Abstract: Tribological behavior and wear regimes of ascast
and heattreted Al-Cu-Mg matrix composites containing SiC
particles were studied using a pin-on-disc wear testing apparatus
against an EN32 steel counterface giving emphasis on wear rate as
a function of applied pressures (0.2, 0.6, 1.0 and 1.4 MPa) at
different sliding distances (1000, 2000, 3000, 4000 and 5000
meters) and at a fixed sliding speed of 3.35m/s. The results showed
that the composite exhibited lower wear rate than that of the matrix
alloy and the wear rate of the composites is noted to be invariant to
the sliding distance and is reducing by heat treatment. Wear
regimes such as low, mild and severe wear were observed as per the
Archard-s wear calculations. It is very interesting to note that the
mild wear is almost constant in all the wear regimes.
Abstract: The role of the pollen grain, with to the reproductive
process of higher plants, is to deliver the spermatic cells to the
embryo sac for egg fertilization. The aim of this project was study
the effect of electromagnetic fields on structure and pollen grains
development in Chenopodium album. Anthers of Chenopodium
album L. were collected at different stages of development from
control (without electromagnetic field) and plants grown at 10m from
the field sources. Structure and development of pollen grains were
studied and compared. The studying pollen structure by Light and
Scanning electron microscopy showed that electromagnetic fields
reduction of pollen grains number and male sterility, thus , in some
anthers, pollen grains were attached together and deformed compared
to control ones. The data presented suggest that prolonged exposures
of plants to magnetic field may cause different biological effects at
the cellular tissue and organ levels.
Abstract: Sensors possess several properties of physical
measures. Whether devices that convert a sensed signal into an
electrical signal, chemical sensors and biosensors, thus all these
sensors can be considered as an interface between the physical and
electrical equipment. The problem is the analysis of the multitudes of
saved settings as input variables. However, they do not all have the
same level of influence on the outputs. In order to identify the most
sensitive parameters, those that can guide users in gathering
information on the ground and in the process of model calibration
and sensitivity analysis for the effect of each change made.
Mathematical models used for processing become very complex.
In this paper a fuzzy rule-based system is proposed as a solution
for this problem. The system collects the available signals
information from sensors. Moreover, the system allows the study of
the influence of the various factors that take part in the decision
system. Since its inception fuzzy set theory has been regarded as a
formalism suitable to deal with the imprecision intrinsic to many
problems. At the same time, fuzzy sets allow to use symbolic models.
In this study an example was applied for resolving variety of
physiological parameters that define human health state. The
application system was done for medical diagnosis help. The inputs
are the signals expressed the cardiovascular system parameters, blood
pressure, Respiratory system paramsystem was done, it will be able
to predict the state of patient according any input values.
Abstract: It is shown that the relationship of tick-borne
encephalitis virus with the human body comes in two ways, the
development of acute infection with the outcome in convalescence
and long stay by the virus in the body, its persistence in the nervous
tissue with periodic reactivation and prolonged circulating
immunoglobulin M. In spite of the fact that tick-borne encephalitis
virus has a tropism for nerve tissue, involvement in the process of
blood cells is an integral component of the infection. Comprehensive
study of the relation of factors of innate and adaptive immunity in the
tick-borne encephalitis providing insight into the features of chronic
disease.
Abstract: Silicon is a beneficial element for plant growth. It
helps plants to overcome multiple stresses, alleviates metal toxicity
and improves nutrient imbalance. Field experiment was conducted as
split-split plot arranged in a randomized complete block design with
four replications. Irrigation system include continues flooding and
deficit as main plots and nitrogen rates N0, N46, N92, and N138 kg/ha
as sub plots and silicon rates Si0 & Si500 kg/ha as sub-subplots.
Results indicate that grain yield had not significant difference
between irrigation systems. Flooding irrigation had higher biological
yield than deficit irrigation whereas, no significant difference in grain
and straw yield. Nitrogen application increased grain, biological and
straw yield. Silicon application increased grain, biological and straw
yield but, decreased harvest index. Flooding irrigation had higher
number of total tillers / hill than deficit irrigation, but deficit
irrigation had higher number of fertile tillers / hill than flooding
irrigation. Silicon increased number of filled spikelet and decreased
blank spikelet. With high nitrogen application decreased 1000-grain
weight. It can be concluded that if the nitrogen application was high
and water supplied was available we could have silicon application
until increase grain yield.
Abstract: Kombucha Tea Ferment (KT), was given to male
albino rats, (1ml/Kg of body weight), via gavages, during 2 weeks
before intraperitoneal administration of 3.5 mg/Kg body weight
CdCl2 and/or whole body γ-irradiation with 4Gy, and during 4 weeks
after each treatment. Hepatic and nephritic pathological changes
included significant increases of serum alanine transaminase (ALT),
aspartate transaminase (AST), and alkaline phosphatase (ALP)
activities, and creatinine and urea contents with significant decrease
in serum total antioxidant capacity (TAC). Increase in oxidative
stress markers in liver and kidney tissues expressed by significant
increase in malondialdehyde (MDA) and nitric oxide (NO) contents
associated to significant depletion in superoxide dismutase (SOD)
and catalase (CAT) activities, and reduced glutathione (GSH) content
were recorded. KT administration results in recovery of all the
pathological changes. It could be concluded that KT might protect
liver and kidney from oxidative damage induced by exposure to
cadmium and/ or γ-irradiation.
Abstract: With getting older in the whole population, the
prevalence of stroke and its residual disability is getting higher and
higher recently in Taiwan. The functional electrical stimulation
cycling system (FESCS) is useful for hemiplegic patients. Because
that the muscle of stroke patients is under hybrid activation. The raw
electromyography (EMG) represents the residual muscle force of
stroke subject whereas the peak-to-peak of stimulus EMG indicates the
force enhancement benefiting from ES. It seems that EMG signals
could be used for a parameter of feedback control mechanism. So, we
design the feedback control protocol of FESCS, it includes
physiological signal recorder, FPGA biomedical module, DAC and
electrical stimulation circuit. Using the intensity of real-time EMG
signal obtained from patients, as a feedback control method for the
output voltage of FES-cycling system.
Abstract: Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) is a well-known
hepatotoxin and exposure to this chemical is known to induce
oxidative stress and causes liver injury by the formation of free
radicals. Flacourtia indica commonly known as 'Baichi' has been
reported as an effective remedy for the treatment of a variety of
diseases. The objective of this study was to investigate the
hepatoprotective activity of aqueous extract of leaves of Flacourtia
indica against CCl4 induced hepatotoxicity. Animals were pretreated
with the aqueous extract of Flacourtia indica (250 & 500 mg/kg
body weight) for one week and then challenged with CCl4 (1.5 ml/kg
bw) in olive oil (1:1, v/v) on 7th day. Serum marker enzymes (ALP,
AST, ALT, Total Protein & Total Bilirubin) and TBARS level
(Marker for oxidative stress) were estimated in all the study groups.
Alteration in the levels of biochemical markers of hepatic damage
like AST, ALT, ALP, Total Protein, Total Bilirubin and lipid
peroxides (TBARS) were tested in both CCl4 treated and extract
treated groups. CCl4 has enhanced the AST, ALT, ALP and the
Lipid peroxides (TBARS) in liver. Treatment of aqueous extract of
Flacourtia indica leaves (250 & 500 mg/kg) exhibited a significant
protective effect by altering the serum levels of AST, ALT, ALP,
Total Protein, Total Bilirubin and liver TBARS. These biochemical
observations were supported by histopathological study of liver
sections. From this preliminary study it has been concluded that the
aqueous extract of the leaves of Flacourtia indica protects liver
against oxidative damages and could be used as an effective protector
against CCl4 induced hepatic damage. Our findings suggested that
Flacourtia indica possessed good hepatoprotective activity
Abstract: The field of biomedical materials plays an imperative
requisite and a critical role in manufacturing a variety of biological
artificial replacements in a modern world. Recently, titanium (Ti)
materials are being used as biomaterials because of their superior
corrosion resistance and tremendous specific strength, free- allergic
problems and the greatest biocompatibility compared to other
competing biomaterials such as stainless steel, Co-Cr alloys,
ceramics, polymers, and composite materials. However, regardless of
these excellent performance properties, Implantable Ti materials have
poor shear strength and wear resistance which limited their
applications as biomaterials. Even though the wear properties of Ti
alloys has revealed some improvements, the crucial effectiveness of
biomedical Ti alloys as wear components requires a comprehensive
deep understanding of the wear reasons, mechanisms, and techniques
that can be used to improve wear behavior. This review examines
current information on the effect of thermal and thermomechanical
processing of implantable Ti materials on the long-term prosthetic
requirement which related with wear behavior. This paper focuses
mainly on the evolution, evaluation and development of effective
microstructural features that can improve wear properties of bio
grade Ti materials using thermal and thermomechanical treatments.
Abstract: Recently, nanomaterials are developed in the form of nano-films, nano-crystals and nano-pores. Lanthanide phosphates as a material find extensive application as laser, ceramic, sensor, phosphor, and also in optoelectronics, medical and biological labels, solar cells and light sources. Among the different kinds of rare-earth orthophosphates, yttrium orthophosphate has been shown to be an efficient host lattice for rare earth activator ions, which have become a research focus because of their important role in the field of light display systems, lasers, and optoelectronic devices. It is in this context that the 4fn- « 4fn-1 5d transitions of rare earth in insulating materials, lying in the UV and VUV, are the aim of large number of studies .Though there has been a few reports on Eu3+, Nd3+, Pr3+,Er3+, Ce3+, Tm3+ doped YPO4. The 4fn- « 4fn-1 5d transitions of the rare earth dependent to the host-matrix, several matrices ions were used to study these transitions, in this work we are suggesting to study on a very specific class of inorganic material that are orthophosphate doped with rare earth ions. This study focused on the effect of Ce3+ concentration on the structural and optical properties of Ce3+ doped YPO4 yttrium orthophosphate with powder form prepared by the Sol Gel method.
Abstract: Cognitive Science appeared about 40 years ago,
subsequent to the challenge of the Artificial Intelligence, as common
territory for several scientific disciplines such as: IT, mathematics,
psychology, neurology, philosophy, sociology, and linguistics. The
new born science was justified by the complexity of the problems
related to the human knowledge on one hand, and on the other by the
fact that none of the above mentioned sciences could explain alone
the mental phenomena. Based on the data supplied by the
experimental sciences such as psychology or neurology, models of
the human mind operation are built in the cognition science. These
models are implemented in computer programs and/or electronic
circuits (specific to the artificial intelligence) – cognitive systems –
whose competences and performances are compared to the human
ones, leading to the psychology and neurology data reinterpretation,
respectively to the construction of new models. During these
processes if psychology provides the experimental basis, philosophy
and mathematics provides the abstraction level utterly necessary for
the intermission of the mentioned sciences.
The ongoing general problematic of the cognitive approach
provides two important types of approach: the computational one,
starting from the idea that the mental phenomenon can be reduced to
1 and 0 type calculus operations, and the connection one that
considers the thinking products as being a result of the interaction
between all the composing (included) systems. In the field of
psychology measurements in the computational register use classical
inquiries and psychometrical tests, generally based on calculus
methods. Deeming things from both sides that are representing the
cognitive science, we can notice a gap in psychological product
measurement possibilities, regarded from the connectionist
perspective, that requires the unitary understanding of the quality –
quantity whole. In such approach measurement by calculus proves to
be inefficient. Our researches, deployed for longer than 20 years,
lead to the conclusion that measuring by forms properly fits to the
connectionism laws and principles.
Abstract: The rapid pace of technological advancement and its
consequential widening digital divide has resulted in the
marginalization of the disabled especially the communication
challenged. The dearth of suitable technologies for the development
of assistive technologies has served to further marginalize the
communications challenged user population and widen this chasm
even further. Given the varying levels of disability there and its
associated requirement for customized solution based. This paper
explains the use of a Software Development Kits (SDK) for the
bridging of this communications divide through the use of industry
poplar communications SDKs towards identification of requirements
for communications challenged users as well as identification of
appropriate frameworks for future development initiatives.
Abstract: Data mining incorporates a group of statistical
methods used to analyze a set of information, or a data set. It operates
with models and algorithms, which are powerful tools with the great
potential. They can help people to understand the patterns in certain
chunk of information so it is obvious that the data mining tools have
a wide area of applications. For example in the theoretical chemistry
data mining tools can be used to predict moleculeproperties or
improve computer-assisted drug design. Classification analysis is one
of the major data mining methodologies. The aim of thecontribution
is to create a classification model, which would be able to deal with a
huge data set with high accuracy. For this purpose logistic regression,
Bayesian logistic regression and random forest models were built
using R software. TheBayesian logistic regression in Latent GOLD
software was created as well. These classification methods belong to
supervised learning methods.
It was necessary to reduce data matrix dimension before construct
models and thus the factor analysis (FA) was used. Those models
were applied to predict the biological activity of molecules, potential
new drug candidates.
Abstract: This paper covers various aspects of the Internet film
piracy. In order to successfully deal with this matter, it is needed to
recognize and explain various motivational factors related to film
piracy. Thus, this study proposes groups of economical, sociopsychological
and other factors that could motivate individuals
to engage in pirate activities. The paper also studies the interactions
between downloaders and uploaders and offers the causality of the
motivational factors and its effects on the film industry.
Moreover, the study also focuses on proposed scheme of relations
of downloading movies and the possible effect on box office
revenues.
Abstract: With major technological advances and to reduce the
cost of training apprentices for real-time critical systems, it was
necessary the development of Intelligent Tutoring Systems for
training apprentices in these systems. These systems, in general, have
interactive features so that the learning is actually more efficient,
making the learner more familiar with the mechanism in question. In
the home stage of learning, tests are performed to obtain the student's
income, a measure on their use. The aim of this paper is to present a
framework to model an Intelligent Tutoring Systems using the UML
language. The various steps of the analysis are considered the
diagrams required to build a general model, whose purpose is to
present the different perspectives of its development.
Abstract: This paper illustrates the use of a combined neural
network model for classification of electrocardiogram (ECG) beats.
We present a trainable neural network ensemble approach to develop
customized electrocardiogram beat classifier in an effort to further
improve the performance of ECG processing and to offer
individualized health care.
We process a three stage technique for detection of premature
ventricular contraction (PVC) from normal beats and other heart
diseases. This method includes a denoising, a feature extraction and a
classification. At first we investigate the application of stationary
wavelet transform (SWT) for noise reduction of the
electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. Then feature extraction module
extracts 10 ECG morphological features and one timing interval
feature. Then a number of multilayer perceptrons (MLPs) neural
networks with different topologies are designed.
The performance of the different combination methods as well as
the efficiency of the whole system is presented. Among them,
Stacked Generalization as a proposed trainable combined neural
network model possesses the highest recognition rate of around 95%.
Therefore, this network proves to be a suitable candidate in ECG
signal diagnosis systems. ECG samples attributing to the different
ECG beat types were extracted from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia
database for the study.
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a method to extract the road
signs. Firstly, the grabbed image is converted into the HSV color space
to detect the road signs. Secondly, the morphological operations are
used to reduce noise. Finally, extract the road sign using the geometric
property. The feature extraction of road sign is done by using the color
information. The proposed method has been tested for the real
situations. From the experimental results, it is seen that the proposed
method can extract the road sign features effectively.
Abstract: This work concerns the topological optimization
problem for determining the optimal petroleum refinery
configuration. We are interested in further investigating and
hopefully advancing the existing optimization approaches and
strategies employing logic propositions to conceptual process
synthesis problems. In particular, we seek to contribute to this
increasingly exciting area of chemical process modeling by
addressing the following potentially important issues: (a) how the
formulation of design specifications in a mixed-logical-and-integer
optimization model can be employed in a synthesis problem to enrich
the problem representation by incorporating past design experience,
engineering knowledge, and heuristics; and (b) how structural
specifications on the interconnectivity relationships by space (states)
and by function (tasks) in a superstructure should be properly
formulated within a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP)
model. The proposed modeling technique is illustrated on a case
study involving the alternative processing routes of naphtha, in which
significant improvement in the solution quality is obtained.
Abstract: Determination of nano particle size is substantial since
the nano particle size exerts a significant effect on various properties
of nano materials. Accordingly, proposing non-destructive, accurate
and rapid techniques for this aim is of high interest. There are some
conventional techniques to investigate the morphology and grain size
of nano particles such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM),
atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray diffractometry (XRD).
Vibrational spectroscopy is utilized to characterize different
compounds and applied for evaluation of the average particle size
based on relationship between particle size and near infrared spectra
[1,4] , but it has never been applied in quantitative morphological
analysis of nano materials. So far, the potential application of nearinfrared
(NIR) spectroscopy with its ability in rapid analysis of
powdered materials with minimal sample preparation, has been
suggested for particle size determination of powdered
pharmaceuticals. The relationship between particle size and diffuse
reflectance (DR) spectra in near infrared region has been applied to
introduce a method for estimation of particle size. Back propagation
artificial neural network (BP-ANN) as a nonlinear model was applied
to estimate average particle size based on near infrared diffuse
reflectance spectra. Thirty five different nano TiO2 samples with
different particle size were analyzed by DR-FTNIR spectrometry and
the obtained data were processed by BP- ANN.
Abstract: Societal security, continuity scenarios and methodological cycling approach explained in this article. Namely societal security organizational challenges ask implementation of international standards BS 25999-2 & global ISO 22300 which is a family of standards for business continuity management system. Efficient global organization system is distinguished of high entity´s complexity, connectivity & interoperability, having not only cooperative relations in a fact. Competing business have numerous participating ´enemies´, which are in apparent or hidden opponent and antagonistic roles with prosperous organization system, resulting to a crisis scene or even to a battle theatre. Organization business continuity scenarios are necessary for such ´a play´ preparedness, planning, management & overmastering in real environments.