Abstract: The use of eXtensible Markup Language (XML) in
web, business and scientific databases lead to the development of
methods, techniques and systems to manage and analyze XML data.
Semi-structured documents suffer due to its heterogeneity and
dimensionality. XML structure and content mining represent
convergence for research in semi-structured data and text mining. As
the information available on the internet grows drastically, extracting
knowledge from XML documents becomes a harder task. Certainly,
documents are often so large that the data set returned as answer to a
query may also be very big to convey the required information. To
improve the query answering, a Semantic Tree Based Association
Rule (STAR) mining method is proposed. This method provides
intentional information by considering the structure, content and the
semantics of the content. The method is applied on Reuter’s dataset
and the results show that the proposed method outperforms well.
Abstract: A field experiment was carried out at Arab El-
Awammer Research Station, Agric. Res. Center. Assiut Governorate
during summer seasons of 2013 and 2014. The present study assessed
the effect of cowpea with maize intercropping on yield and its
components. The experiment comprised of three treatments (sole
cowpea, sole maize and cowpea-maize intercrop). The experimental
design was a randomized complete block with four replications.
Results indicated that intercropped maize plants with cowpea,
exhibited greater potentiality and resulted in higher values of most of
the studied criteria viz., plant height, number of ears/plant, number of
rows/ear, number of grains/row, grains weight/ear, 100–grain weight
and straw and grain yields. Fresh and dry forage yields of cowpea
were lower in intercropping with maize than sole. Furthermore, the
combined of the two seasons revealed that the total Land Equivalent
Ratio (LER) between cowpea and maize was 1.65. The Aggressivity
(A) maize was 0.45 and cowpea was -0.45. This showed that maize
was the dominant crop, whereas cowpea was the dominated. The
Competitive Ratio (CR) indicated that maize more competitive than
cowpea, maize was 1.75 and cowpea was 0.57. The Actual Yield
Loss (AYL) maize was 0.05 and cowpea was -0.40. The Monetary
Advantage Index (MAI) was 2360.80.
Abstract: The IEEE 802.22 working group aims to drive the
Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) bands for data
communication to the rural area without interfering the TV broadcast.
In this paper, we arrive at a closed-form expression for average
detection probability of Fusion center (FC) with multiple antenna
over the κ − μ fading channel model. We consider a centralized
cooperative multiple antenna network for reporting. The DVB-T
samples forwarded by the secondary user (SU) were combined using
Maximum ratio combiner at FC, an energy detection is performed
to make the decision. The fading effects of the channel degrades
the detection probability of the FC, a generalized independent and
identically distributed (IID) κ − μ and an additive white Gaussian
noise (AWGN) channel is considered for reporting and sensing
respectively. The proposed system performance is verified through
simulation results.
Abstract: Endowed of renewable energy sources (RES) are the
advantages of ASEAN, but they are using a low amount of RES only
to generate electricity because their primary energy sources are fossil
and coal. The cost of purchasing fossil and coal is cheaper now, but it
might be expensive soon, as it will be depleted sooner and after.
ASEAN showed that the RES are convenient to be implemented.
Some country in ASEAN has huge renewable energy sources
potential and use. The primary aim of this project is to assist ASEAN
countries in preparing the renewable energy and to guide the policies
for RES in the more upright direction. The Green-Y model will help
ASEAN government to study and forecast the economic concept,
including feed-in tariff.
Abstract: At present, the evaluation of voltage stability
assessment experiences sizeable anxiety in the safe operation of
power systems. This is due to the complications of a strain power
system. With the snowballing of power demand by the consumers
and also the restricted amount of power sources, therefore, the system
has to perform at its maximum proficiency. Consequently, the
noteworthy to discover the maximum ability boundary prior to
voltage collapse should be undertaken. A preliminary warning can be
perceived to evade the interruption of power system’s capacity. The
effectiveness of line voltage stability indices (LVSI) is differentiated
in this paper. The main purpose of the indices used is to predict the
proximity of voltage instability of the electric power system. On the
other hand, the indices are also able to decide the weakest load buses
which are close to voltage collapse in the power system. The line
stability indices are assessed using the IEEE 14 bus test system to
validate its practicability. Results demonstrated that the implemented
indices are practically relevant in predicting the manifestation of
voltage collapse in the system. Therefore, essential actions can be
taken to dodge the incident from arising.
Abstract: Securing the confidential data transferred via wireless
network remains a challenging problem. It is paramount to ensure
that data are accessible only by the legitimate users rather than by the
attackers. One of the most serious threats to organization is jamming,
which disrupts the communication between any two pairs of nodes.
Therefore, designing an attack-defending scheme without any packet
loss in data transmission is an important challenge. In this paper,
Dependence based Malicious Route Defending DMRD Scheme has
been proposed in multi path routing environment to prevent jamming
attack. The key idea is to defend the malicious route to ensure
perspicuous transmission. This scheme develops a two layered
architecture and it operates in two different steps. In the first step,
possible routes are captured and their agent dependence values are
marked using triple agents. In the second step, the dependence values
are compared by performing comparator filtering to detect malicious
route as well as to identify a reliable route for secured data
transmission. By simulation studies, it is observed that the proposed
scheme significantly identifies malicious route by attaining lower
delay time and route discovery time; it also achieves higher
throughput.
Abstract: Medulloblastoma (MB) is one of the most prevalent
brain tumours among paediatrics. Although its management has
evolved over time still there is need to find new therapeutic targets
for MB that can result in less normal tissue toxicity while improving
survival and reducing recurrence. This literature review is aimed at
finding new potential therapeutic targets for MB focusing on viruses
that can be used as potential targets for MB. The review also gives an
over-view of management of paediatric Medulloblastoma focusing on
Radiotherapy management.
Abstract: In this research, waterglass based aerogel powder was
prepared by sol–gel process and ambient pressure drying. Inspired by
limited dust releasing, aerogel powder was introduced to the PET
electrospinning solution in an attempt to create required bulk and
surface structure for the nanofibers to improve their hydrophobic and
insulation properties. The samples evaluation was carried out by
measuring density, porosity, contact angle, heat transfer, FTIR, BET,
and SEM. According to the results, porous silica aerogel powder was
fabricated with mean pore diameter of 24 nm and contact angle of
145.9º. The results indicated the usefulness of the aerogel powder
confined into nanofibers to control surface roughness for
manipulating superhydrophobic nanowebs with water contact angle
of 147º. It can be due to a multi-scale surface roughness which was
created by nanowebs structure itself and nanofibers surface
irregularity in presence of the aerogels while a layer of fluorocarbon
created low surface energy. The wettability of a solid substrate is an
important property that is controlled by both the chemical
composition and geometry of the surface. Also, a decreasing trend in
the heat transfer was observed from 22% for the nanofibers without
any aerogel powder to 8% for the nanofibers with 4% aerogel
powder. The development of thermal insulating materials has become
increasingly more important than ever in view of the fossil energy
depletion and global warming that call for more demanding energysaving
practices.
Abstract: The focal aspire of e-Government (eGovt) is to offer
citizen-centered service delivery. Accordingly, the citizenry
consumes services from multiple government agencies through
national portal. Thus, eGovt is an enterprise with the primary
business motive of transparent, efficient and effective public services
to its citizenry and its logical structure is the eGovernment Enterprise
Architecture (eGEA). Since eGovt is IT oriented multifaceted
service-centric system, EA doesn’t do much on an automated
enterprise other than the business artifacts. Service-Oriented
Architecture (SOA) manifestation led some governments to pertain
this in their eGovts, but it limits the source of business artifacts. The
concurrent use of EA and SOA in eGovt executes interoperability and
integration and leads to Service-Oriented e-Government Enterprise
(SOeGE). Consequently, agile eGovt system becomes a reality. As an
IT perspective eGovt comprises of centralized public service artifacts
with the existing application logics belong to various departments at
central, state and local level. The eGovt is renovating to SOeGE by
apply the Service-Orientation (SO) principles in the entire system.
This paper explores IT perspective of SOeGE in India which
encompasses the public service models and illustrated with a case
study the Passport service of India.
Abstract: Real time image and video processing is a demand in
many computer vision applications, e.g. video surveillance, traffic
management and medical imaging. The processing of those video
applications requires high computational power. Thus, the optimal
solution is the collaboration of CPU and hardware accelerators. In
this paper, a Canny edge detection hardware accelerator is proposed.
Edge detection is one of the basic building blocks of video and image
processing applications. It is a common block in the pre-processing
phase of image and video processing pipeline. Our presented
approach targets offloading the Canny edge detection algorithm from
processing system (PS) to programmable logic (PL) taking the
advantage of High Level Synthesis (HLS) tool flow to accelerate the
implementation on Zynq platform. The resulting implementation
enables up to a 100x performance improvement through hardware
acceleration. The CPU utilization drops down and the frame rate
jumps to 60 fps of 1080p full HD input video stream.
Abstract: The tomato is a very important crop, whose
cultivation in the Mediterranean basin is severely affected by the
phytoparasitic weed Phelipanche ramosa. The semiarid regions of
the world are considered the main areas where this parasitic weed is
established causing heavy infestation as it is able to produce high
numbers of seeds (up to 500,000 per plant), which remain viable for
extended period (more than 20 years). In this paper the results
obtained from eleven treatments in order to control this parasitic
weed including chemical, agronomic, biological and biotechnological
methods compared with the untreated test under two plowing depths
(30 and 50 cm) are reported. The split-plot design with 3 replicates
was adopted. In 2014 a trial was performed in Foggia province
(southern Italy) on processing tomato (cv Docet) grown in the field
infested by Phelipanche ramosa. Tomato seedlings were transplant
on May 5, on a clay-loam soil. During the growing cycle of the
tomato crop, at 56-78 and 92 days after transplantation, the number
of parasitic shoots emerged in each plot was detected. At tomato
harvesting, on August 18, the major quantity-quality yield parameters
were determined (marketable yield, mean weight, dry matter, pH,
soluble solids and color of fruits). All data were subjected to analysis
of variance (ANOVA) and the means were compared by Tukey's test.
Each treatment studied did not provide complete control against
Phelipanche ramosa. However, among the different methods tested,
some of them which Fusarium, gliphosate, radicon biostimulant and
Red Setter tomato cv (improved genotypes obtained by Tilling
technology) under deeper plowing (50 cm depth) proved to mitigate
the virulence of the Phelipanche ramose attacks. It is assumed that
these effects can be improved combining some of these treatments
each other, especially for a gradual and continuing reduction of the
“seed bank” of the parasite in the soil.
Abstract: Learning through creation of contextual games is a
very promising approach when undertaking interdisciplinary and
international group projects. During 2013 and 2014 the authors
organized two intensive student projects. The two projects were in
different countries and different conditions. Between them, the two
projects involved 68 students and 12 mentors from five EU countries
and from various academic disciplines. In this paper we share our
experience of these two projects and we suggest approaches that can
be utilized to strengthen the chances of succeeding in short (12-15
days long) intensive student projects.
Abstract: This paper investigates the viability of using carbon
fiber reinforced epoxy composites modified with carbon nanotubes to
strengthening reinforced concrete (RC) columns. Six RC columns
was designed and constructed according to ASCE standards. The
columns were wrapped using carbon fiber sheets impregnated with
either neat epoxy or CNTs modified epoxy. These columns were then
tested under concentric axial loading. Test results show that;
compared to the unwrapped specimens; wrapping concrete columns
with carbon fiber sheet embedded in CNTs modified epoxy resulted
in an increase in its axial load resistance, maximum displacement,
and toughness values by 24%, 109% and 232%, respectively. These
results reveal that adding CNTs into epoxy resin enhanced the
confinement effect, specifically, increased the axial load resistance,
maximum displacement, and toughness values by 11%, 6%, and
19%, respectively compared with columns strengthening with carbon
fiber sheet embedded in neat epoxy.
Abstract: Cloud computing has provided the impetus for change
in the demand, sourcing, and consumption of IT-enabled services.
The technology developed from an emerging trend towards a ‘musthave’.
Many organizations harnessed on the quick-wins of cloud
computing within the last five years but nowadays reach a plateau
when it comes to sustainable savings and performance. This study
aims to investigate what is needed from an organizational perspective
to make cloud computing a sustainable success. The study was
carried out in Germany among senior IT professionals, both in
management and delivery positions. Our research shows that IT
executives must be prepared to realign their IT workforce to sustain
the advantage of cloud computing for today and the near future.
While new roles will undoubtedly emerge, roles alone cannot ensure
the success of cloud deployments. What is needed is a change in the
IT workforce’s business behaviour, or put more simply, the ways in
which the IT personnel works. It gives clear guidance on which
dimensions of an employees’ working behaviour need to be adapted.
The practical implications are drawn from a series of semi-structured
interviews, resulting in a high-level workforce enablement plan.
Lastly, it elaborates on tools and gives clear guidance on which
pitfalls might arise along the proposed workforce enablement
process.
Abstract: Software Architecture is the basic structure of
software that states the development and advancement of a software
system. Software architecture is also considered as a significant tool
for the construction of high quality software systems. A clean design
leads to the control, value and beauty of software resulting in its
longer life while a bad design is the cause of architectural erosion
where a software evolution completely fails. This paper discusses the
occurrence of software architecture erosion and presents a set of
methods for the detection, declaration and prevention of architecture
erosion. The causes and symptoms of architecture erosion are
observed with the examples of prescriptive and descriptive
architectures and the practices used to stop this erosion are also
discussed by considering different types of software erosion and their
affects. Consequently finding and devising the most suitable
approach for fighting software architecture erosion and in some way
reducing its affect is evaluated and tested on different scenarios.
Abstract: This work presents a new planar multiband antenna
based on fractal geometry. This structure is optimized and validated
into simulation by using CST-MW Studio. To feed this antenna we
have used a CPW line which makes it easy to be incorporated with
integrated circuits. The simulation results presents a good matching
input impedance and radiation pattern in the GSM band at 900 MHz
and ISM band at 2.4 GHz. The final structure is a dual band fractal
antenna with 70 x 70 mm² as a total area by using an FR4 substrate.
Abstract: This paper presents a novel design of a microstrip
fractal antenna based on the use of Sierpinski triangle shape, it’s
designed and simulated by using FR4 substrate in the operating
frequency bands (GPS, WiMAX), the design is a fractal antenna with
a modified ground structure. The proposed antenna is simulated and
validated by using CST Microwave Studio Software, the simulated
results presents good performances in term of radiation pattern and
matching input impedance.
Abstract: Logistics distributors face the issue of having to
provide increasing service levels while being forced to reduce costs at
the same time. Same-day delivery, quick order processing and rapidly
growing ranges of articles are only some of the prevailing challenges.
One key aspect of the performance of an intra-logistics system is how
often and in which amplitude congestions and dysfunctions affect the
processing operations. By gaining knowledge of the so called
‘performance availability’ of such a system during the planning stage,
oversizing and wasting can be reduced whereas planning
transparency is increased. State of the art for the determination of this
KPI is simulation studies. However, their structure and therefore their
results may vary unforeseeably. This article proposes a concept for
the establishment of ‘certified’ and hence reliable and comparable
simulation models.
Abstract: We present a trigonometric scheme to approximate a
circular arc with its two end points and two end tangents/unit
tangents. A rational cubic trigonometric Bézier curve is constructed
whose end control points are defined by the end points of the circular
arc. Weight functions and the remaining control points of the cubic
trigonometric Bézier curve are estimated by variational approach to
reproduce a circular arc. The radius error is calculated and found less
than the existing techniques.
Abstract: This study investigates how AlGaAs/GaAs thin film
solar cells perform under varying global solar spectrum due to the
changes of environmental parameters such as the air mass and the
atmospheric turbidity. The solar irradiance striking the solar cell is
simulated using the spectral irradiance model SMARTS2 (Simple
Model of the Atmospheric Radiative Transfer of Sunshine) for clear
skies on the site of Setif (Algeria). The results show a reduction in the
short circuit current due to increasing atmospheric turbidity, it is
63.09% under global radiation. However increasing air mass leads to
a reduction in the short circuit current of 81.73%. The efficiency
decreases with increasing atmospheric turbidity and air mass.