Abstract: Total liquid ventilation can support gas exchange in animal models of lung injury. Clinical application awaits further technical improvements and performance verification. Our aim was to develop a liquid ventilator, able to deliver accurate tidal volumes, and a computerized system for measuring lung mechanics. The computer-assisted, piston-driven respirator controlled ventilatory parameters that were displayed and modified on a real-time basis. Pressure and temperature transducers along with a lineal displacement controller provided the necessary signals to calculate lung mechanics. Ten newborn lambs (
Abstract: Water, soil and sediment contaminated with
metolachlor poses a threat to the environment and human health.
We determined the effectiveness of nano-zerovalent iron (NZVI) to
dechlorinate metolachlor [2-chloro-n-(2-ethyl-6-methyl-phenyl)-n-
(1-methoxypropan-2-yl)acetamide] in pH solution and the presence
of aluminium salt. The optimum dosage of degradation of 100 mlL-1
metolachlor was 1% (w/v) NZVI. The degradation kinetic rate (kobs)
was 0.218×10-3 min-1 and specific first-order rates (kSA) was
8.72×10-7 L m-2min-1. By treating aqueous solutions of metolachlor
with NZVI, metolachlor destruction rate were increased as the pH
decrease from 10 to 4. Lowering solution pH removes Fe (III)
passivating layers from the NZVI and makes it free for reductive
transformations. Destruction kinetic rates were 20.8×10-3 min-1 for
pH4, 18.9×10-3 min-1 for pH7, 13.8×10-3 min-1 for pH10. In addition,
destruction kinetic of metolachlor by NZVI was enhanced when
aluminium sulfate was added. The destruction kinetic rate were
20.4×10-3 min-1 for 0.05% Al(SO4)3 and 60×10-3 min-1 for 0.1%
Al(SO4)3.
Abstract: Because of increasing demands for security in today-s
society and also due to paying much more attention to machine
vision, biometric researches, pattern recognition and data retrieval in
color images, face detection has got more application. In this article
we present a scientific approach for modeling human skin color, and
also offer an algorithm that tries to detect faces within color images
by combination of skin features and determined threshold in the
model. Proposed model is based on statistical data in different color
spaces. Offered algorithm, using some specified color threshold, first,
divides image pixels into two groups: skin pixel group and non-skin
pixel group and then based on some geometric features of face
decides which area belongs to face.
Two main results that we received from this research are as follow:
first, proposed model can be applied easily on different databases and
color spaces to establish proper threshold. Second, our algorithm can
adapt itself with runtime condition and its results demonstrate
desirable progress in comparison with similar cases.
Abstract: This paper presents a web based remote access
microcontroller laboratory. Because of accelerated development in
electronics and computer technologies, microcontroller-based devices
and appliances are found in all aspects of our daily life. Before the
implementation of remote access microcontroller laboratory an
experiment set is developed by teaching staff for training
microcontrollers. Requirement of technical teaching and industrial
applications are considered when experiment set is designed.
Students can make the experiments by connecting to the experiment
set which is connected to the computer that set as the web server. The
students can program the microcontroller, can control digital and
analog inputs and can observe experiment. Laboratory experiment
web page can be accessed via www.elab.aku.edu.tr address.
Abstract: The reliability of the tools developed to learn the
learning styles is essential to find out students- learning styles
trustworthily. For this purpose, the psychometric features of Grasha-
Riechman Student Learning Style Inventory developed by Grasha
was studied to contribute to this field. The study was carried out on
6th, 7th, and 8th graders of 10 primary education schools in Konya.
The inventory was applied twice with an interval of one month, and
according to the data of this application, the reliability coefficient
numbers of the 6 sub-dimensions pointed in the theory of the
inventory was found to be medium. Besides, it was found that the
inventory does not have a structure with 6 factors for both
Mathematics and English courses as represented in the theory.
Abstract: This paper presents a new technique for the optimum
placement of processors to minimize the total effective
communication load under multi-processor communication
dominated environment. This is achieved by placing heavily loaded
processors near each other and lightly loaded ones far away from
one another in the physical grid locations. The results are
mathematically proved for the Algorithms are described.
Abstract: High Voltage (HV) transmission lines are widely
spread around residential places. They take all forms of shapes:
concrete, steel, and timber poles. Earth grid always form part of the
HV transmission structure, whereat soil resistivity value is one of the
main inputs when it comes to determining the earth grid
requirements. In this paper, the soil structure and its implication on
the electrode resistance of HV transmission poles will be explored. In
Addition, this paper will present simulation for various soil structures
using IEEE and Australian standards to verify the computation with
CDEGS software. Furthermore, the split factor behavior under
different soil resistivity structure will be presented using CDEGS
simulations.
Abstract: Internet infrastructures in most places of the world
have been supported by the advancement of optical fiber technology,
most notably wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) system.
Optical technology by means of WDM system has revolutionized
long distance data transport and has resulted in high data capacity,
cost reductions, extremely low bit error rate, and operational
simplification of the overall Internet infrastructure. This paper
analyses and compares the system impairments, which occur at data
transmission rates of 2.5Gb/s and 10 Gb/s per wavelength channel in
our proposed optical WDM system for Internet infrastructure in
Tanzania. The results show that the data transmission rate of 2.5 Gb/s
has minimum system impairments compared with a rate of 10 Gb/s
per wavelength channel, and achieves a sufficient system
performance to provide a good Internet access service.
Abstract: There are two types of drought as conceptual drought
and operational drought. The three parameters as the beginning, the
end and the degree of severity of the drought can be identifying in
operational drought by average precipitation in the whole region. One
of the methods classified to measure drought is Reconnaissance
Drought Index (RDI). Evapotranspiration is calculated using
Penman-Monteith method by analyzing thirty nine years prolong
climatic data. The evapotranspiration is then utilized in RDI to
classify normalized and standardized RDI. These RDI classifications
led to what kind of drought faced in Bhavnagar region on 12 month
time scale basis. The comparison between actual drought conditions
and RDI method used to find out drought are also illustrated. It can
be concluded that the index results of drought in a particular year are
same in both methods but having different index values where as
severity remain same.
Abstract: The security of power systems against malicious cyberphysical
data attacks becomes an important issue. The adversary
always attempts to manipulate the information structure of the power
system and inject malicious data to deviate state variables while
evading the existing detection techniques based on residual test. The
solutions proposed in the literature are capable of immunizing the
power system against false data injection but they might be too costly
and physically not practical in the expansive distribution network.
To this end, we define an algebraic condition for trustworthy power
system to evade malicious data injection. The proposed protection
scheme secures the power system by deterministically reconfiguring
the information structure and corresponding residual test. More
importantly, it does not require any physical effort in either microgrid
or network level. The identification scheme of finding meters being
attacked is proposed as well. Eventually, a well-known IEEE 30-bus
system is adopted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed
schemes.
Abstract: The Artificial immune systems algorithms are Meta
heuristic optimization method, which are used for clustering and
pattern recognition applications are abundantly. These algorithms in
multimodal optimization problems are more efficient than genetic
algorithms. A major drawback in these algorithms is their slow
convergence to global optimum and their weak stability can be
considered in various running of these algorithms. In this paper,
improved Artificial Immune System Algorithm is introduced for the
first time to overcome its problems of artificial immune system. That
use of the small size of a local search around the memory antibodies
is used for improving the algorithm efficiently. The credibility of the
proposed approach is evaluated by simulations, and it is shown that
the proposed approach achieves better results can be achieved
compared to the standard artificial immune system algorithms
Abstract: Access to information is the key to the empowerment of everybody despite where they are living. This research is to be carried out in respect of the people living in developing countries, considering their plight and complex geographical, demographic, social-economic conditions surrounding the areas they live, which hinder access to information and of professionals providing services such as medical workers, which has led to high death rates and development stagnation. Research on Unified Communications and Integrated Collaborations (UCIC) system in the health sector of developing countries comes in to create a possible solution of bridging the digital canyon among the communities. The aim is to deliver services in a seamless manner to assist health workers situated anywhere to be accessed easily and access information which will help in service delivery. The proposed UCIC provides the most immersive Telepresence experience for one-to-one or many-tomany meetings. Extending to locations anywhere in the world, the transformative platform delivers Ultra-low operating costs through the use of general purpose networks and using special lenses and track systems.
Abstract: The paper discusses complexity of component-based
development (CBD) of embedded systems. Although CBD has its
merits, it must be augmented with methods to control the complexities
that arise due to resource constraints, timeliness, and run-time deployment
of components in embedded system development. Software
component specification, system-level testing, and run-time reliability
measurement are some ways to control the complexity.
Abstract: An additive fuzzy system comprising m rules with
n inputs and p outputs in each rule has at least t m(2n + 2 p + 1)
parameters needing to be tuned. The system consists of a large
number of if-then fuzzy rules and takes a long time to tune its
parameters especially in the case of a large amount of training data
samples. In this paper, a new learning strategy is investigated to cope
with this obstacle. Parameters that tend toward constant values at the
learning process are initially fixed and they are not tuned till the end
of the learning time. Experiments based on applications of the
additive fuzzy system in function approximation demonstrate that the
proposed approach reduces the learning time and hence improves
convergence speed considerably.
Abstract: The measurement of aerodynamic forces and moments
acting on an aircraft model is important for the development of wind
tunnel measurement technology to predict the performance of the full
scale vehicle. The potentials of an aircraft model with and without
winglet and aerodynamic characteristics with NACA wing No. 65-3-
218 have been studied using subsonic wind tunnel of 1 m × 1 m
rectangular test section and 2.5 m long of Aerodynamics Laboratory
Faculty of Engineering (University Putra Malaysia). Focusing on
analyzing the aerodynamic characteristics of the aircraft model, two
main issues are studied in this paper. First, a six component wind
tunnel external balance is used for measuring lift, drag and pitching
moment. Secondly, Tests are conducted on the aircraft model with
and without winglet of two configurations at Reynolds numbers
1.7×105, 2.1×105, and 2.5×105 for different angle of attacks. Fuzzy
logic approach is found as efficient for the representation,
manipulation and utilization of aerodynamic characteristics.
Therefore, the primary purpose of this work was to investigate the
relationship between lift and drag coefficients, with free-stream
velocities and angle of attacks, and to illustrate how fuzzy logic
might play an important role in study of lift aerodynamic
characteristics of an aircraft model with the addition of certain
winglet configurations. Results of the developed fuzzy logic were
compared with the experimental results. For lift coefficient analysis,
the mean of actual and predicted values were 0.62 and 0.60
respectively. The coreelation between actual and predicted values
(from FLS model) of lift coefficient in different angle of attack was
found as 0.99. The mean relative error of actual and predicted valus
was found as 5.18% for the velocity of 26.36 m/s which was found to
be less than the acceptable limits (10%). The goodness of fit of
prediction value was 0.95 which was close to 1.0.
Abstract: An ecofriendly Citrus paradisipeel extract mediated synthesis of TiO2 nanoparticles is reported under sonication. U.V.-vis, Transmission electron microscopy, Dynamic light scattering, and X-ray analyses are performed to characterize the formation of TiO2 nanoparticles. It is almost spherical in shape, having a size of 60–140 nm and the XRD peaks at 2θ = 25.363° confirm the characteristic facets for anatase form. The synthesized nanocatalyst is highly active in the decomposition of methyl orange (64 mg/L) in sunlight (~73%) for 2.5h.
Abstract: There is no doubt that Internet technology is widely used by hotels and its demand is constantly booming. Hotels have largely adopted website information services through using different interactive tools, dimensions and attributes to achieve excellence in functionality and usability but these do not necessary equate with website effectiveness. One way to investigate the effectiveness of hotel website is from the perspective ofe-consumers. This exploratory research is to investigate the perceived importance of websites effectiveness of some selected independent small and medium-sized hotels (SMHs) located in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from the perspective of Omanie-consumers by using non-random sampling method. From 400 questionnaire addressed to respondents in 27 organizations in Muscat the capital city of Oman, 173 are valid. Findings of this study assist SMHs management in Dubai with the reallocation of their resources and efforts in order to supportebusiness development and to sustain a competitive advantage.
Abstract: Gold coated silica core nanoparticles have an optical
response dictated by the plasmon resonance. The wavelength at
which the resonance occurs depends on the core and shell sizes,
allowing nanoshells to be tailored for particular applications. The
purposes of this study was to synthesize and use different
concentration of gold nanoshells as exogenous material for skin
tissue soldering and also to examine the effect of laser soldering
parameters on the properties of repaired skin. Two mixtures of
albumin solder and different concentration of gold nanoshells were
prepared. A full thickness incision of 2×20 mm2 was made on the
surface and after addition of mixtures it was irradiated by an 810nm
diode laser at different power densities. The changes of tensile
strength σt due to temperature rise, number of scan (Ns), and scan
velocity (Vs) were investigated. The results showed at constant laser
power density (I), σt of repaired incisions increases by increasing the
concentration of gold nanoshells, Ns and decreasing Vs. It is therefore
important to consider the trade off between the scan velocity and the
surface temperature for achieving an optimum operating condition. In
our case this corresponds to σt =1610 gr/cm2 at I~ 60 Wcm-2, T ~
65ºC, Ns =10 and Vs=0.2mms-1.
Abstract: SDMA (Space-Division Multiple Access) is a MIMO
(Multiple-Input and Multiple-Output) based wireless communication
network architecture which has the potential to significantly increase
the spectral efficiency and the system performance. The maximum
likelihood (ML) detection provides the optimal performance, but its
complexity increases exponentially with the constellation size of
modulation and number of users. The QR decomposition (QRD)
MUD can be a substitute to ML detection due its low complexity and
near optimal performance. The minimum mean-squared-error
(MMSE) multiuser detection (MUD) minimises the mean square
error (MSE), which may not give guarantee that the BER of the
system is also minimum. But the minimum bit error rate (MBER)
MUD performs better than the classic MMSE MUD in term of
minimum probability of error by directly minimising the BER cost
function. Also the MBER MUD is able to support more users than
the number of receiving antennas, whereas the rest of MUDs fail in
this scenario. In this paper the performance of various MUD
techniques is verified for the correlated MIMO channel models based
on IEEE 802.16n standard.
Abstract: This paper studies the dependability of componentbased
applications, especially embedded ones, from the diagnosis
point of view. The principle of the diagnosis technique is to
implement inter-component tests in order to detect and locate the
faulty components without redundancy. The proposed approach for
diagnosing faulty components consists of two main aspects. The first
one concerns the execution of the inter-component tests which
requires integrating test functionality within a component. This is the
subject of this paper. The second one is the diagnosis process itself
which consists of the analysis of inter-component test results to
determine the fault-state of the whole system. Advantage of this
diagnosis method when compared to classical redundancy faulttolerant
techniques are application autonomy, cost-effectiveness and
better usage of system resources. Such advantage is very important
for many systems and especially for embedded ones.