Abstract: Natural disasters, including earthquake, kill many people around the world every year. Society rescue actions, which start after the earthquake and are called LAST in abbreviation, include locating, access, stabilization and transportation. In the present article, we have studied the process of local accessibility to the injured and transporting them to health care centers. With regard the heavy traffic load due to earthquake, the destruction of connecting roads and bridges and the heavy debris in alleys and street, which put the lives of the injured and the people buried under the debris in danger, accelerating the rescue actions and facilitating the accessibilities are of great importance, obviously. Tehran, the capital of Iran, is among the crowded cities in the world and is the center of extensive economic, political, cultural and social activities. Tehran has a population of about 9.5 millions and because of the immigration of people from the surrounding cities. Furthermore, considering the fact that Tehran is located on two important and large faults, a 6 Richter magnitude earthquake in this city could lead to the greatest catastrophe during the entire human history. The present study is a kind of review and a major part of the required information for it, has been obtained from libraries all of the rescue vehicles around the world, including rescue helicopters, ambulances, fire fighting vehicles and rescue boats, and their applied technology, and also the robots specifically designed for the rescue system and the advantages and disadvantages of them, have been investigated. The studies show that there is a significant relationship between the rescue team-s arrival time at the incident zone and the number of saved people; so that, if the duration of burial under debris 30 minutes, the probability of survival is %99.3, after a day is %81, after 2days is %19 and after 5days is %7.4. The exiting transport systems all have some defects. If these defects are removed, more people could be saved each hour and the preparedness against natural disasters is increased. In this study, transport system has been designed for the rescue team and the injured; which could carry the rescue team to the incident zone and the injured to the health care centers. In addition, this system is able to fly in the air and move on the earth as well; so that the destruction of roads and the heavy traffic load could not prevent the rescue team from arriving early at the incident zone. The system also has the equipment required firebird for debris removing, optimum transport of the injured and first aid.
Abstract: We theoretically demonstrate modulation of light
polarization by a crossed rectangular hole array with asymmetric arm
lengths. There are two waveguide modes that can modulate the x- and
y- polarized incident waves independently. A specific structure is
proposed to convert a left-hand incident wave to a right-hand outgoing
wave by transmission.
Abstract: In this paper, we investigate two parallel alternating methods for solving the system of linear equations Ax = b and give convergence theorems for the parallel alternating methods when the coefficient matrix is a nonsingular H-matrix. Furthermore, we give one example to show our results.
Abstract: The literature reports a large number of approaches for
measuring the similarity between protein sequences. Most of these
approaches estimate this similarity using alignment-based techniques
that do not necessarily yield biologically plausible results, for two
reasons.
First, for the case of non-alignable (i.e., not yet definitively aligned
and biologically approved) sequences such as multi-domain, circular
permutation and tandem repeat protein sequences, alignment-based
approaches do not succeed in producing biologically plausible results.
This is due to the nature of the alignment, which is based on the
matching of subsequences in equivalent positions, while non-alignable
proteins often have similar and conserved domains in non-equivalent
positions.
Second, the alignment-based approaches lead to similarity measures
that depend heavily on the parameters set by the user for the alignment
(e.g., gap penalties and substitution matrices). For easily alignable
protein sequences, it's possible to supply a suitable combination of
input parameters that allows such an approach to yield biologically
plausible results. However, for difficult-to-align protein sequences,
supplying different combinations of input parameters yields different
results. Such variable results create ambiguities and complicate the
similarity measurement task.
To overcome these drawbacks, this paper describes a novel and
effective approach for measuring the similarity between protein
sequences, called SAF for Substitution and Alignment Free. Without
resorting either to the alignment of protein sequences or to substitution
relations between amino acids, SAF is able to efficiently detect the
significant subsequences that best represent the intrinsic properties of
protein sequences, those underlying the chronological dependencies of
structural features and biochemical activities of protein sequences.
Moreover, by using a new efficient subsequence matching scheme,
SAF more efficiently handles protein sequences that contain similar
structural features with significant meaning in chronologically
non-equivalent positions. To show the effectiveness of SAF, extensive
experiments were performed on protein datasets from different
databases, and the results were compared with those obtained by
several mainstream algorithms.
Abstract: With data centers, end-users can realize the pervasiveness of services that will be one day the cornerstone of our lives. However, data centers are often classified as computing systems that consume the most amounts of power. To circumvent such a problem, we propose a self-adaptive weighted sum methodology that jointly optimizes the performance and power consumption of any given data center. Compared to traditional methodologies for multi-objective optimization problems, the proposed self-adaptive weighted sum technique does not rely on a systematical change of weights during the optimization procedure. The proposed technique is compared with the greedy and LR heuristics for large-scale problems, and the optimal solution for small-scale problems implemented in LINDO. the experimental results revealed that the proposed selfadaptive weighted sum technique outperforms both of the heuristics and projects a competitive performance compared to the optimal solution.
Abstract: We study in this paper the effect of the scene
changing on image sequences coding system using Embedded
Zerotree Wavelet (EZW). The scene changing considered here is the
full motion which may occurs. A special image sequence is generated
where the scene changing occurs randomly. Two scenarios are
considered: In the first scenario, the system must provide the
reconstruction quality as best as possible by the management of the
bit rate (BR) while the scene changing occurs. In the second scenario,
the system must keep the bit rate as constant as possible by the
management of the reconstruction quality. The first scenario may be
motivated by the availability of a large band pass transmission
channel where an increase of the bit rate may be possible to keep the
reconstruction quality up to a given threshold. The second scenario
may be concerned by the narrow band pass transmission channel
where an increase of the bit rate is not possible. In this last case,
applications for which the reconstruction quality is not a constraint
may be considered. The simulations are performed with five scales
wavelet decomposition using the 9/7-tap filter bank biorthogonal
wavelet. The entropy coding is performed using a specific defined
binary code book and EZW algorithm. Experimental results are
presented and compared to LEAD H263 EVAL. It is shown that if
the reconstruction quality is the constraint, the system increases the
bit rate to obtain the required quality. In the case where the bit rate
must be constant, the system is unable to provide the required quality
if the scene change occurs; however, the system is able to improve
the quality while the scene changing disappears.
Abstract: MATCH project [1] entitle the development of an
automatic diagnosis system that aims to support treatment of colon
cancer diseases by discovering mutations that occurs to tumour
suppressor genes (TSGs) and contributes to the development of
cancerous tumours. The constitution of the system is based on a)
colon cancer clinical data and b) biological information that will be
derived by data mining techniques from genomic and proteomic
sources The core mining module will consist of the popular, well
tested hybrid feature extraction methods, and new combined
algorithms, designed especially for the project. Elements of rough
sets, evolutionary computing, cluster analysis, self-organization maps
and association rules will be used to discover the annotations
between genes, and their influence on tumours [2]-[11].
The methods used to process the data have to address their high
complexity, potential inconsistency and problems of dealing with the
missing values. They must integrate all the useful information
necessary to solve the expert's question. For this purpose, the system
has to learn from data, or be able to interactively specify by a domain
specialist, the part of the knowledge structure it needs to answer a
given query. The program should also take into account the
importance/rank of the particular parts of data it analyses, and adjusts
the used algorithms accordingly.
Abstract: The major part of light weight timber constructions
consists of insulation. Mineral wool is the most commonly used
insulation due to its cost efficiency and easy handling. The fiber
orientation and porosity of this insulation material enables flowthrough.
The air flow resistance is low. If leakage occurs in the
insulated bay section, the convective flow may cause energy losses
and infiltration of the exterior wall with moisture and particles. In
particular the infiltrated moisture may lead to thermal bridges and
growth of health endangering mould and mildew. In order to prevent
this problem, different numerical calculation models have been
developed. All models developed so far have a potential for
completion. The implementation of the flow-through properties of
mineral wool insulation may help to improve the existing models.
Assuming that the real pressure difference between interior and
exterior surface is larger than the prescribed pressure difference in the
standard test procedure for mineral wool ISO 9053 / EN 29053,
measurements were performed using the measurement setup for
research on convective moisture transfer “MSRCMT".
These measurements show, that structural inhomogeneities of
mineral wool effect the permeability only at higher pressure
differences, as applied in MSRCMT. Additional microscopic
investigations show, that the location of a leak within the
construction has a crucial influence on the air flow-through and the
infiltration rate. The results clearly indicate that the empirical values
for the acoustic resistance of mineral wool should not be used for the
calculation of convective transfer mechanisms.
Abstract: This paper reports the tensile fracture location
characterizations of dissimilar friction stir welds between 5754
aluminium alloy and C11000 copper. The welds were produced using
three shoulder diameter tools; namely, 15, 18 and 25 mm by varying
the process parameters. The rotational speeds considered were 600,
950 and 1200 rpm while the feed rates employed were 50, 150 and
300 mm/min to represent the low, medium and high settings
respectively. The tensile fracture locations were evaluated using the
optical microscope to identify the fracture locations and were
characterized. It was observed that 70% of the tensile samples failed
in the Thermo Mechanically Affected Zone (TMAZ) of copper at the
weld joints. Further evaluation of the fracture surfaces of the pulled
tensile samples revealed that welds with low Ultimate Tensile
Strength either have defects or intermetallics present at their joint
interfaces.
Abstract: We have developed a database for membrane protein functions, which has more than 3000 experimental data on functionally important amino acid residues in membrane proteins along with sequence, structure and literature information. Further, we have proposed different methods for identifying membrane proteins based on their functions: (i) discrimination of membrane transport proteins from other globular and membrane proteins and classifying them into channels/pores, electrochemical and active transporters, and (ii) β-signal for the insertion of mitochondrial β-barrel outer membrane proteins and potential targets. Our method showed an accuracy of 82% in discriminating transport proteins and 68% to classify them into three different transporters. In addition, we have identified a motif for targeting β-signal and potential candidates for mitochondrial β-barrel membrane proteins. Our methods can be used as effective tools for genome-wide annotations.
Abstract: Controlled release urea has become popular in agricultural industry as it helps to solve environmental issues and increase crop yield. Recently biomass was identified to replace the polymer used as a coating material in the conventional coated urea. In this paper spreading and contact angle of biomass droplet (lignin, cellulose and clay) on urea surface are investigated experimentally. There were two tests were conducted, sessile drop for contact angle measurement and pendant drop for contact angle measurement. A different concentration of biomass droplet was released from 30 mm above a substrate. Glass was used as a controlled substrate. Images were recorded as soon as the droplet impacted onto the urea before completely adsorb into the urea. Digitized droplets were then used to identify the droplet-s surface tension and contact angle. There is large difference observed between the low surface tension and high surface tension liquids, where the wetting and spreading diameter is higher for lower surface tension. From the contact angle results, the data showed that the biomass coating films were possible as wetting liquid (θ < 90º). Contact angle of biomass coating material gives good indication for the wettablity of a liquid on urea surface.
Abstract: The harmonic Arnoldi method can be used to find interior eigenpairs of large matrices. However, it has been shown that this method may converge erratically and even may fail to do so. In this paper, we present a new method for computing interior eigenpairs of large nonsymmetric matrices, which is called weighted harmonic Arnoldi method. The implementation of the method has been tested by numerical examples, the results show that the method converges fast and works with high accuracy.
Abstract: As part of national epidemiological survey on bovine
viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), a total of 274 dejecta samples were
collected from 14 cattle farms in 8 areas of Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region in northwestern China. Total RNA was extracted
from each sample, and 5--untranslated region (UTR) of BVDV
genome was amplified by using two-step reverse
transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The PCR products
were subsequently sequenced to study the genetic variations of BVDV
in these areas. Among the 274 samples, 33 samples were found
virus-positive. According to sequence analysis of the PCR products,
the 33 samples could be arranged into 16 groups. All the sequences,
however, were highly conserved with BVDV Osloss strains. The virus
possessed theses sequences belonged to BVDV-1b subtype by
phylogenetic analysis. Based on these data, we established a typing
tree for BVDV in these areas. Our results suggested that BVDV-1b
was a predominant subgenotype in northwestern China and no
correlation between the genetic and geographical distances could be
observed above the farm level.
Abstract: This paper is to develop a fuzzy net present value (FNPV) method by taking vague cash flow and imprecise required rate of return into account for evaluating the value of the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) sport facilities. In order to clearly manifest a more realistic capital budgeting model based on the classical net present value (NPV) method, some uncertain financial elements in NPV formula will be fuzzified as triangular fuzzy numbers. Through the conscientious manipulation of fuzzy set theory, we will find that the proposed FNPV model is a more explicit extension of classical (crisp) model and could be more practicable for the financial managers to capture the essence of capital budgeting of sport facilities than non-fuzzy model.
Abstract: This paper deals with the problem of constructing
constraints in non safe Petri Nets and then reducing the number of the
constructed constraints. In a system, assigning some linear constraints
to forbidden states is possible. Enforcing these constraints on the
system prevents it from entering these states. But there is no a
systematic method for assigning constraints to forbidden states in non
safe Petri Nets. In this paper a useful method is proposed for
constructing constraints in non safe Petri Nets. But when the number of these constraints is large enforcing them on the system may complicate the Petri Net model. So, another method is proposed for reducing the number of constructed constraints.
Abstract: Palestinian cities face the challenges of land scarcity,
high population growth rates, rapid urbanization, uneven
development and territorial fragmentation. Due to geopolitical
constrains and the absence of an effective Palestinian planning
institution, urban development in Palestinian cities has not followed
any discernable planning scheme. This has led to a number of
internal contradictions in the structure of cities, and adversely
affected land use, the provision of urban services, and the quality of
the living environment.
This paper explores these challenges, and the potential that exists
for introducing a more sustainable urban development pattern in
Palestinian cities. It assesses alternative development approaches
with a particular focus on sustainable development, promoting ecodevelopment
imperatives, limiting random urbanization, and meeting
present and future challenges, including fulfilling the needs of the
people and conserving the scarce land and limited natural resources.
This paper concludes by offering conceptual proposals and guidelines
for promoting sustainable physical development in Palestinian cities.
Abstract: To learn about China-s future energy demand, this paper first proposed GM(1,1) model group based on recursive solutions of parameters estimation, setting up a general solving-algorithm of the model group. This method avoided the problems occurred on the past researches that remodeling, loss of information and large amount of calculation. This paper established respectively all-data-GM(1,1), metabolic GM(1,1) and new information GM (1,1)model according to the historical data of energy consumption in China in the year 2005-2010 and the added data of 2011, then modeling, simulating and comparison of accuracies we got the optimal models and to predict. Results showed that the total energy demand of China will be 37.2221 billion tons of equivalent coal in 2012 and 39.7973 billion tons of equivalent coal in 2013, which are as the same as the overall planning of energy demand in The 12th Five-Year Plan.
Abstract: Network reconfiguration in distribution system is realized by changing the status of sectionalizing switches to reduce the power loss in the system. This paper presents a new method which applies an artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) for determining the sectionalizing switch to be operated in order to solve the distribution system loss minimization problem. The ABC algorithm is a new population based metaheuristic approach inspired by intelligent foraging behavior of honeybee swarm. The advantage of ABC algorithm is that it does not require external parameters such as cross over rate and mutation rate as in case of genetic algorithm and differential evolution and it is hard to determine these parameters in prior. The other advantage is that the global search ability in the algorithm is implemented by introducing neighborhood source production mechanism which is a similar to mutation process. To demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm, computer simulations are carried out on 14, 33, and 119-bus systems and compared with different approaches available in the literature. The proposed method has outperformed the other methods in terms of the quality of solution and computational efficiency.
Abstract: The potential, opportunities and drawbacks of biogas
technology use in Turkey are evaluated in this paper. Turkey is
dependent on foreign sources of energy. Therefore, use of biogas
technology would provide a safe way of waste disposal and recovery
of renewable energy, particularly from a sustainable domestic source,
which is less unlikely to be influenced by international price or
political fluctuations. Use of biogas technology would especially
meet the cooking, heating and electricity demand in rural areas and
protect the environment, additionally creating new job opportunities
and improving social-economical conditions.
Abstract: The ITE Project is a project that has 1800 km length
and across the Turkey's land through east to west. The project of
pipeline enters geographically from Iran to Doğubayazit (Turkey) in
the east, exits to Greece from Ipsala province of Turkey in the west.
This project is the one of the international projects in such scale that
provides the natural gas of Iran and Caspian Sea through the
European continent. In this investigation, some information will be
given about the methods used to verify the direction of the pipeline
and the technical properties of the results obtained. The cost of
project itself entirely depends on the direction of the pipeline which
would be as short as possible and the specifications of the land cover.
Production standards of 1/2000 scaled digital orthophoto and vectoral
maps as a results of the use of map production materials and methods
(such as high resolution satellite images, and digital aerial images
captured from digital aerial cameras), will also be given in this report.
According to Turkish national map production standards, TM
((Transversal Mercator, 3 degree) projection is used for large scale
map and UTM (Universal Transversal Mercator, 6 degree) is used for
small scale map production standards. Some information is also given
about the projection used in the ITE natural gas pipeline project.