Abstract: Eight heavy metals (Cu, Cr, Zn, Hg, Pb, Cd, Ni and As) were analyzed in sediment samples in the dry and wet seasons from November 2009 to October 2010 in West Port of Peninsular Malaysia. The heavy metal concentrations (mg/kg dry weight) were ranged from 23.4 to 98.3 for Zn, 22.3 to 80 for Pb, 7.4 to 27.6 Cu, 0.244 to 3.53 for Cd, 7.2 to 22.2 for Ni, 20.2 to 162 for As, 0.11 to 0.409 for Hg and 11.5 to 61.5 for Cr. Metals concentrations in dry season were higher than the rainy season except in cupper and chromium. Analysis of variance with Statistical Analysis System (SAS) shows that the mean concentration of metals in the two seasons (α level=0.05) are not significantly different which shows that the metals were held firmly in the matrix of sediment. Also there are significant differences between control point station with other stations. According to the Interim Sediment Quality guidelines (ISQG), the metal concentrations are moderately polluted, except in arsenic which shows the highest level of pollution.
Abstract: Exact expressions for bit-error probability (BEP) for
coherent square detection of uncoded and coded M-ary quadrature
amplitude modulation (MQAM) using an array of antennas with
maximal ratio combining (MRC) in a flat fading channel interference
limited system in a Nakagami-m fading environment is derived. The
analysis assumes an arbitrary number of independent and identically
distributed Nakagami interferers. The results for coded MQAM are
computed numerically for the case of (24,12) extended Golay code
and compared with uncoded MQAM by plotting error probabilities
versus average signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) for various values of
order of diversity N, number of distinct symbols M, in order to
examine the effect of cochannel interferers on the performance of the
digital communication system. The diversity gains and net gains are
also presented in tabular form in order to examine the performance of
digital communication system in the presence of interferers, as the
order of diversity increases. The analytical results presented in this
paper are expected to provide useful information needed for design
and analysis of digital communication systems with space diversity
in wireless fading channels.
Abstract: Data Warehouses (DWs) are repositories which contain the unified history of an enterprise for decision support. The data must be Extracted from information sources, Transformed and integrated to be Loaded (ETL) into the DW, using ETL tools. These tools focus on data movement, where the models are only used as a means to this aim. Under a conceptual viewpoint, the authors want to innovate the ETL process in two ways: 1) to make clear compatibility between models in a declarative fashion, using correspondence assertions and 2) to identify the instances of different sources that represent the same entity in the real-world. This paper presents the overview of the proposed framework to model the ETL process, which is based on the use of a reference model and perspective schemata. This approach provides the designer with a better understanding of the semantic associated with the ETL process.
Abstract: Finding the shortest path between two positions is a
fundamental problem in transportation, routing, and communications
applications. In robot motion planning, the robot should pass around
the obstacles touching none of them, i.e. the goal is to find a
collision-free path from a starting to a target position. This task has
many specific formulations depending on the shape of obstacles,
allowable directions of movements, knowledge of the scene, etc.
Research of path planning has yielded many fundamentally different
approaches to its solution, mainly based on various decomposition
and roadmap methods. In this paper, we show a possible use of
visibility graphs in point-to-point motion planning in the Euclidean
plane and an alternative approach using Voronoi diagrams that
decreases the probability of collisions with obstacles. The second
application area, investigated here, is focused on problems of finding
minimal networks connecting a set of given points in the plane using
either only straight connections between pairs of points (minimum
spanning tree) or allowing the addition of auxiliary points to the set
to obtain shorter spanning networks (minimum Steiner tree).
Abstract: The study of non-equilibrium systems has attracted
increasing interest in recent years, mainly due to the lack of
theoretical frameworks, unlike their equilibrium counterparts.
Studying the steady state and/or simple systems is thus one of the
main interests. Hence in this work we have focused our attention on
the driven lattice gas model (DLG model) consisting of interacting
particles subject to an external field E. The dynamics of the system
are given by hopping of particles to nearby empty sites with rates
biased for jumps in the direction of E. Having used small two
dimensional systems of DLG model, the stochastic properties at nonequilibrium
steady state were analytically studied. To understand the
non-equilibrium phenomena, we have applied the analytic approach
via master equation to calculate probability function and analyze
violation of detailed balance in term of the fluctuation-dissipation
theorem. Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to validate
the analytic results.
Abstract: This paper aims to present knowledge management for solving economic problem and poverty in Thai community. A community in Thailand is studied as a case study for master plan or social and economic plan which derived form the research people conducted by themselves in their community. The result shows that community uses knowledge management in recording income and expense, analyzing their consumption, and then systematic planning of the production, distribution and consumption in the community. Besides, community enterprises, that people create as the by-products of master plan, can facilitate diverse economic activities which are able to reduce economic problem and poverty. The knowledge that people gain from solving their problem through building community enterprises are both tacit and explicit knowledge. Four styles of knowledge conversion: socialization,externalization, combination and internalization, are used. Besides, knowledge sharing inside the organization, between organizations and its environment are found. Keywordsknowledge management, community enterprise, Thailand.
Abstract: In built-up structures, one of the effective ways of
dissipating unwanted vibration is to exploit the occurrence of slip at
the interfaces of structural laminates. The present work focuses on
the dynamic analysis of welded structures. A mathematical
formulation has been developed for the mechanism of slip damping
in layered and welded mild steel beams with unequal thickness
subjected to both periodic and non-periodic forces. It is observed that
a number of vital parameters such as; thickness ratio, pressure
distribution characteristics, relative slip and kinematic co-efficient of
friction at the interfaces, nature of exciting forces, length and
thickness of the beam specimen govern the damping characteristics of
these structures. Experimental verification has been carried out to
validate the analysis and study the effect of these parameters. The
developed damping model for the structure is found to be in fairly
good agreement with the measured data. Finally, the results of the
analysis are discussed and rationalized.
Abstract: The purpose of this study is to research on thoughts transmitted from virtual fitting-room and to deduce discussion in an auxiliary narrative way. The research structure is based on 3D virtual fitting-room as the research subject. Initially, we will discuss the principles of narrate study, User Demand and so on by using a narrative design pattern to transmit their objective indications of “people-situation-reason-object", etc, and then to analyze the virtual fitting-room examples that are able to provide a new thinking for designers who engaged in clothing related industry – which comes in “story telling" and “user-centered design" forms. Clothing designs are not just to cover up the body to keep warm but to draw closer to people-s demand physiologically and psychologically through interactive designs so as to achieve cognition between people and environment. In the “outside" goal of clothing-s functional designs, we use tribal group-s behavior characteristics to “transform" the existing personal cultural stories, and “reform" them to design appropriate interactive products. Synthesizing the above matters, apart from being able to regard “narrate" as a kind of functional thinking process, we are also able to regard it as a kind of choice, arrangement and an activity of story expression, allowing interactive design-s spirit, product characteristics and experience ideas be transmitted to target tribal group in a visual image performance method. It is a far more confident and innovative attempt, and meanwhile, able to achieve entertainment, joyful and so forth fundamental interactive transmissions. Therefore, this study takes “user-centered design" thinking as a basis to establish a set of clothing designs with interactive experience patterns and to assist designers to examine the five sensual feeling of interactive demands in order to initiate a new value in textile industry.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a hybrid machine learning
system based on Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Support Vector
Machines (SVM) for stock market prediction. A variety of indicators
from the technical analysis field of study are used as input features.
We also make use of the correlation between stock prices of different
companies to forecast the price of a stock, making use of technical
indicators of highly correlated stocks, not only the stock to be
predicted. The genetic algorithm is used to select the set of most
informative input features from among all the technical indicators.
The results show that the hybrid GA-SVM system outperforms the
stand alone SVM system.
Abstract: In the last decade digital watermarking procedures have
become increasingly applied to implement the copyright protection
of multimedia digital contents distributed on the Internet. To this
end, it is worth noting that a lot of watermarking procedures
for images and videos proposed in literature are based on spread
spectrum techniques. However, some scepticism about the robustness
and security of such watermarking procedures has arisen because
of some documented attacks which claim to render the inserted
watermarks undetectable. On the other hand, web content providers
wish to exploit watermarking procedures characterized by flexible and
efficient implementations and which can be easily integrated in their
existing web services frameworks or platforms. This paper presents
how a simple spread spectrum watermarking procedure for MPEG-2
videos can be modified to be exploited in web contexts. To this end,
the proposed procedure has been made secure and robust against some
well-known and dangerous attacks. Furthermore, its basic scheme
has been optimized by making the insertion procedure adaptive with
respect to the terminals used to open the videos and the network transactions
carried out to deliver them to buyers. Finally, two different
implementations of the procedure have been developed: the former
is a high performance parallel implementation, whereas the latter is
a portable Java and XML based implementation. Thus, the paper
demonstrates that a simple spread spectrum watermarking procedure,
with limited and appropriate modifications to the embedding scheme,
can still represent a valid alternative to many other well-known and
more recent watermarking procedures proposed in literature.
Abstract: In mobile computing environments, there are many
new non existing problems in the distributed system, which is
consisted of stationary hosts because of host mobility, sudden
disconnection by handoff in wireless networks, voluntary
disconnection for efficient power consumption of a mobile host, etc.
To solve the problems, we proposed the architecture of Partial
Connection Manager (PCM) in this paper. PCM creates the limited
number of mobile agents according to priority, sends them in parallel
to servers, and combines the results to process the user request rapidly.
In applying the proposed PCM to the mobile market agent service, we
understand that the mobile agent technique could be suited for the
mobile computing environment and the partial connection problem
management.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to extract sugar from
sugarcane using high electric field pulse (HELP) as a non-thermal cell permeabilization method. The result of this study showed that it
is possible to permeablize sugar cane cells using HELP at very short times (less than 10 sec.) and at room temperature. Increasing the field strength (from 0.5kV/cm to 2kV/cm) and pulse number (1 to 12) led to increasing the permeabilization of sugar cane cells. The energy
consumption during HELP treatment of sugar cane (2.4 kJ/kg) was about 100 times less compared to thermal cell disintegration at 85
Abstract: This study focuses on an evaluation of Hokkaido which
is the northernmost and largest prefecture by surface area in Japan and
particularly on two points: the rivalry between all kinds of land use
such as urban land and agricultural and forestry land in various cities
and their surrounding areas and the possibilities for forestry biomass in
areas other than those mentioned above and grasps which areas require
examination of the nature of land use control and guidance through
conducting land use analysis at the district level using GIS
(Geographic Information Systems). The results of analysis in this
study demonstrated that it is essential to divide the whole of Hokkaido
into two areas: those within delineated city planning areas and those
outside of delineated city planning areas and to conduct an evaluation
of each land use control.
In delineated urban areas, particularly urban areas, it is essential to
re-examine land use from the point of view of compact cities or smart
cities along with conducting an evaluation of land use control that
focuses on issues of rivalry between all kinds of land use such as urban
land and agricultural and forestry land. In areas outside of delineated
urban areas, it is desirable to aim to build a specific community
recycling range based on forest biomass utilization by conducting an
evaluation of land use control concerning the possibilities for forest
biomass focusing particularly on forests within and outside of city
planning areas.
Abstract: In this paper, a model for an information retrieval
system is proposed which takes into account that knowledge about
documents and information need of users are dynamic. Two
methods are combined, one qualitative or symbolic and the other
quantitative or numeric, which are deemed suitable for many
clustering contexts, data analysis, concept exploring and
knowledge discovery. These two methods may be classified as
inductive learning techniques. In this model, they are introduced to
build “long term" knowledge about past queries and concepts in a
collection of documents. The “long term" knowledge can guide
and assist the user to formulate an initial query and can be
exploited in the process of retrieving relevant information. The
different kinds of knowledge are organized in different points of
view. This may be considered an enrichment of the exploration
level which is coherent with the concept of document/query
structure.
Abstract: This paper presents an effective traffic lights detection
method at the night-time. First, candidate blobs of traffic lights are
extracted from RGB color image. Input image is represented on the
dominant color domain by using color transform proposed by Ruta,
then red and green color dominant regions are selected as candidates.
After candidate blob selection, we carry out shape filter for noise
reduction using information of blobs such as length, area, area of
boundary box, etc. A multi-class classifier based on SVM (Support
Vector Machine) applies into the candidates. Three kinds of features
are used. We use basic features such as blob width, height, center
coordinate, area, area of blob. Bright based stochastic features are also
used. In particular, geometric based moment-s values between
candidate region and adjacent region are proposed and used to improve
the detection performance. The proposed system is implemented on
Intel Core CPU with 2.80 GHz and 4 GB RAM and tested with the
urban and rural road videos. Through the test, we show that the
proposed method using PF, BMF, and GMF reaches up to 93 % of
detection rate with computation time of in average 15 ms/frame.
Abstract: OpenMP is an API for parallel programming model of shared memory multiprocessors. Novice OpenMP programmers often produce the code that compiler cannot find human errors. It was investigated how compiler coped with the common mistakes that can occur in OpenMP code. The latest version(4.4.3) of GCC is used for this research. It was found that GCC compiled the codes without any errors or warnings. In this paper the programming aid tool is presented for OpenMP programs. It can check 12 common mistakes that novice programmer can commit during the programming of OpenMP. It was demonstrated that the programming aid tool can detect the various common mistakes that GCC failed to detect.
Abstract: Today, the central role of industrial robots in automation in general and in material handling in particular is crystal clear. Based on the current status of Photovoltaics and by focusing on lightweight material handling, PV industry has turned into a potential candidate for introducing a fresh “pick and place" robot technology. Thus, to examine the industry needs in this regard, firstly the best suited applications for such robotic automation,and then the essential prerequisites in PV industry should be identified. The objective of this paper is to present holistic views on the industry trends, general automation status and existing challenges facing lightweight robotic material handling in PV Silicon Wafer and Thin Film technologies. The results of this study show that currently no uniform pick and place solution prevails among PV Silicon Wafer manufacturers and the industry calls for a new robot solution to satisfy its needs in new directions.
Abstract: A game animals – elk (Alces alces), deer (Cervus
elaphus), roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) or wild boar (Sus scrofa
scrofa) - every autumn and winter period provide an excellent
investment, diversification of many consumer meals. In last years
consumption and assortiment of game meat products significantly
increase. Investigations about biochemical composition of game meat
are not very much. The meat of wild animals is more favourable for
human health because it has lower saturated fatty acids content, but
higher content of protein. Therefore the aim of investigations was to
compare biochemical composition of ungulates obtained in
Latvia.Investigations were carried out in wild animals different
regions of Latvia. In the studied samples protein, intramuscular fat,
fatty acids and cholesterol were determined. The biochemical
analysis of 54 samples were done. Results of analysis showed that
protein content 22.36 – 22.92% of all types of meat samples is not
different statistically, significantly lower fat content 1.33 ± 0.88%
had elk meat samples and 1.59 ± 0.59% roe deer samples. Content of
cholesterol was various 64.41 – 95.07% in the ruminant meat
samples of different species. From the dietetic point of view the best
composition of fatty acids has meat samples of roe deer.
Abstract: The present study aims to evaluating the effect of
rotor solidity - in terms of chord length for a given rotor diameter - on
the performances of a small vertical axis Darrieus wind turbine. The
proposed work focuses on both power production and rotor power
coefficient, considering also the structural constraints deriving from
the centrifugal forces due to rotor angular velocity. Also the
smoothness of the resulting power curves have been investigated, in
order to evaluate the controllability of the corresponding rotor
architectures.
Abstract: A new hybrid coding method for compressing
animated polygonal meshes is presented. This paper assumes
the simplistic representation of the geometric data: a temporal
sequence of polygonal meshes for each discrete frame of the
animated sequence. The method utilizes a delta coding and an
octree-based method. In this hybrid method, both the octree
approach and the delta coding approach are applied to each
single frame in the animation sequence in parallel. The
approach that generates the smaller encoded file size is chosen
to encode the current frame. Given the same quality
requirement, the hybrid coding method can achieve much
higher compression ratio than the octree-only method or the
delta-only method. The hybrid approach can represent 3D
animated sequences with higher compression factors while
maintaining reasonable quality. It is easy to implement and have
a low cost encoding process and a fast decoding process, which
make it a better choice for real time application.