Abstract: Influence of octane and benzene on plant cell
ultrastructure and enzymes of basic metabolism, such as nitrogen
assimilation and energy generation have been studied. Different
plants: perennial ryegrass (Lolium perenne) and alfalfa (Medicago
sativa); crops- maize (Zea mays L.) and bean (Phaseolus vulgaris);
shrubs – privet (Ligustrum sempervirens) and trifoliate orange
(Poncirus trifoliate); trees - poplar (Populus deltoides) and white
mulberry (Morus alba L.) were exposed to hydrocarbons of different
concentrations (1, 10 and 100 mM). Destructive changes in bean and
maize leaves cells ultrastructure under the influence of benzene
vapour were revealed at the level of photosynthetic and energy
generation subcellular organells. Different deviations at the level of
subcellular organelles structure and distribution were observed in
alfalfa and ryegrass root cells under the influence of benzene and
octane, absorbed through roots. The level of destructive changes is
concentration dependent. Benzene at low 1 and 10 mM concentration
caused the increase in glutamate dehydrogenase (GDH) activity in
maize roots and leaves and in poplar and mulberry shoots, though to
higher extent in case of lower, 1mM concentration. The induction
was more intensive in plant roots. The highest tested 100mM
concentration of benzene was inhibitory to the enzyme in all plants.
Octane caused induction of GDH in all grassy plants at all tested
concentrations; however the rate of induction decreased parallel to
increase of the hydrocarbon concentration. Octane at concentration 1
mM caused induction of GDH in privet, trifoliate and white mulberry
shoots. The highest, 100mM octane was characterized by inhibitory
effect to GDH activity in all plants. Octane had inductive effect on
malate dehydrogenase in almost all plants and tested concentrations,
indicating the intensification of Trycarboxylic Acid Cycle.
The data could be suggested for elaboration of criteria for plant
selection for phytoremediation of oil hydrocarbons contaminated
soils.
Abstract: Mycophenolic acid “MPA" is a secondary metabolite
of Penicillium bervicompactum with antibiotic and
immunosuppressive properties. In this study, fermentation process
was established for production of mycophenolic acid by Penicillium
bervicompactum MUCL 19011 in shake flask. The maximum MPA
production, product yield and productivity were 1.379 g/L, 18.6 mg/g
glucose and 4.9 mg/L.h respectively. Glucose consumption, biomass
and MPA production profiles were investigated during fermentation
time. It was found that MPA production starts approximately after
180 hours and reaches to a maximum at 280 h. In the next step, the
effects of methionine and acetate concentrations on MPA production
were evaluated. Maximum MPA production, product yield and
productivity (1.763 g/L, 23.8 mg/g glucose and 6.30 mg/L. h
respectively) were obtained with using 2.5 g/L methionine in culture
medium. Further addition of methionine had not more positive effect
on MPA production. Finally, results showed that the addition of
acetate to the culture medium had not any observable effect on MPA
production
Abstract: This paper presents the experimental results of silicone rubber polymer insulators for 22 kV systems under salt water dip wheel test based on IEC 62217. Straight shed silicone rubber polymer insulators having leakage distance 685 mm were tested continuously 30,000 cycles. One test cycle includes 4 positions, energized, de-energized, salt water dip and deenergized, respectively. For one test cycle, each test specimen remains stationary for about 40 second in each position and takes 8 second for rotate to next position. By visual observation, sever surface erosion was observed on the trunk near the energized end of tested specimen. Puncture was observed on the upper shed near the energized end. In addition, decreasing in hydrophobicity and increasing in hardness were measured on tested specimen comparing with new specimen. Furthermore, chemical analysis by ATR-FTIR was conducted in order to elucidate the chemical change of tested specimens comparing with new specimen.
Abstract: We have developed a microfluidic device system for the continuous producting of nanoparticles, and we have clarified the relationship between the mixing performance of reactors and the particle size. First, we evaluated the mixing performance of reactors by carring out the Villermaux–Dushman reaction and determined the experimental conditions for producing AgCl nanoparticles. Next, we produced AgCl nanoparticles and evaluated the mixing performance and the particle size. We found that as the mixing performance improves the size of produced particles decreases and the particle size distribution becomes sharper. We produced AgCl nanoparticles with a size of 86 nm using the microfluidic device that had the best mixing performance among the three reactors we tested in this study; the coefficient of variation (Cv) of the size distribution of the produced nanoparticles was 26.1%.
Abstract: A new concept for long-term reagent storage for Labon- a-Chip (LoC) devices is described. Here we present a polymer multilayer stack with integrated stick packs for long-term storage of several liquid reagents, which are necessary for many diagnostic applications. Stick packs are widely used in packaging industry for storing solids and liquids for long time. The storage concept fulfills two main requirements: First, a long-term storage of reagents in stick packs without significant losses and interaction with surroundings, second, on demand releasing of liquids, which is realized by pushing a membrane against the stick pack through pneumatic pressure. This concept enables long-term on-chip storage of liquid reagents at room temperature and allows an easy implementation in different LoC devices.
Abstract: If price and quantity are the fundamental building
blocks of any theory of market interactions, the importance of trading
volume in understanding the behavior of financial markets is clear.
However, while many economic models of financial markets have
been developed to explain the behavior of prices -predictability,
variability, and information content- far less attention has been
devoted to explaining the behavior of trading volume. In this article,
we hope to expand our understanding of trading volume by
developing a new measure of herding behavior based on a cross
sectional dispersion of volumes betas. We apply our measure to the
Toronto stock exchange using monthly data from January 2000 to
December 2002. Our findings show that the herd phenomenon
consists of three essential components: stationary herding, intentional
herding and the feedback herding.
Abstract: In most of the cases, natural disasters lead to the
necessity of evacuating people. The quality of evacuation
management is dramatically improved by the use of information
provided by decision support systems, which become indispensable
in case of large scale evacuation operations. This paper presents a
best practice case study. In November 2007, officers from the
Emergency Situations Inspectorate “Crisana" of Bihor County from
Romania participated to a cross-border evacuation exercise, when
700 people have been evacuated from Netherlands to Belgium. One
of the main objectives of the exercise was the test of four different
decision support systems. Afterwards, based on that experience,
software system called TEVAC (Trans Border Evacuation) has been
developed “in house" by the experts of this institution. This original
software system was successfully tested in September 2008, during
the deployment of the international exercise EU-HUROMEX 2008,
the scenario involving real evacuation of 200 persons from Hungary
to Romania. Based on the lessons learned and results, starting from
April 2009, the TEVAC software is used by all Emergency
Situations Inspectorates all over Romania.
Abstract: Although in sustainable development field, innovative
solutions have been sought worldwide by environmental groups,
academia, governments and companies for many years, recently,
citizens and communities have emerged as a new group and taken
more and more active role in this field. Many scholars call for more
research on the role of community and community innovation in
sustainable development. This paper is to respond to the calls. In
this paper, we first summarize a comprehensive set of innovation
principles. Then, we do a qualitative cross case study by comparing
three community innovation cases in three different areas of sustainable
development according to the innovation principles. Finally,
we summarize the case comparison and discuss the implications
to sustainable development. A unified role model and innovation
distribution map of community innovation are developed to better
understand community innovation in sustainable development..
Abstract: Using neural network we try to model the unknown function f for given input-output data pairs. The connection strength of each neuron is updated through learning. Repeated simulations of crisp neural network produce different values of weight factors that are directly affected by the change of different parameters. We propose the idea that for each neuron in the network, we can obtain quasi-fuzzy weight sets (QFWS) using repeated simulation of the crisp neural network. Such type of fuzzy weight functions may be applied where we have multivariate crisp input that needs to be adjusted after iterative learning, like claim amount distribution analysis. As real data is subjected to noise and uncertainty, therefore, QFWS may be helpful in the simplification of such complex problems. Secondly, these QFWS provide good initial solution for training of fuzzy neural networks with reduced computational complexity.
Abstract: With the advance in wireless networking, IEEE 802.16 WiMAX technology has been widely deployed for several applications such as “last mile" broadband service, cellular backhaul, and high-speed enterprise connectivity. As a result, military employed WiMAX as a high-speed wireless connection for data-link because of its point to multi-point and non-line-of-sight (NLOS) capability for many years. However, the risk of using WiMAX is a critical factor in some sensitive area of military applications especially in ammunition manufacturing such as solid propellant rocket production. The US DoD policy states that the following certification requirements are met for WiMAX: electromagnetic effects on the environment (E3) and Hazards of Electromagnetic Radiation to Ordnance (HERO). This paper discuses the Recommended Power Densities and Safe Separation Distance (SSD) for HERO on WiMAX systems deployed on solid propellant rocket production. The result of this research found that WiMAX is safe to operate at close proximity distances to the rocket production based on AF Guidance Memorandum immediately changing AFMAN 91-201.
Abstract: The distribution, enrichment, and accumulation of zinc
(Zn) in the sediments of Kaohsiung Ocean Disposal Site (KODS),
Taiwan were investigated. Sediment samples from two outer disposal
site stations and nine disposed stations in the KODS were collected per
quarterly in 2009 and characterized for Zn, aluminum, organic matter,
and grain size. Results showed that the mean Zn concentrations varied
from 48 mg/kg to 456 mg/kg. Results from the enrichment factor (EF)
and geo-accumulation index (Igeo) analyses imply that the sediments
collected from the KODS can be characterized between moderate and
moderately severe degree enrichment and between none and none to
medium accumulation of Zn, respectively. However, results of
potential ecological risk index indicate that the sediment has low
ecological potential risk. The EF, Igeo, and Zn concentrations at the
disposed stations were slightly higher than those at outer disposal site.
This indicated that the disposed area centers may be subjected to the
disposal impaction of harbor dredged sediments.
Abstract: HSDPA is a new feature which is introduced in
Release-5 specifications of the 3GPP WCDMA/UTRA standard to
realize higher speed data rate together with lower round-trip times.
Moreover, the HSDPA concept offers outstanding improvement of
packet throughput and also significantly reduces the packet call
transfer delay as compared to Release -99 DSCH. Till now the
HSDPA system uses turbo coding which is the best coding technique
to achieve the Shannon limit. However, the main drawbacks of turbo
coding are high decoding complexity and high latency which makes
it unsuitable for some applications like satellite communications,
since the transmission distance itself introduces latency due to
limited speed of light. Hence in this paper it is proposed to use LDPC
coding in place of Turbo coding for HSDPA system which decreases
the latency and decoding complexity. But LDPC coding increases the
Encoding complexity. Though the complexity of transmitter
increases at NodeB, the End user is at an advantage in terms of
receiver complexity and Bit- error rate. In this paper LDPC Encoder
is implemented using “sparse parity check matrix" H to generate a
codeword at Encoder and “Belief Propagation algorithm "for LDPC
decoding .Simulation results shows that in LDPC coding the BER
suddenly drops as the number of iterations increase with a small
increase in Eb/No. Which is not possible in Turbo coding. Also same
BER was achieved using less number of iterations and hence the
latency and receiver complexity has decreased for LDPC coding.
HSDPA increases the downlink data rate within a cell to a theoretical
maximum of 14Mbps, with 2Mbps on the uplink. The changes that
HSDPA enables includes better quality, more reliable and more
robust data services. In other words, while realistic data rates are
only a few Mbps, the actual quality and number of users achieved
will improve significantly.
Abstract: The main objective of this paper is applying a
comparison between the Wolf Pack Search (WPS) as a newly
introduced intelligent algorithm with several other known algorithms
including Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Shuffled Frog
Leaping (SFL), Binary and Continues Genetic algorithms. All
algorithms are applied on two benchmark cost functions. The aim is
to identify the best algorithm in terms of more speed and accuracy in
finding the solution, where speed is measured in terms of function
evaluations. The simulation results show that the SFL algorithm with
less function evaluations becomes first if the simulation time is
important, while if accuracy is the significant issue, WPS and PSO
would have a better performance.
Abstract: Results are presented from a combined experimental
and modeling study undertaken to understand the effect of fuel spray
angle on soot production in turbulent liquid spray flames. The
experimental work was conducted in a cylindrical laboratory furnace
at fuel spray cone angle of 30º, 45º and 60º. Soot concentrations
inside the combustor are measured by filter paper technique. The soot
concentration is modeled by using the soot particle number density
and the mass density based acetylene concentrations. Soot oxidation
occurred by both hydroxide radicals and oxygen molecules. The
comparison of calculated results against experimental measurements
shows good agreement. Both the numerical and experimental results
show that the peak value of soot and its location in the furnace
depend on fuel spray cone angle. An increase in spray angle enhances
the evaporating rate and peak temperature near the nozzle. Although
peak soot concentration increase with enhance of fuel spray angle but
soot emission from the furnace decreases.
Abstract: Generally, administrative systems in an academic
environment are disjoint and support independent queries. The
objective in this work is to semantically connect these independent
systems to provide support to queries run on the integrated platform.
The proposed framework, by enriching educational material in the
legacy systems, provides a value-added semantics layer where
activities such as annotation, query and reasoning can be carried out
to support management requirements. We discuss the development of
this ontology framework with a case study of UAE University
program administration to show how semantic web technologies can
be used by administration to develop student profiles for better
academic program management.
Abstract: The purpose of this study was to develop a “teachers’
self-efficacy scale for high school physical education teachers
(TSES-HSPET)” in Taiwan. This scale is based on the self-efficacy
theory of Bandura [1], [2]. This study used exploratory and
confirmatory factor analyses to test the reliability and validity. The
participants were high school physical education teachers in Taiwan.
Both stratified random sampling and cluster sampling were used to
sample participants for the study. 350 teachers were sampled in the
first stage and 234 valid scales (male 133, female 101) returned.
During the second stage, 350 teachers were sampled and 257 valid
scales (male 143, female 110, 4 did not indicate gender) returned. The
exploratory factor analysis was used in the first stage, and it got
60.77% of total variance for construct validity. The Cronbach’s alpha
coefficient of internal consistency was 0.91 for sumscale, and
subscales were 0.84 and 0.90. In the second stage, confirmatory factor
analysis was used to test construct validity. The result showed that the
fit index could be accepted (χ2 (75) =167.94, p
Abstract: Proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) is used to reconstruct spatio-temporal data of a fully developed turbulent channel flow with density variation at Reynolds number of 150, based on the friction velocity and the channel half-width, and Prandtl number of 0.71. To apply POD to the fully developed turbulent channel flow with density variation, the flow field (velocities, density, and temperature) is scaled by the corresponding root mean square values (rms) so that the flow field becomes dimensionless. A five-vector POD problem is solved numerically. The reconstructed second-order moments of velocity, temperature, and density from POD eigenfunctions compare favorably to the original Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) data.
Abstract: The cinema in Turkey during the 1940s was shaped
under the Second World War conditions. The amateur film makers
from different socioeconomic roots experienced movie production in
those years. Having similar socioeconomic characteristics and
autobiographies, each of them has a different understanding of
cinema. Nevertheless, they joined in making movies which address
native culture and audience. They narrated indigenous stories with
native music, amateur players and simple settings. Although the
martial law, censorship and economical deficiencies, they started to
produce films in the Second World War. The cinematographers of the
1940s usually called as thetransition period cinematographers in
Turkey, producing in the passage between the period of thetheatre
playersand the period of thenational cinema. But, 1940- 1950 period
of Turkish cinema should be defined not as a transition but a period
of forming the professional conscioussness in cinema.
Abstract: Distributed wireless sensor network consist on several
scattered nodes in a knowledge area. Those sensors have as its only
power supplies a pair of batteries that must let them live up to five
years without substitution. That-s why it is necessary to develop
some power aware algorithms that could save battery lifetime as
much as possible. In this is document, a review of power aware
design for sensor nodes is presented. As example of implementations,
some resources and task management, communication, topology
control and routing protocols are named.
Abstract: A 2-Degrees of freedom powered prosthetic wrist
actuator has been proposed that can provide the Abduction/Adduction
& Flexion/Extension movements of the human wrist. The basic
structure of the actuator is a Ball and Socket joint and the force is
transmitted from the DC geared servo motors to the joint through the
Bowden cables. The proposed design is capable of providing the
required DOF in both axes i.e. 85° & 90° in flexion extension axis.
The size and weight of the actuator lies within the ranges of an
average human being-s wrist.