Abstract: Processing the data by computers and performing
reasoning tasks is an important aim in Computer Science. Semantic
Web is one step towards it. The use of ontologies to enhance the
information by semantically is the current trend. Huge amount of
domain specific, unstructured on-line data needs to be expressed in
machine understandable and semantically searchable format.
Currently users are often forced to search manually in the results
returned by the keyword-based search services. They also want to use
their native languages to express what they search. In this paper, an
ontology-based automated question answering system on software
test documents domain is presented. The system allows users to enter
a question about the domain by means of natural language and
returns exact answer of the questions. Conversion of the natural
language question into the ontology based query is the challenging
part of the system. To be able to achieve this, a new algorithm
regarding free text to ontology based search engine query conversion
is proposed. The algorithm is based on investigation of suitable
question type and parsing the words of the question sentence.
Abstract: The evolution of information and communication
technology has made a very powerful support for the improvement of
online learning platforms in creation of courses. This paper presents a
study that attempts to explore new web architecture for creating an
adaptive online learning system to profiles of learners, using the Web
as a source for the automatic creation of courses for the online
training platform. This architecture will reduce the time and decrease
the effort performed by the drafters of the current e-learning
platform, and direct adaptation of the Web content will greatly enrich
the quality of online training courses.
Abstract: Seasonal variability of nutrients concentration in the Baltic Sea using the 3D ecosystem numerical model 3D-CEMBS has been investigated. Additionally this study shows horizontal and vertical distribution of nutrients in the Baltic Sea. Model domain is an extended Baltic Sea area divided into 600x640 horizontal grid cells. Aside from standard hydrodynamic parameters 3D-CEMBS produces modeled ecological variables such as: three types of phytoplankton, two detrital classes, dissolved oxygen and the nutrients (nitrate, ammonium, phosphate and silicate). The presented model allows prediction of parameters that describe distribution of nutrients concentration and phytoplankton biomass. 3D-CEMBS can be used to study the effect of different hydrodynamic and biogeochemical processes on distributions of these variables in a larger scale.
Abstract: This article analyses the peculiarities of Japan’s policy toward the countries of Central Asia. The increasing role of Central Asia in the system of international relations engendered an objective need for understanding of the policy of leading states, including Japan, in the region in the twenty-first century. The purpose of the study is to investigate the peculiarities of the formation and development of Japan policy in Central Asia and to identify the problems and prospects of Japan’s policy toward the countries of the region on the basis of experts’ opinions. In this article, the method of analysis of the situation and a systematic method were used. Prognostic methods, the collective expert assessment and scenarios were used in the study to determine the prospects of Japan’s policy toward the countries of Central Asia.
Abstract: In this paper, a two-dimensional mathematical model is developed for estimating the extent of inland inundation due to Indonesian tsunami of 2004 along the coastal belts of Peninsular Malaysia and Thailand. The model consists of the shallow water equations together with open and coastal boundary conditions. In order to route the water wave towards the land, the coastal boundary is treated as a time dependent moving boundary. For computation of tsunami inundation, the initial tsunami wave is generated in the deep ocean with the strength of the Indonesian tsunami of 2004. Several numerical experiments are carried out by changing the slope of the beach to examine the extent of inundation with slope. The simulated inundation is found to decrease with the increase of the slope of the orography. Correlation between inundation / recession and run-up are found to be directly proportional to each other.
Abstract: The world wide web coupled with the ever-increasing
sophistication of online technologies and software applications puts
greater emphasis on the need of even more sophisticated and
consistent quality requirements modeling than traditional software
applications. Web sites and Web applications (WebApps) are
becoming more information driven and content-oriented raising the
concern about their information quality (InQ). The consistent and
consolidated modeling of InQ requirements for WebApps at different
stages of the life cycle still poses a challenge. This paper proposes an
approach to specify InQ requirements for WebApps by reusing and
extending the ISO 25012:2008(E) data quality model. We also
discuss learnability aspect of information quality for the WebApps.
The proposed ISO 25012 based InQ framework is a step towards a
standardized approach to evaluate WebApps InQ.
Abstract: The aim of this research is to develop the
understanding of corporate social responsibility (CSR) from
consumers- perspective toward Thai mobile service providers.
Based on the survey from 400 mobile customers, the result
shows that four dimensions of CSR of Thai mobile service
providers consist of economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic
responsibility. These four CSR factors have positive impacts
on enhancing customer satisfaction except one item of
economic responsibility - profitability to shareholders. Ethical
dimension has the strongest impact on customer satisfaction.
Economic, legal, ethical, philanthropic responsibility and
customer satisfaction have major impact on loyalty, whilst
philanthropic component mostly affects loyalty.
Abstract: One of the common problems encountered in software
engineering is addressing and responding to the changing nature of
requirements. While several approaches have been devised to address
this issue, ranging from instilling resistance to changing requirements
in order to mitigate impact to project schedules, to developing an
agile mindset towards requirements, the approach discussed in this
paper is one of conceptualizing the delta in requirement and
modeling it, in order to plan a response to it. To provide some
context here, change is first formally identified and categorized as
either formal change or informal change. While agile methodology
facilitates informal change, the approach discussed in this paper
seeks to develop the idea of facilitating formal change. To collect,
document meta-requirements that represent the phenomena of change
would be a pro-active measure towards building a realistic cognition
of the requirements entity that can further be harnessed in the
software engineering process.
Abstract: The study is about the designed and decorative fabric printing that derived from the Five-color porcelain (Benjarong). The
researcher examined the pattern and creativity of the decorative design
of the Five-color porcelain (Benjarong) by the artists in order to apply
for contemporary arts so that young generation will acknowledge the
importance of the Five-color porcelain (Benjarong). The research methodology is both quantitative and qualitative. The researcher
conducted an in-depth interview with the operator of five-color
porcelain (Benjarong) at Ampawa, Samutsongkram. The information
from the interview can be useful and implemented for designing the
fabric patterns. The researcher found that there were many formats
and designs of the Five-color porcelain (Benjarong) from the past to the present. Its unique design can be applied for the fabric patterns
and ready-to-wear clothes properly. After advertising and showing
the work of the Five-color porcelain (Benjarong) publicly, there were
more young people interested in the Five-color porcelain (Benjarong)
than expected which exceeded the objective with positive attitudes
towards the Five-color porcelain (Benjarong).
Abstract: While service quality is acceptably most valued in the tourism industry, the issue of safety and security plays a key role in sustaining the industry success. Such an issue has been part of Thailand-s tourism development and promotion for several years. Evidently, the Tourist Police Department was set up for this purpose. Its main responsibility is to deal with international tourists- safety and confidence in travelling within Thai territory. However, to strengthen the tourism safety of the country, it is important to better understand international tourists- safety concerns about Thailand. This article seeks to compare international tourists- safety needs and Thai tourist polices- perception towards the tourists- safety concern to determine what measure should be taken to assure the tourist of Thailand-s secure environment. Through the employment of quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches, the tourism safety need of international tourists from Europe, North America and Asia was excavated, how Thai tourist polices and local polices perceived the international tourist-s safety concern was investigated, and opinion and experiences about how the police deal with international tourists- problems in eight touristic areas were also explored. A comparative result reveals a certain degrees of differences in international tourists- safety needs and Thai polices- perception towards their needs. The tourism safety prevention and protection measure and practice are also suggested.
Abstract: Telemedicine is brought to life by contemporary changes of our world and summarizes the entire range of services that are at the crossroad of traditional healthcare and information technology. It is believed that eHealth can help in solving critical issues of rising costs, care for ageing and housebound population, staff shortage. It is a feasible tool to provide routine as well as specialized health service as it has the potential to improve both the access to and the standard of care. eHealth is no more an optional choice. It has already made quite a way but it still remains a fantastic challenge for the future requiring cooperation and coordination at all possible levels. The strategic objectives of this paper are: 1. To start with an attempt to clarify the mass of terms used nowadays; 2. To answer the question “Who needs eHealth"; 3. To focus on the necessity of bridging telemedicine and medical (health) informatics as well as on the dual relationship between them; as well as 4. To underline the need of networking in understanding, developing and implementing eHealth.
Abstract: Automatic segmentation of skin lesions is the first step
towards the automated analysis of malignant melanoma. Although
numerous segmentation methods have been developed, few studies
have focused on determining the most effective color space for
melanoma application. This paper proposes an automatic segmentation
algorithm based on color space analysis and clustering-based histogram
thresholding, a process which is able to determine the optimal
color channel for detecting the borders in dermoscopy images. The
algorithm is tested on a set of 30 high resolution dermoscopy images.
A comprehensive evaluation of the results is provided, where borders
manually drawn by four dermatologists, are compared to automated
borders detected by the proposed algorithm, applying three previously
used metrics of accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity and a new metric
of similarity. By performing ROC analysis and ranking the metrics,
it is demonstrated that the best results are obtained with the X and
XoYoR color channels, resulting in an accuracy of approximately
97%. The proposed method is also compared with two state-of-theart
skin lesion segmentation methods.
Abstract: Antiseismic property of telecommunication equipment
is very important for the grasp of the damage and the restoration after
earthquake. Telecommunication business operators are regulating
seismic standard for their equipments. These standards are organized
to simulate the real seismic situations and usually define the minimum
value of first natural frequency of the equipments or the allowable
maximum displacement of top of the equipments relative to bottom.
Using the finite element analysis, natural frequency can be obtained
with high accuracy but the relative displacement of top of the
equipments is difficult to predict accurately using the analysis.
Furthermore, in the case of simulating the equipments with access
floor, predicting the relative displacement of top of the equipments
become more difficult.
In this study, using enormous experimental datum, an empirical
formula is suggested to forecast the relative displacement of top of the
equipments. Also it can be known that which physical quantities are
related with the relative displacement.
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: Nowadays social media are important tools for web
resource discovery. The performance and capabilities of web searches
are vital, especially search results from social research paper
bookmarking. This paper proposes a new algorithm for ranking
method that is a combination of similarity ranking with paper posted
time or CSTRank. The paper posted time is static ranking for
improving search results. For this particular study, the paper posted
time is combined with similarity ranking to produce a better ranking
than other methods such as similarity ranking or SimRank. The
retrieval performance of combination rankings is evaluated using
mean values of NDCG. The evaluation in the experiments implies
that the chosen CSTRank ranking by using weight score at ratio 90:10
can improve the efficiency of research paper searching on social
bookmarking websites.
Abstract: Common acceptable cuisine usually discussed in the
multicultural/ethnic nation as it represents the process of sharing it
among the ethnic groups. The common acceptable cuisine is also
considered as a precursor in the process of constructing the national
food identity within ethnic groups in the multicultural countries. The
adaptation of certain ethnic cuisines through its types of food,
methods of cooking, ingredients and eating decorum by ethnic groups
is believed creating or enhancing the process of formation on
common acceptable cuisines in a multicultural country. Malaysia as
the multicultural country without doubt is continuing to experience
cross-culturing processes among the ethnic groups including cuisine.
This study empirically investigates the adaptation level of Malay,
Chinese and Indian chefs on each other ethnic cuisine attributes
toward the formation on common acceptable cuisines and national
food identity.
Abstract: A new strategy for oriented immobilization of proteins was proposed. The strategy contains two steps. The first step is to search for a docking site away from the active site on the protein surface. The second step is trying to find a ligand that is able to grasp the targeted site of the protein. To avoid ligand binding to the active site of protein, the targeted docking site is selected to own opposite charges to those near the active site. To enhance the ligand-protein binding, both hydrophobic and electrostatic interactions need to be included. The targeted docking site should therefore contain hydrophobic amino acids. The ligand is then selected through the help of molecular docking simulations. The enzyme α-amylase derived from Aspergillus oryzae (TAKA) was taken as an example for oriented immobilization. The active site of TAKA is surrounded by negatively charged amino acids. All the possible hydrophobic sites on the surface of TAKA were evaluated by the free energy estimation through benzene docking. A hydrophobic site on the opposite side of TAKA-s active site was found to be positive in net charges. A possible ligand, 3,3-,4,4- – Biphenyltetra- carboxylic acid (BPTA), was found to catch TAKA by the designated docking site. Then, the BPTA molecules were grafted onto silica gels and measured the affinity of TAKA adsorption and the specific activity of thereby immobilized enzymes. It was found that TAKA had a dissociation constant as low as 7.0×10-6 M toward the ligand BPTA on silica gel. The increase in ionic strength has little effect on the adsorption of TAKA, which indicated the existence of hydrophobic interaction between ligands and proteins. The specific activity of the immobilized TAKA was compared with the randomly adsorbed TAKA on primary amine containing silica gel. It was found that the orderly immobilized TAKA owns a specific activity twice as high as the one randomly adsorbed by ionic interaction.
Abstract: In the present study, development of salbutamol
sulphate nanoparticles that adhere to gastric mucus was investigated.
Salbutamol sulphate has low bioavailability due to short transit time in
gastric. It also has a positive surface charge that provides hurdles to be
encapsulated by the positively strong mucoadhesive polymer of
chitosan. To overcome the difficulties, the surface charge of active
ingredient was modified using several nonionic and anionic
stomach-specific polymers. The nanoparticles were prepared using
ionotropic gelation technique. The evaluation involved determination
of particle size, zeta potential, entrapment efficiency, in vitro drug
release and in vitro mucoadhesion test. Results exhibited that the use
of anionic alginate polymer was more satisfactory than that of
nonionic polymer. Characteristics of the particles was nano-size, high
encapsulation efficiency, fulfilled the drug release requirements and
adhesive towards stomach for around 11 hours. This result shows that
the salbutamol sulphate nanoparticles can be utilized for improvement
its delivery.
Abstract: Nowadays, Multimedia Communication has been developed and improved rapidly in order to enable users to communicate between each other over the Internet. In general, the multimedia communication consists of audio and video communication. However, this paper focuses on audio streams. The audio translation between protocols is a very critical issue due to solving the communication problems between any two protocols, as well as it enables people around the world to talk with each other at anywhere and anytime even they use different protocols. In this paper, a proposed method for an audio translation module between two protocols has been presented. These two protocols are InterAsterisk eXchange Protocol (IAX) and Real Time Switching Control Protocol (RSW), which they are widely used to provide two ways audio transfer feature. The result of this work is to introduce possibility of interworking together.
Abstract: Present wireless communication demands compact and intelligent devices with multitasking capabilities at affordable cost. The focus in the presented paper is on a dual band antenna for wireless communication with the capability of operating at two frequency bands with same structure. Two resonance frequencies are observed with the second operation band at 4.2GHz approximately three times the first resonance frequency at 1.5GHz. Structure is simple loop of microstrip line with characteristic impedance 50 ohms. The proposed antenna is designed using defective ground structure (DGS) and shows the nearly one third reductions in size as compared to without DGS. This antenna was simulated on electromagnetic (EM) simulation software and fabricated using microwave integrated circuit technique on RT-Duroid dielectric substrate (εr= 2.22) of thickness (H=15 mils). The designed antenna was tested on automatic network analyzer and shows the good agreement with simulated results. The proposed structure is modeled into an equivalent electrical circuit and simulated on circuit simulator. Subsequently, theoretical analysis was carried out and simulated. The simulated, measured, equivalent circuit response, and theoretical results shows good resemblance. The bands of operation draw many potential applications in today’s wireless communication.