Abstract: Computer network courses are essential parts of college computer science curriculum and hands-on networking experience is well recognized as an effective approach to help students understand better about the network concepts, the layered architecture of network protocols, and the dynamics of the networks. However, existing networking labs are usually server-based and relatively cumbersome, which require a certain level of specialty and resource to set up and maintain the lab environment. Many universities/colleges lack the resources and build-ups in this field and have difficulty to provide students with hands-on practice labs. A new affordable and easily-adoptable approach to networking labs is desirable to enhance network teaching and learning. In addition, current network labs are short on providing hands-on practice for modern wireless and mobile network learning. With the prevalence of smart mobile devices, wireless and mobile network are permeating into various aspects of our information society. The emerging and modern mobile technology provides computer science students with more authentic learning experience opportunities especially in network learning. A mobile device based hands-on labware can provide an excellent ‘real world’ authentic learning environment for computer network especially for wireless network study. In this paper, we present our mobile device-based hands-on labware (series of lab module) for computer network learning which is guided by authentic learning principles to immerse students in a real world relevant learning environment. We have been using this labware in teaching computer network, mobile security, and wireless network classes. The student feedback shows that students can learn more when they have hands-on authentic learning experience.
Abstract: The objective of the study is to investigate the
effect of a footballer-s postural on selected physical fitness
components. Twenty-one (21) subjects of the university male
footballers under the Sport Excellence Center programme were
photographed using qualitative analysis. The postural variables
were stratified manually into normal and anomalies group and
their flexibility, strength and SAQ performance were
compared using the Mann-Whitney Test. The AROM
assessment and SAQ test reported no significance difference
(Z=-.398, p=0.711, p>0.05), similar to the lower body strength
was shown with no significance different (Z=-.493, p=0.640,
p>0.05). In contrast, only 1 RM strength test for the upper
body strength test shown with a significance different (Z=-
2.537, p=0.009, p
Abstract: In social network analysis the mean nodal degree and
density of the graph can be considered as a measure of the activity of
all actors in the network and this is an important property of a graph
and for making comparisons among networks. Since subjects in a
family or organization are subject to common environment factors, it
is prime interest to study the association between responses.
Therefore, we study the distribution of the mean nodal degree and
density of the graph under correlated binary units. The cross product
ratio is used to capture the intra-units association among subjects.
Computer program and an application are given to show the benefits
of the method.
Abstract: Due to the limited lifetime of the nodes in ad hoc and sensor networks, energy efficiency needs to be an important design consideration in any routing algorithm. It is known that by employing a virtual backbone in a wireless network, the efficiency of any routing scheme for the network can be improved. One common design for routing protocols in mobile ad hoc networks is to use positioning information; we use the node-s geometric locations to introduce an algorithm that can construct the virtual backbone structure locally in 3D environment. The algorithm construction has a constant time.
Abstract: Here we report on the utilization of Laser-Induced
Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) for determination of Quantum Dots
(QDs) in liquid solution. The process of optimization of experimental
conditions from choosing the carrier medium to application of colloid
QDs is described. The main goal was to get the best possible signal to
noise ratio.
The results obtained from the measurements confirmed the capability
of LIBS technique for qualitative and afterwards quantitative
determination of QDs in liquid solution.
Abstract: The predictability of masonry arch bridges and their
behaviour is widely considered doubtful due to the lack of knowledge
about the conditions of a given masonry arch bridge. The assessment
methods for masonry arch bridges are MEXE, ARCHIE, RING and
Frame Analysis Method. The material properties of the masonry and
fill material are extremely difficult to determine accurately.
Consequently, it is necessary to examine the effect of load dispersal
angle through the fill material, the effect of variations in the stiffness
of the masonry, the tensile strength of the masonry mortar continuum
and the compressive strength of the masonry mortar continuum. It is
also important to understand the effect of fill material on load
dispersal angle to determine their influence on ratings. In this paper a
series of parametric studies, to examine the sensitivity of assessment
ratings to the various sets of input data required by the frame analysis
method, are carried out.
Abstract: Wheat has a bimodal starch granule population and the dependency of the rate of enzymatic hydrolysis on particle size has been investigated. Ungelatinised wheaten starch granules were separated into two populations by sedimentation and decantation. Particle size was analysed by laser diffraction and morphological characteristics were viewed using SEM. The sedimentation technique though lengthy, gave satisfactory separation of the granules. Samples (10μm and original) were digested with a-amylase using a dialysis model. Granules of 10μm (p10μm. Moreover, the digestion rate was dependent on particle size whereby smaller granules produced higher rate of release. The methodology and results reported here can be used as a basis for further evaluations designed to delay the release of glucose during the digestion of native starches.
Abstract: Among many different methods that are used for
optimizing different engineering problems mathematical (numerical)
optimization techniques are very important because they can easily
be used and are consistent with most of engineering problems. Many
studies and researches are done on stability analysis of three
dimensional (3D) slopes and the relating probable slip surfaces and
determination of factors of safety, but in most of them force
equilibrium equations, as in simplified 2D methods, are considered
only in two directions. In other words for decreasing mathematical
calculations and also for simplifying purposes the force equilibrium
equation in 3rd direction is omitted. This point is considered in just a
few numbers of previous studies and most of them have only given a
factor of safety and they haven-t made enough effort to find the most
probable slip surface. In this study shapes of the slip surfaces are
modeled, and safety factors are calculated considering the force
equilibrium equations in all three directions, and also the moment
equilibrium equation is satisfied in the slip direction, and using
nonlinear programming techniques the shape of the most probable
slip surface is determined. The model which is used in this study is a
3D model that is composed of three upper surfaces which can cover
all defined and probable slip surfaces. In this research the meshing
process is done in a way that all elements are prismatic with
quadrilateral cross sections, and the safety factor is defined on this
quadrilateral surface in the base of the element which is a part of the
whole slip surface. The method that is used in this study to find the
most probable slip surface is the non-linear programming method in
which the objective function that must get optimized is the factor of
safety that is a function of the soil properties and the coordinates of
the nodes on the probable slip surface. The main reason for using
non-linear programming method in this research is its quick
convergence to the desired responses. The final results show a good
compatibility with the previously used classical and 2D methods and
also show a reasonable convergence speed.
Abstract: Energy consumption is a very important topic these
days especially regarding air conditioning in residential buildings,
since this takes the biggest amount of energy in buildings total
consumption, residential buildings constitute the biggest percentage
of energy consumption in Bahrain.
This research reflects on the effects of shading percentage in
different solar orientations on the energy consumption inside
residential buildings (domestic dwellings).
The research as found that, there are different effects of shading in
changing building orientation:
• 0.69% for the shading percentage 25% when the building is
oriented to the north (0º);
• 18.59% for 75% of shading in north-west orientation
(325º);
• The best effect for shading is in north-west orientation
(315º);
• The less effect for shading was in case of the building
orientation is the north (0º).
Abstract: This paper studied the synthesis of monoacylglycerol (monolaurin) by glycerolysis of coconut oil and crude glycerol, catalyzed by Carica papaya lipase. Coconut oil obtained from cold pressed extraction method and crude glycerol obtained from the biodiesel plant in Department of Chemistry, Uttaradit Rajabhat University, Thailand which used oils were used as raw materials for biodiesel production through transesterification process catalyzed by sodium hydroxide. The influences of the following variables were studied: (i) type of organic solvent, (ii) molar ratio of substrate, (iii) reaction temperature, (iv) reaction time, (v) lipase dosage, and (vi) initial water activity of enzyme. High yields in monoacylglycerol (58.35%) were obtained with molar ratio of glycerol to oil at 8:1 in ethanol, temperature was controlled at 45oC for 36 hours, the amount of enzyme used was 20 wt% of oil and initial water activity of enzyme at 0.53.
Abstract: Formulation of biological profile is one of the modern roles of forensic anthropologist. The present study was conducted to estimate height using foot and shoeprint length of Malaysian population. The present work can be very useful information in the process of identification of individual in forensic cases based on shoeprint evidence. It can help to narrow down suspects and ease the police investigation. Besides, stature is important parameters in determining the partial identify of unidentified and mutilated bodies. Thus, this study can help the problem encountered in cases of mass disaster, massacre, explosions and assault cases. This is because it is very hard to identify parts of bodies in these cases where people are dismembered and become unrecognizable. Samples in this research were collected from 200 Malaysian adults (100 males and 100 females) with age ranging from 20 to 45 years old. In this research, shoeprint length were measured based on the print of the shoes made from the flat shoes. Other information like gender, foot length and height of subject were also recorded. The data was analyzed using IBM® SPSS Statistics 19 software. Results indicated that, foot length has a strong correlation with stature than shoeprint length for both sides of the feet. However, in the unknown, where the gender was undetermined have shown a better correlation in foot length and shoeprint length parameter compared to males and females analyzed separately. In addition, prediction equations are developed to estimate the stature using linear regression analysis of foot length and shoeprint length. However, foot lengths give better prediction than shoeprint length.
Abstract: Aircraft propulsion systems often use Y-shaped
subsonic diffusing ducts as twin air-intakes to supply the ambient air
into the engine compressor for thrust generation. Due to space
constraint, the diffusers need to be curved, which causes severe flow
non-uniformity at the engine face. The present study attempt to
control flow in a mild-curved Y-duct diffuser using trapezoidalshaped
vortex generators (VG) attached on either both the sidewalls
or top and bottom walls of the diffuser at the inflexion plane. A
commercial computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code is modified
and is used to simulate the effects of SVG in flow of a Y-duct
diffuser. A few experiments are conducted for CFD code validation,
while the rest are done computationally. The best combination of Yduct
diffuser is found with VG-2 arranged in co-rotating sequence
and attached to both the sidewalls, which ensures highest static
pressure recovery, lowest total pressure loss, minimum flow
distortion and less flow separation in Y-duct diffuser. The decrease in
VG height while attached to top and bottom walls further improves
axial flow uniformity at the diffuser outlet by a great margin as
compared to the bare duct.
Abstract: This paper suggests a calibration method to reduce
errors occurring due to mobile robot sliding during location estimation
using the Dead-reckoning. Due to sliding of the mobile robot caused
between its wheels and the road surface while on free run, location
estimation can be erroneous. Sliding especially occurs during
cornering of mobile robot. Therefore, in order to reduce these frequent
sliding errors in cornering, we calibrated the mobile robot-s heading
values using a vision camera and templates of the ceiling.
Abstract: In this research, natural canthaxanthin as one of the
most important carotenoids was extracted from Dietzia
natronolimnaea HS-1. The changes of canthaxanthin enriched in oilin-
water emulsions with vegetable oil (5 mg/ 100 mL), Arabic gum (5
mg/100 mL), and potassium sorbate (0.5 g/100 mL) was investigated.
The effects of different pH (3, 5 and 7), as well as, time treatment (3,
18 and 33 days) in the environmental temperature (24°C) on the
degradation were studied by response surface methodology (RSM).
The Hunter values (L*, a*, and b*) and the concentration of
canthaxanthin (C, mg/L) illustrated more degradation of this pigment
at low pHs (pH≤ 4) by passing the time (days≥10) with R² 97.00%,
91.31%, 97.60%, and 99.54% for C, L*, a*, and b* respectively. The
predicted model were found to be significant (p
Abstract: Signalized intersections on high-volume arterials are
often congested during peak hours, causing a decrease in through
movement efficiency on the arterial. Much of the vehicle delay
incurred at conventional intersections is caused by high left-turn
demand. Unconventional intersection designs attempt to reduce
intersection delay and travel time by rerouting left-turns away from
the main intersection and replacing it with right-turn followed by Uturn.
The proposed new type of U-turn intersection is geometrically
designed with a raised island which provides a protected U-turn
movement. In this study several scenarios based on different
distances between U-turn and main intersection, traffic volume of
major/minor approaches and percentage of left-turn volumes were
simulated by use of AIMSUN, a type of traffic microsimulation
software. Subsequently some models are proposed in order to
compute travel time of each movement. Eventually by correlating
these equations to some in-field collected data of some implemented
U-turn facilities, the reliability of the proposed models are approved.
With these models it would be possible to calculate travel time of
each movement under any kind of geometric and traffic condition. By
comparing travel time of a conventional signalized intersection with
U-turn intersection travel time, it would be possible to decide on
converting signalized intersections into this new kind of U-turn
facility or not. However comparison of travel time is not part of the
scope of this research. In this paper only travel time of this innovative
U-turn facility would be predicted. According to some before and
after study about the traffic performance of some executed U-turn
facilities, it is found that commonly, this new type of U-turn facility
produces lower travel time. Thus, evaluation of using this type of
unconventional intersection should be seriously considered.
Abstract: Crypto System Identification is one of the challenging tasks in Crypt analysis. The paper discusses the possibility of employing Neural Networks for identification of Cipher Systems from cipher texts. Cascade Correlation Neural Network and Back Propagation Network have been employed for identification of Cipher Systems. Very large collection of cipher texts were generated using a Block Cipher (Enhanced RC6) and a Stream Cipher (SEAL). Promising results were obtained in terms of accuracy using both the Neural Network models but it was observed that the Cascade Correlation Neural Network Model performed better compared to Back Propagation Network.
Abstract: In this manuscript, the LBM is applied for simulating of Mixed Convection in a Lid-Driven cavity with an open side. The cavity horizontal walls are insulated while the west Lid-driven wall is maintained at a uniform temperature higher than the ambient. Prandtl number (Pr) is fixed to 0.71 (air) while Reynolds number (Re) , Richardson number (Ri) and aspect ratio (A) of the cavity are changed in the range of 50-150 , of 0.1-10 and of 1-4 , respectively. The numerical code is validated for the standard square cavity, and then the results of an open ended cavity are presented. Result shows by increasing of aspect ratio, the average Nusselt number (Nu) on lid- driven wall decreases and with same Reynolds number (Re) by increasing of aspect ratio (A), Richardson number plays more important role in heat transfer rate.
Abstract: The prediction of transmembrane helical segments
(TMHs) in membrane proteins is an important field in the
bioinformatics research. In this paper, a new method based on discrete
wavelet transform (DWT) has been developed to predict the number
and location of TMHs in membrane proteins. PDB coded as 1KQG
was chosen as an example to describe the prediction of the number and
location of TMHs in membrane proteins by using this method. To
access the effect of the method, 80 proteins with known 3D-structure
from Mptopo database are chosen at random as the test objects
(including 325 TMHs), 308 of which can be predicted accurately, the
average predicted accuracy is 96.3%. In addition, the above 80
membrane proteins are divided into 13 groups according to their
function and type. In particular, the results of the prediction of TMHs
of the 13 groups are satisfying.
Abstract: China apparel industry, which is deeply embedded in
the global production network (GPN), faces the dual pressures of
social upgrading and economic upgrading. Based on the survey in
Ningbo apparel cluster, the paper shows the state of corporate social
responsibility (CSR) in China apparel industry is better than before.
And the investigation indicates that the firms who practice CSR
actively perform better both socially and economically than those who
inactively. The research demonstrates that CSR can be an initial
capital rather than cost, and “doing well by doing good" is also existed
in labor intensive industry.
Abstract: Dichotomization of the outcome by a single cut-off point is an important part of various medical studies. Usually the relationship between the resulted dichotomized dependent variable and explanatory variables is analyzed with linear regression, probit regression or logistic regression. However, in many real-life situations, a certain cut-off point dividing the outcome into two groups is unknown and can be specified only approximately, i.e. surrounded by some (small) uncertainty. It means that in order to have any practical meaning the regression model must be robust to this uncertainty. In this paper, we show that neither the beta in the linear regression model, nor its significance level is robust to the small variations in the dichotomization cut-off point. As an alternative robust approach to the problem of uncertain medical categories, we propose to use the linear regression model with the fuzzy membership function as a dependent variable. This fuzzy membership function denotes to what degree the value of the underlying (continuous) outcome falls below or above the dichotomization cut-off point. In the paper, we demonstrate that the linear regression model of the fuzzy dependent variable can be insensitive against the uncertainty in the cut-off point location. In the paper we present the modeling results from the real study of low hemoglobin levels in infants. We systematically test the robustness of the binomial regression model and the linear regression model with the fuzzy dependent variable by changing the boundary for the category Anemia and show that the behavior of the latter model persists over a quite wide interval.