Abstract: The present study focuses on the discussion over the
parameter of Artificial Neural Network (ANN). Sensitivity analysis is
applied to assess the effect of the parameters of ANN on the prediction
of turbidity of raw water in the water treatment plant. The result shows
that transfer function of hidden layer is a critical parameter of ANN.
When the transfer function changes, the reliability of prediction of
water turbidity is greatly different. Moreover, the estimated water
turbidity is less sensitive to training times and learning velocity than
the number of neurons in the hidden layer. Therefore, it is important to
select an appropriate transfer function and suitable number of neurons
in the hidden layer in the process of parameter training and validation.
Abstract: In this study, the locations and areas of commercial
accumulations were detected by using digital yellow page data. An
original buffering method that can accurately create polygons of
commercial accumulations is proposed in this paper.; by using this
method, distribution of commercial accumulations can be easily
created and monitored over a wide area. The locations, areas, and
time-series changes of commercial accumulations in the South Kanto
region can be monitored by integrating polygons of commercial
accumulations with the time-series data of digital yellow page data.
The circumstances of commercial accumulations were shown to vary
according to areas, that is, highly- urbanized regions such as the city
center of Tokyo and prefectural capitals, suburban areas near large
cities, and suburban and rural areas.
Abstract: Groundwater resources in Arsanjan plain provide
water for agriculture, industry, and human consumption. Continued
agricultural development in this area needs to additional groundwater
resources for, particularly during of drought periods, and effects on
the quantity and quality of ground water available. The purpose of
this study is to evaluate water level changes in the aquifer of
Arsanjan plain in the Fars province in order to determine the areas of
greatest depletion and the causes of depletion. In this plain, farmers
and other users are pumping groundwater faster than its natural
replenishment rate, causing a continuous drop in groundwater tables
and depletion of this resource. In this research variation of
groundwater level, their effects and ways to help control groundwater
levels in aquifer of the Arsanjan plains were evaluated .Excessive
exploitation of groundwater in this aquifer caused the groundwater
levels fall too fast or to unacceptable levels. The average drawdown
of the groundwater level in this plain were 19.66 meters during
1996 to 2003.
Abstract: Double-diffusive steady convection in a partially
porous cavity with partially permeable walls and under the combined
buoyancy effects of thermal and mass diffusion was analysed
numerically using finite volume method.
The top wall is well insulated and impermeable while the bottom
surface is partially well insulated and impermeable and partially
submitted to constant temperature T1 and concentration C1. Constant
equal temperature T2 and concentration C2 are imposed along the
vertical surfaces of the enclosure. Mass suction/injection and
injection/suction are respectively considered at the bottom of the
porous centred partition and at one of the vertical walls.
Heat and mass transfer characteristics as streamlines and average
Nusselt numbers and Sherwood numbers were discussed for different
values of buoyancy ratio, Rayleigh number, and injection/suction
coefficient.
It is especially noted that increasing the injection factor
disadvantages the exchanges in the case of the injection while the
transfer is augmented in case of suction. On the other hand, a critical
value of the buoyancy ratio was highlighted for which heat and mass
transfers are minimized.
Abstract: Salary risk and demographic risk have been identified
as main risks in analyzing pension expenditure particularly in
Defined Benefit pension plan. Therefore, public pension plan in
Malaysia is studied to analyze pension expenditure due to salary and
demographic risk. Through the literature review and interview session
with several officers in public sector, factors affecting pension
expenditure are determined. Then, the inter-relationships between
these factors are analyzed through causal loop diagram. The System
Dynamics model is later developed using iThink software to show how
demographic and salary changes affect the pension expenditure. Then, by
using actual data, the impact of different policy scenarios on pension
expenditure is analyzed. It is shown that dynamics simulation model of
pension expenditure is useful to evaluate the impact of changes and
policy decisions on risk particularly involving demographic and salary risk.
Abstract: A lot of computer-based methods have been developed
to assess the evacuation capability (EC) of high-rise buildings.
Because softwares are time-consuming and not proper for on scene
applications, we adopted two methods, fuzzy analytic hierarchy
process (FAHP) and technique for order preference by similarity to an
ideal solution (TOPSIS), for EC assessment of a high-rise building in
Jinan. The EC scores obtained with the two methods and the
evacuation time acquired with Pathfinder 2009 for floors 47-60 of the
building were compared with each other. The results show that FAHP
performs better than TOPSIS for EC assessment of high-rise buildings,
especially in the aspect of dealing with the effect of occupant type and
distance to exit on EC, tackling complex problem with multi-level
structure of criteria, and requiring less amount of computation.
However, both FAHP and TOPSIS failed to appropriately handle the
situation where the exit width changes while occupants are few.
Abstract: Attempts were made to identify anuran glial cells. They were found as nervous tissue resident. Having stage dependent morphotype changes, whereby, appeared as an ovoid to oval in resting state and amoeboid mrophotypes in activated state, stained fairly with methylene blue and take up Pelikane blue 10% aqueous solution, as well as having the ability to phagocytize heat killed Staphylococcus aureus. They were delineated from the migrating peripheral monocytes by morphotypic and morphometeric differences. Such criteria were consistence with glial cells. Thus, the anuran glial cells are being identified in the frog Rana ridibunda Pallas 1771 and this animal can be of use as a simple model for the immunobiology of glial cells.
Abstract: This study shows the effect of carbon towards
molybdenum carbide alloy when exposed to Microwave. This
technique is also known as Microwave Induced Alloying (MIA) for
the preparation of molybdenum carbide. In this study ammonium
heptamolybdate solution and carbon black powder were
heterogeneously mixed and exposed to microwave irradiation for 2
minutes. The effect on amount of carbon towards the produced alloy
on morphological and oxidation states changes during microwave is
presented. In this experiment, it is expected carbon act as a reducing
agent with the ratio 2:7 molybdenum to carbon as the optimum for
the production of molybdenum carbide alloy. All the morphological
transformations and changes in this experiment were followed and
characterized using X-Ray Diffraction and FESEM.
Abstract: A preliminary evaluation of the urban land system is
presented in the article together with the instruments of land policy in
Serbia. The main reason for the analysis is demand for
definition of reform framework for urban land management in
Serbia in the period of transition towards market-led system. It
is concluded that due to the limitations of the current regulation it
will be impossible in the future to apply market principles in the
urban land policy (supply and demand of land, land capitalization,
investment efficiency, et al.). Based on the estimation that the urban
land system and land policy are key factors of competitiveness
between regions and towns in Serbia, it is necessary to initiate
changes in this field. There are indicated on an option of privatization
of urban public land and possible establishment of leasehold land. A
comparative analysis of the possibilities of the reform urban land
system in Serbia has been carried out in relation to two approaches of
market systems: (a) with dominant private ownership of urban land
(neo/liberal approach) and (b) with dominant public ownership of
urban land (system of leasehold)whose findings can be a basis for
further study of the new system in Serbia.. The attanied results are
part of studies matter for the making of Strategy of territorial
development of Serbia.
Abstract: The purpose of our study was to compare spontaneous
re-epithelisation characteristics versus assisted re-epithelisation. In
order to assess re-epithelisation of the injured skin, we have imagined
and designed a burn wound model on Wistar rat skin. Our aim was to
create standardised, easy reproducible and quantifiable skin lesions
involving entire epidermis and superficial dermis. We then have
applied the above mentioned therapeutic strategies to compare
regeneration of epidermis and dermis, local and systemic parameter
changes in different conditions. We have enhanced the reepithelisation
process under a moist atmosphere of a polyurethane
wound dress modified with helium non-thermal plasma, and with the
aid of direct cold-plasma treatment respectively. We have followed
systemic parameters change: hematologic and biochemical
parameters, and local features: oxidative stress markers and histology
of skin in the above mentioned conditions. Re-epithelisation is just a
part of the skin regeneration process, which recruits cellular
components, with the aid of epidermal and dermal interaction via
signal molecules.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to investigate the kinematics of undulatory elongated fish swimming against a velocity flow. We perform the experiments on European eel Anguilla Anguilla swimming in a hydrodynamic re-circulating tank with the velocity flow fixed at 0.2 m/s. We find that the undulating shape of overall eel body changes when it swims slantwise from the flow direction, by comparison to axial undulation shape. We examine this kinematics and we propose a general equation describing the lateral position of undulation body taking into account the direction of the eel-s swimming.
Abstract: This paper describes the two stage control using a disturbance observer and a Kalman filter. The system feedback uses the estimated state when it controls the speed. After the change-over point, its feedback uses the controlled plant output when it controls the position. To change the system continually, a change-over point has to be determined pertinently, and the controlled plant input has to be adjusted by the addition of the appropriate value. The proposed method has noise-reduction effect. It changes the system continually, even if the controlled plant identification has the error. Although the conventional method needs a speed sensor, the proposed method does not need it. The proposed method has a superior robustness compared with the conventional two stage control.
Abstract: WLAN Positioning has been presented by many
approaches in literatures using the characteristics of Received Signal
Strength (RSS), Time of Arrival (TOA) or Time Difference of
Arrival (TDOA), Angle of Arrival (AOA) and cell ID. Among these,
RSS approach is the simplest method to implement because there is
no need of modification on both access points and client devices
whereas its accuracy is terrible due to physical environments. For
TOA or TDOA approach, the accuracy is quite acceptable but most
researches have to modify either software or hardware on existing
WLAN infrastructure. The scales of modifications are made on only
access card up to the changes in protocol of WLAN. Hence, it is an
unattractive approach to use TOA or TDOA for positioning system.
In this paper, the new concept of merging both RSS and TOA
positioning techniques is proposed. In addition, the method to
achieve TOA characteristic for positioning WLAN user without any
extra modification necessarily appended in the existing system is
presented. The measurement results confirm that the proposed
technique using both RSS and TOA characteristics provides better
accuracy than using only either RSS or TOA approach.
Abstract: Computing and maintaining network structures for efficient
data aggregation incurs high overhead for dynamic events
where the set of nodes sensing an event changes with time. Moreover,
structured approaches are sensitive to the waiting time that is used
by nodes to wait for packets from their children before forwarding
the packet to the sink. An optimal routing and data aggregation
scheme for wireless sensor networks is proposed in this paper. We
propose Tree on DAG (ToD), a semistructured approach that uses
Dynamic Forwarding on an implicitly constructed structure composed
of multiple shortest path trees to support network scalability. The key
principle behind ToD is that adjacent nodes in a graph will have
low stretch in one of these trees in ToD, thus resulting in early
aggregation of packets. Based on simulations on a 2,000-node Mica2-
based network, we conclude that efficient aggregation in large-scale
networks can be achieved by our semistructured approach.
Abstract: This research examines possible effects of climatic
change focusing on global warming and its impacts on world
agricultural product markets, by using a world food model developed
to consider climate changes. GDP and population for each scenario
were constructed by IPCC and climate data for each scenario was
reported by the Hadley Center and are used in this research to consider
results in different contexts. Production and consumption of primary
agriculture crops of the world for each socio-economic scenario are
obtained and investigated by using the modified world food model.
Simulation results show that crop production in some countries or
regions will have different trends depending on the context. These
alternative contexts depend on the rate of GDP growth, population,
temperature, and rainfall. Results suggest that the development of
environment friendly technologies lead to more consumption of food
in many developing countries. Relationships among environmental
policy, clean energy development, and poverty elimination warrant
further investigation.
Abstract: Phylogenetic tree is a graphical representation of the
evolutionary relationship among three or more genes or organisms.
These trees show relatedness of data sets, species or genes
divergence time and nature of their common ancestors. Quality of a
phylogenetic tree requires parsimony criterion. Various approaches
have been proposed for constructing most parsimonious trees. This
paper is concerned about calculating and optimizing the changes of
state that are needed called Small Parsimony Algorithms. This paper
has proposed enhanced small parsimony algorithm to give better
score based on number of evolutionary changes needed to produce
the observed sequence changes tree and also give the ancestor of the
given input.
Abstract: Martensitic stainless steels have been extensively used for their good corrosion resistance and better mechanical properties. Heat treatment was suggested as one of the most excellent ways to this regard; hence, it affects the microstructure, mechanical and corrosion properties of the steel. In the current research work the microstructural changes and corrosion behavior in an AISI 420A stainless steel exposed to temperatures in the 980-1035oC range were investigated. The heat treatment is carried out in vacuum furnace within the said temperature range. The quenching of the samples was carried out in oil, brine and water media. The formation and stability of passive film was studied by Open Circuit Potential, Potentiodynamic polarization and Electrochemical Scratch Tests. The Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy results simulated with Equivalent Electrical Circuit suggested bilayer structure of outer porous and inner barrier oxide films. The quantitative data showed thick inner barrier oxide film retarded electrochemical reactions. Micrographs of the quenched samples showed sigma and chromium carbide phases which prove the corrosion resistance of steel alloy.
Abstract: Fully customized hardware based technology provides high performance and low power consumption by specializing the tasks in hardware but lacks design flexibility since any kind of changes require re-design and re-fabrication. Software based solutions operate with software instructions due to which a great flexibility is achieved from the easy development and maintenance of the software code. But this execution of instructions introduces a high overhead in performance and area consumption. In past few decades the reconfigurable computing domain has been introduced which overcomes the traditional trades-off between flexibility and performance and is able to achieve high performance while maintaining a good flexibility. The dramatic gains in terms of chip performance and design flexibility achieved through the reconfigurable computing systems are greatly dependent on the design of their computational units being integrated with reconfigurable logic resources. The computational unit of any reconfigurable system plays vital role in defining its strength. In this research paper an RFU based computational unit design has been presented using the tightly coupled, multi-threaded reconfigurable cores. The proposed design has been simulated for VLIW based architectures and a high gain in performance has been observed as compared to the conventional computing systems.
Abstract: In this paper, the noise maps for the area encircled by
the Second Ring Road in Riyadh city are developed based on real
measured data. Sound level meters, GPS receivers to determine
measurement position, a database program to manage the measured
data, and a program to develop the maps are used. A baseline noise
level has been established at each short-term site so subsequent
monitoring may be conducted to describe changes in Riyadh-s noise
environment. Short-term sites are used to show typical daytime and
nighttime noise levels at specific locations by short duration grab
sampling.
Abstract: In working mode some unexpected changes could
be arise in inner structure of electromagnetic device. They
influence modification in electromagnetic field propagation map.
The field values at an observed boundary are also changed. The
development of the process has to be watched because the arising
structural changes would provoke the device to be gone out later.
The probabilistic assessment of the state is possible to be made.
The numerical assessment points if the resulting changes have
only accidental character or they are due to the essential inner
structural disturbances.
The presented application example is referring to the 200MW
turbine-generator. A part of the stator core end teeth zone is
simulated broken. Quasi three-dimensional electromagnetic and
temperature field are solved applying FEM. The stator core state
diagnosis is proposed to be solved as an identification problem on
the basis of a statistical criterion.