Abstract: This paper presents probabilistic horizontal seismic
hazard assessment of Naghan, Iran. It displays the probabilistic
estimate of Peak Ground Horizontal Acceleration (PGHA) for the
return period of 475, 950 and 2475 years. The output of the
probabilistic seismic hazard analysis is based on peak ground
acceleration (PGA), which is the most common criterion in designing
of buildings. A catalogue of seismic events that includes both
historical and instrumental events was developed and covers the
period from 840 to 2009. The seismic sources that affect the hazard
in Naghan were identified within the radius of 200 km and the
recurrence relationships of these sources were generated by Kijko
and Sellevoll. Finally Peak Ground Horizontal Acceleration (PGHA)
has been prepared to indicate the earthquake hazard of Naghan for
different hazard levels by using SEISRISK III software.
Abstract: This study applied the Theory of Planned Behavior
model in predicting dietary behavior among Type 2 diabetics in a
Kenyan environment. The study was conducted for three months
within the diabetic clinic at Kisii Hospital in Nyanza Province in
Kenya and adopted sequential mixed methods design combing both
qualitative and quantitative phases. Qualitative data was analyzed
using grounded theory analysis method. Structural equation modeling
using maximum likelihood was used to analyze quantitative data.
The results based on the common fit indices revealed that the theory
of planned behavior fitted the data acceptably well among the Type 2
diabetes and within dietary behavior {χ2 = 223.3, df = 77, p = .02,
χ2/df = 2.9, n=237; TLI = .93; CFI =.91; RMSEA (90CI) = .090(.039,
.146)}. This implies that the Theory of Planned Behavior holds and
forms a framework for promoting dietary practice among Type 2
diabetics.
Abstract: This study assesses the vulnerability of Bulgarian
agriculture to drought using the WINISAREG model and seasonal
standard precipitation index SPI(2) for the period 1951-2004. This
model was previously validated for maize on soils of different water
holding capacity (TAW) in various locations. Simulations are
performed for Plovdiv, Stara Zagora and Sofia. Results relative to
Plovdiv show that in soils of large TAW (180 mm m-1) net irrigation
requirements (NIRs) range 0-40 mm in wet years and 350-380 mm in
dry years. In soils of small TAW (116 mm m-1), NIRs reach 440 mm
in the very dry year. NIRs in Sofia are about 80 mm smaller. Rainfed
maize is associated with great yield variability (29%
Abstract: Parallel Prefix addition is a technique for improving
the speed of binary addition. Due to continuing integrating intensity
and the growing needs of portable devices, low-power and highperformance
designs are of prime importance. The classical parallel
prefix adder structures presented in the literature over the years
optimize for logic depth, area, fan-out and interconnect count of logic
circuits. In this paper, a new architecture for performing 8-bit, 16-bit
and 32-bit Parallel Prefix addition is proposed. The proposed prefix
adder structures is compared with several classical adders of same
bit width in terms of power, delay and number of computational
nodes. The results reveal that the proposed structures have the least
power delay product when compared with its peer existing Prefix
adder structures. Tanner EDA tool was used for simulating the adder
designs in the TSMC 180 nm and TSMC 130 nm technologies.
Abstract: This paper describes an experimental investigation of
the drying behavior and conditions of rosehip in a convective
cyclone-type dryer. Drying experiments were conducted at air inlet
temperatures of 50, 60 and 70 o C and air velocities of 0.5, 1 and 1.5
ms–1. The parametric values obtained from the experiments were
fitted to the Newton mathematical models. Consequently, the drying
model developed by Newton model showed good agreement with the
data obtained from the experiments. Concluding, it was obtained that;
(i) the temperature is the major effect on the drying process, (ii) air
velocity has low effect on the drying of rosehip, (iii) the C-vitamin is
observed to change according to the temperature, moisture, drying
time and flow types. The changing ratio is found to be in the range of
0.70-0.74.
Abstract: Though nonlinear dynamic analysis using a specialized
hydro-code such as AUTODYN is accurate and useful tool for
progressive collapse assessment of a multi-story building subjected to
blast load, it takes too much time to be applied to a practical simulation
of progressive collapse of a tall building. In this paper, blast analysis of
a RC frame structure using a simplified model with Reinforcement
Contact technique provided in Ansys Workbench was introduced and
investigated on its accuracy. Even though the simplified model has a
fraction of elements of the detailed model, the simplified model with
this modeling technique shows similar structural behavior under the
blast load to the detailed model. The proposed modeling method can
be effectively applied to blast loading progressive collapse analysis of
a RC frame structure.
Abstract: Nowadays, web-based technologies influence in
people-s daily life such as in education, business and others.
Therefore, many web developers are too eager to develop their web
applications with fully animation graphics and forgetting its
accessibility to its users. Their purpose is to make their web
applications look impressive. Thus, this paper would highlight on the
usability and accessibility of a voice recognition browser as a tool to
facilitate the visually impaired and blind learners in accessing virtual
learning environment. More specifically, the objectives of the study
are (i) to explore the challenges faced by the visually impaired
learners in accessing virtual learning environment (ii) to determine
the suitable guidelines for developing a voice recognition browser
that is accessible to the visually impaired. Furthermore, this study
was prepared based on an observation conducted with the Malaysian
visually impaired learners. Finally, the result of this study would
underline on the development of an accessible voice recognition
browser for the visually impaired.
Abstract: Elateriospermum tapos seed (buah perah) is the one
of the rich sources of polyunsaturated fatty acids. It contains high
percentage of oleic acid which is the important component to develop
nervous system and also α-linolenic acid (ALA) which is the
precursor of omega-3 fatty acids series to synthesize
eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA).
However, there is less study about this valuable oilseed and exploit
its potential. Therefore, this paper is to assess the comparison of
physico-chemical properties and fatty composition of perah oil to
palm oil and soybean oil. From the comparison, perah oil shows low
peroxide value means it has good oxidative stability and also high
iodine values shows that it can be used in paint industry. The study
shown that perah oil is comparable to palm oil and soybean oil, so it
has high potential to be exploited in the oleochemical,
pharmaceutical, cosmetics and paint industries.
Abstract: A new distance-adjusted approach is proposed in
which static square contours are defined around an estimated
symbol in a QAM constellation, which create regions that
correspond to fixed step sizes and weighting factors. As a
result, the equalizer tap adjustment consists of a linearly
weighted sum of adaptation criteria that is scaled by a variable
step size. This approach is the basis of two new algorithms: the
Variable step size Square Contour Algorithm (VSCA) and the
Variable step size Square Contour Decision-Directed
Algorithm (VSDA). The proposed schemes are compared with
existing blind equalization algorithms in the SCA family in
terms of convergence speed, constellation eye opening and
residual ISI suppression. Simulation results for 64-QAM
signaling over empirically derived microwave radio channels
confirm the efficacy of the proposed algorithms. An RTL
implementation of the blind adaptive equalizer based on the
proposed schemes is presented and the system is configured to
operate in VSCA error signal mode, for square QAM signals
up to 64-QAM.
Abstract: Fractional-order controller was proven to perform better than the integer-order controller. However, the absence of a pole at origin produced marginal error in fractional-order control system. This study demonstrated the enhancement of the fractionalorder PI over the integer-order PI in a steam temperature control. The fractional-order controller was cascaded with an error compensator comprised of a very small zero and a pole at origin to produce a zero steady-state error for the closed-loop system. Some modification on the error compensator was suggested for different order fractional integrator that can improve the overall phase margin.
Abstract: Advertising is one of the important marketing
strategies and the choice of media is an important aspect of
effectiveness of advertising media. The two most popular advertising
media, TV and web media are highly effective in creating successful
advertisements as they influence the purchase decision of the
viewers. Although TV and web are electronic media, they are unique
in their features and traits of advertising. Hence, the present study
attempts to analyze the influence of these two media towards buying
behavior of the viewers. The two media are analyzed separately to
determine its level of influence towards buying behavior and finally a
comparative analysis of these media is attempted to find the
difference in their level of influence.
Abstract: Electrophysiological signals were recorded from primary cultures of dissociated rat cortical neurons coupled to Micro-Electrode Arrays (MEAs). The neuronal discharge patterns may change under varying physiological and pathological conditions. For this reason, we developed a new burst detection method able to identify bursts with peculiar features in different experimental conditions (i.e. spontaneous activity and under the effect of specific drugs). The main feature of our algorithm (i.e. Burst On Hurst), based on the auto-similarity or fractal property of the recorded signal, is the independence from the chosen spike detection method since it works directly on the raw data.
Abstract: Linear and weakly nonlinear analysis of shallow wake
flows is presented in the present paper. The evolution of the most
unstable linear mode is described by the complex Ginzburg-Landau
equation (CGLE). The coefficients of the CGLE are calculated
numerically from the solution of the corresponding linear stability
problem for a one-parametric family of shallow wake flows. It is
shown that the coefficients of the CGLE are not so sensitive to the
variation of the base flow profile.
Abstract: The free and forced in-plane vibrations of axially
moving plates are investigated in this work. The plate possesses an
internal damping of which the constitutive relation obeys the
Kelvin-Voigt model, and the excitations are arbitrarily distributed on
two opposite edges. First, the equations of motion and the boundary
conditions of the axially moving plate are derived. Then, the extended
Ritz method is used to obtain discretized system equations. Finally,
numerical results for the natural frequencies and the mode shapes of
the in-plane vibration and the in-plane response of the moving plate
subjected to arbitrary edge excitations are presented. It is observed that
the symmetry class of the mode shapes of the in-plane vibration
disperses gradually as the moving speed gets higher, and the u- and
v-components of the mode shapes belong to different symmetry class.
In addition, large response amplitudes having shapes similar to the
mode shapes of the plate can be excited by the edge excitations at the
resonant frequencies and with the same symmetry class of distribution
as the u-components.
Abstract: There has been gradual progress of late in construction projects, particularly in big-scale megaprojects. Due to the long-term construction period, however, with large-scale budget investment, lack of construction management technologies, and increase in the incomplete elements of project schedule management, a plan to conduct efficient operations and to ensure business safety is required. In particular, as the project management information system (PMIS) is meant for managing a single project centering on the construction phase, there is a limitation in the management of program-scale businesses like megaprojects. Thus, a program management information system (PgMIS) that includes program-level management technologies is needed to manage multiple projects. In this study, a support tool was developed for managing the cost and schedule information occurring in the construction phase, at the program level. In addition, a case study on the developed support tool was conducted to verify the usability of the system. With the use of the developed support tool program, construction managers can monitor the progress of the entire project and of the individual subprojects in real time.
Abstract: The aim of this study is to describe the associations
between the temperamental traits and the narrative emotional
expression. The Temperament Questionnaire was used: The FCB-TI
of Zawadzki & Strelau. A sample of 85 persons described three
emotional situations: love. hate, and anxiety. This study analyzes the
verbal form of expression by means of a written account of
emotions. The relationship between the narratives of love, hate and
anxiety and temperament characteristics were studied. Results
indicate that vigorousness (VI), perseverance (PE), sensory
sensitivity (SS), emotional reactivity (ER), endurance (EN) and
activeness (AC) have a significant impact on the emotional
expression in narratives. The temperamental traits are linked to the
form of emotional language. It means that temperament has an
impact on cognitive representations of emotions.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a novel approach for image
segmentation via fuzzification of Rènyi Entropy of Generalized
Distributions (REGD). The fuzzy REGD is used to precisely measure
the structural information of image and to locate the optimal
threshold desired by segmentation. The proposed approach draws
upon the postulation that the optimal threshold concurs with
maximum information content of the distribution. The contributions
in the paper are as follow: Initially, the fuzzy REGD as a measure of
the spatial structure of image is introduced. Then, we propose an
efficient entropic segmentation approach using fuzzy REGD.
However the proposed approach belongs to entropic segmentation
approaches (i.e. these approaches are commonly applied to grayscale
images), it is adapted to be viable for segmenting color images.
Lastly, diverse experiments on real images that show the superior
performance of the proposed method are carried out.
Abstract: In the paper, the performance of quasi-synchronous
CDMA (QS-CDMA) system, which can allow an increased timing
error in synchronized access, is discussed. Average BER performance
of the system is analyzed in the condition of different access timing
error and different asynchronous users by simulation in AWGN
channel. The results show that QS-CDMA system is shown to have
great performance gain over the asynchronous system when access
timing error is within a few chips and asynchronous users is tolerable.
However, with access timing error increasing and asynchronous users
increasing, the performance of QS-CDMA will degrade. Also, we can
determine the number of tolerable asynchronous users for different
access timing error by simulation figures.
Abstract: Many supervised induction algorithms require discrete
data, even while real data often comes in a discrete
and continuous formats. Quality discretization of continuous
attributes is an important problem that has effects on speed,
accuracy and understandability of the induction models. Usually,
discretization and other types of statistical processes are applied
to subsets of the population as the entire population is practically
inaccessible. For this reason we argue that the discretization
performed on a sample of the population is only an estimate of
the entire population. Most of the existing discretization methods,
partition the attribute range into two or several intervals using
a single or a set of cut points. In this paper, we introduce a
technique by using resampling (such as bootstrap) to generate
a set of candidate discretization points and thus, improving the
discretization quality by providing a better estimation towards
the entire population. Thus, the goal of this paper is to observe
whether the resampling technique can lead to better discretization
points, which opens up a new paradigm to construction of
soft decision trees.
Abstract: In this paper a numerical simulation of electric and
hydrodynamic fields distribution in an electrofilter for dielectric
liquids cell is made. The simulation is made with the purpose to
determine the trajectory of particles that moves under the action of
external force in an electric and hydrodynamic field created inside of
an electrofilter for dielectric liquids. Particle trajectory is analyzed
for a dielectric liquid-solid particles suspension.