Abstract: The number of cross-border student between Hong
Kong and mainland China is increasing due to an increase of
cross-border marriage between Hong Kong and mainland China. Since
the education system is different to the mainland China, the statue
Since all the children who have the right of abode in Hong Kong
entitle to have free education in Hong Kong, many of the cross-border
family prefer to send the children back to Hong Kong for their
education.
Abstract: This paper gives an overview of how an OWL
ontology has been created to represent template knowledge models
defined in CML that are provided by CommonKADS.
CommonKADS is a mature knowledge engineering methodology
which proposes the use of template knowledge model for knowledge
modelling. The aim of developing this ontology is to present the
template knowledge model in a knowledge representation language
that can be easily understood and shared in the knowledge
engineering community. Hence OWL is used as it has become a
standard for ontology and also it already has user friendly tools for
viewing and editing.
Abstract: Vector quantization is a powerful tool for speech
coding applications. This paper deals with LPC Coding of speech
signals which uses a new technique called Multi Switched Split
Vector Quantization (MSSVQ), which is a hybrid of Multi, switched,
split vector quantization techniques. The spectral distortion
performance, computational complexity, and memory requirements
of MSSVQ are compared to split vector quantization (SVQ), multi
stage vector quantization(MSVQ) and switched split vector
quantization (SSVQ) techniques. It has been proved from results that
MSSVQ has better spectral distortion performance, lower
computational complexity and lower memory requirements when
compared to all the above mentioned product code vector
quantization techniques. Computational complexity is measured in
floating point operations (flops), and memory requirements is
measured in (floats).
Abstract: This paper proposes a framework for product
development including hardware and software components. It
provides separation of hardware dependent software, modifications of
current product development process, and integration of software
modules with existing product configuration models and assembly
product structures. In order to decide the dependent software, the
framework considers product configuration modules and engineering
changes of associated software and hardware components. In order to
support efficient integration of the two different hardware and
software development, a modified product development process is
proposed. The process integrates the dependent software development
into product development through the interchanges of specific product
information. By using existing product data models in Product Data
Management (PDM), the framework represents software as modules
for product configurations and software parts for product structure.
The framework is applied to development of a robot system in order to
show its effectiveness.
Abstract: This study investigates the electrical performance of a
planar solid oxide fuel cell unit with cross-flow configuration when the fuel utilization gets higher and the fuel inlet flow are non-uniform.
A software package in this study solves two-dimensional,
simultaneous, partial differential equations of mass, energy, and
electro-chemistry, without considering stack direction variation. The
results show that the fuel utilization increases with a decrease in the molar flow rate, and the average current density decreases when the
molar flow rate drops. In addition, non-uniform Pattern A will induce more severe happening of non-reaction area in the corner of the fuel
exit and the air inlet. This non-reaction area deteriorates the average
current density and then deteriorates the electrical performance to –7%.
Abstract: Information technology managers nowadays are
facing with tremendous pressure to plan, implement, and adopt new
technology solution due to the rapidity of technology changes.
Resulted from a lack of study that have been done in this topic, the
aim of this paper is to provide a comparison review on current tools
that are currently being used in order to respond to technological
changes. The study is based on extensive literature review of
published works with majority of them are ranging from 2000 to the
first part of 2011. The works were gathered from journals, books,
and other information sources available on the Web. Findings show
that, each tools has different focus and none of the tools are
providing a framework in holistic view, which should include
technical, people, process, and business environment aspect. Hence,
this result provides potential information about current available
tools that IT managers could use to manage changes in technology.
Further, the result reveals a research gap in the area where the
industries a short of such framework.
Abstract: Atlantic herring (Clupea harengus) is an important
commercial fish and shows to be more and more demanded for
human consumption. Therefore, it is very important to find good
methods for monitoring the freshness of the fish in order to keep it in
the best quality for human consumption. In this study, the fish was
stored in ice up to 2 weeks. Quality changes during storage were
assessed by the Quality Index Method (QIM), quantitative
descriptive analysis (QDA) and Torry scheme, by texture
measurements: puncture tests and Texture Profile Analysis (TPA)
tests on texture analyzer TA.XT2i, and by electronic nose (e-nose)
measurements using FreshSense instrument. Storage time of herring
in ice could be estimated by QIM with ± 2 days using 5 herring per
lot. No correlation between instrumental texture parameters and
storage time or between sensory and instrumental texture variables
was found. E-nose measurements could be use to detect the onset of
spoilage.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to analyze the islands
tourist travel information sources, as well as for the satisfaction of the
tourist destination services. This study used questionnaires to the
island of Taiwan to the Penghu Islands to engage in tourism activities
tourist adopt the designated convenience sampling method, a total of
889 valid questionnaires were collected. After statistical analysis, this
study found that: 1. tourists to the Penghu Islands travel information
source for “friends and family came to Penghu". 2. Tourists feel the
service of the outlying islands of Penghu, the highest feelings of
“friendly local residents". 3. There are different demographic variables
affect the tourist travel information source and service satisfaction.
Based on the findings of this study not only for Penghu's tourism
industry with the unit in charge of the proposed operating and
suggestions for future research to other researchers.
Abstract: The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of
texturizers on the rheological properties of the apple mass and
desserts made from various raw materials. The apple varieties -
‘Antonovka’, ‘Baltais Dzidrais’, and ‘Zarja Alatau’ harvested in
Latvia, were used for the experiment. The apples were processed in a
blender unpeeled for obtaining a homogenous mass. The apple mass
was analyzed fresh and after storage at –18ºC. Both fresh and thawed
apple mass samples with added gelatin, xantan gum, and sodium
carboxymethylcellulose were whisked obtaining dessert. Pectin, pH
and soluble dry matter of the product were determined. Apparent
viscosity was measured using a rotational viscometer DV–III Ultra.
Pectin content in frozen apple mass decreased significantly (p
Abstract: Querying a data source and routing data towards sink
becomes a serious challenge in static wireless sensor networks if sink
and/or data source are mobile. Many a times the event to be observed
either moves or spreads across wide area making maintenance of
continuous path between source and sink a challenge. Also, sink can
move while query is being issued or data is on its way towards sink.
In this paper, we extend our already proposed Grid Based Data
Dissemination (GBDD) scheme which is a virtual grid based
topology management scheme restricting impact of movement of
sink(s) and event(s) to some specific cells of a grid. This obviates the
need for frequent path modifications and hence maintains continuous
flow of data while minimizing the network energy consumptions.
Simulation experiments show significant improvements in network
energy savings and average packet delay for a packet to reach at sink.
Abstract: With the fast evolution of digital data exchange, security information becomes much important in data storage and transmission. Due to the increasing use of images in industrial process, it is essential to protect the confidential image data from unauthorized access. In this paper, we analyze the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES), and we add a key stream generator (A5/1, W7) to AES to ensure improving the encryption performance; mainly for images characterised by reduced entropy. The implementation of both techniques has been realized for experimental purposes. Detailed results in terms of security analysis and implementation are given. Comparative study with traditional encryption algorithms is shown the superiority of the modified algorithm.
Abstract: Fast depth estimation from binocular vision is often
desired for autonomous vehicles, but, most algorithms could not easily
be put into practice because of the much time cost. We present an
image-processing technique that can fast estimate depth image from
binocular vision images. By finding out the lines which present the
best matched area in the disparity space image, the depth can be
estimated. When detecting these lines, an edge-emphasizing filter is
used. The final depth estimation will be presented after the smooth
filter. Our method is a compromise between local methods and global
optimization.
Abstract: Image synthesis is an important area in image processing.
To synthesize images various systems are proposed in
the literature. In this paper, we propose a bio-inspired system to
synthesize image and to study the generating power of the system, we
define the class of languages generated by our system. We call image
as array in this paper. We use a primitive called iso-array to synthesize
image/array. The operation is double splicing on iso-arrays. The
double splicing operation is used in DNA computing and we use
this to synthesize image. A comparison of the family of languages
generated by the proposed self restricted double splicing systems on
iso-arrays with the existing family of local iso-picture languages is
made. Certain closure properties such as union, concatenation and
rotation are studied for the family of languages generated by the
proposed model.
Abstract: The demand of the energy management systems (EMS) set forth by modern power systems requires fast energy management systems. Contingency analysis is among the functions in EMS which is time consuming. In order to handle this limitation, this paper introduces agent based technology in the contingency analysis. The main function of agents is to speed up the performance. Negotiations process in decision making is explained and the issue set forth is the minimization of the operating costs. The IEEE 14 bus system and its line outage have been used in the research and simulation results are presented.
Abstract: The value of overall oxygen transfer Coefficient
(KLa), which is the best measure of oxygen transfer in water through
aeration, is obtained by a simple approach, which sufficiently
explains the utility of the method to eliminate the discrepancies due
to inaccurate assumption of saturation dissolved oxygen
concentration. The rate of oxygen transfer depends on number of
factors like intensity of turbulence, which in turns depends on the
speed of rotation, size, and number of blades, diameter and
immersion depth of the rotor, and size and shape of aeration tank, as
well as on physical, chemical, and biological characteristic of water.
An attempt is made in this paper to correlate the overall oxygen
transfer Coefficient (KLa), as an independent parameter with other
influencing parameters mentioned above. It has been estimated that
the simulation equation developed predicts the values of KLa and
power with an average standard error of estimation of 0.0164 and
7.66 respectively and with R2 values of 0.979 and 0.989 respectively,
when compared with experimentally determined values. The
comparison of this model is done with the model generated using
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and both the models were
found to be in good agreement with each other.
Abstract: In Grid computing, a data transfer protocol called
GridFTP has been widely used for efficiently transferring a large volume
of data. Currently, two versions of GridFTP protocols, GridFTP
version 1 (GridFTP v1) and GridFTP version 2 (GridFTP v2), have
been proposed in the GGF. GridFTP v2 supports several advanced
features such as data streaming, dynamic resource allocation, and
checksum transfer, by defining a transfer mode called X-block mode.
However, in the literature, effectiveness of GridFTP v2 has not been
fully investigated. In this paper, we therefore quantitatively evaluate
performance of GridFTP v1 and GridFTP v2 using mathematical
analysis and simulation experiments. We reveal the performance
limitation of GridFTP v1, and quantitatively show effectiveness of
GridFTP v2. Through several numerical examples, we show that by
utilizing the data streaming feature, the average file transfer time of
GridFTP v2 is significantly smaller than that of GridFTP v1.
Abstract: Object-oriented programming is a wonderful way to
make programming of huge real life tasks much easier than by using
procedural languages. In order to teach those ideas to students, it
is important to find a good task that shows the advantages of OOprogramming
very naturally. This paper gives an example, the game
Battleship, which seems to work excellent for teaching the OO ideas
(using Java, [1], [2], [3], [4]).
A three-step task is presented for how to teach OO-programming
using just one example suitable to convey many of the OO ideas.
Observations are given at the end and conclusions about how the
whole teaching course worked out.
Abstract: In this paper, we present the design and experimental
evaluation of complementary energy path adiabatic logic (CEPAL)
based 1 bit full adder circuit. A simulative investigation on the
proposed full adder has been done using VIRTUOSO SPECTRE
simulator of cadence in 0.18μm UMC technology and its
performance has been compared with the conventional CMOS full
adder circuit. The CEPAL based full adder circuit exhibits the energy
saving of 70% to the conventional CMOS full adder circuit, at 100
MHz frequency and 1.8V operating voltage.
Abstract: Heart-s electric field can be measured anywhere on
the surface of the body (ECG). When individuals touch, one person-s
ECG signal can be registered in other person-s EEG and elsewhere
on his body. Now, the aim of this study was to test the hypothesis
that physical contact (hand-holding) of two persons changes their
heart rate variability. Subjects were sixteen healthy female (age: 20-
26) which divided into eight sets. In each sets, we had two friends
that they passed intimacy test of J.sternberg. ECG of two subjects
(each set) acquired for 5 minutes before hand-holding (as control
group) and 5 minutes during they held their hands (as experimental
group). Then heart rate variability signals were extracted from
subjects' ECG and analyzed in linear feature space (time and
frequency domain) and nonlinear feature space. Considering the
results, we conclude that physical contact (hand-holding of two
friends) increases parasympathetic activity, as indicate by increase
SD1, SD1/SD2, HF and MF power (p
Abstract: We studied the evolution of elliptic heavy SF6
gas cylinder surrounded by air when accelerated by a planar
Mach 1.25 shock. A multiple dynamics imaging technology has
been used to obtain one image of the experimental initial
conditions and five images of the time evolution of elliptic
cylinder. We compared the width and height of the circular and
two kinds of elliptic gas cylinders, and analyzed the vortex
strength of the elliptic ones. Simulations are in very good
agreement with the experiments, but due to the different initial
gas cylinder shapes, a certain difference of the initial density
peak and distribution exists between the circular and elliptic
gas cylinders, and the latter initial state is more sensitive and
more inenarrable.