Abstract: The neurogenic potential of many herbal extracts used
in Indian medicine is hitherto unknown. Extracts derived from
Clitoria ternatea Linn have been used in Indian Ayurvedic system of
medicine as an ingredient of “Medhya rasayana", consumed for
improving memory and longevity in humans and also in treatment of
various neurological disorders. Our earlier experimental studies with
oral intubation of Clitoria ternatea aqueous root extract (CTR) had
shown significant enhancement of learning and memory in postnatal
and young adult Wistar rats. The present study was designed to
elucidate the in vitro effects of 200ng/ml of CTR on proliferation,
differentiation and growth of anterior subventricular zone neural
stem cells (aSVZ NSC-s) derived from prenatal and postnatal rat
pups. Results show significant increase in proliferation and growth of
neurospheres and increase in the yield of differentiated neurons of
aSVZ neural precursor cells (aSVZNPC-s) at 7 days in vitro when
treated with 200ng/ml of CTR as compared to age matched control.
Results indicate that CTR has growth promoting neurogenic effect on
aSVZ neural stem cells and their survival similar to neurotrophic
factors like Survivin, Neuregulin 1, FGF-2, BDNF possibly the basis
for enhanced learning and memory.
Abstract: Hair is a non homogenous complex material which
can be associated with a polymer. It is made up 95% of Keratin.
Hair has a great social significance for human beings. In the High
Middle Ages, for example, long hairs have been reserved for kings
and nobles.
Most common interest in hair is focused on hair growth, hair types
and hair care, but hair is also an important biomaterial which can
vary depending on ethnic origin or on age, hair colour for example
can be a sign of ethnic ancestry or age (dark hair for Asiatic, blond
hair for Caucasian and white hair for old people in general).
In this context, different approaches have been conducted to
determine the differences in mechanical properties and characterize
the fracture topography at the surface of hair depending on its type
and its age.
A tensile testing machine was especially designed to achieve
tensile tests on hair. This device is composed of a microdisplacement
system and a force sensor whose peak load is limited to
3N. The curves and the values extracted from each experiment, allow
us to compare the evolution of the mechanical properties from one
hair to another.
Observations with a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and
with an interferometer were made on different hairs. Thus, it is
possible to access the cuticle state and the fracture topography for
each category.
Abstract: Fractional Fourier Transform, which is a
generalization of the classical Fourier Transform, is a powerful tool
for the analysis of transient signals. The discrete Fractional Fourier
Transform Hamiltonians have been proposed in the past with varying
degrees of correlation between their eigenvectors and Hermite
Gaussian functions. In this paper, we propose a new Hamiltonian for
the discrete Fractional Fourier Transform and show that the
eigenvectors of the proposed matrix has a higher degree of
correlation with the Hermite Gaussian functions. Also, the proposed
matrix is shown to give better Fractional Fourier responses with
various transform orders for different signals.
Abstract: The Post colonial society in India has witnessed the turmoil to come out from the widespread control and influence of colonialism. The socio-cultural life of a society with all its dynamics is reflected in realistic forms of literature. The social events and human experience are drawn into a new creative form and are given to the reader as a new understanding and perspective of life. It enables the reader to understand the essence of life and motivates him to prepare for a positive change. After India becoming free from the colonial rule in 1947, systematic efforts were made by central and state governments and institutions to limit the role of English and simultaneously enlarge the function of Indian languages by planning in a strategic manner. The eighteen languages recognized as national languages are having very rich literatures. Telugu language is one among the Dravidian language family and is widely spoken by a majority of people. The post colonial socio-cultural factors were very well reflected in Telugu literature. The anti-colonial, reform oriented, progressive, post modernistic trends in Telugu literature are nothing but creative reflections of the post colonial society. This paper examines the major socio-cultural reflections in Telugu literature of the post colonial period.
Abstract: Usually, the solid-fuel flow of an iron ore sinter plant
consists of different types of the solid-fuels, which differ from each
other. Information about the composition of the solid-fuel flow
usually comes every 8-24 hours. It can be clearly seen that this
information cannot be used to control the sintering process in real
time. Due to this, we propose an expert system which uses indirect
measurements from the process in order to obtain the composition of
the solid-fuel flow by solving an optimization task. Then this
information can be used to control the sintering process. The
proposed technique can be successfully used to improve sinter
quality and reduce the amount of solid-fuel used by the process.
Abstract: In two studies we challenged the well consolidated
position in regret literature according to which the necessary
condition for the emergence of regret is a bad outcome ensuing from
free decisions. Without free choice, and, consequently, personal
responsibility, other emotions, such as disappointment, but not regret,
are supposed to be elicited. In our opinion, a main source of regret is
being obliged by circumstance out of our control to chose an
undesired option. We tested the hypothesis that regret resulting from
a forced choice is more intense than regret derived from a free choice
and that the outcome affects the latter, not the former. Besides, we
investigated whether two other variables – the perception of the level
of freedom of the choice and the choice justifiability – mediated the
relationships between choice and regret, as well as the other four
emotions we examined: satisfaction, anger toward oneself,
disappointment, anger towards circumstances. The two studies were
based on the scenario methodology and implied a 2 x 2 (choice x
outcome) between design. In the first study the foreseen short-term
effects of the choice were assessed; in the second study the
experienced long-term effects of the choice were assessed. In each
study 160 students of the Second University of Naples participated.
Results largely corroborated our hypotheses. They were discussed in
the light of the main theories on regret and decision making.
Abstract: The goal of this paper is to segment the countries
based on the value of export from Iran during 14 years ending at 2005. To measure the dissimilarity among export baskets of different countries, we define Dissimilarity Export Basket (DEB) function and
use this distance function in K-means algorithm. The DEB function
is defined based on the concepts of the association rules and the
value of export group-commodities. In this paper, clustering quality
function and clusters intraclass inertia are defined to, respectively,
calculate the optimum number of clusters and to compare the
functionality of DEB versus Euclidean distance. We have also study
the effects of importance weight in DEB function to improve
clustering quality. Lastly when segmentation is completed, a
designated RFM model is used to analyze the relative profitability of
each cluster.
Abstract: Seasonal survey of freshwater snails in different water
courses in Egypt during two successive years included 13 snail
species. They represented by Biomphalaria alexandrina, Bulinus
truncatus, Physa acuta, Helisoma duryi, Lymnaea natalensis,
Planorbis pantries, Cleopatra bulimoides, Lanistes carinatus,
Bellamya unicolor, Melanoides tuberculata, Theodoxus niloticus,
Succinia cleopatra and Valvata nilotica. B. alexandrina was most
abundant during autumn and spring represented by 26and14
snails/site, respectively. B. truncatus was most abundant during
winter (7.7and3.6snails/site) of the two years, respectively. L.
natalensis was represented by 7snails/site in summer. The tolerance
of different snail species to the chemical elements was determined
seasonally and correlated to their abundance. In spring, autumn and
winter, B. alexandrina was significantly found to live under the
highest level of Pb, Cd,Cu, Na, K and Ca concentrations than the
other species (p
Abstract: Landfill gas, particularly methane is one of the
greenhouse gases which contributes to global warming. This paper presents the findings of a study on methane gas production from
simulated landfill reactor under saturated conditions. A reactor was constructed to represent a landfill cell of 2.5 m thickness on sandy
soil. The reactor was 0.2 m in diameter and 4 m in height. One meter of sand and pebble layer was packed at the bottom of the reactor
followed by 2.5 m of solid waste layer and 0.4 m of sand layer as the cover soil. Degradation of waste in the solid waste layer was at
acidification stage as indicated by the leachate quality with COD as
high as 55,511 mg/L and pH as low as 5.1. However, methanogenic
environment was established at the bottom sand layer after one year of operation indicated by pH of 7.2 and methane gas generation.
Leachate degradation took place as the leachate moved through the
sand layer at an infiltration of rate 0.7 cm/day. This resulted in landfill gas production of 77 mL/day/kg containing 55 to 65% methane. The application of sand layer contributed to the gas
production from landfill by an in-situ degradation of leachate in the
sand at the bottom of the landfill.
Abstract: In this contribution an innovative platform is being
presented that integrates intelligent agents and evolutionary
computation techniques in legacy e-learning environments. It
introduces the design and development of a scalable and
interoperable integration platform supporting:
I) various assessment agents for e-learning environments,
II) a specific resource retrieval agent for the provision of
additional information from Internet sources matching the
needs and profile of the specific user and
III) a genetic algorithm designed to extract efficient information
(classifying rules) based on the students- answering input
data.
The agents are implemented in order to provide intelligent
assessment services based on computational intelligence techniques
such as Bayesian Networks and Genetic Algorithms.
The proposed Genetic Algorithm (GA) is used in order to extract
efficient information (classifying rules) based on the students-
answering input data. The idea of using a GA in order to fulfil this
difficult task came from the fact that GAs have been widely used in
applications including classification of unknown data.
The utilization of new and emerging technologies like web
services allows integrating the provided services to any web based
legacy e-learning environment.
Abstract: In this paper, the effects of radiation, chemical
reaction and double dispersion on mixed convection heat and mass
transfer along a semi vertical plate are considered. The plate is
embedded in a Newtonian fluid saturated non - Darcy (Forchheimer
flow model) porous medium. The Forchheimer extension and first
order chemical reaction are considered in the flow equations. The
governing sets of partial differential equations are nondimensionalized
and reduced to a set of ordinary differential
equations which are then solved numerically by Fourth order Runge–
Kutta method. Numerical results for the detail of the velocity,
temperature, and concentration profiles as well as heat transfer rates
(Nusselt number) and mass transfer rates (Sherwood number) against
various parameters are presented in graphs. The obtained results are
checked against previously published work for special cases of the
problem and are found to be in good agreement.
Abstract: Power system state estimation is the process of
calculating a reliable estimate of the power system state vector
composed of bus voltages' angles and magnitudes from telemetered
measurements on the system. This estimate of the state vector
provides the description of the system necessary for the operation
and security monitoring. Many methods are described in the
literature for solving the state estimation problem, the most important
of which are the classical weighted least squares method and the nondeterministic
genetic based method; however both showed
drawbacks. In this paper a modified version of the genetic
algorithm power system state estimation is introduced, Sensitivity of
the proposed algorithm to genetic operators is discussed, the
algorithm is applied to case studies and finally it is compared with
the classical weighted least squares method formulation.
Abstract: In the present research, two nutraceuticals made from
red grape and walnut that showed previously to improve kidney
dysfunction were incorporated separately into functional foods' bread
made from barley and rice bran. The functional foods were evaluated
in rats in which chronic renal failure was induced through feeding
diet rich in adenine and phosphate (APD). The evaluation based on
assessing kidney function, oxidative stress, inflammatory biomarkers
and body weight gain. Results showed induction of chronic kidney
failure reflected in significant increase in plasma urea, creatinine,
malondialdehyde, tumor necrosis factor- α and low density
lipoprotein cholesterol along with significant reduction of plasma
albumin, and total antioxidant and creatinine clearance and body
weight gain on feeding APD compared to control healthy group.
Feeding the functional foods produced amelioration in the different
biochemical parameters and body weight gain indicating
improvement in kidney function.
Abstract: A method is presented for obtaining the error probability for block codes. The method is based on the eigenvalueeigenvector properties of the code correlation matrix. It is found that under a unary transformation and for an additive white Gaussian noise environment, the performance evaluation of a block code becomes a one-dimensional problem in which only one eigenvalue and its corresponding eigenvector are needed in the computation. The obtained error rate results show remarkable agreement between simulations and analysis.
Abstract: An evolutionary method whose selection and recombination
operations are based on generalization error-bounds of
support vector machine (SVM) can select a subset of potentially
informative genes for SVM classifier very efficiently [7]. In this
paper, we will use the derivative of error-bound (first-order criteria)
to select and recombine gene features in the evolutionary process,
and compare the performance of the derivative of error-bound with
the error-bound itself (zero-order) in the evolutionary process. We
also investigate several error-bounds and their derivatives to compare
the performance, and find the best criteria for gene selection
and classification. We use 7 cancer-related human gene expression
datasets to evaluate the performance of the zero-order and first-order
criteria of error-bounds. Though both criteria have the same strategy
in theoretically, experimental results demonstrate the best criterion
for microarray gene expression data.
Abstract: To compress, improve bit error performance and also enhance 2D images, a new scheme, called Iterative Cellular-Turbo System (IC-TS) is introduced. In IC-TS, the original image is partitioned into 2N quantization levels, where N is denoted as bit planes. Then each of the N-bit-plane is coded by Turbo encoder and transmitted over Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel. At the receiver side, bit-planes are re-assembled taking into consideration of neighborhood relationship of pixels in 2-D images. Each of the noisy bit-plane values of the image is evaluated iteratively using IC-TS structure, which is composed of equalization block; Iterative Cellular Image Processing Algorithm (ICIPA) and Turbo decoder. In IC-TS, there is an iterative feedback link between ICIPA and Turbo decoder. ICIPA uses mean and standard deviation of estimated values of each pixel neighborhood. It has extra-ordinary satisfactory results of both Bit Error Rate (BER) and image enhancement performance for less than -1 dB Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) values, compared to traditional turbo coding scheme and 2-D filtering, applied separately. Also, compression can be achieved by using IC-TS systems. In compression, less memory storage is used and data rate is increased up to N-1 times by simply choosing any number of bit slices, sacrificing resolution. Hence, it is concluded that IC-TS system will be a compromising approach in 2-D image transmission, recovery of noisy signals and image compression.
Abstract: In this paper, we study on color transformation
method on website images for the color blind. The most common
category of color blindness is red-green color blindness which is
viewed as beige color. By transforming the colors of the images, the
color blind can improve their color visibility. They can have a better
view when browsing through the websites. To transform colors on
the website images, we study on two algorithms which are the
conversion techniques from RGB color space to HSV color space and
self-organizing color transformation. The comparative study focuses
on criteria based on the ease of use, quality, accuracy and efficiency.
The outcome of the study leads to enhancement of website images to
meet the color blinds- vision requirements in perceiving image
detailed.
Abstract: This study aimed to evaluate the muscularity and tissue composition of 24 legs of Ile de France lambs. They were fed with diets containing “in nature" or hydrolyzed sugarcane with 0.6% of calcium oxide in aerobic and anaerobic environments. Animals entered the trial at 15 and were slaughtered at 32 kg of body weight. The leg tissue composition, as well as muscularity (0.47), muscle:bone (6.66) and muscle:fat (4.25) were not affected (P>0.05) by treatments. The proportions found were: 67.62% for muscle, 17.52% for bone and 10.15% for fat. In relation to lambs fed with “in nature" sugarcane, hydrolyzed sugarcane with calcium oxide in aerobic and anaerobic environments did not affect muscularity and leg tissue composition of lambs.
Abstract: The onset of Marangoni convection in a horizontal
fluid layer with internal heat generation overlying a solid layer
heated from below is studied. The upper free surface of a fluid is
nondeformable and the bottom boundary are rigid and no-slip. The
resulting eigenvalue problem is solved exactly. The critical values of
the Marangoni numbers for the onset of Marangoni convection are
calculated and the latter is found to be critically dependent on the
internal heating, depth ratio and conductivity ratio. The effects of the
thermal conductivity and the thickness of the solid plate on the onset
of convective instability with internal heating are studied in detail.
Abstract: Due to heightened concerns over environmental and economic issues the growing important of air pollution, and the importance of conserving fossil fuel resources in the world, the automotive industry is now forced to produce more fuel efficient, low emission vehicles and new drive system technologies. One of the most promising technologies to receive attention is the hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), which consists of two or more energy sources that supply energy to electric traction motors that in turn drive the wheels. This paper presents the various structures of HEV systems, the basic theoretical knowledge for describing their operation and the general behaviour of the HEV in acceleration, cruise and deceleration phases. The conventional design and sizing of a series HEV is studied. A conventional bus and its series configuration are defined and evaluated using the ADVISOR. In this section the simulation of a standard driving cycle and prediction of its fuel consumption and emissions of the HEV are discussed. Finally the bus performance is investigated to establish whether it can satisfy the performance, fuel consumption and emissions requested. The validity of the simulation has been established by the close conformity between the fuel consumption of the conventional bus reported by the manufacturer to what has achieved from the simulation.