Abstract: Stocking density is considered one of the important
factors affecting fish growth. But, information related to impact of
stocking density on growth performance of monosex tilapia population
under the ecological conditions of Gangetic plains in West Bengal,
India is limited. The aim of our study was to compare the growth
potential of monosex tilapia at various stocking densities and to
determine an ideal stocking density for culture of all-male monosex
fish. The males were isolated by examination of genital papilla region
and were stocked separately in 0.01 ha earthen ponds at different
stocking densities (5000, 10000, 15000, 20000, 25000 and 30000
fingerlings/ha). It was found that the highest weight, length, daily
weight gain, growth rate and protein content were observed for the
20000 fish/ha density class. Thus, culture of monosex tilapia at a
density of 20000 fish/ha can be considered ideal for augmented
production of the fish under Indian context.
Abstract: This paper proposes the stochastic tabu search (STS)
for improving the measurement scheme for power system state
estimation. If the original measured scheme is not observable, the
additional measurements with minimum number of measurements are
added into the system by STS so that there is no critical measurement
pair. The random bit flipping and bit exchanging perturbations are
used for generating the neighborhood solutions in STS. The Pδ
observable concept is used to determine the network observability.
Test results of 10 bus, IEEE 14 and 30 bus systems are shown that
STS can improve the original measured scheme to be observable
without critical measurement pair. Moreover, the results of STS are
superior to deterministic tabu search (DTS) in terms of the best
solution hit.
Abstract: The process of laser absorption in the skin during
laser irradiation was a critical point in medical application
treatments. Delivery the correct amount of laser light is a critical
element in photodynamic therapy (PDT). More amounts of laser
light able to affect tissues in the skin and small amount not able to
enhance PDT procedure in skin. The knowledge of the skin tone
laser dependent distribution of 635 nm radiation and its penetration
depth in skin is a very important precondition for the investigation of
advantage laser induced effect in (PDT) in epidermis diseases
(psoriasis). The aim of this work was to estimate an optimum effect
of diode laser (635 nm) on the treatment of epidermis diseases in
different color skin. Furthermore, it is to improve safety of laser in
PDT in epidermis diseases treatment. Advanced system analytical
program (ASAP) which is a new approach in investigating the PDT,
dependent on optical properties of different skin color was used in
present work. A two layered Realistic Skin Model (RSM); stratum
corneum and epidermal with red laser (635 nm, 10 mW) were used
for irradiative transfer to study fluence and absorbance in different
penetration for various human skin colors. Several skin tones very
fair, fair, light, medium and dark are used to irradiative transfer. This
investigation involved the principles of laser tissue interaction when
the skin optically injected by a red laser diode. The results
demonstrated that the power characteristic of a laser diode (635 nm)
can affect the treatment of epidermal disease in various color skins.
Power absorption of the various human skins were recorded and
analyzed in order to find the influence of the melanin in PDT
treatment in epidermal disease. A two layered RSM show that the
change in penetration depth in epidermal layer of the color skin has a
larger effect on the distribution of absorbed laser in the skin; this is
due to the variation of the melanin concentration for each color.
Abstract: This paper presents the application of an enhanced
Particle Swarm Optimization (EPSO) combined with Gaussian
Mutation (GM) for solving the Dynamic Economic Dispatch (DED)
problem considering the operating constraints of generators. The
EPSO consists of the standard PSO and a modified heuristic search
approaches. Namely, the ability of the traditional PSO is enhanced
by applying the modified heuristic search approach to prevent the
solutions from violating the constraints. In addition, Gaussian
Mutation is aimed at increasing the diversity of global search, whilst
it also prevents being trapped in suboptimal points during search. To
illustrate its efficiency and effectiveness, the developed EPSO-GM
approach is tested on the 3-unit and 10-unit 24-hour systems
considering valve-point effect. From the experimental results, it can
be concluded that the proposed EPSO-GM provides, the accurate
solution, the efficiency, and the feature of robust computation
compared with other algorithms under consideration.
Abstract: To extract the important physiological factors related to
diabetes from an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) by mathematical
modeling, highly informative but convenient protocols are required.
Current models require a large number of samples and extended
period of testing, which is not practical for daily use. The purpose
of this study is to make model assessments possible even from a
reduced number of samples taken over a relatively short period.
For this purpose, test values were extrapolated using a support
vector machine. A good correlation was found between reference and
extrapolated values in evaluated 741 OGTTs. This result indicates
that a reduction in the number of clinical test is possible through a
computational approach.
Abstract: Array signal processing involves signal enumeration and source localization. Array signal processing is centered on the ability to fuse temporal and spatial information captured via sampling signals emitted from a number of sources at the sensors of an array in order to carry out a specific estimation task: source characteristics (mainly localization of the sources) and/or array characteristics (mainly array geometry) estimation. Array signal processing is a part of signal processing that uses sensors organized in patterns or arrays, to detect signals and to determine information about them. Beamforming is a general signal processing technique used to control the directionality of the reception or transmission of a signal. Using Beamforming we can direct the majority of signal energy we receive from a group of array. Multiple signal classification (MUSIC) is a highly popular eigenstructure-based estimation method of direction of arrival (DOA) with high resolution. This Paper enumerates the effect of missing sensors in DOA estimation. The accuracy of the MUSIC-based DOA estimation is degraded significantly both by the effects of the missing sensors among the receiving array elements and the unequal channel gain and phase errors of the receiver.
Abstract: In the present study, 49 Hybrid (Catla catla ♂ x
Labeo rohita ♀) were sampled from Al-Raheem Fish Hatchery,
Village Ali Pure Shamali, Jhang Road, 18 Km from Muzaffar Garh
using a cast net and Live fishes were transported to research
laboratory. Mean percentage for water found 79.13 %, ash 6.58 %, fat
2.22 % and protein content 12.06 % in whole wet body weight. It was
observed that body constituents were found increasing in the same
proportion with an increase in body weight while significant
proportional increase was observed with total length. However,
condition factor remained insignificant (P>0.05) with body
constituents.
Abstract: Many-core GPUs provide high computing ability and
substantial bandwidth; however, optimizing irregular applications
like SpMV on GPUs becomes a difficult but meaningful task. In this
paper, we propose a novel method to improve the performance of
SpMV on GPUs. A new storage format called HYB-R is proposed to
exploit GPU architecture more efficiently. The COO portion of the
matrix is partitioned recursively into a ELL portion and a COO
portion in the process of creating HYB-R format to ensure that there
are as many non-zeros as possible in ELL format. The method of
partitioning the matrix is an important problem for HYB-R kernel, so
we also try to tune the parameters to partition the matrix for higher
performance. Experimental results show that our method can get
better performance than the fastest kernel (HYB) in NVIDIA-s
SpMV library with as high as 17% speedup.
Abstract: EPA (Ethernet for Plant Automation) resolves the nondeterministic problem of standard Ethernet and accomplishes real-time communication by means of micro-segment topology and deterministic scheduling mechanism. This paper studies the real-time performance of EPA periodic data transmission from theoretical and experimental perspective. By analyzing information transmission characteristics and EPA deterministic scheduling mechanism, 5 indicators including delivery time, time synchronization accuracy, data-sending time offset accuracy, utilization percentage of configured timeslice and non-RTE bandwidth that can be used to specify the real-time performance of EPA periodic data transmission are presented and investigated. On this basis, the test principles and test methods of the indicators are respectively studied and some formulas for real-time performance of EPA system are derived. Furthermore, an experiment platform is developed to test the indicators of EPA periodic data transmission in a micro-segment. According to the analysis and the experiment, the methods to improve the real-time performance of EPA periodic data transmission including optimizing network structure, studying self-adaptive adjustment method of timeslice and providing data-sending time offset accuracy for configuration are proposed.
Abstract: One of the main consequences of the ubiquitous usage of Internet as a means to conduct business has been the progressive internationalization of contracts created to support such transactions. As electronic commerce becomes International commerce, the reality is that commercial disputes will occur creating such questions as: "In which country do I bring proceedings?" and "Which law is to be applied to solve disputes?" The decentralized and global structure of the Internet and its decentralized operation have given e-commerce a transnational element that affects two questions essential to any transaction: applicable law and jurisdiction in the event of dispute. The sharing of applicable law and jurisdiction among States in respect of international transactions traditionally has been based on the use of contact factors generally of a territorial nature (the place where real estate is located, customary residence, principal establishment, place of shipping goods). The characteristics of the Internet as a new space sometimes make it difficult to apply these rules, and may make them inoperative or lead to results that are surprising or totally foreign to the contracting parties and other elements and circumstances of the case.
Abstract: Green propellants used for satellite-level propulsion
system become attractive in recent years because the non-toxicity and
lower requirements of safety protection. One of the green propellants,
high-concentration hydrogen peroxide H2O2 solution (≥70% w/w,
weight concentration percentage), often known as high-test peroxide
(HTP), is considered because it is ITAR-free, easy to manufacture and
the operating temperature is lower than traditional monopropellant
propulsion. To establish satellite propulsion technology, the National
Space Organization (NSPO) in Taiwan has initialized a long-term
cooperation project with the National Cheng Kung University to
develop compatible tank and thruster. An experimental propulsion
payload has been allocated for the future self-reliant satellite to
perform orbit transfer and maintenance operations. In the present
research, an 1-Newton thruster prototype is designed and the thrusting
force is measured by a pendulum-type platform. The preliminary
hot-firing test at ambient environment showed the generated thrust and
the specific impulse are about 0.7 Newton and 102 seconds,
respectively.
Abstract: The article presents a new method for detection of
artificial objects and materials from images of the environmental
(non-urban) terrain. Our approach uses the hue and saturation (or Cb
and Cr) components of the image as the input to the segmentation
module that uses the mean shift method. The clusters obtained as the
output of this stage have been processed by the decision-making
module in order to find the regions of the image with the significant
possibility of representing human. Although this method will detect
various non-natural objects, it is primarily intended and optimized for
detection of humans; i.e. for search and rescue purposes in non-urban
terrain where, in normal circumstances, non-natural objects shouldn-t
be present. Real world images are used for the evaluation of the
method.
Abstract: This study introduces a new method for detecting,
sorting, and localizing spikes from multiunit EEG recordings. The
method combines the wavelet transform, which localizes distinctive
spike features, with Super-Paramagnetic Clustering (SPC) algorithm,
which allows automatic classification of the data without assumptions
such as low variance or Gaussian distributions. Moreover, the method
is capable of setting amplitude thresholds for spike detection. The
method makes use of several real EEG data sets, and accordingly the
spikes are detected, clustered and their times were detected.
Abstract: Performance appraisal of employee is important in
managing the human resource of an organization. With the change
towards knowledge-based capitalism, maintaining talented
knowledge workers is critical. However, management classification
of “outstanding", “poor" and “average" performance may not be an
easy decision. Besides that, superior might also tend to judge the
work performance of their subordinates informally and arbitrarily
especially without the existence of a system of appraisal. In this
paper, we propose a performance appraisal system using
multifactorial evaluation model in dealing with appraisal grades
which are often express vaguely in linguistic terms. The proposed
model is for evaluating staff performance based on specific
performance appraisal criteria. The project was collaboration with
one of the Information and Communication Technology company in
Malaysia with reference to its performance appraisal process.
Abstract: The right information at the right time influences the
enterprise and technical success. Sharing knowledge among members
of a big organization may be a complex activity. And as long as the
knowledge is not shared, can not be exploited by the organization.
There are some mechanisms which can originate knowledge sharing.
It is intended, in this paper, to trigger these mechanisms by using
semantic nets. Moreover, the intersection and overlapping of terms
and sub-terms, as well as their relationships will be described through
the mereology science for the whole knowledge sharing system. It is
proposed a knowledge system to supply to operators with the right
information about a specific process and possible risks, e.g. at the
assembly process, at the right time in an automated manufacturing
environment, such as at the automotive industry.
Abstract: Yield and Crop Water Productivity are crucial issues
in sustainable agriculture, especially in high-demand resource crops such as sweet corn. This study was conducted to investigate
agronomic responses such as plant growth, yield and soil parameters (EC and Nitrate accumulation) to several deficit irrigation treatments
(100, 75, 50, 25 and 0% of ETm) applied during vegetative growth
stage, rainfed treatment was also tested.
The finding of this research indicates that under deficit irrigation
during vegetative growth stage applying 75% of ETm lead to increasing of 19.4% in terms of fresh ear yield, 9.4% in terms of dry grain yield, 10.5% in terms of number of ears per plant, 11.5% for
the 1000 grains weight and 19% in terms of crop water productivity compared with fully irrigated treatment. While those parameters in
addition to root, shoot and plant height has been affected by deficit
irrigation during vegetative growth stage when increasing water stress degree more than 50% of ETm.
Abstract: The goal of data mining algorithms is to discover
useful information embedded in large databases. One of the most
important data mining problems is discovery of frequently occurring
patterns in sequential data. In a multidimensional sequence each
event depends on more than one dimension. The search space is quite
large and the serial algorithms are not scalable for very large
datasets. To address this, it is necessary to study scalable parallel
implementations of sequence mining algorithms.
In this paper, we present a model for multidimensional sequence
and describe a parallel algorithm based on data parallelism.
Simulation experiments show good load balancing and scalable and
acceptable speedup over different processors and problem sizes and
demonstrate that our approach can works efficiently in a real parallel
computing environment.
Abstract: Lectins have a good scope in current clinical
microbiology research. In the present study evaluated the
antimicrobial activities of a D-galactose binding lectin (PnL) was
purified from the annelid, Perinereis nuntia (polychaeta) by affinity
chromatography. The molecular mass of the lectin was determined to
be 32 kDa as a single polypeptide by SDS-PAGE under both reducing
and non-reducing conditions. The hemagglutinating activity of the
PnL showed against trypsinized and glutaraldehyde-fixed human
erythrocytes was specifically inhibited by D-Gal, GalNAc,
Galβ1-4Glc and Galα1-6Glc. PnL was evaluated for in vitro
antibacterial screening studies against 11 gram-positive and
gram-negative microorganisms. From the screening results, it was
revealed that PnL exhibited significant antibacterial activity against
gram-positive bacteria. Bacillus megaterium showed the highest
growth inhibition by the lectin (250 μg/disc). However, PnL did not
inhibit the growth of gram-negative bacteria such as Vibrio cholerae
and Pseudomonas sp. PnL was also examined for in vitro antifungal
activity against six fungal phytopathogens. PnL (100 μg/mL) inhibited
the mycelial growth of Alternaria alternata (24.4%). These results
indicate that future findings of lectin applications obtained from
annelids may be of importance to life sciences.
Abstract: In this study, the ability of Aspergillus niger and
Penicillium simplicissimum to extract heavy metals from a spent
refinery catalyst was investigated. For the first step, a spent
processing catalyst from one of the oil refineries in Iran was
physically and chemically characterized. Aspergillus niger and
Penicillium simplicissimum were used to mobilize Al/Co/Mo/Ni from
hazardous spent catalysts. The fungi were adapted to the mixture of
metals at 100-800 mg L-1 with increments in concentration of 100 mg
L-1. Bioleaching experiments were carried out in batch cultures. To
investigate the production of organic acids in sucrose medium,
analyses of the culture medium by HPLC were performed at specific
time intervals after inoculation. The results obtained from Inductive
coupled plasma-optical emission spectrometry (ICP-OES) showed
that after the one-step bioleaching process using Aspergillus niger,
maximum removal efficiencies of 27%, 66%, 62% and 38% were
achieved for Al, Co, Mo and Ni, respectively. However, the highest
removal efficiencies using Penicillium simplicissimum were of 32%,
67%, 65% and 38% for Al, Co, Mo and Ni, respectively
Abstract: In this article we present a change point detection algorithm based on the continuous wavelet transform. At the beginning of the article we describe a necessary transformation of a signal which has to be made for the purpose of change detection. Then case study related to iron ore sinter production which can be solved using our proposed technique is discussed. After that we describe a probabilistic algorithm which can be used to find changes using our transformed signal. It is shown that our algorithm works well with the presence of some noise and abnormal random bursts.