Abstract: The effect of artificial pozzolan (waste brick) on the
physico-chemical properties of cement manufactured was
investigated. The waste brick is generated by the manufacture of
bricks. It was used in the proportions of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20%
by mass of cement to study its effect on the physico-chemical
properties of cement incorporating artificial pozzolan. The physicochemical
properties of cement at anhydrous state and the hydrated
state (chemical composition, specific weight, fineness, consistency of
the cement paste and setting times) were studied. The experimental
results obtained show that the quantity of pozzolanic admixture
(waste brick) of cement manufactured is the principal parameter who
influences on the variation of the physico-chemical properties of the
cement tested.
Abstract: With China's urbanization continuing to accelerate, a amount of rural people flood into China's cities in recent years, and the issue of agriculture, rural areas and farmers is getting more and more serious. In 2005, the Chinese government put forward a plan for “the construction of new rural village", in order to coordinate the development of both urban and rural areas. The planning method of rural region differs sharply from that of urban areas, as same as village social structure and habits of farmer-s life, so the studies which can consider the special needs of village construction in China are absolutely essential. This paper expresses explore current situation and problems existing in the construction of China-s new rural village, such as bigger gap between urban and rural areas, excessive new construction projects, extinct traditional village style and so on. It tries to analyze the deep reason of the present situation of the village from law system, industrial structure, financial sources and planning method. Then it also provides a guide for developing policies and procedures promoting the development of china-s rural areas.
Abstract: The problem of bin-packing in two dimensions (2BP) consists in placing a given set of rectangular items in a minimum number of rectangular and identical containers, called bins. This article treats the case of objects with a free orientation of 90Ôùª. We propose an approach of resolution combining optimization by colony of ants (ACO) and the heuristic method IMA to resolve this NP-Hard problem.
Abstract: Green supply chain management is an increasingly recognized practice among companies that are seeking to improve environmental performance. Of particular concern is how to arouse organizational awareness and put green activities into practice in
order to enhance manufacturing performances. This paper investigates the correlation of green supply chain practices and
manufacturing performances in Malaysian certified MS ISO 14000 manufacturing firms. The findings shows that green supply chain
practices which that can be denominated product recycling, environmental compliance and optimization have significant influence to some of the manufacturing performances.
Abstract: Annotation of a protein sequence is pivotal for the understanding of its function. Accuracy of manual annotation provided by curators is still questionable by having lesser evidence strength and yet a hard task and time consuming. A number of computational methods including tools have been developed to tackle this challenging task. However, they require high-cost hardware, are difficult to be setup by the bioscientists, or depend on time intensive and blind sequence similarity search like Basic Local Alignment Search Tool. This paper introduces a new method of assigning highly correlated Gene Ontology terms of annotated protein sequences to partially annotated or newly discovered protein sequences. This method is fully based on Gene Ontology data and annotations. Two problems had been identified to achieve this method. The first problem relates to splitting the single monolithic Gene Ontology RDF/XML file into a set of smaller files that can be easy to assess and process. Thus, these files can be enriched with protein sequences and Inferred from Electronic Annotation evidence associations. The second problem involves searching for a set of semantically similar Gene Ontology terms to a given query. The details of macro and micro problems involved and their solutions including objective of this study are described. This paper also describes the protein sequence annotation and the Gene Ontology. The methodology of this study and Gene Ontology based protein sequence annotation tool namely extended UTMGO is presented. Furthermore, its basic version which is a Gene Ontology browser that is based on semantic similarity search is also introduced.
Abstract: Walking as a type of non-motorized transportation has
various social, economical and environmental privileges. Also, today
different aspects of sustainable development have been emphasized
and promotion of sustainable transportation modes has been
considered according to this approach. Therefore, the objective of
this research is exploring the circumstance of relationship between
walking and sustainable urban transportation.For writing this article,
the most important resources related to the traits of walking have
been surveyed via a documentary method and after explaining the
concept of sustainable transportation and its indicators, benefiting
from the viewpoints of transportation experts of Tehran, as the capital
and greatest city of Iran, different modes of urban transportation have
been compared in proportion to each criterion and to each other and
have been analyzed according to AHP method. The results of this
study indicate that walking is the most sustainable mode of inner city
transportation.
Abstract: The objective of the present work is to conduct
investigations leading to a more complete explanation of single phase
natural convective heat transfer in an enclosure with fin utilizing
nano fluids. The nano fluid used, which is composed of Aluminum
oxide nano particles in suspension of Ethylene glycol, is provided at
various volume fractions. The study is carried out numerically for a
range of Rayleigh numbers, fin heights and aspect ratio. The flow and
temperature distributions are taken to be two-dimensional. Regions
with the same velocity and temperature distributions are identified as
symmetry of sections. One half of such a rectangular region is chosen
as the computational domain taking into account the symmetry about
the fin. Transport equations are modeled by a stream functionvorticity
formulation and are solved numerically by finite-difference
schemes. Comparisons with previously published works on the basis
of special cases are done. Results are presented in the form of
streamline, vector and isotherm plots as well as the variation of local
Nusselt number along the fin under different conditions.
Abstract: Network exchange is now widely used. However, it still
cannot avoid the problems evolving from network exchange. For
example. A buyer may not receive the order even if he/she makes the
payment. For another example, the seller possibly get nothing even
when the merchandise is sent. Some studies about the fair exchange
have proposed protocols for the design of efficiency and exploited the
signature property to specify that two parties agree on the exchange.
The information about purchased item and price are disclosed in
this way. This paper proposes a new fair network payment protocol
with off-line trusted third party. The proposed protocol can protect
the buyers- purchase message from being traced. In addition, the
proposed protocol can meet the proposed requirements. The most
significant feature is Non-transfer property we achieved.
Abstract: An active suspension system has been proposed to
improve the ride comfort. A quarter-car 2 degree-of-freedom (DOF)
system is designed and constructed on the basis of the concept of a
four-wheel independent suspension to simulate the actions of an
active vehicle suspension system. The purpose of a suspension
system is to support the vehicle body and increase ride comfort. The
aim of the work described in the paper was to illustrate the
application of fuzzy logic technique to the control of a continuously
damping automotive suspension system. The ride comfort is
improved by means of the reduction of the body acceleration caused
by the car body when road disturbances from smooth road and real
road roughness.
The paper describes also the model and controller used in the
study and discusses the vehicle response results obtained from a
range of road input simulations. In the conclusion, a comparison of
active suspension fuzzy control and Proportional Integration
derivative (PID) control is shown using MATLAB simulations.
Abstract: This paper describes an enhanced cookie-based
method for counting the visitors of web sites by using a web log
processing system that aims to cope with the ambitious goal of
creating countrywide statistics about the browsing practices of real
human individuals. The focus is put on describing a new more
efficient way of detecting human beings behind web users by placing
different identifiers on the client computers. We briefly introduce our
processing system designed to handle the massive amount of data
records continuously gathered from the most important content
providers of the Hungary. We conclude by showing statistics of
different time spans comparing the efficiency of multiple visitor
counting methods to the one presented here, and some interesting
charts about content providers and web usage based on real data
recorded in 2007 will also be presented.
Abstract: This preliminary study attempts to see if a learning
environment influences instructor’s teaching strategies and learners’
in-class activities in a foreign language class at a university in Japan.
The class under study was conducted in a computer room, while the
majority of classes of the same course were offered in traditional
classrooms without computers. The study also sees if the unplanned
blended learning environment, enhanced, or worked against, in
achieving course goals, by paying close attention to in-class artefacts,
such as computers. In the macro-level analysis, the course syllabus
and weekly itinerary of the course were looked at; and in the microlevel
analysis, nonhuman actors in their environments were named
and analyzed to see how they influenced the learners’ task processes.
The result indicated that students were heavily influenced by the
presence of computers, which lead them to disregard some aspects of
intended learning objectives.
Abstract: As product life cycle becomes less and less every day,
having flexible manufacturing processes for any companies seems more demanding. In the assembling of closures, i.e. opening parts in
car body, hemming process is the one which needs more attention. This paper focused on the robot roller hemming process and how to
reduce its cycle time by introducing a fast roller hemming process. A
robot roller hemming process of a tailgate of Saab 93 SportCombi
model is investigated as a case study in this paper. By applying task
separation, robot coordination, and robot cell configuration principles in the roller hemming process, three alternatives are
proposed, developed, and remarkable reduction in cycle times achieved [1].
Abstract: Misalignment and unbalance are the major concerns
in rotating machinery. When the power supply to any rotating system
is cutoff, the system begins to lose the momentum gained during
sustained operation and finally comes to rest. The exact time period
from when the power is cutoff until the rotor comes to rest is called
Coast Down Time. The CDTs for different shaft cutoff speeds were
recorded at various misalignment and unbalance conditions. The
CDT reduction percentages were calculated for each fault and there
is a specific correlation between the CDT reduction percentage and
the severity of the fault. In this paper, radial basis network, a new
generation of artificial neural networks, has been successfully
incorporated for the prediction of CDT for misalignment and
unbalance conditions. Radial basis network has been found to be
successful in the prediction of CDT for mechanical faults in rotating
machinery.
Abstract: Recent articles have addressed the problem to construct the confidence intervals for the mean of a normal distribution where the parameter space is restricted, see for example Wang [Confidence intervals for the mean of a normal distribution with restricted parameter space. Journal of Statistical Computation and Simulation, Vol. 78, No. 9, 2008, 829–841.], we derived, in this paper, analytic expressions of the coverage probability and the expected length of confidence interval for the normal mean when the whole parameter space is bounded. We also construct the confidence interval for the normal variance with restricted parameter for the first time and its coverage probability and expected length are also mathematically derived. As a result, one can use these criteria to assess the confidence interval for the normal mean and variance when the parameter space is restricted without the back up from simulation experiments.
Abstract: The objective of this research seeks to transmit a distance training model to the community in the upper northeastern region. The group sampling consists of 60 community leaders in the municipality of sub-district Kumphawapi, Kumphawapi Disrict, Udonthani Province. The research tools rely on the following instruments, they are : 1) the achievement test of community leaders- training and 2) the satisfaction questionnaires of community leaders. The statistics used in data analysis takes the statistical mean, percentage, standard deviation, and statistical T-test. The resulted findings reveal : 1) the efficiency of the distance training developed by the researcher for the community leaders joining in the training received the average score between in-training and post-training period higher than the setup criterion, 2) the two groups of participants in the training achieved higher knowledge than their pre-training state, 3) the comparison of the achievements between the two group presented no different results, 4) the community leaders obtained the high-to-highest satisfaction.
Abstract: The vibrations produced by a single point defect on
various parts of the bearing under constant radial load are predicted
by using a theoretical model. The model includes variation in the
response due to the effect of bearing dimensions, rotating frequency
distribution of load. The excitation forces are generated when the
defects on the races strike to rolling elements. In case of the outer
ring defect, the pulses generated are with periodicity of outer ring
defect frequency where as for inner ring defect, the pulses are with
periodicity of inner ring defect frequency. The effort has been carried
out in preparing the physical model of the system. Different defect
frequencies are obtained and are used to find out the amplitudes of
the vibration due to excitation of the bearing parts. Increase in the
radial load or severity of the defect produces a significant change in
bearing signature characteristics.
Abstract: 16-Mercaptohexadecanoic acid (MHDA) and tripeptide glutathione conjugated with gold nanoparticles (Au-NPs) are characterized by Fourier Transform InfaRared (FTIR) spectroscopy combined with Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy. Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) technique based on FTIR spectroscopy has become an important tool in biophysics, which is perspective for the study of organic compounds. FTIR-spectra of MHDA shows the line at 2500 cm-1 attributed to thiol group which is modified by presence of Au-NPs, suggesting the formation of bond between thiol group and gold. We also can observe the peaks originate from characteristic chemical group. A Raman spectrum of the same sample is also promising. Our preliminary experiments confirm that SERS-effect takes place for MHDA connected with Au-NPs and enable us to detected small number (less than 106 cm-2) of MHDA molecules. Combination of spectroscopy methods: FTIR and SERS – enable to study optical properties of Au- NPs and immobilized bio-molecules in context of a bio-nano-sensors.
Abstract: To support user mobility for a wireless network new mechanisms are needed and are fundamental, such as paging, location updating, routing, and handover. Also an important key feature is mobile QoS offered by the WATM. Several ATM network protocols should be updated to implement mobility management and to maintain the already ATM QoS over wireless ATM networks. A survey of the various schemes and types of handover is provided. Handover procedure allows guarantee the terminal connection reestablishment when it moves between areas covered by different base stations. It is useful to satisfy user radio link transfer without interrupting a connection. However, failure to offer efficient solutions will result in handover important packet loss, severe delays and degradation of QoS offered to the applications. This paper reviews the requirements, characteristics and open issues of wireless ATM, particularly with regard to handover. It introduces key aspects of WATM and mobility extensions, which are added in the fixed ATM network. We propose a flexible approach for handover management that will minimize the QoS deterioration. Functional entities of this flexible approach are discussed in order to achieve minimum impact on the connection quality when a MT crosses the BS.
Abstract: Due to the fast development of technology, the
competition of technological products is turbulent; therefore, it is
important to understand the market trend, consumers- demand and
preferences. As the smartphones are prevalent, the main purpose of
this paper is to utilize Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) to analyze
consumer-s purchase evaluation factors of smartphones. Through the
AHP expert questionnaire, the smartphones- main functions are
classified as “user interface", “mobile commerce functions",
“hardware and software specifications", “entertainment functions" and
“appearance and design", five aspects to analyze the weights. Then
four evaluation criteria are evaluated under each aspect to rank the
weights. Based on an analysis of data shows that consumers consider
when purchase factors are “hardware and software specifications",
“user interface", “appearance and design", “mobile commerce
functions" and “entertainment functions" in sequence. The “hardware
and software specifications" aspect obtains the weight of 33.18%; it is
the most important factor that consumers are taken into account. In
addition, the most important evaluation criteria are central processing
unit, operating system, touch screen, and battery function in sequence.
The results of the study can be adopted as reference data for mobile
phone manufacturers in the future on the design and marketing
strategy to satisfy the voice of customer.
Abstract: Successful public-private-partnership (PPP)
implementation can not be achieved without the active participation of
private sector companies. This paper examines the decision-making of
private sector companies in public works delivered by the PPP model
on the basis of social responsibility theory. It proposes that private
sector companies should indentify objectives of entering into PPP
projects, and shoulder relevant social responsibilities, while a
minimum return should also be guaranteed in their favor, so as to
compensate for their assumed risk and support them to take on
responsibilities in the future. The paper also gives a calculation
regarding the appropriate scale and reasonable degree of private sector
involvement in PPP projects through the cost-benefit analysis in a
specific case study, with the purpose to guide the private sector
companies to create a cooperation environment resembling
“symbiosis" and facilitate the smooth implementation of public works
delivered by the PPP model.