Abstract: The Beshar River is one of the most important aquatic ecosystems in the upstream of the Karun watershed in south of Iran which is affected by point and non point pollutant sources . This study was done in order to evaluate the effects of pollutants activities on the water quality of the Beshar river and its aquatic ecosystems. This river is approximately 190 km in length and situated at the geographical positions of 51° 20´ to 51° 48´ E and 30° 18´ to 30° 52´ N it is one of the most important aquatic ecosystems of Kohkiloye and Boyerahmad province in south-west Iran. In this research project, five study stations were selected to examine water pollution in the Beshar River systems. Human activity is now one of the most important factors affecting on hydrology and water quality of the Beshar river. Humans use large amounts of resources to sustain various standards of living, although measures of sustainability are highly variable depending on how sustainability is defined. The Beshar river ecosystems are particularly sensitive and vulnerable to human activities. Therefore, to determine the impact of human activities on the Beshar River, the most important water quality parameters such as pH, dissolve oxygen (DO), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD5), Total Dissolve Solids (TDS), Nitrates (NO3-N) and Phosphates (PO4) were estimated at the five stations. As the results show, the most important pollution index parameters such as BOD5, NO3 and PO4 increase and DO and pH decrease according to human activities (P
Abstract: The problem of N cracks interaction in an isotropic
elastic solid is decomposed into a subproblem of a homogeneous solid
without crack and N subproblems with each having a single crack
subjected to unknown tractions on the two crack faces. The unknown
tractions, namely pseudo tractions on each crack are expanded into
polynomials with unknown coefficients, which have to be determined
by the consistency condition, i.e. by the equivalence of the original
multiple cracks interaction problem and the superposition of the N+1
subproblems. In this paper, Kachanov-s approach of average tractions
is extended into the method of moments to approximately impose the
consistence condition. Hence Kachanov-s method can be viewed as
the zero-order method of moments. Numerical results of the stress
intensity factors are presented for interactions of two collinear cracks,
three collinear cracks, two parallel cracks, and three parallel cracks.
As the order of moment increases, the accuracy of the method of
moments improves.
Abstract: Nano fibers produced by electrospinning are of industrial and scientific attention due to their special characteristics such as long length, small diameter and high surface area. Applications of electrospun structures in nanotechnology are included tissue scaffolds, fibers for drug delivery, composite reinforcement, chemical sensing, enzyme immobilization, membrane-based filtration, protective clothing, catalysis, solar cells, electronic devices and others. Many polymer and ceramic precursor nano fibers have been successfully electrospun with diameters in the range from 1 nm to several microns. The process is complex so that fiber diameter is influenced by various material, design and operating parameters. The objective of this work is to apply genetic algorithm on the parameters of electrospinning which have the most significant effect on the nano fiber diameter to determine the optimum parameter values before doing experimental set up. Effective factors including initial polymer concentration, initial jet radius, electrical potential, relaxation time, initial elongation, viscosity and distance between nozzle and collector are considered to determine finest diameter which is selected by user.
Abstract: Studies in economics domain tried to reveal the correlation between stock markets. Since the globalization era, interdependence between stock markets becomes more obvious. The Dynamic Interaction Network (DIN) algorithm, which was inspired by a Gene Regulatory Network (GRN) extraction method in the bioinformatics field, is applied to reveal important and complex dynamic relationship between stock markets. We use the data of the stock market indices from eight countries around the world in this study. Our results conclude that DIN is able to reveal and model patterns of dynamic interaction from the observed variables (i.e. stock market indices). Furthermore, it is also found that the extracted network models can be utilized to predict movement of the stock market indices with a considerably good accuracy.
Abstract: This research was undertaken to study enzymatic activity in the shoots, roots, and rhizosphere of alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.) grown in quartz sand that was uncontaminated and
contaminated with phenanthrene at concentrations of 10 and 100 mg kg-1. The higher concentration of phehanthrene had a distinct
phytotoxic effect on alfalfa, inhibiting seed germination energy, plant survival, and biomass accumulation. The plant stress response to the
environmental pollution was an increase in peroxidase activity. Peroxidases were the predominant enzymes in the alfalfa shoots and
roots. The peroxidase profile in the shoots differed from that in the roots and had different isoenzyme numbers. 2,2'-Azinobis-(3-ethylbenzo-thiazoline-6-sulphonate) (ABTS) peroxidase was
predominant in the shoots, and 2,7-diaminofluorene (2,2-DAF)
peroxidase was predominant in the roots. Under the influence of
phenanthrene, the activity of 2,7-DAF peroxidase increased in the
shoots, and the activity of ABTS peroxidase increased in the roots.
Alfalfa root peroxidases were the prevalent enzyme systems in the
rhizosphere sand. Examination of the activity of alfalfa root
peroxidase toward phenanthrene revealed the possibility of
involvement of the plant enzyme in rhizosphere degradation of the
PAH.
Abstract: The research was designed to examine the relationship
between the development of muscle fatigue and the effect it has on
sport performance, specifically during maximal voluntary
contraction. This kind of this investigation using simultaneous
electrophysiological and mechanical recordings, based on advanced
mathematical processing, allows us to get parameters, and indexes in
a short time, and finally, the mapping to use for the thorough
investigation of the muscle contraction force, respectively the
phenomenon of local muscle fatigue, both for athletes and other
subjects.
Abstract: The ongoing effort to develop an in-house
compressible solver with multi-disciplinary physics is presented in
this paper. Basic compressible solver combined with IBM technique
provides us an effective numerical tool able to tackle the physics
phenomena and especially physic phenomena involved in Solid
Rocket Motors (SRMs). Main principles are introduced step by step
describing its implementation. This paper sheds light on the whole
potentiality of our proposed numerical model and we strongly believe
a way to introduce multi-physics mechanisms strongly coupled is
opened to ablation in nozzle, fluid/structure interaction and burning
propellant surface with time.
Abstract: Descriptive statistics was performed with the aim to achieve research objective of to investigate lecturers- usage of the mobile technology for teaching. A representative sample of 20 lecturers from the Faculty of Industrial Art & Design Technology of Universiti Industri Selangor (UNISEL), Malaysia was selected as the respondents. The result attested that lecturers fully accept the concept of mobility in learning and game play is appealing concept to support classroom learning. Subsequently, analogous experience on small size of keypad, screen resolution, and navigation could be the major problematic factors to students and affect their mobile learning process. Recommendation for future research is also presented.
Abstract: This work presents a theoretical investigation of the
simultaneous absorption of CO2 and H2S into aqueous solutions of
MDEA and DEA. In this process the acid components react
with the basic alkanolamine solution via an exothermic,
reversible reaction in a gas/liquid absorber. The use of amine
solvents for gas sweetening has been investigated using
process simulation programs called HYSYS and ASPEN. We
use Electrolyte NRTL and Amine Package and Amines
(experimental) equation of state. The effects of temperature and
circulation rate and amine concentration and packed column and
murphree efficiency on the rate of absorption were studied.
When lean amine flow and concentration increase, CO2 and H2S
absorption increase too. With the improvement of inlet amine
temperature in absorber, CO2 and H2S penetrate to upper stages of
absorber and absorption of acid gases in absorber decreases. The CO2
concentration in the clean gas can be greatly influenced by the
packing height, whereas for the H2S concentration in the clean gas the
packing height plays a minor role. HYSYS software can not
estimate murphree efficiency correctly and it applies the same
contributions in all diagrams for HYSYS software. By
improvement in murphree efficiency, maximum temperature
of absorber decrease and the location of reaction transfer to the
stages of bottoms absorber and the absorption of acid gases
increase.
Abstract: This paper proposes the use of metrics in design space exploration that highlight where in the structure of the model and at what point in the behaviour, prevention is needed against transient faults. Previous approaches to tackle transient faults focused on recovery after detection. Almost no research has been directed towards preventive measures. But in real-time systems, hard deadlines are performance requirements that absolutely must be met and a missed deadline constitutes an erroneous action and a possible system failure. This paper proposes the use of metrics to assess the system design to flag where transient faults may have significant impact. These tools then allow the design to be changed to minimize that impact, and they also flag where particular design techniques – such as coding of communications or memories – need to be applied in later stages of design.
Abstract: Microbial air contamination of the outdoor air in Marine Durres-s Harbour (Durres, Albania) was estimated by sedimentation technique in August-October 2008. The sampling areas were: Ferry Terminal (FT), Fishery Harbor (FH), East Zone (EZ), Fuel Quay (FQ) and Apollonian Beach (AB). The aim of this study was to measure the number of aerobic plate count (mesophilic aerobic bacteria) and fungi (yeasts and molds) in the outdoor air in these areas. The number of colonies that were formed determines the number of cells at the moment in the outdoor air; respectively the number of mesophilic aerobic bacteria and yeasts and molds. The measure of bacteria and fungi used is CFU (Colony Forming Units) per Petri dish. It is said that marine harbours are very polluted areas. The aim of study was the definition of mesophilic aerobic bacteria and yeasts and molds number, and the comparison of microorganisms number in air sampling areas.
Abstract: Building condition assessment is a critical activity in Malaysia-s Comprehensive Asset Management Model. It is closely related to building performance that impact user-s life and decision making. This study focuses on public primary school, one of the most valuable assets for the country. The assessment was carried out based on CSP1 Matrix in Kuching Division of Sarawak, Malaysia. Based on the matrix used, three main criteria of the buildings has successfully evaluate: the number of defects; schools rating; and total schools rating. The analysis carried out on 24 schools found that the overall 4, 725 defects has been identified. Meanwhile, the overall score obtained was 45, 868 and the overall rating is 9.71, which is at the fair condition. This result has been associated with building age to evaluate its impacts on school buildings condition. The findings proved that building condition is closely related to building age and its support the theory that 'the ageing building has more defect than the new one'.
Abstract: In pattern recognition applications the low level segmentation and the high level object recognition are generally considered as two separate steps. The paper presents a method that bridges the gap between the low and the high level object recognition. It is based on a Bayesian network representation and network propagation algorithm. At the low level it uses hierarchical structure of quadratic spline wavelet image bases. The method is demonstrated for a simple circuit diagram component identification problem.
Abstract: This paper presents an optimal and unsupervised satellite image segmentation approach based on Pearson system and k-Means Clustering Algorithm Initialization. Such method could be considered as original by the fact that it utilised K-Means clustering algorithm for an optimal initialisation of image class number on one hand and it exploited Pearson system for an optimal statistical distributions- affectation of each considered class on the other hand. Satellite image exploitation requires the use of different approaches, especially those founded on the unsupervised statistical segmentation principle. Such approaches necessitate definition of several parameters like image class number, class variables- estimation and generalised mixture distributions. Use of statistical images- attributes assured convincing and promoting results under the condition of having an optimal initialisation step with appropriated statistical distributions- affectation. Pearson system associated with a k-means clustering algorithm and Stochastic Expectation-Maximization 'SEM' algorithm could be adapted to such problem. For each image-s class, Pearson system attributes one distribution type according to different parameters and especially the Skewness 'β1' and the kurtosis 'β2'. The different adapted algorithms, K-Means clustering algorithm, SEM algorithm and Pearson system algorithm, are then applied to satellite image segmentation problem. Efficiency of those combined algorithms was firstly validated with the Mean Quadratic Error 'MQE' evaluation, and secondly with visual inspection along several comparisons of these unsupervised images- segmentation.
Abstract: This paper describes identification of the two poles
unstable SOPDT process, especially with large time delay. A new
modified relay feedback identification method for two poles unstable
SOPDT process is proposed. Furthermore, for the two poles unstable
SOPDT process, an additional Derivative controller is incorporated
parallel with relay to relax the constraint on the ratio of delay to the
unstable time constant, so that the exact model parameters of
unstable processes can be identified. To cope with measurement
noise in practice, a low pass filter is suggested to get denoised output
signal toimprove the exactness of model parameter of unstable
process. PID Lead-lag tuning formulas are derived for two poles
unstable (SOPDT) processes based on IMC principle. Simulation
example illustrates the effectiveness and the simplicity of the
proposed identification and control method.
Abstract: Generalization is one of the most challenging issues
of Learning Classifier Systems. This feature depends on the
representation method which the system used. Considering the
proposed representation schemes for Learning Classifier System, it
can be concluded that many of them are designed to describe the
shape of the region which the environmental states belong and the
other relations of the environmental state with that region was
ignored. In this paper, we propose a new representation scheme
which is designed to show various relationships between the
environmental state and the region that is specified with a particular
classifier.
Abstract: The aim of this paper is to present a new
three-dimensional proportional-pursuit coupled (PP) guidance law to
track highly maneuverable aircraft. Utilizing a 3-D polar coordinate frame, the PP guidance law is formed by collecting proportional
navigation guidance in Z-R plane and pursuit guidance in X-Y plane.
Feedback linearization control method to solve the guidance
accelerations is used to implement PP guidance. In order to
compensate the actuator time delay, the time delay compensated
version of PP guidance law (CPP) was derived and proved the
effectiveness of modifying the problem of high acceleration in the final
phase of pursuit guidance and improving the weak robustness of
proportional navigation. The simulation results for intercepting Max G
turn situation show that the proposed proportional-pursuit coupled
guidance law guidance law with actuator delay compensation (CPP)
possesses satisfactory robustness and performance.
Abstract: Motivated by the recent work of Herbert, Hayen, Macaskill and Walter [Interval estimation for the difference of two independent variances. Communications in Statistics, Simulation and Computation, 40: 744-758, 2011.], we investigate, in this paper, new confidence intervals for the difference between two normal population variances based on the generalized confidence interval of Weerahandi [Generalized Confidence Intervals. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 88(423): 899-905, 1993.] and the closed form method of variance estimation of Zou, Huo and Taleban [Simple confidence intervals for lognormal means and their differences with environmental applications. Environmetrics 20: 172-180, 2009]. Monte Carlo simulation results indicate that our proposed confidence intervals give a better coverage probability than that of the existing confidence interval. Also two new confidence intervals perform similarly based on their coverage probabilities and their average length widths.
Abstract: An effective approach for extracting document images from a noisy background is introduced. The entire scheme is divided into three sub- stechniques – the initial preprocessing operations for noise cluster tightening, introduction of a new thresholding method by maximizing the ratio of stan- dard deviations of the combined effect on the image to the sum of weighted classes and finally the image restoration phase by image binarization utiliz- ing the proposed optimum threshold level. The proposed method is found to be efficient compared to the existing schemes in terms of computational complexity as well as speed with better noise rejection.
Abstract: In the present study, computational fluid dynamics
(CFD) simulation has been executed to investigate the transition
boundaries of different flow patterns for moderately viscous oil-water
(viscosity ratio 107, density ratio 0.89 and interfacial tension of 0.032
N/m.) two-phase flow through a horizontal pipeline with internal
diameter and length of 0.025 m and 7.16 m respectively. Volume of
Fluid (VOF) approach including effect of surface tension has been
employed to predict the flow pattern. Geometry and meshing of the
present problem has been drawn using GAMBIT and ANSYS
FLUENT has been used for simulation. A total of 47037 quadrilateral
elements are chosen for the geometry of horizontal pipeline. The
computation has been performed by assuming unsteady flow,
immiscible liquid pair, constant liquid properties, co-axial flow and a
T-junction as entry section. The simulation correctly predicts the
transition boundaries of wavy stratified to stratified mixed flow.
Other transition boundaries are yet to be simulated. Simulated data
has been validated with our own experimental results.