Abstract: In this work the opportunity of construction of the
qualifiers for face-recognition systems based on conjugation criteria
is investigated. The linkage between the bipartite conjugation, the
conjugation with a subspace and the conjugation with the null-space
is shown. The unified solving rule is investigated. It makes the
decision on the rating of face to a class considering the linkage
between conjugation values. The described recognition method can
be successfully applied to the distributed systems of video control
and video observation.
Abstract: Among all geo-hydrological relationships, rainfallrunoff
relationship is of utmost importance in any hydrological
investigation and water resource planning. Spatial variation, lag time
involved in obtaining areal estimates for the basin as a whole can
affect the parameterization in design stage as well as in planning
stage. In conventional hydrological processing of data, spatial aspect
is either ignored or interpolated at sub-basin level. Temporal
variation when analysed for different stages can provide clues for its
spatial effectiveness. The interplay of space-time variation at pixel
level can provide better understanding of basin parameters.
Sustenance of design structures for different return periods and their
spatial auto-correlations should be studied at different geographical
scales for better management and planning of water resources.
In order to understand the relative effect of spatio-temporal
variation in hydrological data network, a detailed geo-hydrological
analysis of Betwa river catchment falling in Lower Yamuna Basin is
presented in this paper. Moreover, the exact estimates about the
availability of water in the Betwa river catchment, especially in the
wake of recent Betwa-Ken linkage project, need thorough scientific
investigation for better planning. Therefore, an attempt in this
direction is made here to analyse the existing hydrological and
meteorological data with the help of SPSS, GIS and MS-EXCEL
software. A comparison of spatial and temporal correlations at subcatchment
level in case of upper Betwa reaches has been made to
demonstrate the representativeness of rain gauges. First, flows at
different locations are used to derive correlation and regression
coefficients. Then, long-term normal water yield estimates based on
pixel-wise regression coefficients of rainfall-runoff relationship have
been mapped. The areal values obtained from these maps can
definitely improve upon estimates based on point-based
extrapolations or areal interpolations.
Abstract: The Kowsar dam supply water for different usages
such as drinking, industrial, agricultural and aquaculture farms
usages and located next to the city of Dehdashat in Kohgiluye and
Boyerahmad province in southern Iran. There are some towns and
villages on the Kowsar dam watersheds, which Dehdasht and Choram
are the most important and populated cities in this area. The study
was undertaken to assess the status of water quality in the urban areas
of the Kowsar dam. A total of 28 water samples were collected from
6 stations on surface water and 1 station from groundwater on the
watershed of the Kowsar dam. All the samples were analyzed for Ni
concentration using standard procedures. The results were compared
with other national and international standards. Among the analyzed
samples, as the maximum value of Nickel (0.01 mg/L) was observed
on the station 2 at the autumn 2010, all the samples analyzed were
within the maximum admissible limits by the United States
Environmental Protection Agency, EU, WHO and the Iranian. In
general results of the present study have shown that a Ni mean value
of station No. 2 with 0.006 mg/L is higher than the other stations. Ni
level of all samples and stations have had normal values and this is an
indication of pollution potential and hazards because of human
activity and waste water of towns in the areas, which can effect on
human health implications in future. This research, therefore,
recommends the government and other responsible authorities to take
suitable improving measures in the Kowsar dam watersheds.
Abstract: In this study is presented a general methodology to
predict the performance of a continuous near-critical fluid extraction
process to remove compounds from aqueous solutions using hollow
fiber membrane contactors. A comprehensive 2D mathematical
model was developed to study Porocritical extraction process. The
system studied in this work is a membrane based extractor of ethanol
and acetone from aqueous solutions using near-critical CO2.
Predictions of extraction percentages obtained by simulations have
been compared to the experimental values reported by Bothun et al.
[5]. Simulations of extraction percentage of ethanol and acetone
show an average difference of 9.3% and 6.5% with the experimental
data, respectively. More accurate predictions of the extraction of
acetone could be explained by a better estimation of the transport
properties in the aqueous phase that controls the extraction of this
solute.
Abstract: Modern civilization has come in recent decades into a new phase in its development, called the information society. The concept of "information society" has become one of the most common. Therefore, the attempt to understand what exactly the society we live in, what are its essential features, and possible future scenarios, is important to the social and philosophical analysis. At the heart of all these deep transformations is more increasing, almost defining role knowledge and information as play substrata of «information society». The mankind opened for itself and actively exploits a new resource – information. Information society puts forward on the arena new type of the power, at the heart of which activity – mastering by a new resource: information and knowledge. The password of the new power – intelligence as synthesis of knowledge, information and communications, the strength of mind, fundamental sociocultural values. In a postindustrial society, the power of knowledge and information is crucial in the management of the company, pushing into the background the influence of money and state coercion.
Abstract: Salinity is a measure of the amount of salts in the
water. Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) as salinity parameter are often
determined using laborious and time consuming laboratory tests, but
it may be more appropriate and economical to develop a method
which uses a more simple soil salinity index. Because dissolved ions
increase salinity as well as conductivity, the two measures are
related. The aim of this research was determine of constant
coefficients for predicting of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) based on
Electrical Conductivity (EC) with Statistics of Correlation
coefficient, Root mean square error, Maximum error, Mean Bias
error, Mean absolute error, Relative error and Coefficient of residual
mass. For this purpose, two experimental areas (S1, S2) of Khuzestan
province-IRAN were selected and four treatments with three
replications by series of double rings were applied. The treatments
were included 25cm, 50cm, 75cm and 100cm water application. The
results showed the values 16.3 & 12.4 were the best constant
coefficients for predicting of Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) based on
EC in Pilot S1 and S2 with correlation coefficient 0.977 & 0.997 and
191.1 & 106.1 Root mean square errors (RMSE) respectively.
Abstract: We report the results of an lattice Boltzmann
simulation of magnetohydrodynamic damping of sidewall convection
in a rectangular enclosure filled with a porous medium. In particular
we investigate the suppression of convection when a steady magnetic
field is applied in the vertical direction. The left and right vertical
walls of the cavity are kept at constant but different temperatures
while both the top and bottom horizontal walls are insulated. The
effects of the controlling parameters involved in the heat transfer and
hydrodynamic characteristics are studied in detail. The heat and mass
transfer mechanisms and the flow characteristics inside the enclosure
depended strongly on the strength of the magnetic field and Darcy
number. The average Nusselt number decreases with rising values of
the Hartmann number while this increases with increasing values of
the Darcy number.
Abstract: Several methods have been proposed for color image
compression but the reconstructed image had very low signal to noise
ratio which made it inefficient. This paper describes a lossy
compression technique for color images which overcomes the
drawbacks. The technique works on spatial domain where the pixel
values of RGB planes of the input color image is mapped onto two
dimensional planes. The proposed technique produced better results
than JPEG2000, 2DPCA and a comparative study is reported based
on the image quality measures such as PSNR and MSE.Experiments
on real time images are shown that compare this methodology with
previous ones and demonstrate its advantages.
Abstract: Isobaric vapor-liquid equilibrium measurements are
reported for binary mixture of 2-Methyltetrahydrofuran and Cumene
at 97.3 kPa. The data were obtained using a vapor recirculating type
(modified Othmer's) equilibrium still. The mixture shows slight
negative deviation from ideality. The system does not form an
azeotrope. The experimental data obtained in this study are
thermodynamically consistent according to the Herington test. The
activity coefficients have been satisfactorily correlated by means of
the Margules, and NRTL equations. Excess Gibbs free energy has
been calculated from the experimental data. The values of activity
coefficients have also been obtained by the UNIFAC group
contribution method.
Abstract: In the paper we presented the possibility of application
collagen gels with active principle-s from marine algae extract and chlorhexidine salt in dental medicine. The hydro-alcoholic extracts
from marine algae have been used as they have been obtained. The extracts from marine algae and chlorhexidine salt (digluconate) are
incorporated in type I non-denatured fibrillar collagen matrixes. In order to obtain therapeutic effects at nanostructure level, it is important to know the rheological characteristics of the relevant mixtures of collagen gels and extracts from marine algae selected for use. In this survey we have studied mixtures made of non-denatured
fibrillar collagen hydro-gels where different concentrations of marine
algae have been incorporated. Based on the data obtained for the
shearing tensions, we have traced the rheograms – the diagrams for shearing tensions depending on the shearing speed values – from
which we have calculated the apparent viscosities as ratios between shearing tension and speed values, which have been figured in
relation to the shearing speed values, with a view to levelling
dependency.
Abstract: In spite of the advent of new materials, clay bricks
remain, arguably, the most popular construction materials today.
Nevertheless the low cost and versatility of clay bricks cannot always
be associated with high environmental and sustainable values,
especially in terms of raw material sources and manufacturing
processes. At the same time, the worldwide agricultural footprint is
fast growing, with vast agricultural land cultivation and active
expansion of the agro-based industry. The resulting large quantities of
agricultural wastes, unfortunately, are not always well managed or
utilised. These wastes can be recycled, such as by retrieving fibres
from disposed leaves and fruit bunches, and then incorporated in
brick-making. This way the clay bricks are made a 'greener' building
material and the discarded natural wastes can be reutilised, avoiding
otherwise wasteful landfill and harmful open incineration. This study
examined the physical and mechanical properties of clay bricks made
by adding two natural fibres to a clay-water mixture, with baked and
non-baked conditions. The fibres were sourced from pineapple leaves
(PF) and oil palm fruit bunch (OF), and added within the range of
0.25-0.75 %. Cement was added as a binder to the mixture at 5-15 %.
Although the two fibres had different effects on the bricks produced,
cement appeared to dominate the compressive strength. The
non-baked bricks disintegrated when submerged in water, while the
baked ones displayed cement-dependent characteristics in
water-absorption and density changes. Interestingly, further increase
in fibre content did not cause significant density decrease in both the
baked and non-baked bricks.
Abstract: A series of 1-(1H-benzimidazol-2-yl)-3-(substituted phenyl)-2-propen-1-one were allowed to react with hydrazine hydrate and phenyl hydrazine in submitted reactions to get pyrazoline and phenyl pyrazoline derivatives. All the compounds entered for screening at the Tuberculosis Antimicrobial Acquisition and Coordinating Facility (TAACF) for their in vitro antibacterial activity against Mycobacterium tuberculosis H37Rv strain (ATCC 27294) using Microplate Alamar Blue Assay (MABA) susceptibility test. The results expressed as MIC (minimum inhibitory concentration) in μg/mL. Among the fifteen compounds, eight compounds were found to have MIC values less than 10 μg/mL. These were subjected for cytotoxicity assay in VERO cells to determine CC50 (cytotoxic concentration 50%) values and finally SI (Selectivity Index) were calculated. Compound (XV) 2-[5-(4- fluorophenyl)-1-phenyl-4,5-dihydro-1H-3-pyrazolyl]-1Hbenzimidazole was considered the best candidate of the series that could be a good starting point to develop new lead compounds in the fight against tuberculosis.
Abstract: Several valve stiction models have been proposed in the literature to help understand and study the behavior of sticky valves. In this paper, an alternative black-box modeling approach based on Neural Network (NN) is presented. It is shown that with proper network type and optimum model structures, the performance of the developed NN stiction model is comparable to other established method. The resulting NN model is also tested for its robustness against the uncertainty in the stiction parameter values. Predictive mode operation also shows excellent performance of the proposed model for multi-steps ahead prediction.
Abstract: The nexus between language and culture is so
intertwined and very significant that language is largely seen as a
vehicle for cultural transmission. Culture itself refers to the aggregate
belief system of a people, embellishing its corporate national image
or brand. If we conceive national rebranding as a campaign to
rekindle the patriotic flame in the consciousness of a people towards
its sociocultural imperatives and values, then, Nigerian indigenous
linguistic flame has not been ignited. Consequently, the paper
contends that the current national rebranding policy remains a myth
in the confines of the elitists' intellectual squabble. It however
recommends that the use of our indigenous languages should be
supported by adequate legislation and also propagated by Nollywood
in order to revamp and sustain the people’s interest in their local
languages. Finally, the use of the indigenous Nigerian languages
demonstrates patriotism, an important ingredient for actualizing a
genuine national rebranding.
Abstract: In most of the popular implementation of Parallel GAs
the whole population is divided into a set of subpopulations, each
subpopulation executes GA independently and some individuals are
migrated at fixed intervals on a ring topology. In these studies,
the migrations usually occur 'synchronously' among subpopulations.
Therefore, CPUs are not used efficiently and the communication
do not occur efficiently either. A few studies tried asynchronous
migration but it is hard to implement and setting proper parameter
values is difficult.
The aim of our research is to develop a migration method which is
easy to implement, which is easy to set parameter values, and which
reduces communication traffic. In this paper, we propose a traffic
reduction method for the Asynchronous Parallel Distributed GA by
migration of elites only. This is a Server-Client model. Every client
executes GA on a subpopulation and sends an elite information to the
server. The server manages the elite information of each client and
the migrations occur according to the evolution of sub-population in
a client. This facilitates the reduction in communication traffic.
To evaluate our proposed model, we apply it to many function optimization
problems. We confirm that our proposed method performs
as well as current methods, the communication traffic is less, and
setting of the parameters are much easier.
Abstract: In the last decades, a number of robust fuzzy clustering algorithms have been proposed to partition data sets affected by noise and outliers. Robust fuzzy C-means (robust-FCM) is certainly one of the most known among these algorithms. In robust-FCM, noise is modeled as a separate cluster and is characterized by a prototype that has a constant distance δ from all data points. Distance δ determines the boundary of the noise cluster and therefore is a critical parameter of the algorithm. Though some approaches have been proposed to automatically determine the most suitable δ for the specific application, up to today an efficient and fully satisfactory solution does not exist. The aim of this paper is to propose a novel method to compute the optimal δ based on the analysis of the distribution of the percentage of objects assigned to the noise cluster in repeated executions of the robust-FCM with decreasing values of δ . The extremely encouraging results obtained on some data sets found in the literature are shown and discussed.
Abstract: In this paper, we discuss the egalitarianism solution (ES) and center-of-gravity of the imputation-set value (CIV) for bicooperative games, which can be seen as the extensions of the solutions for traditional games given by Dutta and Ray [1] and Driessen and Funaki [2]. Furthermore, axiomatic systems for the given values are proposed. Finally, a numerical example is offered to illustrate the player ES and CTV.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to trace the effects of growth environment on the behaviour of fattening pigs in the farm and outside it. Behavioral manifestations of pigs reared in pens with enriched environment (A lot, n: 22) were different from those of pigs reared in pens with arid environment (B lot, n: 17) in shelter and when the movement to be loaded. Pigs of B lot spent more time on the move (31%) compared to group A pigs (13%), and manifested more aggressive behavior when they were loaded. Salivary cortisol levels also showed high values for pigs in B lot after being removed from their growth environment, as compared to its concentration for A lot pigs. The enriched environment for pigs may determine different responses of behavior. Pigs raised in arid environment, were easier to loaded than pigs reared in enriched environment, but they responded to mixing and loading stress, through increases in cortisol concentrations and impaired behavioral manifestations.
Abstract: The Beshar River is one aquatic ecosystem,which is
affected by pollutants. This study was conducted to evaluate the
effects of human activities on the water quality of the Beshar river.
This river is approximately 190 km in length and situated at the
geographical positions of 51° 20' to 51° 48' E and 30° 18' to 30° 52'
N it is one of the most important aquatic ecosystems of Kohkiloye
and Boyerahmad province next to the city of Yasuj in southern Iran.
The Beshar river has been contaminated by industrial, agricultural
and other activities in this region such as factories, hospitals,
agricultural farms, urban surface runoff and effluent of wastewater
treatment plants. In order to evaluate the effects of these pollutants
on the quality of the Beshar river, five monitoring stations were
selected along its course. The first station is located upstream of
Yasuj near the Dehnow village; stations 2 to 4 are located east, south
and west of city; and the 5th station is located downstream of Yasuj.
Several water quality parameters were sampled. These include pH,
dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand (BOD), temperature,
conductivity, turbidity, total dissolved solids and discharge or flow
measurements. Water samples from the five stations were collected
and analysed to determine the following physicochemical
parameters: EC, pH, T.D.S, T.H, No2, DO, BOD5, COD during 2008
to 2009. The study shows that the BOD5 value of station 1 is at a
minimum (1.5 ppm) and increases downstream from stations 2 to 4 to
a maximum (7.2 ppm), and then decreases at station 5. The DO
values of station 1 is a maximum (9.55 ppm), decreases downstream
to stations 2 - 4 which are at a minimum (3.4 ppm), before increasing
at station 5. The amount of BOD and TDS are highest at the 4th
station and the amount of DO is lowest at this station, marking the
4th station as more highly polluted than the other stations. The
physicochemical parameters improve at the 5th station due to
pollutant degradation and dilution. Finally the point and nonpoint
pollutant sources of Beshar river were determined and compared to
the monitoring results.
Abstract: In conventional reliability assessment, the reliability data of system components are treated as crisp values. The collected data have some uncertainties due to errors by human beings/machines or any other sources. These uncertainty factors will limit the understanding of system component failure due to the reason of incomplete data. In these situations, we need to generalize classical methods to fuzzy environment for studying and analyzing the systems of interest. Fuzzy set theory has been proposed to handle such vagueness by generalizing the notion of membership in a set. Essentially, in a Fuzzy Set (FS) each element is associated with a point-value selected from the unit interval [0, 1], which is termed as the grade of membership in the set. A Vague Set (VS), as well as an Intuitionistic Fuzzy Set (IFS), is a further generalization of an FS. Instead of using point-based membership as in FS, interval-based membership is used in VS. The interval-based membership in VS is more expressive in capturing vagueness of data. In the present paper, vague set theory coupled with conventional Lambda-Tau method is presented for reliability analysis of repairable systems. The methodology uses Petri nets (PN) to model the system instead of fault tree because it allows efficient simultaneous generation of minimal cuts and path sets. The presented method is illustrated with the press unit of the paper mill.