Abstract: In this paper we report a study aimed at determining
the effects of animation on usability and appeal of educational
software user interfaces. Specifically, the study compares 3
interfaces developed for the Mathsigner™ program: a static
interface, an interface with highlighting/sound feedback, and an
interface that incorporates five Disney animation principles. The
main objectives of the comparative study were to: (1) determine
which interface is the most effective for the target users of
Mathsigner™ (e.g., children ages 5-11), and (2) identify any Gender
and Age differences in using the three interfaces. To accomplish
these goals we have designed an experiment consisting of a
cognitive walkthrough and a survey with rating questions. Sixteen
children ages 7-11 participated in the study, ten males and six
females. Results showed no significant interface effect on user task
performance (e.g., task completion time and number of errors);
however, interface differences were seen in rating of appeal, with
the animated interface rated more 'likeable' than the other two.
Task performance and rating of appeal were not affected
significantly by Gender or Age of the subjects.
Abstract: Age at first marriage is a basic temporal term that is
culturally constructed for marriage relationship between an adult
male and an adult female intended to have sex, to reproduce and to
adapt to environment from one generation to another around the
world. Cross-cultural evidences suggest that age at first marriage for
both male and female not only varies across the cultures, but also
varies among the subcultures of the same society. The purpose of the
study was to compare age at first marriage for husband and wife
including age differences between them between Muslim and Santal
communities in rural Bangladesh. For this we hypothesized that (1)
there were significant differences in age at first marriage and age
interval between husband and wife between Muslim and Santal
communities in rural Bangladesh. In so doing, 288 couples (145 pairs
of couples for Muslim and 143 pairs of couples for Santal) were
selected by cluster random sampling from the Kalna village situated
in the Tanore Upazila of Rajshahi district, Bangladesh, whose
current mean age range was 36.59 years for husband and 28.85 years
for wife for the Muslim and 31.74 years for husband and 25.21 years
for wife for the Santal respectively. The results of Independent
Sample t test showed that mean age at first marriage for the Muslim
samples was 23.05 years for husbands and 15.11 years for wives,
while mean age at first marriage for the Santal samples was 20.71
years for husbands and 14.34 years for wives respectively that were
significantly different at p0.05) among the selected husbands
and wives between the two communities. This study recommends
that further cross-cultural researches should be done on the causeeffect
relationships between socio-cultural factors and age at
marriage between the two communities in Bangladesh.
Abstract: Many systems in the natural world exhibit chaos or non-linear behavior, the complexity of which is so great that they appear to be random. Identification of chaos in experimental data is essential for characterizing the system and for analyzing the predictability of the data under analysis. The Lyapunov exponents provide a quantitative measure of the sensitivity to initial conditions and are the most useful dynamical diagnostic for chaotic systems. However, it is difficult to accurately estimate the Lyapunov exponents of chaotic signals which are corrupted by a random noise. In this work, a method for estimation of Lyapunov exponents from noisy time series using unscented transformation is proposed. The proposed methodology was validated using time series obtained from known chaotic maps. In this paper, the objective of the work, the proposed methodology and validation results are discussed in detail.
Abstract: This study was carried out to investigate lamb mortalities relating to ewes' breed and some managemental factors on 250 pregnant ewes (190-Rahmani, 30-Ossimi and 30-Romanov) at Mehallet Mousa, Animal Production Research Station, Kafr El- Sheikh Province, Egypt. These animals divided into five groups according to the managemental factors used. The results revealed that the lamb mortality was higher in Ossimi breed and lower in Romanov one. In addition, the highest lamb mortality occurred among lambs for unsupplemented ewes, for those had body condition score two and for lambs which born outdoor. Moreover, the lamb survivability was increased by the parity of ewes. From this study it can be concluded that the lamb mortality depends on ewes' body condition score, parity, lambing system (indoor or outdoor), nutrition during pregnancy period and selected breed. In addition, the most important period for lamb survival is the first week of age.
Abstract: The effects of the transport sector on the environment are a well-recognized issue in the European Union and around the world. This area is a subject of much discussion as to how these negative effects could be minimized, especially with regards to impacts contributing to climate change. This paper aims to investigate the results of the economic crisis and how its consequences could be exploited to combat air pollution.
Abstract: Evaporator is an important and widely used heat
exchanger in air conditioning and refrigeration industries. Different
methods have been used by investigators to increase the heat transfer
rates in evaporators. One of the passive techniques to enhance heat
transfer coefficient is the application of microfin tubes. The
mechanism of heat transfer augmentation in microfin tubes is
dependent on the flow regime of two-phase flow. Therefore many
investigations of the flow patterns for in-tube evaporation have been
reported in literatures. The gravitational force, surface tension and
the vapor-liquid interfacial shear stress are known as three dominant
factors controlling the vapor and liquid distribution inside the tube. A
review of the existing literature reveals that the previous
investigations were concerned with the two-phase flow pattern for
flow boiling in horizontal tubes [12], [9]. Therefore, the objective of
the present investigation is to obtain information about the two-phase
flow patterns for evaporation of R-134a inside horizontal smooth and
microfin tubes. Also Investigation of heat transfer during flow
boiling of R-134a inside horizontal microfin and smooth tube have
been carried out experimentally The heat transfer coefficients for
annular flow in the smooth tube is shown to agree well with Gungor
and Winterton-s correlation [4]. All the flow patterns occurred in the
test can be divided into three dominant regimes, i.e., stratified-wavy
flow, wavy-annular flow and annular flow. Experimental data are
plotted in two kinds of flow maps, i.e., Weber number for the vapor
versus weber number for the liquid flow map and mass flux versus
vapor quality flow map. The transition from wavy-annular flow to
annular or stratified-wavy flow is identified in the flow maps.
Abstract: Successive event of explosion earthquake and harmonic tremor recorded at Semeru volcano were analyzed to investigate the dynamical system regarding to their eruptive mechanism. The eruptive activity at Semeru volcano East Java, Indonesia is intermittent emission of ash and bombs with Strombolian style which occurred at interval of 15 to 45 minutes. The explosive eruptions accompanied by explosion earthquakes and followed by volcanic tremor which generated by continuous emission of volcanic ash. The spectral and Lyapunov exponent of successive event of explosion and harmonic tremor were analyzed. Peak frequencies of explosion earthquakes range 1.2 to 1.9 Hz and those of the harmonic tremor have peak frequency range 1.5 — 2.2 Hz. The phase space is reconstructed and evaluated based on the Lyapunov exponents. Harmonic tremors have smaller Lyapunov exponent than explosion earthquakes. It can be considerably as correlated complexity of the mechanism from the variance of spectral and fractal dimension and can be concluded that the successive event of harmonic tremor and explosions are chaotic.
Abstract: Equipment miniaturisation offers several opportunities such as an increased surface-to-volume ratio and higher heat transfer coefficients. However, moving towards small-diameter channels demands extra attention to fouling, reliability and stable operation of the system. The present investigation explores possibilities to enhance the stability of the once-through micro evaporator by reducing its flow boiling induced pressure fluctuations. Experimental comparison shows that the measured reduction factor approaches a theoretically derived value. Pressure fluctuations are reduced by a factor of ten in the solid conical channel and a factor of 15 in the porous conical channel. This presumably leads to less backflow and therefore to a better flow control.
Abstract: In practice, wireless networks has the property that
the signal strength attenuates with respect to the distance from the
base station, it could be better if the nodes at two hop away are
considered for better quality of service. In this paper, we propose a
procedure to identify delay preserving substructures for a given
wireless ad-hoc network using a new graph operation G 2 – E (G) =
G* (Edge difference of square graph of a given graph and the
original graph). This operation helps to analyze some induced
substructures, which preserve delay in communication among them.
This operation G* on a given graph will induce a graph, in which 1-
hop neighbors of any node are at 2-hop distance in the original
network. In this paper, we also identify some delay preserving
substructures in G*, which are (i) set of all nodes, which are mutually
at 2-hop distance in G that will form a clique in G*, (ii) set of nodes
which forms an odd cycle C2k+1 in G, will form an odd cycle in G*
and the set of nodes which form a even cycle C2k in G that will form
two disjoint companion cycles ( of same parity odd/even) of length k
in G*, (iii) every path of length 2k+1 or 2k in G will induce two
disjoint paths of length k in G*, and (iv) set of nodes in G*, which
induces a maximal connected sub graph with radius 1 (which
identifies a substructure with radius equal 2 and diameter at most 4 in
G). The above delay preserving sub structures will behave as good
clusters in the original network.
Abstract: The soil ecology of the organic and mineral soil layers
of laurel-leaved and Cryptomeria japonica forest in the Kasuga-yama
Hill Primeval Forest (Nara, Japan) was assessed. The number of
bacteria obtained by the dilution plate count method was less than
0.05% of those counted by the direct microscopic count. We therefore
found that forest soil contains large numbers of non-culturable
bacteria compared with agricultural soils. The numbers of bacteria and
fungi obtained by both the dilution plate count and the direct
microscopic count were larger in the deeper horizons (F and H) of the
organic layer than in the mineral soil layer. This suggests that active
microbial metabolism takes place in the organic layer. The numbers of
bacteria and the length of fungal hyphae obtained by the direct count
method were greater in the H horizon than in the F horizon. The direct
microscopic count revealed numerous non-culturable bacteria and
fungi in the soil. The ratio of fungal to bacterial biomass was lower in
the laurel-leaved forest soil. The fungal biomass was therefore
relatively low in the laurel-leaved forest soil due to differences in
forest vegetation.
Abstract: Rise/span ratio has been mentioned as one of the
reasons which contribute to the lower buckling load as compared to
the Classical theory buckling load but this ratio has not been quantified
in the equation. The purpose of this study was to determine a more
realistic buckling load by quantifying the effect of the rise/span ratio
because experiments have shown that the Classical theory
overestimates the load. The buckling load equation was derived based
on the theorem of work done and strain energy. Thereafter, finite
element modeling and simulation using ABAQUS was done to
determine the variables that determine the constant in the derived
equation. The rise/span was found to be the determining factor of the
constant in the buckling load equation. The derived buckling load
correlates closely to the load obtained from experiments.
Abstract: Since supply chains highly impact the financial
performance of companies, it is important to optimize and analyze
their Key Performance Indicators (KPI). The synergistic combination
of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Monte Carlo simulation is
applied to determine the optimal reorder point of warehouses in
supply chains. The goal of the optimization is the minimization of the
objective function calculated as the linear combination of holding and
order costs. The required values of service levels of the warehouses
represent non-linear constraints in the PSO. The results illustrate that
the developed stochastic simulator and optimization tool is flexible
enough to handle complex situations.
Abstract: Preliminary results for a new flat plate test
facility are presented here in the form of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD), flow visualisation, pressure measurements and thermal anemometry. The results from the CFD and flow
visualisation show the effectiveness of the plate design, with the trailing edge flap anchoring the stagnation point on the working surface and reducing the extent of the leading edge separation. The flow visualization technique demonstrates the
two-dimensionality of the flow in the location where the
thermal anemometry measurements are obtained.
Measurements of the boundary layer mean velocity profiles compare favourably with the Blasius solution, thereby allowing for comparison of future measurements with the
wealth of data available on zero pressure gradient Blasius
flows. Results for the skin friction, boundary layer thickness,
frictional velocity and wall shear stress are shown to agree well with the Blasius theory, with a maximum experimental deviation from theory of 5%. Two turbulence generating grids
have been designed and characterized and it is shown that the turbulence decay downstream of both grids agrees with established correlations. It is also demonstrated that there is
little dependence of turbulence on the freestream velocity.
Abstract: Integrated Total Quality Management (TQM) with
Lean Manufacturing (LM) is a system comprises of TQM with LM
principles and is associated with financial and nonfinancial
performance measurement indicators. The ultimate goal of this
system is to focus on achieving total customer satisfaction by
removing eight wastes available in any process in an organization.
A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to 30 highly
active automotive vendors in Malaysia and analyzed by PASW
Statistics 18. It was found out that these vendors have been
practicing and measuring the effectiveness TQM and LM
implementation. More involvement of all Malaysian automotive
vendors will represent the exact status of current Malaysian
automotive industry in implementing TQM and LM and can
determine whether the industry is ready for integrated TQM and
LM system. This is the first study that combined 4 awards
practices, ISO/TS16949, Toyota Production System and
SAEJ4000.
Abstract: The manufacturing transmission line tower parts has
being generated hazardous waste which is required proper disposal
of waste for protection of land pollution. Manufacturing Process in
the manufacturing of steel angle, plates, pipes, channels are passes
through conventional, semi automatic and CNC machines for
cutting, marking, punching, drilling, notching, bending operations.
All fabricated material Coated with thin layer of Zinc in Galvanizing
plant where molten zinc is used for coating. Prior to Galvanizing,
chemical like 33% concentrated HCl Acid, ammonium chloride and
d-oil being used for pretreatment of iron. The bath of water with
sodium dichromate is used for cooling and protection of the
galvanized steel. For the heating purpose the furnace oil burners are
used. These above process the Zinc dross, Zinc ash, ETP sludge and
waste pickled acid generated as hazardous waste. The RPG has
made captive secured land fill site, since 1997 since then it was
using for disposal of hazardous waste after completion of SLF
(Secured land fill) site. The RPG has raised height from ground
level then now it is being used for disposal of waste as he designed
the SLF after in creasing height of from GL it is functional without
leach ate or adverse impacts in the environment.
Abstract: Carrier mobility has become the most important
characteristic of high speed low dimensional devices. Due to
development of very fast switching semiconductor devices, speed of
computer and communication equipment has been increasing day by
day and will continue to do so in future. As the response of any
device depends on the carrier motion within the devices, extensive
studies of carrier mobility in the devices has been established
essential for the growth in the field of low dimensional devices.
Small-signal ac transport of degenerate two-dimensional hot
electrons in GaAs quantum wells is studied here incorporating
deformation potential acoustic, polar optic and ionized impurity
scattering in the framework of heated drifted Fermi-Dirac carrier
distribution. Delta doping is considered in the calculations to
investigate the effects of double delta doping on millimeter and submillimeter
wave response of two dimensional hot electrons in GaAs
nanostructures. The inclusion of delta doping is found to enhance
considerably the two dimensional electron density which in turn
improves the carrier mobility (both ac and dc) values in the GaAs
quantum wells thereby providing scope of getting higher speed
devices in future.
Abstract: Quality costs are the costs associated with preventing,
finding, and correcting defective work. Since the main language of
corporate management is money, quality-related costs act as means of
communication between the staff of quality engineering departments
and the company managers. The objective of quality engineering is to
minimize the total quality cost across the life of product. Quality
costs provide a benchmark against which improvement can be
measured over time. It provides a rupee-based report on quality
improvement efforts. It is an effective tool to identify, prioritize and
select quality improvement projects. After reviewing through the
literature it was noticed that a simplified methodology for data
collection of quality cost in a manufacturing industry was required.
The quantified standard methodology is proposed for collecting data
of various elements of quality cost categories for manufacturing
industry. Also in the light of research carried out so far, it is felt
necessary to standardise cost elements in each of the prevention,
appraisal, internal failure and external failure costs. . Here an attempt
is made to standardise the various cost elements applicable to
manufacturing industry and data is collected by using the proposed
quantified methodology. This paper discusses the case study carried
in luggage manufacturing industry.
Abstract: In this project electrical and optical properties of
BaZrO3 have been accomplished through the full-potential
linear augmented plane wave (FP-LAPW) by applying Wein2k
software. In this study band structure, density of state, gap energy,
refractive index and optical conduction have been studied. The results
of calculations show that BaZrO3 is an insulator with an indirect gap
in which 3.2 ev and studied refractive index equal 2.07. These results
are in accordance with the ones obtained in experimental researches.
Abstract: In this paper, we generalize some propositions in [C.Z. Wang, D.G. Chen, A short note on some properties of rough groups, Comput. Math. Appl. 59(2010)431-436.] and we give some equivalent conditions for rough subgroups. The notion of minimal upper rough subgroups is introduced and a equivalent characterization is given, which implies the rough version of Lagranges Theorem.
Abstract: Web applications have become very complex and crucial, especially when combined with areas such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and BPR (Business Process Reengineering), the scientific community has focused attention to Web applications design, development, analysis, and testing, by studying and proposing methodologies and tools. This paper proposes an approach to automatic multi-dimensional concern mining for Web Applications, based on concepts analysis, impact analysis, and token-based concern identification. This approach lets the user to analyse and traverse Web software relevant to a particular concern (concept, goal, purpose, etc.) via multi-dimensional separation of concerns, to document, understand and test Web applications. This technique was developed in the context of WAAT (Web Applications Analysis and Testing) project. A semi-automatic tool to support this technique is currently under development.