Abstract: A new approach to predict the 3D structures of proteins by combining the knowledge-based method and Molecular Dynamics Simulation is presented on the chicken villin headpiece subdomain (HP-36). Comparative modeling is employed as the knowledge-based method to predict the core region (Ala9-Asn28) of the protein while the remaining residues are built as extended regions (Met1-Lys8; Leu29-Phe36) which then further refined using Molecular Dynamics Simulation for 120 ns. Since the core region is built based on a high sequence identity to the template (65%) resulting in RMSD of 1.39 Å from the native, it is believed that this well-developed core region can act as a 'nucleation center' for subsequent rapid downhill folding. Results also demonstrate that the formation of the non-native contact which tends to hamper folding rate can be avoided. The best 3D model that exhibits most of the native characteristics is identified using clustering method which then further ranked based on the conformational free energies. It is found that the backbone RMSD of the best model compared to the NMR-MDavg is 1.01 Å and 3.53 Å, for the core region and the complete protein, respectively. In addition to this, the conformational free energy of the best model is lower by 5.85 kcal/mol as compared to the NMR-MDavg. This structure prediction protocol is shown to be effective in predicting the 3D structure of small globular protein with a considerable accuracy in much shorter time compared to the conventional Molecular Dynamics simulation alone.
Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) are characterized
by abnormalities in social interaction and communication, as well as
repetitive and stereotyped behaviors. Although various studies have
been conducted in ASDs etiology across the world, it seems that they
are still unknown in Middle East. Some scientific researches have
been conducted on ASDs in Middle East (ME) especially in
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).
A systematic literature review was performed to identify the ASDs
studies in KSA. Accordingly, PubMed, ISI web of Science and
Google were searched to find KSA and ME studies in ASDs. The
main focus of this review work is to outline an improved
understanding of the underpinnings of ASD in order to achieve
therapeutic interventions and we will discuss the main problem we
waiting for solution with reference with role of Transcranial
Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to modulate cortical activity improve
understanding ASD.
Abstract: The management of the health-care wastes is one of
the most important problems in Istanbul, a city with more than 12
million inhabitants, as it is in most of the developing countries.
Negligence in appropriate treatment and final disposal of the healthcare
wastes can lead to adverse impacts to public health and to the
environment. This paper employs a fuzzy multi-criteria group
decision making approach, which is based on the principles of fusion
of fuzzy information, 2-tuple linguistic representation model, and
technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution
(TOPSIS), to evaluate health-care waste (HCW) treatment
alternatives for Istanbul. The evaluation criteria are determined
employing nominal group technique (NGT), which is a method of
systematically developing a consensus of group opinion. The
employed method is apt to manage information assessed using multigranularity
linguistic information in a decision making problem with
multiple information sources. The decision making framework
employs ordered weighted averaging (OWA) operator that
encompasses several operators as the aggregation operator since it
can implement different aggregation rules by changing the order
weights. The aggregation process is based on the unification of
information by means of fuzzy sets on a basic linguistic term set
(BLTS). Then, the unified information is transformed into linguistic
2-tuples in a way to rectify the problem of loss information of other
fuzzy linguistic approaches.
Abstract: Advances in processors architecture, such as multicore,
increase the size of complexity of parallel computer systems.
With multi-core architecture there are different parallel languages
that can be used to run parallel programs. One of these languages is
OpenMP which embedded in C/Cµ or FORTRAN. Because of this
new architecture and the complexity, it is very important to evaluate
the performance of OpenMP constructs, kernels, and application
program on multi-core systems. Performance is the activity of
collecting the information about the execution characteristics of a
program. Performance tools consists of at least three interfacing
software layers, including instrumentation, measurement, and
analysis. The instrumentation layer defines the measured
performance events. The measurement layer determines what
performance event is actually captured and how it is measured by the
tool. The analysis layer processes the performance data and
summarizes it into a form that can be displayed in performance tools.
In this paper, a number of OpenMP performance tools are surveyed,
explaining how each is used to collect, analyse, and display data
collection.
Abstract: Multicarrier transmission system such as Orthogonal
Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) is a promising technique
for high bit rate transmission in wireless communication systems.
OFDM is a spectrally efficient modulation technique that can achieve
high speed data transmission over multipath fading channels without
the need for powerful equalization techniques. A major drawback
of OFDM is the high Peak-to-Average Power Ratio (PAPR) of the
transmit signal which can significantly impact the performance of the
power amplifier. In this paper we have compared the PAPR reduction
performance of Golay and Reed-Muller coded OFDM signal. From
our simulation it has been found that the PAPR reduction performance
of Golay coded OFDM is better than the Reed-Muller coded OFDM
signal. Moreover, for the optimum PAPR reduction performance, code
configuration for Golay and Reed-Muller codes has been identified.
Abstract: There is a renewed interest in land use transport integration as a means of achieving sustainable accessibility. Such accessibility requires designing more than simply the transport network; it also requires attention to place (built form). Transitoriented development would appear to capture many of the criteria deemed important in land use transport integration. In Perth, Australia, there have been planning policies for the past 20 years requiring transit-oriented development around railway stations throughout the metropolitan area. While the policy intent, particularly at the State level, is clear the implementation of policy has been fairly ineffective. The first part of this paper provides an examination of state and local government planning and transport policies, evaluating them using a set of land use transport integration criteria considered all encompassing. This provides some insight into the extent of state and local government capacity to deliver land use transport integration. The second part of this paper examines the extent of implementation by examining existing and proposed land use around station precincts throughout metropolitan Perth. The findings of this research suggest that the capacity of state and local government to deliver land use transport integration is reasonable in a planning policy sense. Implementation, despite long policy lead times, has been lacking. It appears to be more effective where local planning controls have been suspended with new redevelopment authorities given powers to develop land around railway stations.
Abstract: Wireless Sensor and Actor Networks (WSANs) constitute an emerging and pervasive technology that is attracting increasing interest in the research community for a wide range of applications. WSANs have two important requirements: coordination interactions and real-time communication to perform correct and timely actions. This paper introduces a methodology to facilitate the task of the application programmer focusing on the coordination and real-time requirements of WSANs. The methodology proposed in this model uses a real-time component model, UM-RTCOM, which will help us to achieve the design and implementation of applications in WSAN by using the component oriented paradigm. This will help us to develop software components which offer some very interesting features, such as reusability and adaptability which are very suitable for WSANs as they are very dynamic environments with rapidly changing conditions. In addition, a high-level coordination model based on tuple channels (TC-WSAN) is integrated into the methodology by providing a component-based specification of this model in UM-RTCOM; this will allow us to satisfy both sensor-actor and actor-actor coordination requirements in WSANs. Finally, we present in this paper the design and implementation of an application which will help us to show how the methodology can be easily used in order to achieve the development of WSANs applications.
Abstract: This paper investigates the impact of the hand-hold
positions on both antenna performance and the specific absorption
rate (SAR) induced in the user-s head. A cellular handset with
external antenna operating at GSM-900 frequency is modeled and
simulated using a finite difference time-domain (FDTD)-based
platform SEMCAD-X. A specific anthropomorphic mannequin
(SAM) is adopted to simulate the user-s head, whereas a semirealistic
CAD-model of three-tissues is designed to simulate the
user-s hand. The results show that in case of the handset in hand close
to head at different positions; the antenna total efficiency gets
reduced to (14.5% - 5.9%) at cheek-position and to (27.5% to 11.8%)
at tilt-position. The peak averaged SAR1g values in head close to
handset without hand, are 4.67 W/Kg and 2.66 W/Kg at cheek and
tilt-position, respectively. Due to the presence of hand, the SAR1g in
head gets reduced to (3.67-3.31 W/Kg) at cheek-position and to
(1.84-1.64 W/Kg) at tilt-position, depending on the hand-hold
position.
Abstract: Nowadays, keyless entry systems are widely adopted
for vehicle immobilizer systems due to both advantages of security and
convenience. Keyless entry systems could overcome brute-force key
guessing attack, statistics attack and masquerade attack, however,
they can't prevent from thieves stealing behavior. In this paper, we
proposed a new architecture try to improve the existent flaws. The
integration of the keyless entry system and the fingerprint
identification technology is more suitable to implement on the
portable transponder to achieve higher security needs. We also adopt
and modify AES security protocol for life expectancy and security of
the portable transponder. In addition, the identification of a driver's
fingerprint makes the service of automatic reinstatement of a driver's
preferences become possible. Our design can satisfy not only the three
kinds of previous illegal attacks, but also the stealing situation.
Furthermore, many practical factors, such as costs, life expectancy and
performance, have been well considered in the design of portable
transponder.
Abstract: In this study, the performance of a high-frequency arc
welding machine including a two-switch inverter is analyzed. The
control of the system is achieved using two different control
techniques i- fuzzy logic control (FLC) ii- state space averaging
based sliding control. Fuzzy logic control does not need accurate
mathematical model of a plant and can be used in nonlinear
applications. The second method needs the mathematical model of
the system. In this method the state space equations of the system are
derived for two different “on" and “off" states of the switches. The
derived state equations are combined with the sliding control rule
considering the duty-cycle of the converter. The performance of the
system is analyzed by simulating the system using SIMULINK tool
box of MATLAB. The simulation results show that fuzzy logic
controller is more robust and less sensitive to parameter variations.
Abstract: Celiac disease is an immune-mediated disease, triggered in genetically susceptible individuals by ingested gluten from wheat, rye, barley and other closely related cereal grains. The only effective treatment is a strict gluten free diet for life. Latvian producers do not offer gluten-free products. In this research, use of extruded maize flour was tested for substituting rice, maize or buckwheat flour in gluten-free bread formulations at different ratios. Also the influence of extruded maize flour on the quality parameters of gluten-free bread was investigated. The aim of research was to study the influence of extruded maize flour on gluten-free bread quality. Addition of extruded maize flour affect gluten-free bread crumb color, structure of crumb, weight loss and dry off of bread.
Abstract: In today-s world, the efficient utilization of wood
resources comes more and more to the mind of forest owners. It is a
very complex challenge to ensure an efficient harvest of the wood
resources. This is one of the scopes the project “Virtual Forest II"
addresses. Its core is a database with data about forests containing
approximately 260 million trees located in North Rhine-Westphalia
(NRW). Based on this data, tree growth simulations and wood
mobilization simulations can be conducted. This paper focuses on the
latter. It describes a discrete-event-simulation with an attached 3-D
real time visualization which simulates timber harvest using trees
from the database with different crop resources. This simulation can
be displayed in 3-D to show the progress of the wood crop. All the
data gathered during the simulation is presented as a detailed
summary afterwards. This summary includes cost-benefit
calculations and can be compared to those of previous runs to
optimize the financial outcome of the timber harvest by exchanging
crop resources or modifying their parameters.
Abstract: Recent fifteen years witnessed fast improvements in the field of humanoid robotics. The human-like robot structure is
more suitable to human environment with its supreme obstacle avoidance properties when compared with wheeled service robots.
However, the walking control for bipedal robots is a challenging task
due to their complex dynamics. Stable reference generation plays a very important role in control.
Linear Inverted Pendulum Model (LIPM) and the Zero Moment Point (ZMP) criterion are applied in a number of studies for stable
walking reference generation of biped walking robots. This paper follows this main approach too. We propose a natural and continuous ZMP reference trajectory for a stable and human-like walk. The ZMP reference trajectories move forward under the sole of the support foot when the robot body is supported by a single leg. Robot center of mass trajectory is obtained
from predefined ZMP reference trajectories by a Fourier series
approximation method. The Gibbs phenomenon problem common with Fourier approximations of discontinuous functions is avoided by employing continuous ZMP references. Also, these ZMP reference
trajectories possess pre-assigned single and double support phases,
which are very useful in experimental tuning work.
The ZMP based reference generation strategy is tested via threedimensional
full-dynamics simulations of a 12-degrees-of-freedom
biped robot model. Simulation results indicate that the proposed reference trajectory generation technique is successful.
Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to present the design and
instrumentation of a new benchmark multivariable nonlinear control
laboratory. The mathematical model of this system may be used to
test the applicability and performance of various nonlinear control
procedures. The system is a two degree-of-freedom robotic arm with
soft and hard (discontinuous) nonlinear terms. Two novel
mechanisms are designed to allow the implementation of adjustable
Coulomb friction and backlash.
Abstract: This paper will present the implementation of QoS
policy based system by utilizing rules on Access Control List (ACL)
over Layer 3 (L3) switch. Also presented is the architecture on that
implementation; the tools being used and the result were gathered.
The system architecture has an ability to control ACL rules which are
installed inside an external L3 switch. ACL rules used to instruct the
way of access control being executed, in order to entertain all traffics
through that particular switch. The main advantage of using this
approach is that the single point of failure could be prevented when
there are any changes on ACL rules inside L3 switches. Another
advantage is that the agent could instruct ACL rules automatically
straight away based on the changes occur on policy database without
configuring them one by one. Other than that, when QoS policy
based system was implemented in distributed environment, the
monitoring process can be synchronized easily due to the automate
process running by agent over external policy devices.
Abstract: The objective of this experiment was to study of water
relations and chlorophyll in different wheat genotypes and their
correlations with grain and biological yields. 21 genotypes of bread
wheat were compared in a field experiment as randomized complete
blocks design with four replications. The results showed that relative
water deficit, relative water loss, excised leaf water retention, cell
membrane stability, chlorophyll-a, chlorophyll-b, total chlorophyll,
grain yield and biological yield were different significantly among
wheat genotypes, but SPAD-chlorophyll index, relative water content
and chlorophyll florescence were not. Significant correlations were
not observed among above mentioned water relations and
chlorophyll characteristics with grain yield, but there was a positive
and significant correlation between biological yield and grain yield.
Abstract: Retrieval of the surface reflectance is important in the
remotely sensed data analysis to obtain the atmospheric reflectance or
atmospheric correction. The relationship between visible and mid
infrared reflectance over land was investigated and developed in this
study. The surface reflectances of the two visible bands were
measured using a handheld spectroradiometer collected around
Penang Island. In this study, we use the assumption that the 2.1 μm
band is not affected by aerosol and it is transparent to most aerosol
types (except dust). Therefore the satellite observed signal is the
same as the surface signal in 2.1 μm band. The correlation between
the surface reflectance measured by the spectroradiometer in the blue
and red region and the 2.1 μm observed by the satellite has been
established. We investigate five dates of Landsat TM scenes in this
study. The finding obtained by this study indicates that the surface
reflectance can be retrieved from the 2.1 μm band.
Abstract: This paper deals with a nonlinear fractional differential equation with integral boundary condition of the following form: Dαt x(t) = f(t, x(t),Dβ t x(t)), t ∈ (0, 1), x(0) = 0, x(1) = 1 0 g(s)x(s)ds, where 1 < α ≤ 2, 0 < β < 1. Our results are based on the Schauder fixed point theorem and the Banach contraction principle.
Abstract: The power system network is becoming more
complex nowadays and it is very difficult to maintain the stability
of the system. Today-s enhancement of technology makes it
possible to include new energy storage devices in the electric
power system. In addition, with the aid of power electronic
devices, it is possible to independently exchange active and
reactive power flow with the utility grid. The main purpose of this
paper proposes a Proportional – Integral (PI) control based 48 –
pulse Inverter based Static Synchronous Series Compensator
(SSSC) with and without Superconducting Magnetic Energy
Storage (SMES) used for enhancing the transient stability and
regulating power flow in automatic mode. Using a test power
system through the dynamic simulation in Matlab/Simulink
platform validates the performance of the proposed SSSC with and
without SMES system.
Abstract: Using ab initio theoretical calculations, we present
analysis of fragmentation process. The analysis is performed in two
steps. The first step is calculation of fragmentation energies by ab
initio calculations. The second step is application of the energies to
kinetic description of process. The energies of fragments are
presented in this paper. The kinetics of fragmentation process can be
described by numerical models. The method for kinetic analysis is
described in this paper. The result - composition of fragmentation
products - will be calculated in future. The results from model can be
compared to the concentrations of fragments from mass spectrum.