Abstract: Rapid enlargement and physical development of cities
have facilitated the emergence of a number of city life crises and
decrease of environment quality. Subsequently, the need for noticing
the concept of quality and its improvement in urban environments,
besides quantitative issues, is obviously recognized. In the domain of
urban ideas the importance of taking these issues into consideration
is obvious not only in accordance to sustainable development
concepts and improvement of public environment quality, but also in
the enhancement of social and behavioral models.
The major concern of present article is to study the nature of urban
environment quality in urban development plans, which is important
not only in the concept and the aim of projects but also in their
execution procedure. As a result, this paper is going to utilize
planning capacities caused by environmental virtues in the planning
procedure of Moft Abad neighborhood. Thus, at the first step,
applying the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), it has assessed
quantitative environmental issues. The present conditions of Moft
Abad state that “the neighborhood is generally suffering from the
lack of qualitative parameters, and the previously formed planning
procedures could not take the sustainable and developmental paths
which are aimed at environment quality virtues." The diminution of
economical and environmental virtues has resulted in the diminution
of residential and social virtues. Therefore, in order to enhance the
environment quality in Moft Abad, the present paper has tried to
supply the subject plans in order to make a safe, healthy, and lively
neighborhood.
Abstract: The zero inflated models are usually used in modeling
count data with excess zeros where the existence of the excess zeros
could be structural zeros or zeros which occur by chance. These type
of data are commonly found in various disciplines such as finance,
insurance, biomedical, econometrical, ecology, and health sciences
which involve sex and health dental epidemiology. The most popular
zero inflated models used by many researchers are zero inflated
Poisson and zero inflated negative binomial models. In addition, zero
inflated generalized Poisson and zero inflated double Poisson models
are also discussed and found in some literature. Recently zero
inflated inverse trinomial model and zero inflated strict arcsine
models are advocated and proven to serve as alternative models in
modeling overdispersed count data caused by excessive zeros and
unobserved heterogeneity. The purpose of this paper is to review
some related literature and provide a variety of examples from
different disciplines in the application of zero inflated models.
Different model selection methods used in model comparison are
discussed.
Abstract: Suburban area is an important area to the development of a city and a country. Russias economy is going through major transitions. These transitions are rapidly changing the relationship between cities (urban areas), countryside (rural areas) and the development, growth, and popularity of suburbia. The process of suburbanization takes place in biggest cities of Russia, including Krasnoyarsk City. The modern Krasnoyarsk with a population of about 1mln people occupies the territory of 34115 ha. This article examines the analysis of functions of suburban area and connects these functions with zoning of the suburban territory. The author uses the method of hierarchy to select the best conditions to each function in connection with nature component, transportation and distance from the city. The result of this research is the map of the functional zoning of suburban area of Krasnoyarsk City. The author uses a variety of factors, which have an influence on suburban area, to compare and choose the best conditions. KeywordsSuburban area, zoning of territory, Krasnoyarsk City.
Abstract: With the proliferation of mobile computing technology, mobile learning (m-learning) will play a vital role in the rapidly growing electronic learning market. However, the acceptance of m-learning by individuals is critical to the successful implementation of m-learning systems. Thus, there is a need to research the factors that affect users- intention to use m-learning. Based on an updated information system (IS) success model, data collected from 350 respondents in Taiwan were tested against the research model using the structural equation modeling approach. The data collected by questionnaire were analyzed to check the validity of constructs. Then hypotheses describing the relationships between the identified constructs and users- satisfaction were formulated and tested.
Abstract: Rapid prototyping (RP) techniques are a group of
advanced manufacturing processes that can produce custom made
objects directly from computer data such as Computer Aided Design
(CAD), Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance
Imaging (MRI) data. Using RP fabrication techniques, constructs
with controllable and complex internal architecture with appropriate
mechanical properties can be achieved. One of the attractive and
promising utilization of RP techniques is related to tissue engineering
(TE) scaffold fabrication. Tissue engineering scaffold is a 3D
construction that acts as a template for tissue regeneration. Although
several conventional techniques such as solvent casting and gas
forming are utilized in scaffold fabrication; these processes show
poor interconnectivity and uncontrollable porosity of the produced
scaffolds. So, RP techniques become the best alternative fabrication
methods of TE scaffolds. This paper reviews the current state of the
art in the area of tissue engineering scaffolds fabrication using
advanced RP processes, as well as the current limitations and future
trends in scaffold fabrication RP techniques.
Abstract: In recent years, rapid advances in software and hardware in the field of information technology along with a digital imaging revolution in the medical domain facilitate the generation and storage of large collections of images by hospitals and clinics. To search these large image collections effectively and efficiently poses significant technical challenges, and it raises the necessity of constructing intelligent retrieval systems. Content-based Image Retrieval (CBIR) consists of retrieving the most visually similar images to a given query image from a database of images[5]. Medical CBIR (content-based image retrieval) applications pose unique challenges but at the same time offer many new opportunities. On one hand, while one can easily understand news or sports videos, a medical image is often completely incomprehensible to untrained eyes.
Abstract: Erroneous computer entry problems [here: 'e'errors] in hospital labs threaten the patients-–health carers- relationship, undermining the health system credibility. Are e-errors random, and do lab professionals make them accidentally, or may they be traced through meaningful determinants? Theories on internal causality of mistakes compel to seek specific causal ascriptions of hospital lab eerrors instead of accepting some inescapability. Undeniably, 'To Err is Human'. But in view of rapid global health organizational changes, e-errors are too expensive to lack in-depth considerations. Yet, that efunction might supposedly be entrenched in the health carers- job description remains under dispute – at least for Hellenic labs, where e-use falls behind generalized(able) appreciation and application. In this study: i) an empirical basis of a truly high annual cost of e-errors at about €498,000.00 per rural Hellenic hospital was established, hence interest in exploring the issue was sufficiently substantiated; ii) a sample of 270 lab-expert nurses, technicians and doctors were assessed on several personality, burnout and e-error measures, and iii) the hypothesis that the Hardiness vs Alienation personality construct disposition explains resistance vs proclivity to e-errors was tested and verified: Hardiness operates as a resilience source in the encounter of high pressures experienced in the hospital lab, whereas its 'opposite', i.e., Alienation, functions as a predictor, not only of making e-errors, but also of leading to burn-out. Implications for apt interventions are discussed.
Abstract: The principal objective of a water treatment plant is to
produce water that satisfies a set of drinking water quality standards
at a reasonable price to the consumers. The gravel-bed flocculator
provide a simple and inexpensive design for flocculation in small
water treatment plants (less than 5000 m3/day capacity). The packed
bed of gravel provides ideal conditions for the formation of compact
settleable flocs because of continuous recontact provided by the
sinuous flow of water through the interstices formed by the gravel.
The field data which were obtained from the operation of the
water supply treatment unit cover the physical, chemical and
biological water qualities of the raw and settled water as obtained by
the operation of the treatment unit. The experiments were carried out
with the aim of assessing the efficiency of the gravel filter in
removing the turbidity, pathogenic bacteria, from the raw water. The
water treatment plant, which was constructed for the treatment of
river water, was in principle a rapid sand filter.
The results show that the average value of the turbidity level of
the settled water was 4.83 NTU with a standard deviation of turbidity
2.893 NTU. This indicated that the removal efficiency of the
sedimentation tank (gravel filter) was about 67.8 %. for pH values
fluctuated between 7.75 and 8.15, indicating the alkaline nature of
the raw water of the river Shatt Al-Hilla, as expected. Raw water pH
is depressed slightly following alum coagulation. The pH of the
settled water ranged from 7.75 to a maximum of 8.05.
The bacteriological tests which were carried out on the water
samples were: total coliform test, E-coli test, and the plate count test.
In each test the procedure used was as outlined in the Standard
Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater (APHA,
AWWA, and WPCF, 1985). The gravel filter exhibit a low
performance in removing bacterial load. The percentage bacterial
removal, which is maximum for total plate count (19%) and
minimum for total coliform (16.82%).
Abstract: A new paradigm for software design and development models software by its business process, translates the model into a process execution language, and has it run by a supporting execution engine. This process-oriented paradigm promotes modeling of software by less technical users or business analysts as well as rapid development. Since business process models may be shared by different organizations and sometimes even by different business domains, it is interesting to apply a technique used in traditional software component technology to design reusable business processes. This paper discusses an approach to apply a technique for software component fabrication to the design of process-oriented software units, called process components. These process components result from decomposing a business process of a particular application domain into subprocesses with an aim that the process components can be reusable in different process-based software models. The approach is quantitative because the quality of process component design is measured from technical features of the process components. The approach is also strategic because the measured quality is determined against business-oriented component management goals. A software tool has been developed to measure how good a process component design is, according to the required managerial goals and comparing to other designs. We also discuss how we benefit from reusable process components.
Abstract: Facial expression analysis is rapidly becoming an
area of intense interest in computer science and human-computer
interaction design communities. The most expressive way humans
display emotions is through facial expressions. In this paper we
present a method to analyze facial expression from images by
applying Gabor wavelet transform (GWT) and Discrete Cosine
Transform (DCT) on face images. Radial Basis Function (RBF)
Network is used to classify the facial expressions. As a second stage,
the images are preprocessed to enhance the edge details and non
uniform down sampling is done to reduce the computational
complexity and processing time. Our method reliably works even
with faces, which carry heavy expressions.
Abstract: A self tuning PID control strategy using reinforcement
learning is proposed in this paper to deal with the control of wind
energy conversion systems (WECS). Actor-Critic learning is used to
tune PID parameters in an adaptive way by taking advantage of the
model-free and on-line learning properties of reinforcement learning
effectively. In order to reduce the demand of storage space and to
improve the learning efficiency, a single RBF neural network is used
to approximate the policy function of Actor and the value function of
Critic simultaneously. The inputs of RBF network are the system
error, as well as the first and the second-order differences of error.
The Actor can realize the mapping from the system state to PID
parameters, while the Critic evaluates the outputs of the Actor and
produces TD error. Based on TD error performance index and
gradient descent method, the updating rules of RBF kernel function
and network weights were given. Simulation results show that the
proposed controller is efficient for WECS and it is perfectly
adaptable and strongly robust, which is better than that of a
conventional PID controller.
Abstract: With the rapid growth in business size, today's businesses orient towards electronic technologies. Amazon.com and e-bay.com are some of the major stakeholders in this regard. Unfortunately the enormous size and hugely unstructured data on the web, even for a single commodity, has become a cause of ambiguity for consumers. Extracting valuable information from such an everincreasing data is an extremely tedious task and is fast becoming critical towards the success of businesses. Web content mining can play a major role in solving these issues. It involves using efficient algorithmic techniques to search and retrieve the desired information from a seemingly impossible to search unstructured data on the Internet. Application of web content mining can be very encouraging in the areas of Customer Relations Modeling, billing records, logistics investigations, product cataloguing and quality management. In this paper we present a review of some very interesting, efficient yet implementable techniques from the field of web content mining and study their impact in the area specific to business user needs focusing both on the customer as well as the producer. The techniques we would be reviewing include, mining by developing a knowledge-base repository of the domain, iterative refinement of user queries for personalized search, using a graphbased approach for the development of a web-crawler and filtering information for personalized search using website captions. These techniques have been analyzed and compared on the basis of their execution time and relevance of the result they produced against a particular search.
Abstract: The artificial intelligent controller in power system
plays as most important rule for many applications such as system
operation and its control specially Load Frequency Controller (LFC).
The main objective of LFC is to keep the frequency and tie-line power
close to their decidable bounds in case of disturbance. In this paper,
parallel fuzzy PI adaptive with conventional PD technique for Load
Frequency Control system was proposed. PSO optimization method
used to optimize both of scale fuzzy PI and tuning of PD. Two equal
interconnected power system areas were used as a test system.
Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed controller
compared with different PID and classical fuzzy PI controllers in terms
of speed response and damping frequency.
Abstract: While the form of crises may change, their essence
remains the same (such as a cycle of abundant liquidity, rapid credit
growth, and a low-inflation environment followed by an asset-price
bubble). The current market turbulence began in mid-2000s when the
US economy shifted to imbalanced both internal and external
macroeconomic positions. We see two key causes of these problems
– loose US monetary policy in early 2000s and US government
guarantees issued on the securities by government-sponsored
enterprises what was further fueled by financial innovations such as
structured credit products. We have discovered both negative and
positive lessons deriving from this crisis and divided the negative
lessons into three groups: financial products and valuation, processes
and business models, and strategic issues. Moreover, we address key
risk management lessons and exit strategies derived from the current
crisis and recommend policies that should help diminish the negative
impact of future potential crises.
Abstract: As part of national epidemiological survey on bovine
viral diarrhea virus (BVDV), a total of 274 dejecta samples were
collected from 14 cattle farms in 8 areas of Xinjiang Uygur
Autonomous Region in northwestern China. Total RNA was extracted
from each sample, and 5--untranslated region (UTR) of BVDV
genome was amplified by using two-step reverse
transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). The PCR products
were subsequently sequenced to study the genetic variations of BVDV
in these areas. Among the 274 samples, 33 samples were found
virus-positive. According to sequence analysis of the PCR products,
the 33 samples could be arranged into 16 groups. All the sequences,
however, were highly conserved with BVDV Osloss strains. The virus
possessed theses sequences belonged to BVDV-1b subtype by
phylogenetic analysis. Based on these data, we established a typing
tree for BVDV in these areas. Our results suggested that BVDV-1b
was a predominant subgenotype in northwestern China and no
correlation between the genetic and geographical distances could be
observed above the farm level.
Abstract: Palestinian cities face the challenges of land scarcity,
high population growth rates, rapid urbanization, uneven
development and territorial fragmentation. Due to geopolitical
constrains and the absence of an effective Palestinian planning
institution, urban development in Palestinian cities has not followed
any discernable planning scheme. This has led to a number of
internal contradictions in the structure of cities, and adversely
affected land use, the provision of urban services, and the quality of
the living environment.
This paper explores these challenges, and the potential that exists
for introducing a more sustainable urban development pattern in
Palestinian cities. It assesses alternative development approaches
with a particular focus on sustainable development, promoting ecodevelopment
imperatives, limiting random urbanization, and meeting
present and future challenges, including fulfilling the needs of the
people and conserving the scarce land and limited natural resources.
This paper concludes by offering conceptual proposals and guidelines
for promoting sustainable physical development in Palestinian cities.
Abstract: The usage of internet is rapidly increasing and the usage of mobile agent technology in internet environment has a great demand. The security issue one of main obstacles that restrict the mobile agent technology to spread. This paper proposes Secure-Image Mechanism (SIM) as a new mechanism to protect mobile agents against malicious hosts. . SIM aims to protect mobile agent by using the symmetric encryption and hash function in cryptography science. This mechanism can prevent the eavesdropping and alteration attacks. It assists the mobile agents to continue their journey normally incase attacks occurred.
Abstract: Non-viral gene carriers composed of biodegradable
polymers or lipids have been considered as a safer alternative for gene
carriers over viral vectors. We have developed multi-functional
nano-micelles for both drug and gene delivery application.
Polyethyleneimine (PEI) was modified by grafting stearic acid (SA)
and formulated to polymeric micelles (PEI-SA) with positive surface
charge for gene and drug delivery. Our results showed that PEI-SA
micelles provided high siRNA binding efficiency. In addition, siRNA
delivered by PEI-SA carriers also demonstrated significantly high
cellular uptake even in the presence of serum proteins. The
post-transcriptional gene silencing efficiency was greatly improved by
the polyplex formulated by 10k PEI-SA/siRNA. The amphiphilic
structure of PEI-SA micelles provided advantages for multifunctional
tasks; where the hydrophilic shell modified with cationic charges can
electrostatically interact with DNA or siRNA, and the hydrophobic
core can serve as payloads for hydrophobic drugs, making it a
promising multifunctional vehicle for both genetic and chemotherapy
application.
Abstract: In this study we investigate silica nanoparticle (SiO2- NP) effects on the structure and phase properties of supported lipid monolayers and bilayers, coupling surface pressure measurements, fluorescence microscopy and atomic force microscopy. SiO2-NPs typically in size range of 10nm to 100 nm in diameter are tested. Our results suggest first that lipid molecules organization depends to their nature. Secondly, lipid molecules in the vinicity of big aggregates nanoparticles organize in liquid condensed phase whereas small aggregates are localized in both fluid liquid-expanded (LE) and liquid-condenced (LC). We demonstrated also by atomic force microscopy that by measuring friction forces it is possible to get information as if nanoparticle aggregates are recovered or not by lipid monolayers and bilayers.
Abstract: A zero-field ferromagnetic Ising model is utilized to
simulate the propagation of infection in a population that assumes a
square lattice structure. The rate of infection increases with
temperature. The disease spreads faster among individuals with low J
values. Such effect, however, diminishes at higher temperatures.