Abstract: The performance and complexity of QoS routing depends on the complex interaction between a large set of parameters. This paper investigated the scaling properties of source-directed link-state routing in large core networks. The simulation results show that the routing algorithm, network topology, and link cost function each have a significant impact on the probability of successfully routing new connections. The experiments confirm and extend the findings of other studies, and also lend new insight designing efficient quality-of-service routing policies in large networks.
Abstract: The aim of the present work is to study the effect of annealing on the vibration damping capacity of high-chromium (16%) ferromagnetic steel. The alloys were prepared from raw materials of 99.9% purity melted in a high frequency induction furnace under high vacuum. The samples were heat-treated in vacuum at various temperatures (800 to 1200ºC) for 1 hour followed by slow cooling (120ºC/h). The inverted torsional pendulum method was used to evaluate the vibration damping capacity. The results indicated that the vibration damping capacity of the alloys is influenced by annealing and there exists a critical annealing temperature after 1000ºC. The damping capacity increases quickly below the critical temperature since the magnetic domains move more easily.
Abstract: This paper examines the relationships between and
among the various drivers of climate change that have both climatic
and ecological consequences for vegetation and land cover change in
arctic areas, particularly in arctic Alaska. It discusses the various
processes that have created spatial and climatic structures that have
facilitated observable vegetation and land cover changes in the
Arctic. Also, it indicates that the drivers of both climatic and
ecological changes in the Arctic are multi-faceted and operate in a
system with both positive and negative feedbacks that largely results
in further increases or decreases of the initial drivers of climatic and
vegetation change mainly at the local and regional scales. It
demonstrates that the impact of arctic warming on land cover change
and the Arctic ecosystems is not unidirectional and one dimensional
in nature but it represents a multi-directional and multi-dimensional
forces operating in a feedback system.
Abstract: Termination Mechanism is an indispensible part of the
emergency management mechanism. Despite of its importance in both
theory and practice, it is almost a brand new field for researching. The
concept of termination mechanism is proposed firstly in this paper,
and the design and implementation which are helpful to guarantee the
effect and integrity of emergency management are discussed secondly.
Starting with introduction of the problems caused by absent
termination and incorrect termination, the essence of termination
mechanism is analyzed, a model based on Optimal Stopping Theory is
constructed and the termination index is given. The model could be
applied to find the best termination time point.. Termination decision
should not only be concerned in termination stage, but also in the
whole emergency management process, which makes it a dynamic
decision making process. Besides, the main subjects and the procedure
of termination are illustrated after the termination time point is given.
Some future works are discussed lastly.
Abstract: Primary and secondary data from the Bauchi abattoir were utilized to determine the relative contributions of different livestock species to meat supply in Bauchi Metropolis. Daily livestock slaughter figures for five months (June – October 2011) indicated that more goats (64.0) were slaughtered than either sheep (47.3) or cattle (41.30) each day (P
Abstract: In this paper, a watermarking algorithm that uses the wavelet transform with Multiple Description Coding (MDC) and Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) concepts is introduced. Also, the paper investigates the role of Contourlet Transform (CT) versus Wavelet Transform (WT) in providing robust image watermarking. Two measures are utilized in the comparison between the waveletbased and the contourlet-based methods; Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Normalized Cross-Correlation (NCC). Experimental results reveal that the introduced algorithm is robust against different attacks and has good results compared to the contourlet-based algorithm.
Abstract: In this paper, a new descent-projection method with a
new search direction for monotone structured variational inequalities
is proposed. The method is simple, which needs only projections
and some function evaluations, so its computational load is very tiny.
Under mild conditions on the problem-s data, the method is proved to
converges globally. Some preliminary computational results are also
reported to illustrate the efficiency of the method.
Abstract: In present study the effects of anti-inflammatory and
antinociceptive of vitex hydro-alcoholic extract were evaluated on
male mice. In inflammatory test mice were divided into 7 groups:
first group was control. The second group, positive control group,
received dexamethasone (15 mg/kg) and the other five groups
received different doses of hydroalcohol extract of Vitex fruit (265,
365, 465, 565, and 665 mg/kg). The inflammation was caused by
xylene-induced ear edema. Formalin test was used for evaluation of
antinociceptive effect of extract. In this test, mice were divided into 7
groups: control, morphine (10mg/kg) as positive control group, and
Vitex extract groups ((265, 365, 465, 565, and 665 mg/kg). All drugs
were administered intrapritoneally, 30 min before each test. The data
were analyzed using one-way ANOVA followed by Tukey-kramer
multiple comparison test. Results have shown significant antiinflammatory
effects of extract at all dosed as compared with control
(P
Abstract: Analysis for the propagation of elastic waves in
arbitrary anisotropic plates is investigated, commencing with a
formal analysis of waves in a layered plate of an arbitrary anisotropic
media, the dispersion relations of elastic waves are obtained by
invoking continuity at the interface and boundary of conditions on
the surfaces of layered plate. The obtained solutions can be used for
material systems of higher symmetry such as monoclinic,
orthotropic, transversely isotropic, cubic, and isotropic as it is
contained implicitly in the analysis. The cases of free layered plate
and layered half space are considered separately. Some special cases
have also been deduced and discussed. Finally numerical solution of
the frequency equations for an aluminum epoxy is carried out, and
the dispersion curves for the few lower modes are presented. The
results obtained theoretically have been verified numerically and
illustrated graphically.
Abstract: The characteristics of fluid flow and phase separation
in an oil-water separator were numerically analysed as part of the
work presented herein. Simulations were performed for different
velocities and droplet diameters, and the way this parameters can
influence the separator geometry was studied.
The simulations were carried out using the software package
Fluent 6.2, which is designed for numerical simulation of fluid flow
and mass transfer. The model consisted of a cylindrical horizontal
separator. A tetrahedral mesh was employed in the computational
domain. The condition of two-phase flow was simulated with the
two-fluid model, taking into consideration turbulence effects using
the k-ε model.
The results showed that there is a strong dependency of phase
separation on mixture velocity and droplet diameter. An increase in
mixture velocity will bring about a slow down in phase separation
and as a consequence will require a weir of greater height. An
increase in droplet diameter will produce a better phase separation.
The simulations are in agreement with results reported in literature
and show that CFD can be a useful tool in studying a horizontal oilwater
separator.
Abstract: This paper shows a simple and effective approach to
the design and implementation of Industrial Information Systems
(IIS) oriented to control the characteristics of each individual product manufactured in a production line and also their manufacturing conditions. The particular products considered in this work are large steel strips that are coiled just after their manufacturing. However, the approach is directly applicable to coiled strips in other industries, like
paper, textile, aluminum, etc. These IIS provide very detailed information of each manufactured product, which complement the general information managed by the ERP system of the production line. In spite of the high importance of this type of IIS to guarantee and improve the quality of the products manufactured in many industries, there are very few works about them in the technical literature. For this reason, this paper represents an important contribution to the development of this type of IIS, providing guidelines for their design, implementation and exploitation.
Abstract: This paper introduces a tool that is being developed for the expression of information security policy controls that govern electronic healthcare records. By reference to published findings, the paper introduces the theory behind the use of knowledge management for automatic and consistent security policy assertion using the formalism called the Secutype; the development of the tool and functionality is discussed; some examples of Secutypes generated by the tool are provided; proposed integration with existing medical record systems is described. The paper is concluded with a section on further work and critique of the work achieved to date.
Abstract: Sickness absence represents a major economic and
social issue. Analysis of sick leave data is a recurrent challenge to analysts because of the complexity of the data structure which is
often time dependent, highly skewed and clumped at zero. Ignoring these features to make statistical inference is likely to be inefficient
and misguided. Traditional approaches do not address these problems. In this study, we discuss model methodologies in terms of statistical techniques for addressing the difficulties with sick leave data. We also introduce and demonstrate a new method by performing a longitudinal assessment of long-term absenteeism using
a large registration dataset as a working example available from the Helsinki Health Study for municipal employees from Finland during the period of 1990-1999. We present a comparative study on model
selection and a critical analysis of the temporal trends, the occurrence
and degree of long-term sickness absences among municipal employees. The strengths of this working example include the large
sample size over a long follow-up period providing strong evidence in supporting of the new model. Our main goal is to propose a way to
select an appropriate model and to introduce a new methodology for analysing sickness absence data as well as to demonstrate model
applicability to complicated longitudinal data.
Abstract: Text categorization (the assignment of texts in natural language into predefined categories) is an important and extensively studied problem in Machine Learning. Currently, popular techniques developed to deal with this task include many preprocessing and learning algorithms, many of which in turn require tuning nontrivial internal parameters. Although partial studies are available, many authors fail to report values of the parameters they use in their experiments, or reasons why these values were used instead of others. The goal of this work then is to create a more thorough comparison of preprocessing parameters and their mutual influence, and report interesting observations and results.
Abstract: This paper describes a computer-aided design for
design of the concave globoidal cam with cylindrical rollers and
swinging follower. Four models with different modeling methods are
made from the same input data. The input data are angular input and
output displacements of the cam and the follower and some other
geometrical parameters of the globoidal cam mechanism. The best
cam model is the cam which has no interference with the rollers
when their motions are simulated in assembly conditions. The
angular output displacement of the follower for the best cam is also
compared with that of in the input data to check errors. In this study,
Pro/ENGINEER® Wildfire 2.0 is used for modeling the cam,
simulating motions and checking interference and errors of the
system.
Abstract: the research was conducted using the self report of
shoplifters who apprehended in the supermarket while stealing. 943
shoplifters in three years were interviewed right after the stealing act
and before calling the police. The aim of the study is to know the
shoplifting characteristics in Saudi Arabia, including the trait of
shoplifters and the situation of the supermarkets where the stealing
takes place. The analysis based on the written information about each
thief as the documentary research method. Descriptive statistics as
well as some inferential statistics were employed. The result shows
that there are differences between genders, age groups, occupations,
time of the day, days of the week, months, way of stealing, individual
or group of thieves and other supermarket situations in the type of
items stolen, total price and the count of items. The result and the
recommendation will serve as a guide for retailers where, when and
who to look at to prevent shoplifting.
Abstract: Metal stamping die design is a complex, experiencebased
and time-consuming task. Various artificial intelligence (AI)
techniques are being used by worldwide researchers for stamping die
design to reduce complexity, dependence on human expertise and
time taken in design process as well as to improve design efficiency.
In this paper a comprehensive review of applications of AI
techniques in manufacturability evaluation of sheet metal parts, die
design and process planning of metal stamping die is presented.
Further the salient features of major research work published in the
area of metal stamping are presented in tabular form and scope of
future research work is identified.
Abstract: An advanced Monte Carlo simulation method, called Subset Simulation (SS) for the time-dependent reliability prediction for underground pipelines has been presented in this paper. The SS can provide better resolution for low failure probability level with efficient investigating of rare failure events which are commonly encountered in pipeline engineering applications. In SS method, random samples leading to progressive failure are generated efficiently and used for computing probabilistic performance by statistical variables. SS gains its efficiency as small probability event as a product of a sequence of intermediate events with larger conditional probabilities. The efficiency of SS has been demonstrated by numerical studies and attention in this work is devoted to scrutinise the robustness of the SS application in pipe reliability assessment. It is hoped that the development work can promote the use of SS tools for uncertainty propagation in the decision-making process of underground pipelines network reliability prediction.
Abstract: Transesterification of candlenut (aleurites moluccana)
oil with methanol using potassium hydroxide as catalyst was
studied. The objective of the present investigation was to produce
the methyl ester for use as biodiesel. The operation variables
employed were methanol to oil molar ratio (3:1 – 9:1), catalyst
concentration (0.50 – 1.5 %) and temperature (303 – 343K). Oil
volume of 150 mL, reaction time of 75 min were fixed as common
parameters in all the experiments. The concentration of methyl ester
was evaluated by mass balance of free glycerol formed which was
analyzed by using periodic acid. The optimal triglyceride conversion
was attained by using methanol to oil ratio of 6:1, potassium
hydroxide as catalyst was of 1%, at room temperature. Methyl ester
formed was characterized by its density, viscosity, cloud and pour
points. The biodiesel properties had properties similar to those of
diesel oil, except for the viscosity that was higher.
Abstract: In the present study, fracture behavior of woven
fabric-reinforced glass/epoxy composite laminates under mode III
crack growth was experimentally investigated and numerically
modeled. Two methods were used for the calculation of the strain
energy release rate: the experimental compliance calibration (CC)
method and the Virtual Crack Closure Technique (VCCT). To
achieve this aim ECT (Edge Crack Torsion) was used to evaluate
fracture toughness in mode III loading (out of plane-shear) at
different crack lengths. Load–displacement and associated energy
release rates were obtained for various case of interest. To
calculate fracture toughness JIII, two criteria were considered
including non-linearity and maximum points in load-displacement
curve and it is observed that JIII increases with the crack length
increase. Both the experimental compliance method and the virtual
crack closure technique proved applicable for the interpretation of the
fracture mechanics data of woven glass/epoxy laminates in mode III.