent, Boon
Katin and Loy Kratong. Buddhism is the main religion in
Kamchanoad. The promotion of tourism in Kamchanoad is expected
to help spreading more income for this region. More infrastructures
will be provided for local people as well as funding for youth support
and people activities.
Abstract: Since Software testing becomes an important part of
Software development in order to improve the quality of software,
many automation tools are created to help testing functionality of
software. There are a few issues about usability of these tools, one is
that the result log which is generated from tools contains useless
information that the tester cannot use result log to communicate
efficiently, or the result log needs to use a specific application to open.
This paper introduces a new method, SBTAR that improves usability
of automated test tools in a part of a result log. The practice will use
the capability of tools named as IBM Rational Robot to create a
customized function, the function would generate new format of a
result log which contains useful information faster and easier to
understand than using the original result log which was generated
from the tools. This result log also increases flexibility by Microsoft
Word or WordPad to make them readable.
Abstract: In analyzing large scale nonlinear dynamical systems,
it is often desirable to treat the overall system as a collection of
interconnected subsystems. Solutions properties of the large scale
system are then deduced from the solution properties of the
individual subsystems and the nature of the interconnections. In this
paper a new approach is proposed for the stability analysis of large
scale systems, which is based upon the concept of vector Lyapunov
functions and the decomposition methods. The present results make
use of graph theoretic decomposition techniques in which the overall
system is partitioned into a hierarchy of strongly connected
components. We show then, that under very reasonable assumptions,
the overall system is stable once the strongly connected subsystems
are stables. Finally an example is given to illustrate the constructive
methodology proposed.
Abstract: Accurate modeling of high speed RLC interconnects
has become a necessity to address signal integrity issues in current
VLSI design. To accurately model a dispersive system of interconnects
at higher frequencies; a full-wave analysis is required.
However, conventional circuit simulation of interconnects with full
wave models is extremely CPU expensive. We present an algorithm
for reducing large VLSI circuits to much smaller ones with similar
input-output behavior. A key feature of our method, called Frequency
Shift Technique, is that it is capable of reducing linear time-varying
systems. This enables it to capture frequency-translation and sampling
behavior, important in communication subsystems such as mixers,
RF components and switched-capacitor filters. Reduction is obtained
by projecting the original system described by linear differential
equations into a lower dimension. Experiments have been carried out
using Cadence Design Simulator cwhich indicates that the proposed
technique achieves more % reduction with less CPU time than the
other model order reduction techniques existing in literature. We
also present applications to RF circuit subsystems, obtaining size
reductions and evaluation speedups of orders of magnitude with
insignificant loss of accuracy.
Abstract: Strategic alliances generally mean the cooperation or
collaboration between firms which pursue for a synergy that each
member hopes the benefits from the alliances would be much more
than those from individual efforts. Past researches provide us
sufficient theories and considerations for alliance forming in liner
shipping market. This research reviews important academic journals
for the past decade regarding to the most important reasons to form the
alliances. We would explain the motive of alliances and details of
shipping cooperation in literature review.
The paper also empirically investigates the key service quality
requirements improved through alliances by using quality function
deployment (QFD). Moreover, the research investigates famous
shipping reports, shipping consultant websites and most recent
shipping publications to find out the executive-s viewpoint of several
leading carriers among top 20 to assess current shipping strategic
alliance on Asia/Europe route. These comments provide meaningful
managerial reasons to consider alliance formations and search if there
is any gap between the theories and industrial practice. Analysis of the
empirical investigation and top management-s perspective on current
market situation will contribute us some meaningful managerial
suggestions to evaluate these theories applied to current strategic
alliances.
Abstract: This paper presents the prediction of air flow,
humidity and temperature patterns in a co-current pilot plant spray
dryer fitted with a pressure nozzle using a three dimensional model.
The modelling was done with a Computational Fluid Dynamic
package (Fluent 6.3), in which the gas phase is modelled as
continuum using the Euler approach and the droplet/ particle phase is
modelled by the Discrete Phase model (Lagrange approach).Good
agreement was obtained with published experimental data where the
CFD simulation correctly predicts a fast downward central flowing
core and slow recirculation zones near the walls. In this work, the
effects of the air flow pattern on droplets trajectories, residence time
distribution of droplets and deposition of the droplets on the wall also
were investigated where atomizing of maltodextrin solution was
used.
Abstract: How to maintain the service speeds for the business
to make the biggest profit is a problem worthy of study, which is
discussed in this paper with the use of queuing theory. An M/M/1/N
queuing model with variable input rates, variable service rates and
impatient customers is established, and the following conclusions
are drawn: the stationary distribution of the model, the relationship
between the stationary distribution and the probability that there are n
customers left in the system when a customer leaves (not including
the customer who leaves himself), the busy period of the system,
the average operating cycle, the loss probability for the customers
not entering the system while they arriving at the system, the mean
of the customers who leaves the system being for impatient, the
loss probability for the customers not joining the queue due to the
limited capacity of the system and many other indicators. This paper
also indicates that the following conclusion is not correct: the more
customers the business serve, the more profit they will get. At last,
this paper points out the appropriate service speeds the business
should keep to make the biggest profit.
Abstract: Load balancing in distributed computer systems is the
process of redistributing the work load among processors in the
system to improve system performance. Most of previous research in
using fuzzy logic for the purpose of load balancing has only
concentrated in utilizing fuzzy logic concepts in describing
processors load and tasks execution length. The responsibility of the
fuzzy-based load balancing process itself, however, has not been
discussed and in most reported work is assumed to be performed in a
distributed fashion by all nodes in the network. This paper proposes a
new fuzzy dynamic load balancing algorithm for homogenous
distributed systems. The proposed algorithm utilizes fuzzy logic in
dealing with inaccurate load information, making load distribution
decisions, and maintaining overall system stability. In terms of
control, we propose a new approach that specifies how, when, and by
which node the load balancing is implemented. Our approach is
called Centralized-But-Distributed (CBD).
Abstract: The study of cytokine expression in mice under the
influence of inactivated poliovirus and Imovaks polio vaccine in
combination with derivatives of chitosan shows various kinds of
processes. There is a significant increase in IL-12 in the serum of
immunized animals, which should stimulate the production of IFN-γ
NK-cells and T-cells and polarize the immune response to Th1 type.
Thus, the derivatives of chitosan can promote cell component of the
immune response, providing a full antiviral immunity.
Abstract: This article deals with the popularity of candidates for the president of the United States of America. The popularity is assessed according to public comments on the Web 2.0. Social networking, blogging and online forums (collectively Web 2.0) are for common Internet users the easiest way to share their personal opinions, thoughts, and ideas with the entire world. However, the web content diversity, variety of technologies and website structure differences, all of these make the Web 2.0 a network of heterogeneous data, where things are difficult to find for common users. The introductory part of the article describes methodology for gathering and processing data from Web 2.0. The next part of the article is focused on the evaluation and content analysis of obtained information, which write about presidential candidates.
Abstract: Camptothecin (CPT) is a cytotoxic quinoline alkaloid,
which inhibits the DNA enzyme topoisomerase I (topo I). It was
discovered in 1966 by M. E. Wall and M. C. Wani in systematic
screening of natural products for anticancer drugs. It was isolated
from the bark and stem of Camptotheca acuminata (Camptotheca,
Happy tree), a tree native in China. CPT showed remarkable
anticancer activity in preliminary clinical trials but also low
solubility and (high) adverse drug reaction. Because of these
disadvantages synthetic and medicinal chemists have developed
numerous syntheses of Camptothecine [1][2][3] and various
derivatives to increase the benefits of the chemical, with good results.
In our method CPT analogues has be six steps starting from available
material DL Malic acid.
Abstract: People have the habitual pitch level which is used when people say something generally. However this pitch should be changed irregularly in the presence of noise. So it is useful to estimate SNR of speech signal by pitch. In this paper, we obtain the energy of input speech signal and then we detect a stationary region on voiced speech. And we get the pitch period by NAMDF for the stationary region that is not varied pitch rapidly. After getting pitch, each frame is divided by pitch period and the likelihood of closed pitch is estimated. In this paper, we proposed new parameter, NLF, to estimate the SNR of received speech signal. The NLF is derived from the correlation of near pitch periods. The NLF is obtained for each stationary region in voiced speech. Finally we confirmed good performance of the estimation of the SNR of received input speech in the presence of noise.