Abstract: The main objective of seismic rehabilitation in the
foundations is decreasing the range of horizontal and vertical
vibrations and omitting high frequencies contents under the seismic
loading. In this regard, the advantages of micropiles network is
utilized. Reduction in vibration range of foundation can be achieved
by using high dynamic rigidness module such as deep foundations. In
addition, natural frequency of pile and soil system increases in regard
to rising of system rigidness. Accordingly, the main strategy is
decreasing of horizontal and vertical seismic vibrations of the
structure. In this case, considering the impact of foundation, pile and
improved soil foundation is a primary concern. Therefore, in this
paper, effective factors are studied on the seismic rehabilitation of
foundations applying network micropiles in sandy soils with
nonlinear reaction.
Abstract: In this paper we present a novel technique for data
hiding in binary document images. We use the concept of entropy in
order to identify document specific least distortive areas throughout
the binary document image. The document image is treated as any
other image and the proposed method utilizes the standard document
characteristics for the embedding process. Proposed method
minimizes perceptual distortion due to embedding and allows
watermark extraction without the requirement of any side information
at the decoder end.
Abstract: A model of a system concerning one species of demersal
(inshore) fish and one of pelagic (offshore) fish undergoing fishing
restricted by marine protected areas is proposed in this paper. This
setup was based on the FISH-BE model applied to the Tabina fishery
in Zamboanga del Sur, Philippines. The components of the model
equations have been adapted from widely-accepted mechanisms in
population dynamics. The model employs Gompertz-s law of growth
and interaction on each type of protected and unprotected subpopulation.
Exchange coefficients between protected and unprotected
areas were assumed to be proportional to the relative area of the
entry region. Fishing harvests were assumed to be proportional to
both the number of fishers and the number of unprotected fish. An
extra term was included for the pelagic population to allow for the
exchange between the unprotected area and the outside environment.
The systems were found to be bounded for all parameter values. The
equations for the steady state were unsolvable analytically but the
existence and uniqueness of non-zero steady states can be proven.
Plots also show that an MPA size yielding the maximum steady state
of the unprotected population can be found. All steady states were
found to be globally asymptotically stable for the entire range of
parameter values.
Abstract: With the advent of DSL services, high data rates are now available over phone lines, yet higher rates are in demand. In this paper, we optimize the transmit filters that can be used over wireline channels. Results showing the bit error rates when optimized filters are used, and with a decision feedback equalizer (DFE) employed in the receiver, are given. We then show that significantly higher throughput can be achieved by modeling the channel as a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channel. A receiver that employs a MIMO-DFE that deals jointly with several users is proposed and shown to provide significant improvement over the conventional DFE.
Abstract: A laboratory set-up was designed to survey the
effectiveness of UV/O3 advanced oxidation process (AOP) for the
removal of Carbaryl from polluted water in batch reactor. The study
was carried out by UV/O3 process for water samples containing 1 to
20 mg/L of Carbaryl in distilled water. Also the range of drinking
water resources adjusted in synthetic water and effects of contact
time, pH and Carbaryl concentration were studied. The residual
pesticide concentration was determined by applying high
performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results indicated
that increasing of retention time and pH, enhances pesticide removal
efficiency. The removal efficiency has been affected by pesticide
initial concentration. Samples with low pesticide concentration
showed a remarkable removal efficiency compared to the samples
with high pesticide concentration. AOP method showed the removal
efficiencies of 80% to 100%. Although process showed high
performance for removal of pesticide from water samples, this
process has different disadvantages including complication,
intolerability, difficulty of maintenance and equipmental and
structural requirements.
Abstract: This paper deals with the application for contentbased
image retrieval to extract color feature from natural images
stored in the image database by segmenting the image through
clustering. We employ a class of nonparametric techniques in which
the data points are regarded as samples from an unknown probability
density. Explicit computation of the density is avoided by using the
mean shift procedure, a robust clustering technique, which does not
require prior knowledge of the number of clusters, and does not
constrain the shape of the clusters. A non-parametric technique for
the recovery of significant image features is presented and
segmentation module is developed using the mean shift algorithm to
segment each image. In these algorithms, the only user set parameter
is the resolution of the analysis and either gray level or color images
are accepted as inputs. Extensive experimental results illustrate
excellent performance.
Abstract: Automatic keyphrase extraction is useful in efficiently
locating specific documents in online databases. While several
techniques have been introduced over the years, improvement on
accuracy rate is minimal. This research examines attribute scores for
author-supplied keyphrases to better understand how the scores affect
the accuracy rate of automatic keyphrase extraction. Five attributes
are chosen for examination: Term Frequency, First Occurrence, Last
Occurrence, Phrase Position in Sentences, and Term Cohesion
Degree. The results show that First Occurrence is the most reliable
attribute. Term Frequency, Last Occurrence and Term Cohesion
Degree display a wide range of variation but are still usable with
suggested tweaks. Only Phrase Position in Sentences shows a totally
unpredictable pattern. The results imply that the commonly used
ranking approach which directly extracts top ranked potential phrases
from candidate keyphrase list as the keyphrases may not be reliable.
Abstract: In this study it is aimed to determine the level of preservice teachers- computer phobia. Whether or not computer phobia meaningfully varies statistically according to gender and computer experience has been tested in the study. The study was performed on 430 pre-service teachers at the Education Faculty in Rize/Turkey. Data in the study were collected through the Computer Phobia Scale consisting of the “Personal Knowledge Questionnaire", “Computer Anxiety Rating Scale", and “Computer Thought Survey". In this study, data were analyzed with statistical processes such as t test, and correlation analysis. According to results of statistical analyses, computer phobia of male pre-service teachers does not statistically vary depending on their gender. Although male preservice teachers have higher computer anxiety scores, they have lower computer thought scores. It was also observed that there is a negative and intensive relation between computer experience and computer anxiety. Meanwhile it was found out that pre-service teachers using computer regularly indicated lower computer anxiety. Obtained results were tried to be discussed in terms of the number of computer classes in the Education Faculty curriculum, hours of computer class and the computer availability of student teachers.
Abstract: This research aimed to study the market feasibility for
new brand coffee house, the case study of Thailand.. This study is a
mixed methods research combining quantitative research and the
qualitative research. Primary data 350 sets of questionnaires were
distributed, and the high quality completed questionnaires of 320 sets
returned. Research samples are identified as customers’ of Hi-end
department stores in Thailand. The sources of secondary data were
critical selected from highly reliable sources, both from public and
private sectors. The results were used to classify the customer group
into two main groups, the younger than 25 and the older than 25years
old. Results of the younger group, are give priority to the dimension
of coffee house and its services dimension more than others, then
branding dimension and the product dimension respectively. On the
other hand, the older group give the difference result as they rate the
important of the branding, coffee house and its services, then the
product respectively. Coffee consuming is not just the trend but it
has become part of people lifestyle. And the new cultures also created
by the wise businessman. Coffee was long produced and consumed in
Thailand. But it is surprisingly the hi-end brand coffee houses in Thai
market are mostly imported brands. The café business possibility for
Thai brand coffee house in Thai market were discussed in the paper.
Abstract: Human middle-ear is the key component of the
auditory system. Its function is to transfer the sound waves through
the ear canal to provide sufficient stimulus to the fluids of the inner
ear. Degradation of the ossicles that transmit these sound waves from
the eardrum to the inner ear leads to hearing loss. This problem can
be overcome by replacing one or more of these ossicles by middleear
prosthesis. Designing such prosthesis requires a comprehensive
knowledge of the biomechanics of the middle-ear. There are many
finite element modeling approaches developed to understand the
biomechanics of the middle ear. The available models in the
literature, involve high computation time. In this paper, we propose a
simplified model which provides a reasonably accurate result with
much less computational time. Simulation results indicate a
maximum sound pressure gain of 10 dB at 5500 Hz.
Abstract: The purposes of this study are to study political
information exposure, politicians- perceptions, political attitudes and
political participations among people in Bangkok Metropolitan Area.
The sample consisted of 420 which were selected by using accidental sampling method. Questionnaires were administered to all of the
respondents to obtain the data for this research. T-test, one-way ANOVA and Pearson-s correlation coefficient were used to analyze the data. The findings are as follows: The difference in gender,
education, income and occupation has significantly effect upon political information exposures. The difference in age, income has
significantly effect upon politicians- perceptions. The difference in income has significantly effect upon political attitudes. The
difference in gender, income and occupation has significantly effect
upon political participations. There were a significantly relations between political information exposures, political attitudes, political
participations and between politicians- perceptions, political attitudes and political participations.
Abstract: Building conservation work generally involves complex and non-standard work different from new building construction processes. In preparing tenders for building conservation projects, therefore, the quantity surveyor must carefully consider the specificity of non-standard items and demarcate the scope of unique conservation work. While the quantity surveyor must appreciate the full range of works to prepare a good tender document, he typically manages many unfamiliar elements, including practical construction methods, restoration techniques and work sequences. Only by fulfilling the demanding requirements of building conservation work can the quantity surveyor enhance his professionalism an area of growing cultural value and economic importance. By discussing several issues crucial to tender preparations for building conservation projects in Malaysia, this paper seeks a deeper understanding of how quantity surveying can better standardize tender preparation work and more successfully manage building conservation processes.
Abstract: A lot of computer-based methods have been developed
to assess the evacuation capability (EC) of high-rise buildings.
Because softwares are time-consuming and not proper for on scene
applications, we adopted two methods, fuzzy analytic hierarchy
process (FAHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to an
ideal solution (TOPSIS), for EC assessment of a high-rise building in
Jinan. The EC scores obtained with the two methods and the
evacuation time acquired with Pathfinder 2009 for floors 47-60 of the
building were compared with each other. The results show that FAHP
performs better than TOPSIS for EC assessment of high-rise buildings,
especially in the aspect of dealing with the effect of occupant type and
distance to exit on EC, tackling complex problem with multi-level
structure of criteria, and requiring less amount of computation.
However, both FAHP and TOPSIS failed to appropriately handle the
situation where the exit width changes while occupants are few.
Abstract: Very Large and/or computationally complex optimization problems sometimes require parallel or highperformance computing for achieving a reasonable time for computation. One of the most popular and most complicate problems of this family is “Traveling Salesman Problem". In this paper we have introduced a Branch & Bound based algorithm for the solution of such complicated problems. The main focus of the algorithm is to solve the “symmetric traveling salesman problem". We reviewed some of already available algorithms and felt that there is need of new algorithm which should give optimal solution or near to the optimal solution. On the basis of the use of logarithmic sampling, it was found that the proposed algorithm produced a relatively optimal solution for the problem and results excellent performance as compared with the traditional algorithms of this series.
Abstract: Control of complex systems is one of important files in complex systems, that not only relies on the essence of complex systems which is denoted by the core concept – emergence, but also embodies the elementary concept in control theory. Aiming at giving a clear and self-contained description of emergence, the paper introduces a formal way to completely describe the formation and dynamics of emergence in complex systems. Consequently, this paper indicates the Emergence-Oriented Control methodology that contains three kinds of basic control schemes: the direct control, the system re-structuring and the system calibration. As a universal ontology, the Emergence-Oriented Control provides a powerful tool for identifying and resolving control problems in specific systems.
Abstract: The main objective of our study is to collect data
about the profile of the asthmatic patients in Assam and thereby have
a comprehensive knowledge of the factors influencing the asthmatic
patients of the state and their medication pattern. We developed a
search strategy to find any publication about the community based
survey asthma related and used. These to search the MEDLINE
(1996 to current literature) CINAHL DOAJ pubmed databases using
the key phrases, Asthma, Respiratory disorders, Drug therapy of
Asthma, database decision support system and asthma. The
appropriate literature was printed out from the online source and
library (Journal) source. The study was conducted through a set of
structured and non-structured questionnaires targeted on the
asthmatic patients belonging to the rural and urban areas of Assam,
during the month of Dec 2006 to July 2007, 138 cases were studied
in Gauwathi Medical College & Hospital located in Bhangagarh,
Assam in India. The demographic characteristics a factor in 138
patients with asthma with allergic rhinitis (cases) gives the detail
profile of asthmatic patient-s distribution of Assam as classified on
the basis of age and sex. It is evident from the study that male
populations (66%) are more prone to asthma as compared to the
females (34%).Another striking features that emerged from this
survey is the maximum prevalence of asthma in the age group of 20-
30 years followed by infants belonging to the age group of 7 (0.05%)
0-10years among both male and female populations of Assam. The
high incidence of asthma in the age group of 20-30 years may
probably be due to the allergy arising out of sudden exposure to dust
and pollen which the children face while playing and going to the
school. The rural females in the age group of 30-40 years are more
prone to asthma than urban females in the same age group may be
due to sex differentiation among the tribal population of the state.
Pharmacists should educate the asthmatics how to use inhalers
considering growing menace of asthma in the state. Safer drugs
should be produced in the form of aerosol so that easy administration
by the asthmatic patients and physicians of the state is possible for
curing asthma. The health centers should be more equipped with the
medicines to cure asthma in the state like Assam.
Abstract: The emergence of person-centred discourse based
around notions of 'personal development planning- and 'work'life
balance' has taken hold in education and the workplace in recent
years. This paper examines this discourse with regard to recent
developments in higher education as well as the inter-related issue of
work-life balance in occupational careers. In both cases there have
been national and trans-national policy initiatives directed towards
improving both personal opportunities and competitive advantage in
a global knowledge-based economy. However, despite an increasing
concern with looking outward at this globalised educational and
employment marketplace, there is something of a paradox in
encouraging people to look inward at themselves in order to become
more self-determined. This apparent paradox is considered from a
discourse analytic perspective in terms of the ideological effects of an
increasing concern with the personal world. Specifically, it is argued
that there are tensions that emerge from a concern with an innerdirected
process of self-reflection that dissolve any engagement with
wider political issues that impact upon educational and career
development.
Abstract: The main purpose of this research was to study how to communicate the identity of the Bangpoo, Samu tPrakan province for ecotourism. The qualitative data was collected through studying related materials, exploring the area, in-depth interviews with three groups of people: three directly responsible officers who were key informants of the district, twenty foreign tourists and five Thai tourist guides. A content analysis was used to analyze the qualitative data. The two main findings of the study were as follows:
The identity of Bangpoo, Samut Prakan province. This establishment was near the Mouth of the Gulf of Thailand for normal people and tourists, consisting of rest accommodations. There are restaurants where food and drinks are served, rich mangrove forests, Banpoo seaside resort and mangrove trees. Bangpoo seaside resort is characterized by muddy beacheswhere the greatest number of seagulls can be seen from March to May each year.
The communication of the identity of Bangpoo, Samut Prakan province which the researcher could find and design to present in English materials can be summed up in 3 items: 1) The history of Bangpoo, Samut Prakan province 2) The Learning center of Ecotourism: Seagulls and Mangrove forest 3) How to keep Banpoo, Samut Prakran province for ecotourism.
Abstract: Surface roughness (Ra) is one of the most important requirements in machining process. In order to obtain better surface roughness, the proper setting of cutting parameters is crucial before the process take place. This research presents the development of mathematical model for surface roughness prediction before milling process in order to evaluate the fitness of machining parameters; spindle speed, feed rate and depth of cut. 84 samples were run in this study by using FANUC CNC Milling α-Τ14ιE. Those samples were randomly divided into two data sets- the training sets (m=60) and testing sets(m=24). ANOVA analysis showed that at least one of the population regression coefficients was not zero. Multiple Regression Method was used to determine the correlation between a criterion variable and a combination of predictor variables. It was established that the surface roughness is most influenced by the feed rate. By using Multiple Regression Method equation, the average percentage deviation of the testing set was 9.8% and 9.7% for training data set. This showed that the statistical model could predict the surface roughness with about 90.2% accuracy of the testing data set and 90.3% accuracy of the training data set.
Abstract: The purpose of this report is to suggest a new
methodology for the assessment of the comparative efficiency of the
reforms made in different countries by an integral index. We have
highlighted the reforms made in post-crisis period in 21 former
socialist countries.
The integral index describes the social-economic development
level. The integral index contains of six indexes: The Global
Competitiveness Index, Doing Business, The Corruption Perception,
The Index of Economic Freedom, The Human Development, and
The Democracy Index, which are reported by different international
organizations. With the help of our methodology we first summarized
the above-mentioned 6 indexes and attained 1 general index, besides,
our new method enables us to assess the comparative efficiency of the
reforms made in different countries by analyzing them.
The purpose is to reveal the opportunities and threats of socialeconomic
reforms in different directions.