Abstract: Within the framework of the FP7 project "START" the cooperation with European research centres has had a positive impact on raising the level of innovation researches and the introduction of innovations Institute for Superhard Materials of the National Academy of Sciences (ISM NAS) of Ukraine in the economy of Europe and Ukraine, which in turn permits to speeds up the way for Ukrainian science to the European research area through the creation in Ukraine the scientific organizations of innovative type.
Abstract: To study the meaning of Muslim name in order to analyze the underlining value and identity from first year to forth year Muslim students at Prince of Songkla University, Hatyai Campus. The questionnaires are employed as a main analytical tool to acquire the names from 80 Muslim students in four study years. The meanings of obtained names are subsequently analyzed and summarized base upon related documents to uncover the beneath value. The study reveals that name of male is derived from the name of prophet; Nabi Muhammad, merit, dignity, origins, leadership and the faith in Islam. For female, on the other hand, their names are related to virtue and beauty, cleanliness and peace, hope and flowers which comply with their characteristics. One of the reasons contribute to the principle of naming is the regulation of Ministry of Culture which states that the name should represent one’s nature and characters. The given name reflects value and identity of Muslim which can be classified into three categories including 1) Value related to belief in Islam 2) value related to relationship among families and relatives 3) value about relationship with nature and environment. All the above mentioned reflect Muslim value and identity vividly. The name of Muslim students allows the researcher to perceive the perspective, belief and value in giving the name of Thai Muslim. Besides, it reveals social condition and their culture. It can also be the fundamental of studying the meaning of name in other races.
Abstract: This paper presents the results of a study of the ultra-poor in the south of Thailand, revisited after 10 years since the original study in 2000. The original study was conducted in four provinces. The first two namely Phatthalung and Nakorn were chosen to represent the Thai Buddhists and the others, Satun and Pattani were chosen to represent the Thai Muslims. For this study, only the results from the three provinces except Pattani are reported as it was difficult and dangerous to conduct fieldwork in Pattani due to the continued unrest in the area since 2005.
The objectives of the study are to find out the changes of the poverty situation after 10 years and to see the impacts of the poverty reduction projects implemented by the government on the poor. The research methodology used both quantitative and qualitative methods. The same villages in the four provinces studied in 1999 were again chosen. In each village, five ultra-poor people and heads of the villages were interviewed. The results show that the poverty situation of the ultra-poor groups has not changed much since they lacked the basic key factor to get themselves out of poverty: The ownership of land. Their chronic poverty situation has been passed on from the last generation. In the province of Phatthalung, the ultra-poor have improved in terms of economic situation because of the big increase in the price of rubber. However, the same could not be said for other provinces. Even though the government’s projects have not reduced the poverty directly, the projects have significantly contributed to the improvement of the quality of life of the poor and the people in the areas.
Abstract: In this work, we made anumerical study of the thermal and dynamic behavior of air in a horizontal channel with electronic components.The influenceto use baffles on the profiles of velocity and temperature is discussed.The finite volume method and the algorithm Simple are used for solving the equations of conservation of mass, momentum and energy.The results found show that baffles improve heat transfer between the cooling air and electronic components. The velocity will increase from 3 times per rapport of the initial velocity.
Abstract: Beginning with the debate of concept, this essay explains the historical source and development of flexible housing in China. In the former part, the flexibility contained in traditional house is explored. While in the latter, the relevant practices in modern times are systematically analyzed as three phases–the Embryonic Period (1949 - 1980), the Systematic Practice (1981 - 2000), as well as the Integrated Trend and Prosperity (2001 - present). As a conclusion, the generalized flexibility is tentatively discussed.
Abstract: Wind energy is one of the clean renewable energy. However, the low frequency (20-200HZ) noise generated from the wind turbine blades, which bothers the residents, becomes the major problem to be developed. It is useful for predicting the aerodynamic noise by flow field and pressure distribution analysis on the wind turbine blades. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to use different turbulence models to analyze the flow field and pressure distributions of the wing blades.
Three-dimensional Computation Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulation of the flow field was used to calculate the flow phenomena for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Phase VI horizontal axis wind turbine rotor. Two different flow cases with different wind speeds were investigated: 7m/s with 72rpm and 15m/s with 72rpm.
Four kinds of RANS-based turbulence models, Standard k-ε, Realizable k-ε, SST k-ω, and v2f, were used to predict and analyze the results in the present work. The results show that the predictions on pressure distributions with SST k-ω and v2f turbulence models have good agreements with experimental data.
Abstract: This research aimed to study the beliefs in auspicious materials of entrepreneurs in Muang Hat Yai. The data were collected via documentary research and field work including interviews, observations shops in Hat Yai which used auspicious materials to bring lucks to the shops. The results were as follows. The beliefs in auspicious materials that the entrepreneurs had were of three areas: 1) The auspicious materials could correct the improperness of the shop location, for example, the shop situated opposite a branch road, a shrine, or a bank. The owner usually corrected it by putting Chinese auspicious materials in front of or in the shop, for example, a lion holding a sword in his mouth, or a mirror, etc. 2) The auspicious materials could bring in more income. The owner of the shop usually put the auspicious materials such as a cat beckoning and a bamboo fish trap believed to trap money in front of or inside the shop. 3) The auspicious materials like turtles, paired fish and a monster holding the moon in his mouth could solve life problems including health, family, and safety problems. The use of these auspicious materials showed the blending of the beliefs of the Chinese shop entrepreneurs with the Thai folk beliefs. What is interesting is that Hat Yai is located near the three southern border provinces which are the unrest area and this may cause the number of tourists to decline. This prompted them to build a mechanism in adjusting themselves both to save their lives and to increase the number of customers. Auspicious materials can make them feel more confident.
Abstract: Medical image analysis is one of the great effects of computer image processing. There are several processes to analysis the medical images which the segmentation process is one of the challenging and most important step. In this paper the segmentation method proposed in order to segment the dental radiograph images. Thresholding method has been applied to simplify the images and to morphologically open binary image technique performed to eliminate the unnecessary regions on images. Furthermore, horizontal and vertical integral projection techniques used to extract the each individual tooth from radiograph images. Segmentation process has been done by applying the level set method on each extracted images. Nevertheless, the experiments results by 90% accuracy demonstrate that proposed method achieves high accuracy and promising result.
Abstract: In the era of rapidly increasing notebook market, consumer electronics manufacturers are facing a highly dynamic and competitive environment. In particular, the product appearance is the first part for user to distinguish the product from the product of other brands. Notebook product should differ in its appearance to engage users and contribute to the user experience (UX). The UX evaluates various product concepts to find the design for user needs; in addition, help the designer to further understand the product appearance preference of different market segment. However, few studies have been done for exploring the relationship between consumer background and the reaction of product appearance. This study aims to propose a data mining framework to capture the user’s information and the important relation between product appearance factors. The proposed framework consists of problem definition and structuring, data preparation, rules generation, and results evaluation and interpretation. An empirical study has been done in Taiwan that recruited 168 subjects from different background to experience the appearance performance of 11 different portable computers. The results assist the designers to develop product strategies based on the characteristics of consumers and the product concept that related to the UX, which help to launch the products to the right customers and increase the market shares. The results have shown the practical feasibility of the proposed framework.
Abstract: This paper presents an intention interface and controller for a wire-driven heavy object lifting system that assists the operator with moving a heavy object. The handler is designed to allow a comfortable working posture for the operator. Plus, as a human assistive system, the operator is involved in the control loop, where a fuzzy control system is used to consider the human control characteristics. The effectiveness and performance of the proposed system are proved by experiments.
Abstract: Coagulation is a process that sanitizes leather effluents. It aims to reduce pollutants such as Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), chloride, sulfate, chromium, suspended solids, and other dissolved solids. The current study aimed to evaluate coagulation efficiency of tannery wastewater by analyzing the change in organic matter, odor, color, ammonium ions, nutrients, chloride, H2S, sulfate, suspended solids, total dissolved solids, fecal pollution, and chromium hexavalent before and after treatment. Effluent samples were treated with coagulants Ca(OH)2 and FeSO4 .7H2O. The best advantages of this treatment included the removal of: COD (81.60%); ammonia ions (98.34%); nitrate ions (92%); chromium hexavalent (75.00%); phosphate (70.00%); chloride (69.20%); and H₂S (50%). Results also indicated a high level of efficiency in the reduction of fecal pollution indicators. Unfortunately, only a modest reduction of sulfate (19.00%) and TSS (13.00%) and an increase in TDS (15.60%) was observed.
Abstract: ERP has been used in many enterprises for management, the accuracy of the production forecasting module is vital to the decision making of the enterprise, and the profit is affected directly. Therefore, enhancing the accuracy of the production forecasting module can also increase the efficiency and profitability. To deal with a lot of data, a suitable, reliable and accurate statistics model is necessary. LSSVM and Grey System are two main models to be studied in this paper, and a case study is used to demonstrate how the combination model is effective to the result of forecasting.
Abstract: Carbon capture, transport and underground storage have become a major solution to reduce CO2 emissions from power plants and other large CO2 sources. A big part of this captured CO2 stream is transported at high pressure dense phase conditions and stored in offshore underground depleted oil and gas fields. CO2 is also transported in offshore pipelines to be used for enhanced oil and gas recovery. The captured CO2 stream with impurities may contain water that causes severe corrosion problems, flow assurance failure and might damage valves and instrumentations. Thus, free water formation should be strictly prevented. The purpose of this work is to study the solubility of water in pure CO2 and in CO2 mixtures under real pipeline pressure (90-150 bar) and temperature operation conditions (5-35°C). A set up was constructed to generate experimental data. The results show the solubility of water in CO2 mixtures increasing with the increase of the temperature or/and with the increase in pressure. A drop in water solubility in CO2 is observed in the presence of impurities. The data generated were then used to assess the capabilities of two mixture models: the GERG-2008 model and the EOS-CG model. By generating the solubility data, this study contributes to determine the maximum allowable water content in CO2 pipelines.
Abstract: Hospitals, everywhere, are considered heavy energy consumers. Hospital Intensive Care Unit spaces pose a special challenge, where design guidelines requires the provision of external windows for daylighting and external view. Window protection strategies could be employed to reduce energy loads without detriment effect on comfort or health care. This paper addresses the effectiveness of using various window strategies on the annual cooling, heating and lighting energy use of a typical Hospital Intensive Unit space. Series of experiments were performed using the EnergyPlus simulation software for a typical Intensive Care Unit (ICU) space in Cairo, located in the Egyptian desert. This study concluded that the use of shading systems is more effective in conserving energy in comparison with glazing of different types, in the Cairo ICUs. The highest energy savings in the West and South orientations were accomplished by external perforated solar screens, followed by overhangs positioned at a protection angle of 45°.
Abstract: The tourism industry has been widely used to eradicate poverty, due to the ability to generate income, employment as well as improving the quality of life. The industry has faced rapid growth with support from local residents who were involved directly and indirectly in tourism activities. Their support and behaviour does not only facilitate in boosting tourists’ satisfaction levels, but at the same time it contributes to the word-of-mouth promotion among the visitors. In order to ensure the success of the industry, the involvement and participation of the local communities are pertinent. This paper endeavours on local community attitudes, benefit and their support toward future tourism development in Tioman Island. Through a series of descriptive and factor analyses, various useful understandings on the issues of interest revealed. The findings indicated that community with personal benefit will support future development. Meanwhile, the finding also revealed that the community with negative perception still supports future tourism development due to their over reliance on this sector as their main source of income and destination development means.
Abstract: The present study investigates the length-weight relationship of Terapon jarbua from Puducherry (East coast of India). A total of 370 individuals of different sizes were collected from Puducherry landings centre. Length-weight relationships were calculated for all specimens sampled. The length weight relationship equations are W = 0.0050 L3.2742; W = 0.0035 L3.3616; W = 0.0736 L2.4076; W = 0.0098 L3.0807; W = 0.0088 L3.0914; W = 0.0038 L3.3776 for immature male, immature female, matured male, matured female, total male, and total female respectively. The growth exponential (b) values were found to be positively allometric for all the stages except matured male.
Abstract: This paper investigates a new data mining capability that entails mining of High Utility Itemsets (HUI) in a distributed environment. Existing research in data mining deals with only presence or absence of an items and do not consider the semantic measures like weight or cost of the items. Thus, HUI mining algorithm has evolved. HUI mining is the one kind of utility mining concept, aims to identify itemsets whose utility satisfies a given threshold. Although, the approach of mining HUIs in a distributed environment and mining of the same from XML data have not explored yet. In this work, a novel approach is proposed to mine HUIs from the XML based data in a distributed environment. This work utilizes Service Oriented Computing (SOC) paradigm which provides Knowledge as a Service (KaaS). The interesting patterns are provided via the web services with the help of knowledge server to answer the queries of the consumers. The performance of the approach is evaluated on various databases using execution time and memory consumption.
Abstract: Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is one of the most substitute emerging nanotechnologies for electronic circuits, because of lower power consumption, higher speed and smaller size in comparison with CMOS technology. The basic devices, a Quantum-dot cell can be used to implement logic gates and wires. As it is the fundamental building block on nanotechnology circuits. By applying XOR gate the hardware requirements for a QCA circuit can be decrease and circuits can be simpler in terms of level, delay and cell count. This article present a modest approach for implementing novel optimized XOR gate, which can be applied to design many variants of complex QCA circuits. Proposed XOR gate is simple in structure and powerful in terms of implementing any digital circuits. In order to verify the functionality of the proposed design some complex implementation of parity generator and parity checker circuits are proposed and simulating by QCA Designer tool and compare with some most recent design. Simulation results and physical relations confirm its usefulness in implementing every digital circuit.
Abstract: This study investigated the combined effect of cold rolling and heat treatment on the mechanical properties of Al-Ti alloy. Samples of the alloy are cast in metal mould to obtain 0.94-2.19wt% mixes of titanium. These samples are grouped into untreated (as-cast) and those that are cold rolled to fifty percent reduction, homogenized at 5000C and soaked for one hour. The cold rolled and heat treated samples are normalized (RTn) and quench-tempered (RTq-t) at 1000C. All these samples are subjected to tensile, micro-hardness and microstructural evaluation. Results show remarkable improvement in the mechanical properties of the cold rolled and heat treated samples compared to the as-cast. In particular, the RTq-t samples containing titanium in the range of 1.7-2.2% demonstrates improve tensile strength by 24.7%, yield strength, 28%, elastic modulus, 38.3% and micro-hardness, 20.5%. The Al3Ti phase being the most stable precipitate in the α-Al matrix appears to have been responsible for the significant improvement in the alloy’s mechanical properties. It is concluded that quench and temper heat treatment is an effective method of improving the strength-strain ratio of cold rolled Al-.0.9-2.2%Ti alloy.
Abstract: Nowadays the use of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV) is increasing dramatically. The HEV is mainly dependent on electricity and there is always a need for storage of charge. Fuel Cell (FC), Batteries and Ultra Capacitor are being used for the proposed HEV as an electric power source or as an energy storage unit. The aim of developing an energy management technique is to utilize the sources according to the requirement of the vehicle with help of controller. This increases the efficiency of hybrid electric vehicle to reduce the fuel consumption and unwanted emission. The Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) in FC is done using (Perturb & Observe) algorithm. In this paper, the control of automobiles at variable speed is achieved effectively.