Hybrid Modeling Algorithm for Continuous Tamil Speech Recognition

In this paper, Fuzzy C-Means clustering with Expectation Maximization-Gaussian Mixture Model based hybrid modeling algorithm is proposed for Continuous Tamil Speech Recognition. The speech sentences from various speakers are used for training and testing phase and objective measures are between the proposed and existing Continuous Speech Recognition algorithms. From the simulated results, it is observed that the proposed algorithm improves the recognition accuracy and F-measure up to 3% as compared to that of the existing algorithms for the speech signal from various speakers. In addition, it reduces the Word Error Rate, Error Rate and Error up to 4% as compared to that of the existing algorithms. In all aspects, the proposed hybrid modeling for Tamil speech recognition provides the significant improvements for speechto- text conversion in various applications.

Efficiency of Wood Vinegar Mixed with Some Plants Extract against the Housefly (Musca domestica L.)

The efficiency of wood vinegar mixed with each individual of three plants extract such as: citronella grass (Cymbopogon nardus), neem seed (Azadirachta indica A. Juss), and yam bean seed (Pachyrhizus erosus Urb.) were tested against the second instar larvae of housefly (Musca domestica L.). Steam distillation was used for extraction of the citronella grass while neem and yam bean were simple extracted by fermentation with ethyl alcohol. Toxicity test was evaluated in laboratory based on two methods of larvicidal bioassay: topical application method (contact poison) and feeding method (stomach poison). Larval mortality was observed daily and larval survivability was recorded until the survived larvae developed to pupae and adults. The study resulted that treatment of wood vinegar mixed with citronella grass showed the highest larval mortality by topical application method (50.0%) and by feeding method (80.0%). However, treatment of mixed wood vinegar and neem seed showed the longest pupal duration to 25 day and 32 days for topical application method and feeding method respectively. Additional, larval duration on treated M. domestica larvae was extended to 13 days for topical application method and 11 days for feeding method. Thus, the feeding method gave higher efficiency compared with the topical application method.

Analysis of the Secondary Stationary Flow Around an Oscillating Circular Cylinder

This paper is devoted to the study of a viscous incompressible flow around a circular cylinder performing harmonic oscillations, especially the steady streaming phenomenon. The research methodology is based on the asymptotic explanation method combined with the computational bifurcation analysis. The research approach develops Schlichting and Wang decomposition method. Present studies allow to identify several regimes of the secondary streaming with different flow structures. The results of the research are in good agreement with experimental and numerical simulation data.

Attenuation of Pancreatic Histology, Hematology and Biochemical Parameters in Type 2 Diabetic Rats Treated with Azadirachta excelsa

Azadirachta excelsa or locally known as sentang are frequently used as a traditional medicine by diabetes patients in Malaysia. However, less attention has been given to their toxicity effect. Thus, the study is an attempt to examine the protective effect of A. excelsa on the pancreas and to determine possible toxicity mediated by the extract. Diabetes was induced experimentally in rats by high-fat-diet for 16 weeks followed by intraperitoneal injection of streptozotocin at dosage of 35 mg/kg of body weight. Declination of the fasting blood glucose level was observed after continuous administration of A. excelsa for 14 days twice daily. This is due to the refining structure of the pancreas. However, surprisingly, the plant extract reduced the leukocytes, erythrocytes, hemoglobin, MCHC and lymphocytes. In addition, the rat treated with the plant extract exhibited increment in AST and eosinocytes level. Overall, the finding shows that A. excelsa possesses antidiabetic activity by improving the structure of pancreatic islet of Langerhans but involved in ameliorating of hematology and biochemical parameters.

Effect of Mass Transfer on MHD Mixed Convective Flow along Inclined Porous Plate with Thermodiffusion

The effect of mass transfer on MHD mixed convective flow along inclined porous plate with thermodiffusion have been analyzed on the basis of boundary layer approximations. The fluid is assumed to be incompressible and dense, and a uniform magnetic field is applied normal to the direction of the flow. A Similarity transformation is used to transform the problem under consideration into coupled nonlinear boundary layer equations which are then solved numerically using the Runge-Kutta sixth-order integration scheme together with Nachtsheim-Swigert shooting iteration technique. The behavior of velocity, temperature, concentration, local skin-friction, local Nusselt number and local Sherwood number for different values of parameters have been computed and the results are presented graphically, and analyzed thereafter. The validity of the numerical methodology and the results are questioned by comparing the findings obtained for some specific cases with those available in the literature, and a comparatively good agreement is reached.

Effect of the Truss System to the Flexural Behavior of the External Reinforced Concrete Beams

The aesthetic qualities and the versatility of reinforced concrete have made it a popular choice for many architects and structural engineers. Therefore, the exploration of natural materials such as gravels and sands as well as lime-stone for cement production is increasing to produce a concrete material. The exploration must affect to the environment. Therefore, the using of the concrete materials should be as efficient as possible. According to its natural behavior of the concrete material, it is strong in compression and weak in tension. Therefore the contribution of the tensile stresses of the concrete to the flexural capacity of the beams is neglected. However, removing of concrete on tension zone affects to the decreasing of flexural capacity. Introduce the strut action of truss structures may an alternative to solve the decreasing of flexural capacity. A series of specimens were prepared to clarify the effect of the truss structures in the concrete beams without concrete on the tension zone. Results indicated that the truss system is necessary for the external reinforced concrete beams. The truss system of concrete beam without concrete on tension zone (BR) could develop almost same capacity to the normal beam (BN). It can be observed also that specimens BR has lower number of cracks than specimen BN. This may be caused by the fact that there was no bonding effect on the tensile reinforcement on specimen BR to distribute the cracks.

Nice Stadium: Design of a Flat Single Layer ETFE Roof

In order to host the Football Euro in 2016, many French cities have launched architectural competitions in recent years to improve the quality of their stadiums. The winning project in Nice was designed by Wilmotte architects together with Elioth structural engineers. It has a capacity of 35,000 seats.Its roof structure consists of a complex 3D shape timber and steel lattice and is covered by 25,000m² of ETFE, 10,500m² of PES-PVC fabric and 8,500m² of photovoltaic panels. This paper focuses on the ETFE part of the cover. The stadium is one of the first constructions to use flat single layer ETFE on such a big area. Due to its relatively recent appearance in France, ETFE structures are not yet covered by any regulations and the existing codes for fabric structures cannot be strictly applied. Rather, they are considered as cladding systems and therefore have to be approved by an “Appréciation Technique d’Expérimentation” (ATEx), during which experimental tests have to be performed. We explain the method that we developed to justify the ETFE, which eventually led to bi-axial tests to clarify the allowable stress in the film.

Effect of Conjugate Heat and Mass Transfer on MHD Mixed Convective Flow past Inclined Porous Plate in Porous Medium

This analysis is performed to study the momentum, heat and mass transfer characteristics of MHD mixed convective flow past inclined porous plate in porous medium, including the effect of fluid suction. The fluid is assumed to be steady, incompressible and dense. Similarity solution is used to transform the problem under consideration into coupled nonlinear boundary layer equations which are then solved numerically by using the Runge-Kutta sixth-order integration scheme together with Nachtsheim-Swigert shooting iteration technique. Numerical results for the various types of parameters entering into the problem for velocity, temperature and concentration distributions are presented graphically and analyzed thereafter. Moreover, expressions for the skin-friction, heat transfer co-efficient and mass transfer co-efficient are discussed with graphs against streamwise distance for various governing parameters.

Exploratory Tests of Crude Bacteriocins from Autochthonous Lactic Acid Bacteria against Food-Borne Pathogens and Spoilage Bacteria

The aim of the present work was to test in vitro inhibition of food pathogens and spoilage bacteria by crude bacteriocins from autochthonous lactic acid bacteria. Thirty autochthonous lactic acid bacteria isolated previously, belonging to the genera: Lactobacillus, Carnobacterium, Lactococcus, Vagococcus, Streptococcus, and Pediococcus, have been screened by an agar spot test and a well diffusion assay against Gram-positive and Gram-negative harmful bacteria: Bacillus cereus, Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633, Escherichia coli ATCC 8739, Salmonella typhimurium ATCC 14028, Staphylococcus aureus ATCC 6538, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa under conditions means to reduce lactic acid and hydrogen peroxide effect to select bacteria with high bacteriocinogenic potential. Furthermore, crude bacteriocins semiquantification and heat sensitivity to different temperatures (80, 95, 110°C, and 121°C) were performed. Another exploratory test concerning the response of St. aureus ATCC 6538 to the presence of crude bacteriocins was realized. It has been observed by the agar spot test that fifteen candidates were active toward Gram-positive targets strains. The secondary screening demonstrated an antagonistic activity oriented only against St. aureus ATCC 6538, leading to the selection of five isolates: Lm14, Lm21, Lm23, Lm24, and Lm25 with a larger inhibition zone compared to the others. The ANOVA statistical analysis reveals a small variation of repeatability: Lm21: 0.56%, Lm23: 0%, Lm25: 1.67%, Lm14: 1.88%, Lm24: 2.14%. Conversely, slight variation was reported in terms of inhibition diameters: 9.58± 0.40, 9.83± 0.46 and 10.16± 0.24 8.5 ± 0.40 10 mm for, Lm21, Lm23, Lm25, Lm14and Lm24, indicating that the observed potential showed a heterogeneous distribution (BMS = 0.383, WMS = 0.117). The repeatability coefficient calculated displayed 7.35%. As for the bacteriocins semiquantification, the five samples exhibited production amounts about 4.16 for Lm21, Lm23, Lm25 and 2.08 AU/ml for Lm14, Lm24. Concerning the sensitivity the crude bacteriocins were fully insensitive to heat inactivation, until 121°C, they preserved the same inhibition diameter. As to, kinetic of growth , the µmax showed reductions in pathogens load for Lm21, Lm23, Lm25, Lm14, Lm24 of about 42.92%, 84.12%, 88.55%, 54.95%, 29.97% in the second trails. Inversely, this pathogen growth after five hours displayed differences of 79.45%, 12.64%, 11.82%, 87.88%, 85.66% in the second trails, compared to the control. This study showed potential inhibition to the growth of this food pathogen, suggesting the possibility to improve the hygienic food quality.

Optimization of Cutting Parameters during Machining of Fine Grained Cemented Carbides

The group of progressive cutting materials can include non-traditional, emerging and less-used materials that can be an efficient use of cutting their lead to a quantum leap in the field of machining. This is essentially a “superhard” materials (STM) based on polycrystalline diamond (PCD) and polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) cutting performance ceramics and development is constantly "perfecting" fine coated cemented carbides. The latter cutting materials are broken down by two parameters, toughness and hardness. A variation of alloying elements is always possible to improve only one of each parameter. Reducing the size of the core on the other hand doing achieves "contradictory" properties, namely to increase both hardness and toughness.

Grain Size Effect on Durability of Bioclogging Treatment

In this work, the bioclogging of two soils with different granulometries is presented. The durability of the clogging is also studied under cycles of hydraulic head and under cycles of desaturation-resaturation. The studied materials present continuous grain size distributions. The first one corresponding to the "material 1” presents grain sizes between 0.4 and 4mm. The second material called "material 2" is composed of grains with size varying between 1 and 10mm. The results show that clogging occurs very quickly after the injection of nutrition and an outlet flow near to 0 is observed. The critical hydraulic head is equal to 0.76 for "material 1", and 0.076 for "material 2". The durability tests show a good resistance to unclogging under cycles of hydraulic head and desaturation-resaturation for the "material 1". Indeed, the flow after the cycles is very low. In contrast, "material 2", shows a very bad resistance, especially under the hydraulic head cycles. The resistance under the cycles of desaturation-resaturation is better but an important increase of the flow is observed. The difference of behavior is due to the granulometry of the materials. Indeed, the large grain size contributes to the reduction of the efficiency of the bioclogging treatment in this material. 

The Dialectical Unity of Capital and Non-Capital: The Role of Overpopulation in Popular Rebellion Today

Throughout its history, Capital has established a decisive form of discrimination that has effectively strengthened its power against Labor: discrimination between an endogenous labor force (integrated, with certain guarantees and rights in the capitalist nexus) and an exogenous labor force (yet to be incorporated or incorporated as ‘heterochthonous’, without such guarantees and rights). We refer to the historical incorporation of the exogenous population from the non-capitalist to the capitalist nexus (with the consequent replaceability of the endogenous labor force) as absolute mobility. The more possibilities Capital has of accessing a population in the non-capitalist nexus and of being able to incorporate it through absolute mobility into the capitalist nexus, the greater its unilaterality or class domination. In contrast, when these possibilities run dry, Capital is more inclined towards reformism or negotiation. However, this absolute mobility has historically been combined with relative mobility of the labor force, which includes various processes of which labor force migration is a fundamental component. This paper holds that both types of mobility are at the core of class struggles.

Thermal Properties of Lime-Pozzolan Plasters for Application in Hollow Bricks Systems

The effect of waste ceramic powder on the thermal properties of lime-pozzolana composites is investigated. At first, the measurements of effective thermal conductivity of lime-pozzolan composites are performed in dependence on moisture content from the dry state to fully water saturated state using a pulse method. Then, the obtained data are analyzed using two different homogenization techniques, namely the Lichtenecker’s and Dobson’s formulas, taking into account Wiener’s and Hashin/Shtrikman bounds. 

Development of a Model for the Redesign of Plant Structures

In order to remain competitive in what is a turbulent environment; businesses must be able to react rapidly to change. The past response to volatile market conditions was to introduce an element of flexibility to production. Nowadays, what is often required is a redesign of factory structures in order to cope with the state of constant flux. The Institute of Production Systems and Logistics is currently developing a descriptive and causal model for the redesign of plant structures as part of an ongoing research project. This article presents the first research findings attained in devising this model.

The Effect in vitro of Flavonoid Aglycones Extracts from Roots of Date Palm Cultivars on Fusarium oxysporum F. Sp. albedinis

Date production in North Africa is facing a worrying slowdown and a decline because of Fusarium wilt or bayoud date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L., caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. albedinis (F. o. a). The objective of this work is to study the in vitro effect of flavonoid aglycones extracted from the roots of two cultivars of date palm (one sensitive to bayoud (Deglet Nour) and the other resistant (Takerboucht)) on the growth and production fusaric acid of the pathogen. Results show that during the first week of development of F. o. a on potato dextrose liquid medium, the flavonoid aglycones extracts of the susceptible cultivar roots stimulates mycelial growth as well as conidiogenesis of F.o.a, nevertheless it has no effect on the synthesis of fusaric acid. However, the flavonoid aglycones extract of resistant cultivar roots stimulates mycelial growth and decreases both the number of conidia production and fusaric acid. It therefore appears possible that the resistant cultivar aglycones have two types of action: they either inhibit the synthesis of fusaric acid, or they metabolize this toxin into hydrosoluble product, this is called detoxification.

Fatty Acids Derivatives and Steroidal Saponins: Abundance in the Resistant Date Palm to Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. albedinis, Causal Agent of Bayoud Disease

Takerbucht is the only cultivar of date palm known as being resistant to the bayoud disease, caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. albedinis (F.o.a.). In the aim to understand more about the defense mechanisms implied, we realized phytochemical analyses of this cultivar leaflets and roots and this, for the first time, using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS).The examination of our results shows that fifty-four molecules have been detected, fourteen of which are common to leaflets and roots. This study revealed also the organs' richness in derivatives fatty acids: both saturated and unsaturated are represented mainly by methyl esters of Hexadecanoic and 9,12,15-Octadecatrienoic acids. 1-Dodecanethiol, derivative Dodecanoic acid is only present in roots. It’s of great interest to note that the screening revealed the steroidal saponins abundance, among which Yamogenin acetate and Diosgenin, exclusively detected in Takerbucht. They may play an essential role, in the date palm resistance to the bayoud disease.

Evolutionary Origin of the αC Helix in Integrins

Integrins are a large family of multidomain α/β cell signaling receptors. Some integrins contain an additional inserted I domain, whose earliest expression appears to be with the chordates, since they are observed in the urochordates Ciona intestinalis (vase tunicate) and Halocynthia roretzi (sea pineapple), but not in integrins of earlier diverging species. The domain-s presence is viewed as a hallmark of integrins of higher metazoans, however in vertebrates, there are clearly three structurally-different classes: integrins without I domains, and two groups of integrins with I domains but separable by the presence or absence of an additional αC helix. For example, the αI domains in collagen-binding integrins from Osteichthyes (bony fish) and all higher vertebrates contain the specific αC helix, whereas the αI domains in non-collagen binding integrins from vertebrates and the αI domains from earlier diverging urochordate integrins, i.e. tunicates, do not. Unfortunately, within the early chordates, there is an evolutionary gap due to extinctions between the tunicates and cartilaginous fish. This, coupled with a knowledge gap due to the lack of complete genomic data from surviving species, means that the origin of collagen-binding αC-containing αI domains remains unknown. Here, we analyzed two available genomes from Callorhinchus milii (ghost shark/elephant shark; Chondrichthyes – cartilaginous fish) and Petromyzon marinus (sea lamprey; Agnathostomata), and several available Expression Sequence Tags from two Chondrichthyes species: Raja erinacea (little skate) and Squalus acanthias (dogfish shark); and Eptatretus burgeri (inshore hagfish; Agnathostomata), which evolutionary reside between the urochordates and osteichthyes. In P. marinus, we observed several fragments coding for the αC-containing αI domain, allowing us to shed more light on the evolution of the collagen-binding integrins.

A Force-directed Graph Drawing based on the Hierarchical Individual Timestep Method

In this paper, we propose a fast and efficient method for drawing very large-scale graph data. The conventional force-directed method proposed by Fruchterman and Rheingold (FR method) is well-known. It defines repulsive forces between every pair of nodes and attractive forces between connected nodes on a edge and calculates corresponding potential energy. An optimal layout is obtained by iteratively updating node positions to minimize the potential energy. Here, the positions of the nodes are updated every global timestep at the same time. In the proposed method, each node has its own individual time and time step, and nodes are updated at different frequencies depending on the local situation. The proposed method is inspired by the hierarchical individual time step method used for the high accuracy calculations for dense particle fields such as star clusters in astrophysical dynamics. Experiments show that the proposed method outperforms the original FR method in both speed and accuracy. We implement the proposed method on the MDGRAPE-3 PCI-X special purpose parallel computer and realize a speed enhancement of several hundred times.

Forecasting Malaria Cases in Bujumbura

The focus in this work is to assess which method allows a better forecasting of malaria cases in Bujumbura ( Burundi) when taking into account association between climatic factors and the disease. For the period 1996-2007, real monthly data on both malaria epidemiology and climate in Bujumbura are described and analyzed. We propose a hierarchical approach to achieve our objective. We first fit a Generalized Additive Model to malaria cases to obtain an accurate predictor, which is then used to predict future observations. Various well-known forecasting methods are compared leading to different results. Based on in-sample mean average percentage error (MAPE), the multiplicative exponential smoothing state space model with multiplicative error and seasonality performed better.

Cross-Industry Innovations–Systematic Identification of Ideas for Radical Problem Solving

Creativity is often based on an unorthodox recombination of knowledge; in fact: 80% of all innovations use given knowledge and put it into a new combination. Cross-industry innovations follow this way of thinking and bring together problems and solution ideas from different industries. Therefore analogies and search strategies have to be developed. Taking this path, the questions where to search, what to search and how to search have to be answered. Afterwards, the gathered information can be used within a planned search process. Identified solution ideas have to be assessed and analyzed in detail for the success promising adaption planning.