The study was designed to evaluate the use of low concentrations of separan flocculent (Less than 3 ppm) on physicochemical properties of sugar cane juice. Colour, pH, purity, turbidity, pol, brix, reducing sugars tannins and polyphenols of crushed cane (green and burned) juice, mixed juice and clarified juice were studied. The results showed that pol, brix, reducing sugar and turbidity are higher in crushed cane juice. Clarified burned juice had low turbidity, reducing sugars, pol and brix but had significantly lower pH, purity and colour when compared to crushed juice. Polyphenols of the crushed juice (1.19%) decreased significantly in the clarified juice to 0.006%. Addition of separan at a concentration of 0.015 ppm reduced significantly colour, polyphenols and tannins and reducing sugar compared to the control.

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

The present study has been taken to explore the screening of in vitro antimicrobial activities of D-galactose-binding sponge lectin (HOL-30). HOL-30 was purified from the marine demosponge Halichondria okadai by affinity chromatography. The molecular mass of the lectin was determined to be 30 kDa with a single polypeptide by SDS-PAGE under non-reducing and reducing conditions. HOL-30 agglutinated trypsinized and glutaraldehydefixed rabbit and human erythrocytes with preference for type O erythrocytes. The lectin was subjected to evaluation for inhibition of microbial growth by the disc diffusion method against eleven human pathogenic gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria. The lectin exhibited strong antibacterial activity against gram-positive bacteria, such as Bacillus megaterium and Bacillus subtilis. However, it did not affect against gram-negative bacteria such as Salmonella typhi and Escherichia coli. The largest zone of inhibition was recorded of Bacillus megaterium (12 in diameter) and Bacillus subtilis (10 mm in diameter) at a concentration of the lectin (250 μg/disc). On the other hand, the antifungal activity of the lectin was investigated against six phytopathogenic fungi based on food poisoning technique. The lectin has shown maximum inhibition (22.83%) of mycelial growth of Botrydiplodia theobromae at a concentration of 100 μg/mL media. These findings indicate that the lectin may be of importance to clinical microbiology and have therapeutic applications.

Enzymatic hydrolysis of starch from natural sources finds potential application in commercial production of alcoholic beverage and bioethanol. In this study the effect of starch concentration, temperature, time and enzyme concentration were studied and optimized for hydrolysis of Potato starch powder (of mesh 80/120) into glucose syrup by immobilized (using Sodium arginate) α-amylase using central composite design. The experimental result on enzymatic hydrolysis of Potato starch was subjected to multiple linear regression analysis using MINITAB 14 software. Positive linear effect of starch concentration, enzyme concentration and time was observed on hydrolysis of Potato starch by α-amylase. The statistical significance of the model was validated by F-test for analysis of variance (p ≤ 0.01). The optimum value of starch concentration, enzyme concentration, temperature, time and were found to be 6% (w/v), 2% (w/v), 40°C and 80min respectively. The maximum glucose yield at optimum condition was 2.34 mg/mL.

Fecal sterol has been proposed as a chemical indicator of human fecal pollution even when fecal coliform populations have diminished due to water chlorination or toxic effects of industrial effluents. This paper describes an improved derivatization procedure for simultaneous determination of four fecal sterols including coprostanol, epicholestanol, cholesterol and cholestanol using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), via optimization study on silylation procedures using N-O-bis (trimethylsilyl)-trifluoroacetamide (BSTFA), and N-(tert-butyldimethylsilyl)-N-methyltrifluoroacetamide (MTBSTFA), which lead to the formation of trimethylsilyl (TMS) and tert-butyldimethylsilyl (TBS) derivatives, respectively. Two derivatization processes of injection-port derivatization and water bath derivatization (60 oC, 1h) were inspected and compared. Furthermore, the methylation procedure at 25 oC for 2h with trimethylsilydiazomethane (TMSD) for fecal sterols analysis was also studied. It was found that most of TMS derivatives demonstrated the highest sensitivities, followed by methylated derivatives. For BSTFA or MTBSTFA derivatization processes, the simple injection-port derivatization process could achieve the same efficiency as that in the tedious water bath derivatization procedure.

Ground-level tropospheric ozone is one of the air pollutants of most concern. It is mainly produced by photochemical processes involving nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds in the lower parts of the atmosphere. Ozone levels become particularly high in regions close to high ozone precursor emissions and during summer, when stagnant meteorological conditions with high insolation and high temperatures are common. In this work, some results of a study about urban ozone distribution patterns in the city of Badajoz, which is the largest and most industrialized city in Extremadura region (southwest Spain) are shown. Fourteen sampling campaigns, at least one per month, were carried out to measure ambient air ozone concentrations, during periods that were selected according to favourable conditions to ozone production, using an automatic portable analyzer. Later, to evaluate the ozone distribution at the city, the measured ozone data were analyzed using geostatistical techniques. Thus, first, during the exploratory analysis of data, it was revealed that they were distributed normally, which is a desirable property for the subsequent stages of the geostatistical study. Secondly, during the structural analysis of data, theoretical spherical models provided the best fit for all monthly experimental variograms. The parameters of these variograms (sill, range and nugget) revealed that the maximum distance of spatial dependence is between 302-790 m and the variable, air ozone concentration, is not evenly distributed in reduced distances. Finally, predictive ozone maps were derived for all points of the experimental study area, by use of geostatistical algorithms (kriging). High prediction accuracy was obtained in all cases as cross-validation showed. Useful information for hazard assessment was also provided when probability maps, based on kriging interpolation and kriging standard deviation, were produced.

This paper introduces a new approach for the performance analysis of adaptive filter with error saturation nonlinearity in the presence of impulsive noise. The performance analysis of adaptive filters includes both transient analysis which shows that how fast a filter learns and the steady-state analysis gives how well a filter learns. The recursive expressions for mean-square deviation(MSD) and excess mean-square error(EMSE) are derived based on weighted energy conservation arguments which provide the transient behavior of the adaptive algorithm. The steady-state analysis for co-related input regressor data is analyzed, so this approach leads to a new performance results without restricting the input regression data to be white.

In Blind Source Separation (BSS) processing, taking advantage of scaling factor indetermination and based on the floatingpoint representation, we propose a scaling technique applied to the separation matrix, to avoid the saturation or the weakness in the recovered source signals. This technique performs an Automatic Gain Control (AGC) in an on-line BSS environment. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this technique by using the implementation of a division free BSS algorithm with two input, two output. This technique is computationally cheaper and efficient for a hardware implementation.

Abstract–Let k ≥ 3 be an integer, and let G be a graph of order n with n ≥ 9k +3- 42(k - 1)2 + 2. Then a spanning subgraph F of G is called a k-factor if dF (x) = k for each x ∈ V (G). A fractional k-factor is a way of assigning weights to the edges of a graph G (with all weights between 0 and 1) such that for each vertex the sum of the weights of the edges incident with that vertex is k. A graph G is a fractional k-deleted graph if there exists a fractional k-factor after deleting any edge of G. In this paper, it is proved that G is a fractional k-deleted graph if G satisfies δ(G) ≥ k + 1 and |NG(x) ∪ NG(y)| ≥ 1 2 (n + k - 2) for each pair of nonadjacent vertices x, y of G.

In this paper, we have applied the homotopy perturbation method (HPM) for obtaining the analytical solution of unsteady flow of gas through a porous medium and we have also compared the findings of this research with some other analytical results. Results showed a very good agreement between results of HPM and the numerical solutions of the problem rather than other analytical solutions which have previously been applied. The results of homotopy perturbation method are of high accuracy and the method is very effective and succinct.

Rough set theory is a very effective tool to deal with granularity and vagueness in information systems. Covering-based rough set theory is an extension of classical rough set theory. In this paper, firstly we present the characteristics of the reducible element and the minimal description covering-based rough sets through downsets. Then we establish lattices and topological spaces in coveringbased rough sets through down-sets and up-sets. In this way, one can investigate covering-based rough sets from algebraic and topological points of view.

In this paper, we establish several oscillation criteria for the nonlinear second-order damped delay dynamic equation r(t)|xΔ(t)|β-1xΔ(t)Δ + p(t)|xΔσ(t)|β-1xΔσ(t) + q(t)f(x(τ (t))) = 0 on an arbitrary time scale T, where β > 0 is a constant. Our results generalize and improve some known results in which β > 0 is a quotient of odd positive integers. Some examples are given to illustrate our main results.

In this chapter, we have studied Variation of velocity in incompressible fluid over a moving surface. The boundary layer equations are on a fixed or continuously moving flat plate in the same or opposite direction to the free stream with suction and injection. The boundary layer equations are transferred from partial differential equations to ordinary differential equations. Numerical solutions are obtained by using Runge-Kutta and Shooting methods. We have found numerical solution to velocity and skin friction coefficient.

This paper shows that some properties of the decision rules in the literature do not hold by presenting a counterexample. We give sufficient and necessary conditions under which these properties are valid. These results will be helpful when one tries to choose the right decision rules in the research of rough set theory.

This paper reports on a survey of state-of-the-art application scenarios for smart office environments. Based on an analysis of ongoing research activities and industry projects, functionalities and services of future office systems are extracted. In a second step, these results are used to identify the key characteristics of emerging products.

Among various testing methodologies, Built-in Self- Test (BIST) is recognized as a low cost, effective paradigm. Also, full adders are one of the basic building blocks of most arithmetic circuits in all processing units. In this paper, an optimized testable 2- bit full adder as a test building block is proposed. Then, a BIST procedure is introduced to scale up the building block and to generate a self testable n-bit full adders. The target design can achieve 100% fault coverage using insignificant amount of hardware redundancy. Moreover, Overall test time is reduced by utilizing polymorphic gates and also by testing full adder building blocks in parallel.

Image data holds a large amount of different context information. However, as of today, these resources remain largely untouched. It is thus the aim of this paper to present a basic technical framework which allows for a quick and easy exploitation of context information from image data especially by non-expert users. Furthermore, the proposed framework is discussed in detail concerning important social and ethical issues which demand special requirements in system design. Finally, a first sensor prototype is presented which meets the identified requirements. Additionally, necessary implications for the software and hardware design of the system are discussed, rendering a sensor system which could be regarded as a good, acceptable and justifiable technical and thereby enabling the extraction of context information from image data.

Model-based approaches have been applied successfully to a wide range of tasks such as specification, simulation, testing, and diagnosis. But one bottleneck often prevents the introduction of these ideas: Manual modeling is a non-trivial, time-consuming task. Automatically deriving models by observing and analyzing running systems is one possible way to amend this bottleneck. To derive a model automatically, some a-priori knowledge about the model structure–i.e. about the system–must exist. Such a model formalism would be used as follows: (i) By observing the network traffic, a model of the long-term system behavior could be generated automatically, (ii) Test vectors can be generated from the model, (iii) While the system is running, the model could be used to diagnose non-normal system behavior. The main contribution of this paper is the introduction of a model formalism called 'probabilistic regression automaton' suitable for the tasks mentioned above.

The fast growing accessibility and capability of emerging technologies have fashioned enormous possibilities of designing, developing and implementing innovative teaching methods in the classroom. The global technological scenario has paved the way to new pedagogies in teaching-learning process focusing on technology based learning environment and its impact on student achievement. The present experimental study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of technology based learning environment on student achievement in English as a foreign language. The sample of the study was 90 students of 10th grade of a public school located in Islamabad. A pretest- posttest equivalent group design was used to compare the achievement of the two groups. A Pretest and A posttest containing 50 items each from English textbook were developed and administered. The collected data were statistically analyzed. The results showed that there was a significant difference between the mean scores of Experimental group and the Control group. The performance of Experimental group was better on posttest scores that indicted that teaching through technology based learning environment enhanced the achievement level of the students. On the basis of the results, it was recommended that teaching and learning through information and communication technologies may be adopted to enhance the language learning capability of the students.

In this work, we present a comparison between two techniques of image compression. In the first case, the image is divided in blocks which are collected according to zig-zag scan. In the second one, we apply the Fast Cosine Transform to the image, and then the transformed image is divided in blocks which are collected according to zig-zag scan too. Later, in both cases, the Karhunen-Loève transform is applied to mentioned blocks. On the other hand, we present three new metrics based on eigenvalues for a better comparative evaluation of the techniques. Simulations show that the combined version is the best, with minor Mean Absolute Error (MAE) and Mean Squared Error (MSE), higher Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and better image quality. Finally, new technique was far superior to JPEG and JPEG2000.

The aerodynamic noise radiation from a side view mirror (SVM) in the high-speed airflow is calculated by the combination of unsteady incompressible fluid flow analysis and acoustic analysis. The transient flow past the generic SVM is simulated with variable turbulence model, namely DES Detached Eddy Simulation and LES (Large Eddy Simulation). Detailed velocity vectors and contour plots of the time-varying velocity and pressure fields are presented along cut planes in the flow-field. Mean and transient pressure are also monitored at several points in the flow field and compared to corresponding experimentally data published in literature. The acoustic predictions made using the Ffowcs-Williams-Hawkins acoustic analogy (FW-H) and the boundary element (BEM).

This paper investigates the robust stability of uncertain neutral system with time-varying delay. By using Lyapunov method and linear matrix inequality technology, new delay-dependent stability criteria are obtained and formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), which can be easy to check the robust stability of the considered systems. Numerical examples are given to indicate significant improvements over some existing results.

In this paper, we have developed a method to compute fractal dimension (FD) of discrete time signals, in the time domain, by modifying the box-counting method. The size of the box is dependent on the sampling frequency of the signal. The number of boxes required to completely cover the signal are obtained at multiple time resolutions. The time resolutions are made coarse by decimating the signal. The loglog plot of total number of boxes required to cover the curve versus size of the box used appears to be a straight line, whose slope is taken as an estimate of FD of the signal. The results are provided to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method using parametric fractal signals. The estimation accuracy of the method is compared with that of Katz, Sevcik, and Higuchi methods. In addition, some properties of the FD are discussed.

In this paper, a class of generalized bi-directional associative memory (BAM) neural networks with mixed delays is investigated. On the basis of Lyapunov stability theory and contraction mapping theorem, some new sufficient conditions are established for the existence and uniqueness and globally exponential stability of equilibrium, which generalize and improve the previously known results. One example is given to show the feasibility and effectiveness of our results.

Clustering categorical data is more complicated than the numerical clustering because of its special properties. Scalability and memory constraint is the challenging problem in clustering large data set. This paper presents an incremental algorithm to cluster the categorical data. Frequencies of attribute values contribute much in clustering similar categorical objects. In this paper we propose new similarity measures based on the frequencies of attribute values and its cardinalities. The proposed measures and the algorithm are experimented with the data sets from UCI data repository. Results prove that the proposed method generates better clusters than the existing one.

The effect of muscle loss due to transfemoral amputation, on energy expenditure of hip joint and individual residual muscles was simulated. During swing phase of gait, with each muscle as an ideal force generator, the lower extremity was modeled as a two-degree of freedom linkage, for which hip and knee were joints. According to results, muscle loss will not lead to higher energy expenditure of hip joint, as long as other parameters of limb remain unaffected. This finding maybe due to the role of biarticular muscles in hip and knee joints motion. Moreover, if hip flexors are removed from the residual limb, residual flexors, and if hip extensors are removed, residual extensors will do more work. In line with the common practice in transfemoral amputation, this result demonstrates during transfemoral amputation, it is important to maintain the length of residual limb as much as possible.

In this paper, a wavelet-based neural network (WNN) classifier for recognizing EEG signals is implemented and tested under three sets EEG signals (healthy subjects, patients with epilepsy and patients with epileptic syndrome during the seizure). First, the Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) with the Multi-Resolution Analysis (MRA) is applied to decompose EEG signal at resolution levels of the components of the EEG signal (δ, θ, α, β and γ) and the Parseval-s theorem are employed to extract the percentage distribution of energy features of the EEG signal at different resolution levels. Second, the neural network (NN) classifies these extracted features to identify the EEGs type according to the percentage distribution of energy features. The performance of the proposed algorithm has been evaluated using in total 300 EEG signals. The results showed that the proposed classifier has the ability of recognizing and classifying EEG signals efficiently.

The Taiwan Health Literacy Scale (THLS) was developed to cope with the need of measuring heath literacy of Chinese-speaking adults in Taiwan. Although the scale was proven having good reliability and validity, it was not popularly adopted by the practitioners due to the length, and the time required completing. Based on the THLS, this research further invited healthcare professionals to review the original scale for a possible shorten work. Under the logic of THLS, the research adopted an analytic hierarchy process technique to consolidate the healthcare experts- assessments to shorten the original scale. There are fifteen items out of the original 66 items were identified having higher loadings. Confirmed by the experts and passed a pilot test with 40 undergraduate students, a short form of THLS is then introduced. This research then used 839 samples from the major cities of the Hua-lien county in the eastern part of Taiwan to test the reliability and validity of this new scale. The reliability of the scale is high and acceptable. The current scale is also highly correlated with the original, of which provide evidence for the validity of the scale.

The present study was conducted to observe the effect of Plantago psyllium on blood glucose and cholesterol levels in normal and alloxan induced diabetic rats. To investigate the effect of Plantago psyllium 40 rats were included in this study divided into four groups of ten rats in each group. One group A was normal, second group B was diabetic, third group C was non diabetic and hypercholesterolemic and fourth group D was diabetic and hypercholesterolemic. Two groups B and D were made diabetic by intraperitonial injection of alloxan dissolved in 1mL distilled water at a dose of 125mg/Kg of body weight. Two groups C and D were made hypercholesterolemic by oral administration of powder cholesterol (1g/Kg of body weight). The blood samples from all the rats were collected from coccygial vein on 1st day, then on 21st and 42nd day respectively. All the samples were analyzed for blood glucose and cholesterol level by using enzymatic kits. The blood glucose and cholesterol levels of treated groups of rats showed significant reduction after 7 weeks of treatment with Plantago psyllium. By statistical analysis of results it was found that Plantago psyllium has anti-diabetic and hypocholesterolemic activity in diabetic and hypercholesterolemic albino rats.

The prediction of transmembrane helical segments (TMHs) in membrane proteins is an important field in the bioinformatics research. In this paper, a new method based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) has been developed to predict the number and location of TMHs in membrane proteins. PDB coded as 1KQG was chosen as an example to describe the prediction of the number and location of TMHs in membrane proteins by using this method. To access the effect of the method, 80 proteins with known 3D-structure from Mptopo database are chosen at random as the test objects (including 325 TMHs), 308 of which can be predicted accurately, the average predicted accuracy is 96.3%. In addition, the above 80 membrane proteins are divided into 13 groups according to their function and type. In particular, the results of the prediction of TMHs of the 13 groups are satisfying.

This research was carried out to determine the possible effects of low electromagnetic field (EMF) exposure to the developing mice fetuses. Pregnant mice were exposed to EMF exposure at 0mT (sham) and 1.2 mT for six hours per session, carried out on gestation day 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15. Samples from the stillborn offspring were observed for morphological defects. The heart didn-t show progressive cellular damage, the lungs were congested and emphysemics. The bones were in advance stage of hypertrophy. Spectrums of morphological defects were observed over 70% of the surviving offspring. These results indicate that even at lower exposure to low EMF, is enough to induce morphological defects in prenatal mice.

Hospitals in southern Hualien teamed with the Hypertension Joint Care Network. Working with the network, the team provided a special designed health education to the individual who had been identified as a hypertension patient in the outpatient department. Some metabolism improvements achieved. This is a retrospective study by purposively taking 106 patients from a hospital between 2008 and 2010. Records of before and after education intervention of the objects was collected and analyzed to see the how the intervention affected the patients- hypertension control via clinical parameter monitoring. The results showed that the clinical indicators, the LDL-C, the cholesterol and the systolic blood pressure were significantly improved. The study provides evidence for the effectiveness of the network in controlling hypertension.

The purpose of the present work was to study the production and process parameters optimization for the synthesis of cellulase from Trichoderma viride in solid state fermentation (SSF) using an agricultural wheat straw as substrates; as fungal conversion of lignocellulosic biomass for cellulase production is one among the major increasing demand for various biotechnological applications. An optimization of process parameters is a necessary step to get higher yield of product. Several kinetic parameters like pretreatment, extraction solvent, substrate concentration, initial moisture content, pH, incubation temperature and inoculum size were optimized for enhanced production of third most demanded industrially important cellulase. The maximum cellulase enzyme activity 398.10±2.43 μM/mL/min was achieved when proximally analyzed lignocellulosic substrate wheat straw inocubated at 2% HCl as pretreatment tool along with distilled water as extraction solvent, 3% substrate concentration 40% moisture content with optimum pH 5.5 at 45°C incubation temperature and 10% inoculum size.

Background, measuring an individual-s Health Literacy is gaining attention, yet no appropriate instrument is available in Taiwan. Measurement tools that were developed and used in western countries may not be appropriate for use in Taiwan due to a different language system. Purpose of this research was to develop a Health Literacy measurement instrument specific for Taiwan adults. Methods, several experts of clinic physicians; healthcare administrators and scholars identified 125 common used health related Chinese phrases from major medical knowledge sources that easy accessible to the public. A five-point Likert scale is used to measure the understanding level of the target population. Such measurement is then used to compare with the correctness of their answers to a health knowledge test for validation. Samples, samples under study were purposefully taken from four groups of people in the northern Pingtung, OPD patients, university students, community residents, and casual visitors to the central park. A set of health knowledge index with 10 questions is used to screen those false responses. A sample size of 686 valid cases out of 776 was then included to construct this scale. An independent t-test was used to examine each individual phrase. The phrases with the highest significance are then identified and retained to compose this scale. Result, a Taiwan Health Literacy Scale (THLS) was finalized with 66 health-related phrases under nine divisions. Cronbach-s alpha of each division is at a satisfactory level of 89% and above. Conclusions, factors significantly differentiate the levels of health literacy are education, female gender, age, family members of stroke victims, experience with patient care, and healthcare professionals in the initial application in this study..

An electrocardiogram (ECG) feature extraction system based on the calculation of the complex resonance frequency employing Prony-s method is developed. Prony-s method is applied on five different classes of ECG signals- arrhythmia as a finite sum of exponentials depending on the signal-s poles and the resonant complex frequencies. Those poles and resonance frequencies of the ECG signals- arrhythmia are evaluated for a large number of each arrhythmia. The ECG signals of lead II (ML II) were taken from MIT-BIH database for five different types. These are the ventricular couplet (VC), ventricular tachycardia (VT), ventricular bigeminy (VB), and ventricular fibrillation (VF) and the normal (NR). This novel method can be extended to any number of arrhythmias. Different classification techniques were tried using neural networks (NN), K nearest neighbor (KNN), linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and multi-class support vector machine (MC-SVM).

Fourty one strains of ESBL producing P.aeruginosa which were previously isolated from burn patients in Kerman University general hospital, Iran were subjected to PCR, RFLP and sequencing in order to determine the type of extended spectrum β- lactamases (ESBL), the restriction digestion pattern and possibility of mutation among detected genes. DNA extraction was carried out by phenol chloroform method. PCR for detection of bla genes was performed using specific primer for each gene. Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) for ESBL genes was carried out using EcoRI, NheI, PVUII, EcoRV, DdeI, and PstI restriction enzymes. The PCR products were subjected to direct sequencing of both the strands for identification of the ESBL genes.The blaCTX-M, blaVEB-1, blaPER-1, blaGES-1, blaOXA-1, blaOXA-4 and blaOXA-10 genes were detected in the (n=1) 2.43%, (n=41)100%, (n=28) 68.3%, (n=10) 24.4%, (n=29) 70.7%, (n=7)17.1% and (n=38) 92.7% of the ESBL producing isolates respectively. The RFLP analysis showed that each ESBL gene has identical pattern of digestion among the isolated strains. Sequencing of the ESBL genes confirmed the genuinety of PCR products and revealed no mutation in the restriction sites of the above genes. From results of the present investigation it can be concluded that blaVEB-1 and blaCTX-M were the most and the least frequently isolated ESBL genes among the P.aeruginosa strains isolated from burn patients. The RFLP and sequencing analysis revealed that same clone of the bla genes were indeed existed among the antibiotic resistant strains.

Endemic Artemia franciscana populations can be found throughout the American continent and also as an introduced specie in several country all over the world, such as in the Mediterranean region where Artemia franciscana was identified as an invasive specie replacing native Artemia parthenogenetica and Artemia salina. In the present study, the characterization of the new invasive Artemia franciscana reported from Sabkhet Halk El-Menzel (Tunisia) was done based on the cysts biometry, nauplii instar-I length, Adult sexual dimorphism and fatty acid profile. The mean value of the diameter of non-decapsulated and decapsulated cysts, chorion thickness and naupliar length is 235.8, 226.3, 4.75 and 426.8 μm, respectively. Sexual dimorphism for adults specimen showed that maximal distance between compound eyes, diameter for compound eyes, length of first antenna and the abdomen length compared to the total body length ratio, are the most important variables for males and females discrimination with a total contribution of 62.39 %. The analysis of fatty acid methyl esters profile of decapsulated cysts resulted in low levels of linolenic acid (LLA, C18:3n-3) and high levels of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA, C20:5n-3) with 3.11 and 11.10 %, respectively. Low quantity of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA, 22:6n-3) was also observed with 0.17 mg.g-1 dry weight.

In this article, we propose a new surgical device for circumferentially excision of high anal fistulas in a minimally invasive manner. The new apparatus works on the basis of axially rotating and moving a tubular blade along a fistulous tract straightened using a rigid straight guidewire. As the blade moves along the tract, its sharp circular cutting edge circumferentially separates approximately 2.25 mm thickness of tract encircling the rigid guidewire. We used the new set to excise two anal fistulas in a 62-year-old male patient, an extrasphincteric type and a long tract with no internal opening. With regard to the results of this test, the new device can be considered as a sphincter preserving mechanism for treatment of high anal fistulas. Consequently, a major reduction in the risk of fecal incontinence, recurrence rate, convalescence period and patient morbidity may be achieved using the new device for treatment of fistula-in-ano.

Artemia is one of the most conspicuous invertebrates associated with aquaculture. It can be considered as a model organism, offering numerous advantages for comprehensive and multidisciplinary studies using morphologic or molecular methods. Since DNA extraction is an important step of any molecular experiment, a new and a rapid method of DNA extraction from adult Artemia was described in this study. Besides, the efficiency of this technique was compared with two widely used alternative techniques, namely Chelex® 100 resin and SDS-chloroform methods. Data analysis revealed that the new method is the easiest and the most cost effective method among the other methods which allows a quick and efficient extraction of DNA from the adult animal.

Nowadays, biometrical characterizations of Artemia cysts are used as one of the most important factors in the study of Artemia populations and intraspecific particularity; meanwhile these characters can be used as economical indices. For example, typically high hatching efficiency is possible due to the small diameter of cysts (high number per gram); therefore small diameter of cysts show someway high quality of cysts. This study was performed during a ten year period, including two different ecological conditions: rainy and drought. It is important from two different aspects because it covers alteration of A. urmiana during ten years also its variation in the best and worst environmental situations in which salinity increased from 173.8 ppt in 1994 to 280.8 ppt in 2003/4. In this study the biometrical raw data of Artemia urmiana cysts at seven stations from the Urmia Lake in 1994 and their seven identical locations at 26 studied stations in 2003/4 were reanalyzed again and compared together. Biometrical comparison of untreated and decapsulated cysts in each of the seven similar stations showed a highly significant variation between 1994 and 2003/4. Based on this study, in whole stations the untreated and decapsulated cysts from 1994 were larger than cysts of 2003/4 without any exception. But there was no logical relationship between salinity and chorion thickness in the Urmia Lake. With regard to PCA analyses the stations of two different studied years certainly have been separated with factor 1 from each other. In conclusion, the interaction between genetic and environmental factors can determine and explain variation in the range of cysts diameter in Artemia.

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the epidemiology of waterborne diarrhoeal among children aged 6-36 months old in Busia town, western Kenya. The study was carried out between Feb. 2008 and Feb. 2010. Cases of diarrhoea reported in 385 households were linked to household water handling practices. A mother with a child of 6-36 months old was also included in the study. Diarrhoea prevalence among children 6-36 months was 16.7% in Busia town, Bwamani (19.6%) and Mayenje (10.6%) clustered in Mayenje sub-location reported the highest and the lowest prevalence of diarrhoea. There was a positive correlation between the prevalence of diarrhoea in children and the level of the mother-s education, 29.9% (n= 100). Diarrhoea cases decreased in range from 35.5% (n =102) to 4.8% (n= 16), corresponding to increase in age from 6-35 months on average. In conclusion, prevalence of diarrhoea in children of 6-36 months old was 16.7% in Busia town. This was higher in children whose mother-s age was below 18 years and with low level of education, the rate decreased with increase in age of children. Prevalence of diarrhoea in children aged 6-36months in households was higher in children aged 6-17 and 36 months and whose mothers were less educated and fell between the ages of 18-24 years. The Influence of human activities at the main source of drinking water on the prevalence of diarrhoea in these children was insignificant.

β-Glucosidase is an important enzyme for production of ethanol from lignocellulose. With hydrolytic activity on cellooligosaccharides, especially cellobiose, β-glucosidase removes product inhibitory effect on cellulases and forms fermentable sugars. In this study, β-glucosidase encoding gene (BGL1) from traditional starter yeast Saccharomycosis fibuligera BMQ908 was cloned and expressed in Pichia pastoris. BGL1 of S. fibuligera BMQ 908 shared 98% nucleotide homology with the closest GenBank sequence (M22475) but identity in amino-acid sequences of catalytic domains. Recombinant plasmid pPICZαA/BGL1 containing the sequence encoding BGL1 mature protein and α-factor secretion signal was constructed and transformed into methylotrophic yeast P. pastoris by electroporation. The recombinant strain produced single extracellular protein with molecular weight of 120 kDa and cellobiase activity of 60 IU/ml. The optimum pH of the recombinant β-glucosidase was 5.0 and the optimum temperature was 50°C.

The habitat where the present study has been carried out is productive in relation to nutrient quality and they may perform several useful functions, but are also threatened for their existence. Hence, the proposed work, will add much new information about biodiversity of macrophytes in drains and their embankment. All the species were identified with their different stages of growth which encountered on the three selected sites (I, II and III). The number of species occurring at each site is grouped seasonally, i.e. summer, rainy and winter season and the species were further recorded for the study of phytosociology. Phytosociological characters such as frequency, density and abundance were influenced by the climatic, anthropogenic and biotic stresses prevailing at the three study sites. All the species present at the study sites have shown maximum values of frequency, density and abundance in rainy season in comparison to that of summer and winter seasons.

Lutein is a dietary oxycarotenoid which is found to reduce the risks of Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). Supercritical fluid extraction of lutein esters from marigold petals was carried out and was found to be much effective than conventional solvent extraction. The saponification of pre-concentrated lutein esters to produce free lutein was studied which showed a composition of about 88% total carotenoids (UV-VIS spectrophotometry) and 90.7% lutein (HPLC). The lipase catalyzed hydrolysis of lutein esters in conventional medium was investigated. The optimal temperature, pH, enzyme concentration and water activity were found to be 50°C, 7, 15% and 0.33 respectively and the activity loss of lipase was about 25% after 8 times re-use in at 50°C for 12 days. However, the lipase catalyzed hydrolysis of lutein esters in conventional media resulted in poor conversions (16.4%).

To evaluate genetic variation of wheat (Triticum aestivum) affected by heat and drought stress on eight Australian wheat genotypes that are parents of Doubled Haploid (HD) mapping populations at the vegetative stage, the water stress experiment was conducted at 65% field capacity in growth room. Heat stress experiment was conducted in the research field under irrigation over summer. Result show that water stress decreased dry shoot weight and RWC but increased osmolarity and means of Fv/Fm values in all varieties except for Krichauff. Krichauff and Kukri had the maximum RWC under drought stress. Trident variety was shown maximum WUE, osmolarity (610 mM/Kg), dry mater, quantum yield and Fv/Fm 0.815 under water stress condition. However, the recovery of quantum yield was apparent between 4 to 7 days after stress in all varieties. Nevertheless, increase in water stress after that lead to strong decrease in quantum yield. There was a genetic variation for leaf pigments content among varieties under heat stress. Heat stress decreased significantly the total chlorophyll content that measured by SPAD. Krichauff had maximum value of Anthocyanin content (2.978 A/g FW), chlorophyll a+b (2.001 mg/g FW) and chlorophyll a (1.502 mg/g FW). Maximum value of chlorophyll b (0.515 mg/g FW) and Carotenoids (0.234 mg/g FW) content belonged to Kukri. The quantum yield of all varieties decreased significantly, when the weather temperature increased from 28 ÔùªC to 36 ÔùªC during the 6 days. However, the recovery of quantum yield was apparent after 8th day in all varieties. The maximum decrease and recovery in quantum yield was observed in Krichauff. Drought and heat tolerant and moderately tolerant wheat genotypes were included Trident, Krichauff, Kukri and RAC875. Molineux, Berkut and Excalibur were clustered into most sensitive and moderately sensitive genotypes. Finally, the results show that there was a significantly genetic variation among the eight varieties that were studied under heat and water stress.

Lectins have a good scope in current clinical microbiology research. In the present study evaluated the antimicrobial activities of a D-galactose binding lectin (PnL) was purified from the annelid, Perinereis nuntia (polychaeta) by affinity chromatography. The molecular mass of the lectin was determined to be 32 kDa as a single polypeptide by SDS-PAGE under both reducing and non-reducing conditions. The hemagglutinating activity of the PnL showed against trypsinized and glutaraldehyde-fixed human erythrocytes was specifically inhibited by D-Gal, GalNAc, Galβ1-4Glc and Galα1-6Glc. PnL was evaluated for in vitro antibacterial screening studies against 11 gram-positive and gram-negative microorganisms. From the screening results, it was revealed that PnL exhibited significant antibacterial activity against gram-positive bacteria. Bacillus megaterium showed the highest growth inhibition by the lectin (250 μg/disc). However, PnL did not inhibit the growth of gram-negative bacteria such as Vibrio cholerae and Pseudomonas sp. PnL was also examined for in vitro antifungal activity against six fungal phytopathogens. PnL (100 μg/mL) inhibited the mycelial growth of Alternaria alternata (24.4%). These results indicate that future findings of lectin applications obtained from annelids may be of importance to life sciences.

Juvenile Nile tilapia subjected to heat treatment at temperatures ranging from 260C to 370C showed positive correlation (P

Candida albicans ATCC 10231 had low endogenous activity of the alternative oxidase compared with that of C. albicans ATCC 10261. In C. albicans ATCC 10231 the endogenous activity declined as the cultures aged. Alternative oxidase activity could be induced in C. albicans ATCC 10231 by treatment with cyanide, but the induction of this activity required the presence of oxygen which could be replaced, at least in part, with high concentrations of potassium ferricyanide. We infer from this that the expression of the gene encoding the alternative oxidase is under the control of a redoxsensitive transcription factor.

Sorghum flour was supplemented with 15 and 30% chickpea flour. Sorghum flour and the supplement were fermented at 35 oC for 0, 8, 16, and 24 h. Changes in pH, titrable acidity, total soluble solids, protein content, in vitro protein digestibility and amino acid composition were investigated during fermentation and/or after supplementation of sorghum flour with chickpea. The pH of the fermenting material decreased sharply with a concomitant increase in the titrable acidity. The total soluble solids remained unchanged with progressive fermentation time. The protein content of sorghum cultivar was found to be 9.27 and that of chickpea was 22.47%. The protein content of sorghum cultivar after supplementation with15 and 30% chickpea was significantly (P ≤ 0.05) increased to 11.78 and 14.55%, respectively. The protein digestibility also increased after fermentation from 13.35 to 30.59 and 40.56% for the supplements, respectively. Further increment in protein content and digestibility was observed when supplemented and unsupplemented samples were fermented for different periods of time. Cooking of fermented samples was found to increase the protein content slightly and decreased digestibility for both supplements. Amino acid content of fermented and fermented and cooked supplements was determined. Supplementation was found to increase the lysine and therionine content. Cooking following fermentation decreased lysine, isoleucine, valine and sulfur containg amino acids.

Ethanol is generally used as a therapeutic reagent against Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC or hepatoma) worldwide, as it can induce Hepatocellular carcinoma cell apoptosis at low concentration through a multifactorial process regulated by several unknown proteins. This paper provides a simple and available proteomic strategy for exploring differentially expressed proteins in the apoptotic pathway. The appropriate concentrations of ethanol required to induce HepG2 cell apoptosis were first assessed by MTT assay, Gisma and fluorescence staining. Next, the central proteins involved in the apoptosis pathway processs were determined using 2D-PAGE, SDS-PAGE, and bio-software analysis. Finally the downregulation of two proteins, AFP and survivin, were determined by immunocytochemistry and reverse transcriptase PCR (RT-PCR) technology. The simple, useful method demonstrated here provides a new approach to proteomic analysis in key bio-regulating process including proliferation, differentiation, apoptosis, immunity and metastasis.

The effect of cross linking of the protein isolates of three legumes with the microbial enzyme transglutaminase (EC 2.3.2.13) on the functional properties at different NaCl concentration was studied. The reduction in the total free amino groups (OD340) of the polymerized protein showed that TGase treatment cross-linking the protein subunit of each legume. The solubility of the protein polymer of each legume was greatly improved at high concentration of NaCl. At 1.2 M NaCl the solubility of the native legumes protein was significantly decreased but after polymerization slightly improved. Cross linked proteins were less turbid on heating to higher temperature as compared to native proteins and the temperature at which the protein turns turbid also increased in the polymerized proteins. The emulsifying and foaming properties of the protein polymer were greatly improved at all concentrations of NaCl for all legumes.

Candida spp. are common and aggressive pathogens. Because of the growing resistance of Candida spp. to current antifungals, novel targets, found in Candida spp. but not in humans or other flora, have to be identified. The alternative oxidase (AOX) is one such possibility. This enzyme is insensitive to cyanide, but is sensitive to compounds such as salicylhydroxamic acid (SHAM), disulfiram and n-alkyl gallates. The growth each of six Candida spp. was inhibited significantly by ~13 mM SHAM or 2 mM cyanide, albeit to differing extents. In C. dubliniensis, C. krusei and C. tropicalis the rate of O2 uptake was inhibited by 18-36% by 25 mM SHAM, but this had little or no effect on C. glabrata, C. guilliermondii or C. parapsilosis. Although SHAM substantially inhibited the growth of Candida spp., it is unlikely that the inhibition of AOX was the cause. Salicylhydroxamic acid is used therapeutically in the treatment of urinary tract infections and urolithiasis, but it also has some potential in the treatment of Candida spp. infection.

A strategy is implemented to find the improved configuration design of an existing aircraft structure by executing topology and shape optimizations. Structural analysis of the Initial Design Space is performed in ANSYS under the loads pertinent to operating and ground conditions. By using the FEA results and data, an initial optimized layout configuration is attained by exploiting nonparametric topology optimization in TOSCA software. Topological optimized surfaces are then smoothened and imported in ANSYS to develop the geometrical features. Nodes at the critical locations of resulting voids are selected for sketching rough profiles. Rough profiles are further refined and CAD feasible geometric features are generated. The modified model is then analyzed under the same loadings and constraints as defined for topology optimization. Shape at the peak stress concentration areas are further optimized by exploiting the shape optimization in TOSCA.shape module. The harmonized stressed model with the modified surfaces is then imported in CATIA to develop the final design.

Isobaric vapor-liquid equilibrium measurements are reported for the binary mixtures of n-Butylamine and Triethylamine with Cumene at 97.3 kPa. The measurements have been performed using a vapor recirculating type (modified Othmer's) equilibrium still. The binary mixture of n-Butylamine + Cumene shows positive deviation from ideality. Triethylamine + Cumene mixture shows negligible deviation from ideality. None of the systems form an azeotrope. The activity coefficients have been calculated taking into consideration the vapor phase nonideality. The data satisfy the thermodynamic consistency test of Herington. The activity coefficients have been satisfactorily correlated by means of the Margules, NRTL, and Black equations. The activity coefficient values obtained by the UNIFAC model are also reported.

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.

A combination of photosynthetic bacteria along with anaerobic acidogenic bacteria is an ideal option for efficient hydrogen production. In the present study, the optimum concentration of substrates for the growth of Rhodobacter sphaeroides was found by response surface methodology. The optimum combination of three individual fatty acids was determined by Box Behnken design. Increase of volatile fatty acid concentration decreased the growth. Combination of sodium acetate and sodium propionate was most significant for the growth of the organism. The results showed that a maximum biomass concentration of 0.916 g/l was obtained when the concentrations of acetate, propionate and butyrate were 0.73g/l,0.99g/l and 0.799g/l, respectively. The growth was studied under an optimum concentration of volatile fatty acids and at a light intensity of 3000 lux, initial pH of 7 and a temperature of 35°C.The maximum biomass concentration of 0.92g/l was obtained which verified the practicability of this optimization.

In this study, aerobic digestion of tannery industry wastewater was carried out using mixed culture obtained from common effluent treatment plant treating tannery wastewater. The effect of pH, temperature, inoculum concentration, agitation speed and initial substrate concentration on the reduction of organic matters were found. The optimum conditions for COD reduction was found to be pH - 7 (60%), temperature - 30ÔùªC (61%), inoculum concentration - 2% (61%), agitation speed - 150rpm (65%) and initial substrate concentration - 1560 mg COD/L (74%). Kinetics studies were carried by using Monod model, First order, Diffusional model and Singh model. From the results it was found that the Monod model suits well for the degradation of tannery wastewater using mixed microbial consortium.

Response Surface Methodology (RSM) is a powerful and efficient mathematical approach widely applied in the optimization of cultivation process. Cellulase enzyme production by Trichoderma reesei RutC30 using agricultural waste rice straw and banana fiber as carbon source were investigated. In this work, sequential optimization strategy based statistical design was employed to enhance the production of cellulase enzyme through submerged cultivation. A fractional factorial design (26-2) was applied to elucidate the process parameters that significantly affect cellulase production. Temperature, Substrate concentration, Inducer concentration, pH, inoculum age and agitation speed were identified as important process parameters effecting cellulase enzyme synthesis. The concentration of lignocelluloses and lactose (inducer) in the cultivation medium were found to be most significant factors. The steepest ascent method was used to locate the optimal domain and a Central Composite Design (CCD) was used to estimate the quadratic response surface from which the factor levels for maximum production of cellulase were determined.

Methanol-to-olefins (MTO) coupled with transformation of coal or natural gas to methanol gives an interesting and promising way to produce ethylene and propylene. To investigate solid concentration in gas-solid fluidized bed for methanol-to-olefins process catalyzed by SAPO-34, a cold model experiment system is established in this paper. The system comprises a gas distributor in a 300mm internal diameter and 5000mm height acrylic column, the fiber optic probe system and series of cyclones. The experiments are carried out at ambient conditions and under different superficial gas velocity ranging from 0.3930m/s to 0.7860m/s and different initial bed height ranging from 600mm to 1200mm. The effects of radial distance, axial distance, superficial gas velocity, initial bed height on solid concentration in the bed are discussed. The effects of distributor shape and porosity on solid concentration are also discussed. The time-averaged solid concentration profiles under different conditions are obtained.

Simultaneous effects of temperature, immersion time, salt concentration, sucrose concentration, pressure and convective dryer temperature on the combined osmotic dehydration - convective drying of edible button mushrooms were investigated. Experiments were designed according to Central Composite Design with six factors each at five different levels. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) was used to determine the optimum processing conditions that yield maximum water loss and rehydration ratio and minimum solid gain and shrinkage in osmotic-convective drying of edible button mushrooms. Applying surfaces profiler and contour plots optimum operation conditions were found to be temperature of 39 °C, immersion time of 164 min, salt concentration of 14%, sucrose concentration of 53%, pressure of 600 mbar and drying temperature of 40 °C. At these optimum conditions, water loss, solid gain, rehydration ratio and shrinkage were found to be 63.38 (g/100 g initial sample), 3.17 (g/100 g initial sample), 2.26 and 7.15%, respectively.

Studies on Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF) of corn flour, a major agricultural product as the substrate using starch digesting glucoamylase enzyme derived from Aspergillus niger and non starch digesting and sugar fermenting Saccharomyces cerevisiae in a batch fermentation. Experiments based on Central Composite Design (CCD) were conducted to study the effect of substrate concentration, pH, temperature, enzyme concentration on Ethanol Concentration and the above parameters were optimized using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). The optimum values of substrate concentration, pH, temperature and enzyme concentration were found to be 160 g/l, 5.5, 30°C and 50 IU respectively. The effect of inoculums age on ethanol concentration was also investigated. The corn flour solution equivalent to 16% initial starch concentration gave the highest ethanol concentration of 63.04 g/l after 48 h of fermentation at optimum conditions of pH and temperature. Monod model and Logistic model were used for growth kinetics and Leudeking – Piret model was used for product formation kinetics.

Simultaneous Saccharification and Fermentation (SSF) of sugarcane bagasse by cellulase and Pachysolen tannophilus MTCC *1077 were investigated in the present study. Important process variables for ethanol production form pretreated bagasse were optimized using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD) experiments. A 23 five level CCD experiments with central and axial points was used to develop a statistical model for the optimization of process variables such as incubation temperature (25–45°) X1, pH (5.0–7.0) X2 and fermentation time (24–120 h) X3. Data obtained from RSM on ethanol production were subjected to the analysis of variance (ANOVA) and analyzed using a second order polynomial equation and contour plots were used to study the interactions among three relevant variables of the fermentation process. The fermentation experiments were carried out using an online monitored modular fermenter 2L capacity. The processing parameters setup for reaching a maximum response for ethanol production was obtained when applying the optimum values for temperature (32°C), pH (5.6) and fermentation time (110 h). Maximum ethanol concentration (3.36 g/l) was obtained from 50 g/l pretreated sugarcane bagasse at the optimized process conditions in aerobic batch fermentation. Kinetic models such as Monod, Modified Logistic model, Modified Logistic incorporated Leudeking – Piret model and Modified Logistic incorporated Modified Leudeking – Piret model have been evaluated and the constants were predicted.

Pure phase gallosilicate nitrite sodalite has been synthesized in a single step by low temperature (373 oK) hydrothermal technique. The product obtained was characterized using a combination of techniques including X-ray powder diffraction, IR, Raman spectroscopy, SEM, MAS NMR spectroscopy as well as thermogravimetry. Sodalite with an ideal composition was obtained after synthesis at 3730K and seven days duration using alkaline medium. The structural features of the Na8[GaSiO4]6(NO2)2 sodalite were investigated by IR, MAS NMR spectroscopy of 29Si and 23Na nuclei and by Reitveld refinement of X-ray powder diffraction data. The crystal structure of this sodalite has been refined in the space group P 4 3n; with a cell parameter 8.98386Å, V= 726.9 Å, (Rwp= 0.077 and Rp=0.0537) and Si-O-Ga angle is found to be 132.920 . MAS NMR study confirms complete ordering of Si and Ga in the gallosilicate framework. The surface area of single entity with stoichiometry Na8[GaSiO4]6(NO2)2 was found to be 8.083 x10-15 cm2/g.

Commercial hydroxyapatite (HA) was reinforced by adding 2, 5, and 10 wt % of 28.5%CaO-28.5%P2O5-38%Na2 O- 5%CaF2 based glass and then sintered. Although HA shows good biocompatibility with the human body, its applications are limited to non load-bearing areas and coatings due to its poor mechanical properties. These mechanical properties can be improved substantially with addition of glass ceramics by sintering. In this study, the effects of sintering hydroxyapatite with above specified phosphate glass additions are quantified. Each composition was sintered over a range of temperatures. Scanning electron microscopy and x-ray diffraction were used to characterize the microstructure and phases of the composites. The density, microhardness, and compressive strength were measured using Archimedes Principle, Vickers Microhardness Tester (at 0.98 N), and Instron Universal Testing Machine (cross speed of 0.5 mm/min) respectively. These results were used to indicate which composition provided suitable material for use in hard tissue replacement. Composites containing 10 wt % glass additions formed dense HA/TCP (tricalcium phosphate) composite materials possessing good compressive strength and hardness than HA. In-vitro bioactivity was assessed by evaluating changes in pH and Ca2+ ion concentration of SBF-simulated body fluid on immersion of these composites in it for two weeks.

In this study, the kinetic of biogas production was studied by performing a series laboratory experiment using rumen fluid of animal ruminant as inoculums. Cattle manure as substrate was inoculated by rumen fluid to the anaerobic biodigester. Laboratory experiments using 400 ml biodigester were performed in batch operation mode. Given 100 grams of fresh cattle manure was fed to each biodigester and mixed with rumen fluid by manure : rumen weight ratio of 1:1 (MR11). The operating temperatures were varied at room temperature and 38.5 oC. The cumulative volume of biogas produced was used to measure the biodigester performance. The research showed that the rumen fluid inoculated to biodigester gave significant effect to biogas production (P<0.05). Rumen fluid inoculums caused biogas production rate and efficiency increase two to three times in compare to manure substrate without rumen fluid. With the rumen fluid inoculums, gave the kinetic parameters of biogas production i.e biogas production rate constants (U), maximum biogas production (A), and minimum time to produce biogas (λ) are 3.89 ml/(gVS.day); 172.51 (ml/gVS); dan 7.25 days, respectively. While the substrate without rumen fluid gave the kinetic parameters U, A, and λ are 1.74 ml/(gVS.day); 73.81 (ml/gVS); dan 14.75 days, respectively. The future work will be carried out to study the dynamics of biogas production if both the rumen inoculums and manure are fed in the continuous system.

Vacuum membrane distillation (VMD) process can be used for water purification or the desalination of salt water. The process simply consists of a flat sheet hydrophobic micro porous PTFE membrane and diaphragm vacuum pump without a condenser for the water recovery or trap. The feed was used aqueous NaCl solution. The VMD experiments were performed to evaluate the heat and mass transfer coefficient of the boundary layer in a membrane module. The only operating parameters are feed inlet temperature, and feed flow rate were investigated. The permeate flux was strongly affected by the feed inlet temperature, feed flow rate, and boundary layer heat transfer coefficient. Since lowering the temperature polarization coefficient is essential enhance the process performance considerable and maximizing the heat transfer coefficient for maximizes the mass flux of distillate water. In this paper, the results of VMD experiments are used to measure the boundary layer heat transfer coefficient, and the experimental results are used to reevaluate the empirical constants in the Dittus- Boelter equation.

The process parameters, temperature, pH and substrate concentration, were optimized for the production of gentamicin using Micromonouspora echinospora. Experiments were carried out according to central composite design in response surface method. The optimum conditions for the maximum production of gentamicin were found to be: temperature – 31.7oC, pH – 6.8 and substrate concentration – 3%. At these optimized conditions the production of gentamicin was found to be – 1040 mg/L. The R2 value of 0.9465 indicates a good fitness of the model.

In this study, hydroxyapatite (HA) composites are prepared on addition of 30%CaO-30%P2O5-40%Na2 O based glass to pure HA, in proportion of 2, 5, and 10 wt %. Each composition was sintered over a range of temperatures. The quantitative phase analysis was carried out using XRD and the microstructures were studied using SEM. The density, microhardness, and compressive strength have shown increase with the increasing amount of glass addition. The resulting composites have chemical compositions that are similar to the inorganic constituent of the mineral part of bone, and constitutes trace elements like Na. X-ray diffraction showed no decomposition of HA to secondary phases, however, the glass reinforced-HA composites contained a HA phase and variable amounts of tricalcium phosphate phase, depending on the amount of bioglass added. The HA-composite material exhibited higher compressive strength compared to sintered HA. The HA composite reinforced with 10 wt % bioglass showed highest bioactivity level.

This study analyzed environmental health risks and people-s perceptions of risks related to waste management in poor settlements of Abidjan, to develop integrated solutions for health and well-being improvement. The trans-disciplinary approach used relied on remote sensing, a geographic information system (GIS), qualitative and quantitative methods such as interviews and a household survey (n=1800). Mitigating strategies were then developed using an integrated participatory stakeholder workshop. Waste management deficiencies resulting in lack of drainage and uncontrolled solid and liquid waste disposal in the poor settlements lead to severe environmental health risks. Health problems were caused by direct handling of waste, as well as through broader exposure of the population. People in poor settlements had little awareness of health risks related to waste management in their community and a general lack of knowledge pertaining to sanitation systems. This unfortunate combination was the key determinant affecting the health and vulnerability. For example, an increased prevalence of malaria (47.1%) and diarrhoea (19.2%) was observed in the rainy season when compared to the dry season (32.3% and 14.3%). Concerted and adapted solutions that suited all the stakeholders concerned were developed in a participatory workshop to allow for improvement of health and well-being.

In this study, the sorption of Malachite green (MG) on Hydrilla verticillata biomass, a submerged aquatic plant, was investigated in a batch system. The effects of operating parameters such as temperature, adsorbent dosage, contact time, adsorbent size, and agitation speed on the sorption of Malachite green were analyzed using response surface methodology (RSM). The proposed quadratic model for central composite design (CCD) fitted very well to the experimental data that it could be used to navigate the design space according to ANOVA results. The optimum sorption conditions were determined as temperature - 43.5oC, adsorbent dosage - 0.26g, contact time - 200min, adsorbent size - 0.205mm (65mesh), and agitation speed - 230rpm. The Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models were applied to the equilibrium data. The maximum monolayer coverage capacity of Hydrilla verticillata biomass for MG was found to be 91.97 mg/g at an initial pH 8.0 indicating that the optimum sorption initial pH. The external and intra particle diffusion models were also applied to sorption data of Hydrilla verticillata biomass with MG, and it was found that both the external diffusion as well as intra particle diffusion contributes to the actual sorption process. The pseudo-second order kinetic model described the MG sorption process with a good fitting.

Stormwater wetlands have been mainly designed in an empirical approach for water quality improvement, with little quantitative understanding of the internal microbial processes. This study investigated into heterotrophic bacterial production rate, heterotrophic bacterial mineralization percentage, and algal biomass in hypertrophic and eutrophic surface flow stormwater wetlands. Compared to a nearby wood leachate treatment wetland, the stormwater wetlands had much higher chlorophyll-a concentrations. The eutrophic stormwater wetland had improved water quality, whereas the hypertrophic stormwater wetland had degraded water quality. Heterotrophic bacterial activities in water were limited in the stormwater wetlands due to competition of algal growth for nutrients. The relative contribution of biofilms to the overall heterotrophic activities was higher in the stormwater wetlands than that in the wood leachate treatment wetland.

Estimation of runoff water quality parameters is required to determine appropriate water quality management options. Various models are used to estimate runoff water quality parameters. However, most models provide event-based estimates of water quality parameters for specific sites. The work presented in this paper describes the development of a model that continuously simulates the accumulation and wash-off of water quality pollutants in a catchment. The model allows estimation of pollutants build-up during dry periods and pollutants wash-off during storm events. The model was developed by integrating two individual models; rainfall-runoff model, and catchment water quality model. The rainfall-runoff model is based on the time-area runoff estimation method. The model allows users to estimate the time of concentration using a range of established methods. The model also allows estimation of the continuing runoff losses using any of the available estimation methods (i.e., constant, linearly varying or exponentially varying). Pollutants build-up in a catchment was represented by one of three pre-defined functions; power, exponential, or saturation. Similarly, pollutants wash-off was represented by one of three different functions; power, rating-curve, or exponential. The developed runoff water quality model was set-up to simulate the build-up and wash-off of total suspended solids (TSS), total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN). The application of the model was demonstrated using available runoff and TSS field data from road and roof surfaces in the Gold Coast, Australia. The model provided excellent representation of the field data demonstrating the simplicity yet effectiveness of the proposed model.

Batch adsorption of recalcitrant melanoidin using the abundantly available coal fly ash was carried out. It had low specific surface area (SBET) of 1.7287 m2/g and pore volume of 0.002245 cm3/g while qualitative evaluation of the predominant phases in it was done by XRD analysis. Colour removal efficiency was found to be dependent on various factors studied. Maximum colour removal was achieved around pH 6, whereas increasing sorbent mass from 10g/L to 200 g/L enhanced colour reduction from 25% to 86% at 298 K. Spontaneity of the process was suggested by negative Gibbs free energy while positive values for enthalpy change showed endothermic nature of the process. Non-linear optimization of error functions resulted in Freundlich and Redlich-Peterson isotherms describing sorption equilibrium data best. The coal fly ash had maximum sorption capacity of 53 mg/g and could thus be used as a low cost adsorbent in melanoidin removal.

This paper describes the experimental efficiency of a compact organic Rankine cycle (ORC) system with a compact rotary-vane-type expander. The compact ORC system can be used for power generation from low-temperature heat sources such as waste heat from various small-scale heat engines, fuel cells, electric devices, and solar thermal energy. The purpose of this study is to develop an ORC system with a low power output of less than 1 kW with a hot temperature source ranging from 60°C to 100°C and a cold temperature source ranging from 10°C to 30°C. The power output of the system is rather less due to limited heat efficiency. Therefore, the system should have an economically optimal efficiency. In order to realize such a system, an efficient and low-cost expander is indispensable. An experimental ORC system was developed using the rotary-vane-type expander which is one of possible candidates of the expander. The experimental results revealed the expander performance for various rotation speeds, expander efficiencies, and thermal efficiencies. Approximately 30 W of expander power output with 48% expander efficiency and 4% thermal efficiency with a temperature difference between the hot and cold sources of 80°C was achieved.

Catalytic converters are used for minimizing the release of pollutants to the atmosphere. It is during the warm-up period that hydrocarbons are seen to be released in appreciable quantities from these converters. In this paper the conversion of a fast oxidizing hydrocarbon propylene is analysed using two numerical methods. The quasi steady state method assumes the accumulation terms to be negligible in the gas phase mass and energy balance equations, however this term is present in the solid phase energy balance. The unsteady state model accounts for the accumulation term to be present in the gas phase mass and energy balance and in the solid phase energy balance. The results derived from the two models for gas concentration, gas temperature and solid temperature are compared.

In India, the quarrel between the budding human populace and the planet-s unchanging supply of freshwater and falling water tables has strained attention the reuse of gray water as an alternative water resource in rural development. This paper present the finest design of laboratory scale gray water treatment plant, which is a combination of natural and physical operations such as primary settling with cascaded water flow, aeration, agitation and filtration, hence called as hybrid treatment process. The economical performance of the plant for treatment of bathrooms, basins and laundries gray water showed in terms of deduction competency of water pollutants such as COD (83%), TDS (70%), TSS (83%), total hardness (50%), oil and grease (97%), anions (46%) and cations (49%). Hence, this technology could be a good alternative to treat gray water in residential rural area.

Digital watermarking is one of the techniques for copyright protection. In this paper, a normalization-based robust image watermarking scheme which encompasses singular value decomposition (SVD) and discrete cosine transform (DCT) techniques is proposed. For the proposed scheme, the host image is first normalized to a standard form and divided into non-overlapping image blocks. SVD is applied to each block. By concatenating the first singular values (SV) of adjacent blocks of the normalized image, a SV block is obtained. DCT is then carried out on the SV blocks to produce SVD-DCT blocks. A watermark bit is embedded in the highfrequency band of a SVD-DCT block by imposing a particular relationship between two pseudo-randomly selected DCT coefficients. An adaptive frequency mask is used to adjust local watermark embedding strength. Watermark extraction involves mainly the inverse process. The watermark extracting method is blind and efficient. Experimental results show that the quality degradation of watermarked image caused by the embedded watermark is visually transparent. Results also show that the proposed scheme is robust against various image processing operations and geometric attacks.

Spectrum is a scarce commodity, and considering the spectrum scarcity faced by the wireless-based service providers led to high congestion levels. Technical inefficiencies from pooled, since all networks share a common pool of channels, exhausting the available channels will force networks to block the services. Researchers found that cognitive radio (CR) technology may resolve the spectrum scarcity. A CR is a self-configuring entity in a wireless networking that senses its environment, tracks changes, and frequently exchanges information with their networks. However, CRN facing challenges and condition become worst while tracks changes i.e. reallocation of another under-utilized channels while primary network user arrives. In this paper, channels or resource reallocation technique based on DNA-inspired computing algorithm for CRN has been proposed.

In this paper we present a study of the impact of connection schemes on the performance of iterative decoding of Generalized Parallel Concatenated block (GPCB) constructed from one step majority logic decodable (OSMLD) codes and we propose a new connection scheme for decoding them. All iterative decoding connection schemes use a soft-input soft-output threshold decoding algorithm as a component decoder. Numerical result for GPCB codes transmitted over Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN) channel are provided. It will show that the proposed scheme is better than Hagenauer-s scheme and Lucas-s scheme [1] and slightly better than the Pyndiah-s scheme.

The IEEE 802.11e which is an enhanced version of the 802.11 WLAN standards incorporates the Quality of Service (QoS) which makes it a better choice for multimedia and real time applications. In this paper we study various aspects concerned with 802.11e standard. Further, the analysis results for this standard are compared with the legacy 802.11 standard. Simulation results show that IEEE 802.11e out performs legacy IEEE 802.11 in terms of quality of service due to its flow differentiated channel allocation and better queue management architecture. We also propose a method to improve the unfair allocation of bandwidth for downlink and uplink channels by varying the medium access priority level.

A new fast correlation algorithm for calibrating the wavelength of Optical Spectrum Analyzers (OSAs) was introduced in [1]. The minima of acetylene gas spectra were measured and correlated with saved theoretical data [2]. So it is possible to find the correct wavelength calibration data using a noisy reference spectrum. First tests showed good algorithmic performance for gas line spectra with high noise. In this article extensive performance tests were made to validate the noise resistance of this algorithm. The filter and correlation parameters of the algorithm were optimized for improved noise performance. With these parameters the performance of this wavelength calibration was simulated to predict the resulting wavelength error in real OSA systems. Long term simulations were made to evaluate the performance of the algorithm over the lifetime of a real OSA.

In this paper, we study the cooperative communications where multiple cognitive radio (CR) transmit-receive pairs competitive maximize their own throughputs. In CR networks, the influences of primary users and the spectrum availability are usually different among CR users. Due to the existence of multiple relay nodes and the different spectrum availability, each CR transmit-receive pair should not only select the relay node but also choose the appropriate channel. For this distributed problem, we propose a game theoretic framework to formulate this problem and we apply a regret-matching learning algorithm which is leading to correlated equilibrium. We further formulate a modified regret-matching learning algorithm which is fully distributed and only use the local information of each CR transmit-receive pair. This modified algorithm is more practical and suitable for the cooperative communications in CR network. Simulation results show the algorithm convergence and the modified learning algorithm can achieve comparable performance to the original regretmatching learning algorithm.

Automatic reading of handwritten cheque is a computationally complex process and it plays an important role in financial risk management. Machine vision and learning provide a viable solution to this problem. Research effort has mostly been focused on recognizing diverse pitches of cheques and demand drafts with an identical outline. However most of these methods employ templatematching to localize the pitches and such schemes could potentially fail when applied to different types of outline maintained by the bank. In this paper, the so-called outline problem is resolved by a cheque information tree (CIT), which generalizes the localizing method to extract active-region-of-entities. In addition, the weight based density plot (WBDP) is performed to isolate text entities and read complete pitches. Recognition is based on texture features using neural classifiers. Legal amount is subsequently recognized by both texture and perceptual features. A post-processing phase is invoked to detect the incorrect readings by Type-2 grammar using the Turing machine. The performance of the proposed system was evaluated using cheque and demand drafts of 22 different banks. The test data consists of a collection of 1540 leafs obtained from 10 different account holders from each bank. Results show that this approach can easily be deployed without significant design amendments.

Global Positioning System (GPS) technology is widely used today in the areas of geodesy and topography as well as in aeronautics mainly for military purposes. Due to the military usage of GPS, full access and use of this technology is being denied to the civilian user who must then work with a less accurate version. In this paper we focus on the estimation of the receiver coordinates ( X, Y, Z ) and its clock bias ( δtr ) of a fixed point based on pseudorange measurements of a single GPS receiver. Utilizing the instantaneous coordinates of just 4 satellites and their clock offsets, by taking into account the atmospheric delays, we are able to derive a set of pseudorange equations. The estimation of the four unknowns ( X, Y, Z , δtr ) is achieved by introducing an extended Kalman filter that processes, off-line, all the data collected from the receiver. Higher performance of position accuracy is attained by appropriate tuning of the filter noise parameters and by including other forms of biases.

Image restoration involves elimination of noise. Filtering techniques were adopted so far to restore images since last five decades. In this paper, we consider the problem of image restoration degraded by a blur function and corrupted by random noise. A method for reducing additive noise in images by explicit analysis of local image statistics is introduced and compared to other noise reduction methods. The proposed method, which makes use of an a priori noise model, has been evaluated on various types of images. Bayesian based algorithms and technique of image processing have been described and substantiated with experimentation using MATLAB.

Electromagnetic interference (EMI) is one of the serious problems in most electrical and electronic appliances including fluorescent lamps. The electronic ballast used to regulate the power flow through the lamp is the major cause for EMI. The interference is because of the high frequency switching operation of the ballast. Formerly, some EMI mitigation techniques were in practice, but they were not satisfactory because of the hardware complexity in the circuit design, increased parasitic components and power consumption and so on. The majority of the researchers have their spotlight only on EMI mitigation without considering the other constraints such as cost, effective operation of the equipment etc. In this paper, we propose a technique for EMI mitigation in fluorescent lamps by integrating Frequency Modulation and Evolutionary Programming. By the Frequency Modulation technique, the switching at a single central frequency is extended to a range of frequencies, and so, the power is distributed throughout the range of frequencies leading to EMI mitigation. But in order to meet the operating frequency of the ballast and the operating power of the fluorescent lamps, an optimal modulation index is necessary for Frequency Modulation. The optimal modulation index is determined using Evolutionary Programming. Thereby, the proposed technique mitigates the EMI to a satisfactory level without disturbing the operation of the fluorescent lamp.

A scalable QoS aware multicast deployment in DiffServ networks has become an important research dimension in recent years. Although multicasting and differentiated services are two complementary technologies, the integration of the two technologies is a non-trivial task due to architectural conflicts between them. A popular solution proposed is to extend the functionality of the DiffServ components to support multicasting. In this paper, we propose an algorithm to construct an efficient QoSdriven multicast tree, taking into account the available bandwidth per service class. We also present an efficient way to provision the limited available bandwidth for supporting heterogeneous users. The proposed mechanism is evaluated using simulated tests. The simulated result reveals that our algorithm can effectively minimize the bandwidth use and transmission cost

For several high speed networks, providing resilience against failures is an essential requirement. The main feature for designing next generation optical networks is protecting and restoring high capacity WDM networks from the failures. Quick detection, identification and restoration make networks more strong and consistent even though the failures cannot be avoided. Hence, it is necessary to develop fast, efficient and dependable fault localization or detection mechanisms. In this paper we propose a new fault localization algorithm for WDM networks which can identify the location of a failure on a failed lightpath. Our algorithm detects the failed connection and then attempts to reroute data stream through an alternate path. In addition to this, we develop an algorithm to analyze the information of the alarms generated by the components of an optical network, in the presence of a fault. It uses the alarm correlation in order to reduce the list of suspected components shown to the network operators. By our simulation results, we show that our proposed algorithms achieve less blocking probability and delay while getting higher throughput.

In this paper, a new secure watermarking scheme for color image is proposed. It splits the watermark into two shares using (2, 2)- threshold Visual Cryptography Scheme (V CS) with Adaptive Order Dithering technique and embeds one share into high textured subband of Luminance channel of the color image. The other share is used as the key and is available only with the super-user or the author of the image. In this scheme only the super-user can reveal the original watermark. The proposed scheme is dynamic in the sense that to maintain the perceptual similarity between the original and the watermarked image the selected subband coefficients are modified by varying the watermark scaling factor. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme. Further, the proposed scheme is able to resist all common attacks even with strong amplitude.

Determining depth of anesthesia is a challenging problem in the context of biomedical signal processing. Various methods have been suggested to determine a quantitative index as depth of anesthesia, but most of these methods suffer from high sensitivity during the surgery. A novel method based on energy scattering of samples in the wavelet domain is suggested to represent the basic content of electroencephalogram (EEG) signal. In this method, first EEG signal is decomposed into different sub-bands, then samples are squared and energy of samples sequence is constructed through each scale and time, which is normalized and finally entropy of the resulted sequences is suggested as a reliable index. Empirical Results showed that applying the proposed method to the EEG signals can classify the awake, moderate and deep anesthesia states similar to BIS.

In this paper, a new proposed system for Persian printed numeral characters recognition with emphasis on representation and recognition stages is introduced. For the first time, in Persian optical character recognition, geometrical central moments as character image descriptor and fuzzy min-max neural network for Persian numeral character recognition has been used. Set of different experiments on binary images of regular, translated, rotated and scaled Persian numeral characters has been done and variety of results has been presented. The best result was 99.16% correct recognition demonstrating geometrical central moments and fuzzy min-max neural network are adequate for Persian printed numeral character recognition.

This paper deals with efficient quadrature formulas involving functions that are observed only at fixed sampling points. The approach that we develop is derived from efficient continuous quadrature formulas, such as Gauss-Legendre or Clenshaw-Curtis quadrature. We select nodes at sampling positions that are as close as possible to those of the associated classical quadrature and we update quadrature weights accordingly. We supply the theoretical quadrature error formula for this new approach. We show on examples the potential gain of this approach.

Overloading is a technique to accommodate more number of users than the spreading factor N. This is a bandwidth efficient scheme to increase the number users in a fixed bandwidth. One of the efficient schemes to overload a CDMA system is to use two sets of orthogonal signal waveforms (O/O). The first set is assigned to the N users and the second set is assigned to the additional M users. An iterative interference cancellation technique is used to cancel interference between the two sets of users. In this paper, the performance of an overloading scheme in which the first N users are assigned Walsh-Hadamard orthogonal codes and extra users are assigned the same WH codes but overlaid by a fixed (quasi) bent sequence [11] is evaluated. This particular scheme is called Quasi- Orthogonal Sequence (QOS) O/O scheme, which is a part of cdma2000 standard [12] to provide overloading in the downlink using single user detector. QOS scheme are balance O/O scheme, where the correlation between any set-1 and set-2 users are equalized. The allowable overload of this scheme is investigated in the uplink on an AWGN and Rayleigh fading channels, so that the uncoded performance with iterative multistage interference cancellation detector remains close to the single user bound. It is shown that this scheme provides 19% and 11% overloading with SDIC technique for N= 16 and 64 respectively, with an SNR degradation of less than 0.35 dB as compared to single user bound at a BER of 0.00001. But on a Rayleigh fading channel, the channel overloading is 45% (29 extra users) at a BER of 0.0005, with an SNR degradation of about 1 dB as compared to single user performance for N=64. This is a significant amount of channel overloading on a Rayleigh fading channel.

In this paper, we present a method for edge segmentation of satellite images based on 2-D Phase Congruency (PC) model. The proposed approach is composed by two steps: The contextual non linear smoothing algorithm (CNLS) is used to smooth the input images. Then, the 2D stretched Gabor filter (S-G filter) based on proposed angular variation is developed in order to avoid the multiple responses in the previous work. An assessment of our proposed method performance is provided in terms of accuracy of satellite image edge segmentation. The proposed method is compared with others known approaches.

The rapid growth of e-Commerce services is significantly observed in the past decade. However, the method to verify the authenticated users still widely depends on numeric approaches. A new search on other verification methods suitable for online e-Commerce is an interesting issue. In this paper, a new online signature-verification method using angular transformation is presented. Delay shifts existing in online signatures are estimated by the estimation method relying on angle representation. In the proposed signature-verification algorithm, all components of input signature are extracted by considering the discontinuous break points on the stream of angular values. Then the estimated delay shift is captured by comparing with the selected reference signature and the error matching can be computed as a main feature used for verifying process. The threshold offsets are calculated by two types of error characteristics of the signature verification problem, False Rejection Rate (FRR) and False Acceptance Rate (FAR). The level of these two error rates depends on the decision threshold chosen whose value is such as to realize the Equal Error Rate (EER; FAR = FRR). The experimental results show that through the simple programming, employed on Internet for demonstrating e-Commerce services, the proposed method can provide 95.39% correct verifications and 7% better than DP matching based signature-verification method. In addition, the signature verification with extracting components provides more reliable results than using a whole decision making.

An adaptive spatial Gaussian mixture model is proposed for clustering based color image segmentation. A new clustering objective function which incorporates the spatial information is introduced in the Bayesian framework. The weighting parameter for controlling the importance of spatial information is made adaptive to the image content to augment the smoothness towards piecewisehomogeneous region and diminish the edge-blurring effect and hence the name adaptive spatial finite mixture model. The proposed approach is compared with the spatially variant finite mixture model for pixel labeling. The experimental results with synthetic and Berkeley dataset demonstrate that the proposed method is effective in improving the segmentation and it can be employed in different practical image content understanding applications.

Texture information plays increasingly an important role in remotely sensed imagery classification and many pattern recognition applications. However, the selection of relevant textural features to improve this classification accuracy is not a straightforward task. This work investigates the effectiveness of two Mutual Information Feature Selector (MIFS) algorithms to select salient textural features that contain highly discriminatory information for multispectral imagery classification. The input candidate features are extracted from a SPOT High Resolution Visible(HRV) image using Wavelet Transform (WT) at levels (l = 1,2). The experimental results show that the selected textural features according to MIFS algorithms make the largest contribution to improve the classification accuracy than classical approaches such as Principal Components Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA).

Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) features are widely used as acoustic features for speech recognition as well as speaker recognition. In MFCC feature representation, the Mel frequency scale is used to get a high resolution in low frequency region, and a low resolution in high frequency region. This kind of processing is good for obtaining stable phonetic information, but not suitable for speaker features that are located in high frequency regions. The speaker individual information, which is non-uniformly distributed in the high frequencies, is equally important for speaker recognition. Based on this fact we proposed an admissible wavelet packet based filter structure for speaker identification. Multiresolution capabilities of wavelet packet transform are used to derive the new features. The proposed scheme differs from previous wavelet based works, mainly in designing the filter structure. Unlike others, the proposed filter structure does not follow Mel scale. The closed-set speaker identification experiments performed on the TIMIT database shows improved identification performance compared to other commonly used Mel scale based filter structures using wavelets.

The design problem of Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) digital filters is usually expressed as the minimization problem of the complex magnitude error that includes both the magnitude and phase information. However, the group delay of the filter obtained by solving such design problem may be far from the desired group delay. In this paper, we propose a design method of stable IIR digital filters with prespecified maximum group delay errors. In the proposed method, the approximation problems of the magnitude-phase and group delay are separately defined, and these two approximation problems are alternately solved using successive projections. As a result, the proposed method can design the IIR filters that satisfy the prespecified allowable errors for not only the complex magnitude but also the group delay by alternately executing the coefficient update for the magnitude-phase and the group delay approximation. The usefulness of the proposed method is verified through some examples.

In this paper an algorithm for fast wavelength calibration of Optical Spectrum Analyzers (OSAs) using low power reference gas spectra is proposed. In existing OSAs a reference spectrum with low noise for precise detection of the reference extreme values is needed. To generate this spectrum costly hardware with high optical power is necessary. With this new wavelength calibration algorithm it is possible to use a noisy reference spectrum and therefore hardware costs can be cut. With this algorithm the reference spectrum is filtered and the key information is extracted by segmenting and finding the local minima and maxima. Afterwards slope and offset of a linear correction function for best matching the measured and theoretical spectra are found by correlating the measured with the stored minima. With this algorithm a reliable wavelength referencing of an OSA can be implemented on a microcontroller with a calculation time of less than one second.

This study investigated the relationship between exercise imagery use and level of physical activity within a wide range of exercisers in Klang valley, Malaysia. One hundred and twenty four respondents (Mage = 28.92, SD = 9.34) completed two sets of questionnaires (Exercise Imagery Inventory and Leisure-Time Exercise Questionnaire) that measure the use of imagery and exercise frequency of participants. From the result obtained, exercise imagery is found to be significantly correlated to level of physical activity. Besides that, variables such as gender, age and ethnicity that may affect the use of imagery and exercise frequency were also being assessed in this study. Among all variables, only ethnicity showed significant difference in level of physical activity (p < 0.05). Findings in this study suggest that further investigation should be done on other variables such as socioeconomic, educational level, and selfefficacy that may affect the imagery use and frequency of physical activity among exercisers.

Fast forecasting of stock market prices is very important for strategic planning. In this paper, a new approach for fast forecasting of stock market prices is presented. Such algorithm uses new high speed time delay neural networks (HSTDNNs). The operation of these networks relies on performing cross correlation in the frequency domain between the input data and the input weights of neural networks. It is proved mathematically and practically that the number of computation steps required for the presented HSTDNNs is less than that needed by traditional time delay neural networks (TTDNNs). Simulation results using MATLAB confirm the theoretical computations.

Wireless LAN (WLAN) access in public hotspot areas becomes popular in the recent years. Since more and more multimedia information is available in the Internet, there is an increasing demand for accessing multimedia information through WLAN hotspots. Currently, the bandwidth offered by an IEEE 802.11 WLAN cannot afford many simultaneous real-time video accesses. A possible way to increase the offered bandwidth in a hotspot is the use of multiple access points (APs). However, a mobile station is usually connected to the WLAN AP with the strongest received signal strength indicator (RSSI). The total consumed bandwidth cannot be fairly allocated among those APs. In this paper, we will propose an effective load-balancing scheme via the support of the IAPP and SNMP in APs. The proposed scheme is an open solution and doesn-t need any changes in both wireless stations and APs. This makes load balancing possible in WLAN hotspots, where a variety of heterogeneous mobile devices are employed.

X-ray mammography is the most effective method for the early detection of breast diseases. However, the typical diagnostic signs such as microcalcifications and masses are difficult to detect because mammograms are of low-contrast and noisy. In this paper, a new algorithm for image denoising and enhancement in Orthogonal Polynomials Transformation (OPT) is proposed for radiologists to screen mammograms. In this method, a set of OPT edge coefficients are scaled to a new set by a scale factor called OPT scale factor. The new set of coefficients is then inverse transformed resulting in contrast improved image. Applications of the proposed method to mammograms with subtle lesions are shown. To validate the effectiveness of the proposed method, we compare the results to those obtained by the Histogram Equalization (HE) and the Unsharp Masking (UM) methods. Our preliminary results strongly suggest that the proposed method offers considerably improved enhancement capability over the HE and UM methods.

A novel robust audio watermarking scheme is proposed in this paper. In the proposed scheme, the host audio signals are segmented into frames. Two consecutive frames are assessed if they are suitable to represent a watermark bit. If so, frequency transform is performed on these two frames. The compressionexpansion technique is adopted to generate distortion over the two frames. The distortion is used to represent one watermark bit. Psychoacoustic model is applied to calculate local auditory mask to ensure that the distortion is not audible. The watermarking schemes using mono and stereo audio signals are designed differently. The correlation-based detection method is used to detect the distortion and extract embedded watermark bits. The experimental results show that the quality degradation caused by the embedded watermarks is perceptually transparent and the proposed schemes are very robust against different types of attacks.

Considering the theory of attribute grammars, we use logical formulas instead of traditional functional semantic rules. Following the decoration of a derivation tree, a suitable algorithm should maintain the consistency of the formulas together with the evaluation of the attributes. This may be a Prolog-like resolution, but this paper examines a somewhat different strategy, based on production specialization, local consistency and propagation: given a derivation tree, it is interactively decorated, i.e. incrementally checked and evaluated. The non-directed dependencies are dynamically directed during attribute evaluation.

In recent times, the problem of Unsolicited Bulk Email (UBE) or commonly known as Spam Email, has increased at a tremendous growth rate. We present an analysis of survey based on classifications of UBE in various research works. There are many research instances for classification between spam and non-spam emails but very few research instances are available for classification of spam emails, per se. This paper does not intend to assert some UBE classification to be better than the others nor does it propose any new classification but it bemoans the lack of harmony on number and definition of categories proposed by different researchers. The paper also elaborates on factors like intent of spammer, content of UBE and ambiguity in different categories as proposed in related research works of classifications of UBE.

The intermittent connectivity modifies the “always on" network assumption made by all the distributed query processing systems. In modern- day systems, the absence of network connectivity is considered as a fault. Since the last upload, it might not be feasible to transmit all the data accumulated right away over the available connection. It is possible that vital information may be delayed excessively when the less important information takes place of the vital information. Owing to the restricted and uneven bandwidth, it is vital that the mobile nodes make the most advantageous use of the connectivity when it arrives. Hence, in order to select the data that needs to be transmitted first, some sort of data prioritization is essential. A continuous query processing system for intermittently connected mobile networks that comprises of a delaytolerant continuous query processor distributed across the mobile hosts has been proposed in this paper. In addition, a mechanism for prioritizing query results has been designed that guarantees enhanced accuracy and reduced delay. It is illustrated that our architecture reduces the client power consumption, increases query efficiency by the extensive simulation results.

The shortest path routing problem is a multiobjective nonlinear optimization problem with constraints. This problem has been addressed by considering Quality of service parameters, delay and cost objectives separately or as a weighted sum of both objectives. Multiobjective evolutionary algorithms can find multiple pareto-optimal solutions in one single run and this ability makes them attractive for solving problems with multiple and conflicting objectives. This paper uses an elitist multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on the Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA), for solving the dynamic shortest path routing problem in computer networks. A priority-based encoding scheme is proposed for population initialization. Elitism ensures that the best solution does not deteriorate in the next generations. Results for a sample test network have been presented to demonstrate the capabilities of the proposed approach to generate well-distributed pareto-optimal solutions of dynamic routing problem in one single run. The results obtained by NSGA are compared with single objective weighting factor method for which Genetic Algorithm (GA) was applied.

One of the main objectives of order reduction is to design a controller of lower order which can effectively control the original high order system so that the overall system is of lower order and easy to understand. In this paper, a simple method is presented for controller design of a higher order discrete system. First the original higher order discrete system in reduced to a lower order model. Then a Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controller is designed for lower order model. An error minimization technique is employed for both order reduction and controller design. For the error minimization purpose, Differential Evolution (DE) optimization algorithm has been employed. DE method is based on the minimization of the Integral Squared Error (ISE) between the desired response and actual response pertaining to a unit step input. Finally the designed PID controller is connected to the original higher order discrete system to get the desired specification. The validity of the proposed method is illustrated through a numerical example.

In this paper, a Gaussian multiple input multiple output multiple eavesdropper (MIMOME) channel is considered where a transmitter communicates to a receiver in the presence of an eavesdropper. We present a technique for determining the secrecy capacity of the multiple input multiple output (MIMO) channel under Gaussian noise. We transform the degraded MIMOME channel into multiple single input multiple output (SIMO) Gaussian wire-tap channels and then use scalar approach to convert it into two equivalent multiple input single output (MISO) channels. The secrecy capacity model is then developed for the condition where the channel state information (CSI) for main channel only is known to the transmitter. The results show that the secret communication is possible when the eavesdropper channel noise is greater than a cutoff noise level. The outage probability is also analyzed of secrecy capacity is also analyzed. The effect of fading and outage probability is also analyzed.

Link reliability and transmitted power are two important design constraints in wireless network design. Error control coding (ECC) is a classic approach used to increase link reliability and to lower the required transmitted power. It provides coding gain, resulting in transmitter energy savings at the cost of added decoder power consumption. But the choice of ECC is very critical in the case of wireless sensor network (WSN). Since the WSNs are energy constraint in nature, both the BER and power consumption has to be taken into count. This paper develops a step by step approach in finding suitable error control codes for WSNs. Several simulations are taken considering different error control codes and the result shows that the RS(31,21) fits both in BER and power consumption criteria.

As privacy becomes a major concern for consumers and enterprises, many research have been focused on the privacy protecting technology in recent years. In this paper, we present a comprehensive approach for usage access control based on the notion purpose. In our model, purpose information associated with a given data element specifies the intended use of the subjects and objects in the usage access control model. A key feature of our model is that it allows when an access is required, the access purpose is checked against the intended purposes for the data item. We propose an approach to represent purpose information to support access control based on purpose information. Our proposed solution relies on usage access control (UAC) models as well as the components which based on the notions of the purpose information used in subjects and objects. Finally, comparisons with related works are analyzed.

Star graphs are Cayley graphs of symmetric groups of permutations, with transpositions as the generating sets. A star graph is a preferred interconnection network topology to a hypercube for its ability to connect a greater number of nodes with lower degree. However, an attractive property of the hypercube is that it has a Hamiltonian decomposition, i.e. its edges can be partitioned into disjoint Hamiltonian cycles, and therefore a simple routing can be found in the case of an edge failure. The existence of Hamiltonian cycles in Cayley graphs has been known for some time. So far, there are no published results on the much stronger condition of the existence of Hamiltonian decompositions. In this paper, we give a construction of a Hamiltonian decomposition of the star graph 5-star of degree 4, by defining an automorphism for 5-star and a Hamiltonian cycle which is edge-disjoint with its image under the automorphism.

Data mining techniques have been used in medical research for many years and have been known to be effective. In order to solve such problems as long-waiting time, congestion, and delayed patient care, faced by emergency departments, this study concentrates on building a hybrid methodology, combining data mining techniques such as association rules and classification trees. The methodology is applied to real-world emergency data collected from a hospital and is evaluated by comparing with other techniques. The methodology is expected to help physicians to make a faster and more accurate classification of chest pain diseases.

Three new algorithms based on minimization of autocorrelation of transmitted symbols and the SLM approach which are computationally less demanding have been proposed. In the first algorithm, autocorrelation of complex data sequence is minimized to a value of 1 that results in reduction of PAPR. Second algorithm generates multiple random sequences from the sequence generated in the first algorithm with same value of autocorrelation i.e. 1. Out of these, the sequence with minimum PAPR is transmitted. Third algorithm is an extension of the second algorithm and requires minimum side information to be transmitted. Multiple sequences are generated by modifying a fixed number of complex numbers in an OFDM data sequence using only one factor. The multiple sequences represent the same data sequence and the one giving minimum PAPR is transmitted. Simulation results for a 256 subcarrier OFDM system show that significant reduction in PAPR is achieved using the proposed algorithms.

This paper presents a solution for the behavioural animation of autonomous virtual agent navigation in virtual environments. We focus on using Dempster-Shafer-s Theory of Evidence in developing visual sensor for virtual agent. The role of the visual sensor is to capture the information about the virtual environment or identifie which part of an obstacle can be seen from the position of the virtual agent. This information is require for vitual agent to coordinate navigation in virtual environment. The virual agent uses fuzzy controller as a navigation system and Fuzzy α - level for the action selection method. The result clearly demonstrates the path produced is reasonably smooth even though there is some sharp turn and also still not diverted too far from the potential shortest path. This had indicated the benefit of our method, where more reliable and accurate paths produced during navigation task.

Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) is one of machine learning algorithms for problem solving and learning that caught a lot of attention over the last few years. In general, CBR is composed of four main phases: retrieve the most similar case or cases, reuse the case to solve the problem, revise or adapt the proposed solution, and retain the learned cases before returning them to the case base for learning purpose. Unfortunately, in many cases, this retain process causes the uncontrolled case base growth. The problem affects competence and performance of CBR systems. This paper proposes competence-based maintenance method based on deletion policy strategy for CBR. There are three main steps in this method. Step 1, formulate problems. Step 2, determine coverage and reachability set based on coverage value. Step 3, reduce case base size. The results obtained show that this proposed method performs better than the existing methods currently discussed in literature.

Automatic methods of detecting changes through satellite imaging are the object of growing interest, especially beca²use of numerous applications linked to analysis of the Earth’s surface or the environment (monitoring vegetation, updating maps, risk management, etc...). This work implemented spatial analysis techniques by using images with different spatial and spectral resolutions on different dates. The work was based on the principle of control charts in order to set the upper and lower limits beyond which a change would be noted. Later, the a contrario approach was used. This was done by testing different thresholds for which the difference calculated between two pixels was significant. Finally, labeled images were considered, giving a particularly low difference which meant that the number of “false changes” could be estimated according to a given limit.

A novel path planning approach is presented to solve optimal path in stochastic, time-varying networks under priori traffic information. Most existing studies make use of dynamic programming to find optimal path. However, those methods are proved to be unable to obtain global optimal value, moreover, how to design efficient algorithms is also another challenge. This paper employs a decision theoretic framework for defining optimal path: for a given source S and destination D in urban transit network, we seek an S - D path of lowest expected travel time where its link travel times are discrete random variables. To solve deficiency caused by the methods of dynamic programming, such as curse of dimensionality and violation of optimal principle, an integer programming model is built to realize assignment of discrete travel time variables to arcs. Simultaneously, pruning techniques are also applied to reduce computation complexity in the algorithm. The final experiments show the feasibility of the novel approach.

If there exists a nonempty, proper subset S of the set of all (n+1)(n+2)/2 inertias such that S Ôèå i(A) is sufficient for any n×n zero-nonzero pattern A to be inertially arbitrary, then S is called a critical set of inertias for zero-nonzero patterns of order n. If no proper subset of S is a critical set, then S is called a minimal critical set of inertias. In [Kim, Olesky and Driessche, Critical sets of inertias for matrix patterns, Linear and Multilinear Algebra, 57 (3) (2009) 293-306], identifying all minimal critical sets of inertias for n×n zero-nonzero patterns with n ≥ 3 and the minimum cardinality of such a set are posed as two open questions by Kim, Olesky and Driessche. In this note, the minimum cardinality of all critical sets of inertias for 4 × 4 irreducible zero-nonzero patterns is identified.

This paper is concerned with a nonautonomous three species food chain model with Crowley–Martin type functional response and time delay. Using the Mawhin-s continuation theorem in theory of degree, sufficient conditions for existence of periodic solutions are obtained.

Based on the classical algorithm LSQR for solving (unconstrained) LS problem, an iterative method is proposed for the least-squares like-minimum-norm symmetric solution of AXB+CYD=E. As the application of this algorithm, an iterative method for the least-squares like-minimum-norm biymmetric solution of AXB=E is also obtained. Numerical results are reported that show the efficiency of the proposed methods.

The prediction of transmembrane helical segments (TMHs) in membrane proteins is an important field in the bioinformatics research. In this paper, a method based on discrete wavelet transform (DWT) has been developed to predict the number and location of TMHs in membrane proteins. PDB coded as 1F88 was chosen as an example to describe the prediction of the number and location of TMHs in membrane proteins by using this method. One group of test data sets that contain total 19 protein sequences was utilized to access the effect of this method. Compared with the prediction results of DAS, PRED-TMR2, SOSUI, HMMTOP2.0 and TMHMM2.0, the obtained results indicate that the presented method has higher prediction accuracy.

If there exists a nonempty, proper subset S of the set of all (n + 1)(n + 2)/2 inertias such that S Ôèå i(A) is sufficient for any n × n zero-nonzero pattern A to be inertially arbitrary, then S is called a critical set of inertias for zero-nonzero patterns of order n. If no proper subset of S is a critical set, then S is called a minimal critical set of inertias. In [3], Kim, Olesky and Driessche identified all minimal critical sets of inertias for 2 × 2 zero-nonzero patterns. Identifying all minimal critical sets of inertias for n × n zero-nonzero patterns with n ≥ 3 is posed as an open question in [3]. In this paper, all minimal critical sets of inertias for 3 × 3 zero-nonzero patterns are identified. It is shown that the sets {(0, 0, 3), (3, 0, 0)}, {(0, 0, 3), (0, 3, 0)}, {(0, 0, 3), (0, 1, 2)}, {(0, 0, 3), (1, 0, 2)}, {(0, 0, 3), (2, 0, 1)} and {(0, 0, 3), (0, 2, 1)} are the only minimal critical sets of inertias for 3 × 3 irreducible zerononzero patterns.

In this paper, a class of impulsive BAM fuzzy cellular neural networks with time delays in the leakage terms is formulated and investigated. By establishing a delay differential inequality and M-matrix theory, some sufficient conditions ensuring the existence, uniqueness and global exponential stability of equilibrium point for impulsive BAM fuzzy cellular neural networks with time delays in the leakage terms are obtained. In particular, a precise estimate of the exponential convergence rate is also provided, which depends on system parameters and impulsive perturbation intention. It is believed that these results are significant and useful for the design and applications of BAM fuzzy cellular neural networks. An example is given to show the effectiveness of the results obtained here.

The real representation of the quaternionic matrix is definited and studied. The relations between the positive (semi)define quaternionic matrix and its real representation matrix are presented. By means of the real representation, the relation between the positive (semi)definite solutions of quaternionic matrix equations and those of corresponding real matrix equations is established.

In this paper, we research the standard 13-point difference schemes for solving the biharmonic equation. Heuristic method is applied to judging the stability of multi-level difference schemes of the biharmonic equation. It is showed that the standard 13-point difference schemes are stable.

A decomposition of a graph G is a collection ψ of graphs H1,H2, . . . , Hr of G such that every edge of G belongs to exactly one Hi. If each Hi is either an induced path in G, then ψ is called an induced acyclic path decomposition of G and if each Hi is a (induced) cycle in G then ψ is called a (induced) cycle decomposition of G. The minimum cardinality of an induced acyclic path decomposition of G is called the induced acyclic path decomposition number of G and is denoted by ¤Çia(G). Similarly the cyclic decomposition number ¤Çc(G) is defined. In this paper we begin an investigation of these parameters.

By using the method of coincidence degree and constructing suitable Lyapunov functional, some sufficient conditions are established for the existence and global exponential stability of antiperiodic solutions for a kind of impulsive Cohen-Grossberg shunting inhibitory cellular neural networks (CGSICNNs) on time scales. An example is given to illustrate our results.

In this paper, we consider a two-neuron system with time-delayed connections between neurons. By analyzing the associated characteristic transcendental equation, its linear stability is investigated and Hopf bifurcation is demonstrated. Some explicit formulae for determining the stability and the direction of the Hopf bifurcation periodic solutions bifurcating from Hopf bifurcations are obtained by using the normal form theory and center manifold theory. Some numerical simulation results are given to support the theoretical predictions. Finally, main conclusions are given.

In this paper, the generalized (2+1)-dimensional Calogero-Bogoyavlenskii-Schiff (shortly CBS) equations are investigated. We employ the Hirota-s bilinear method to obtain the bilinear form of CBS equations. Then by the idea of extended homoclinic test approach (shortly EHTA), some exact soliton solutions including breather type solutions are presented.

By means of the idea of three-wave method, we obtain some analytic solutions for high nonlinear form of Benjamin-Bona- Mahony-Burgers (shortly BBMB) equations in its bilinear form.

In this paper, the problem of stability analysis for a class of impulsive stochastic fuzzy neural networks with timevarying delays and reaction-diffusion is considered. By utilizing suitable Lyapunov-Krasovskii funcational, the inequality technique and stochastic analysis technique, some sufficient conditions ensuring global exponential stability of equilibrium point for impulsive stochastic fuzzy cellular neural networks with time-varying delays and diffusion are obtained. In particular, the estimate of the exponential convergence rate is also provided, which depends on system parameters, diffusion effect and impulsive disturbed intention. It is believed that these results are significant and useful for the design and applications of fuzzy neural networks. An example is given to show the effectiveness of the obtained results.

The projection methods, usually viewed as the methods for computing eigenvalues, can also be used to estimate pseudospectra. This paper proposes a kind of projection methods for computing the pseudospectra of large scale matrices, including orthogonalization projection method and oblique projection method respectively. This possibility may be of practical importance in applications involving large scale highly nonnormal matrices. Numerical algorithms are given and some numerical experiments illustrate the efficiency of the new algorithms.

An acyclic coloring of a graph G is a coloring of its vertices such that:(i) no two neighbors in G are assigned the same color and (ii) no bicolored cycle can exist in G. The acyclic chromatic number of G is the least number of colors necessary to acyclically color G. Recently it has been proved that any graph of maximum degree 5 has an acyclic chromatic number at most 8. In this paper we present another proof for this result.

In the literature of fuzzy measures, there exist many well known parametric and non-parametric measures, each with its own merits and limitations. But our main emphasis is on applications of these measures to a variety of disciplines. To extend the scope of applications of these fuzzy measures to geometry, we need some special fuzzy measures. In this communication, we have introduced two new fuzzy measures involving trigonometric functions and simultaneously provided their applications to obtain the basic results already existing in the literature of geometry.

The objective of this research is to examine the shear thinning behaviour of mixing flow of non-Newtonian fluid like toothpaste in the dissolution container with rotating stirrer. The problem under investigation is related to the chemical industry. Mixing of fluid is performed in a cylindrical container with rotating stirrer, where stirrer is eccentrically placed on the lid of the container. For the simulation purpose the associated motion of the fluid is considered as revolving of the container, with stick stirrer. For numerical prediction, a time-stepping finite element algorithm in a cylindrical polar coordinate system is adopted based on semi-implicit Taylor-Galerkin/pressure-correction scheme. Numerical solutions are obtained for non-Newtonian fluids employing power law model. Variations with power law index have been analysed, with respect to the flow structure and pressure drop.

In this paper, by using Mawhin-s continuation theorem of coincidence degree theory, we establish the existence of multiple positive periodic solutions of a competitor-competitor-mutualist Lotka-Volterra system with harvesting terms. Finally, an example is given to illustrate our results.

This paper describes the results of an extensive study and comparison of popular hash functions SHA-1, SHA-256, RIPEMD-160 and RIPEMD-320 with JERIM-320, a 320-bit hash function. The compression functions of hash functions like SHA-1 and SHA-256 are designed using serial successive iteration whereas those like RIPEMD-160 and RIPEMD-320 are designed using two parallel lines of message processing. JERIM-320 uses four parallel lines of message processing resulting in higher level of security than other hash functions at comparable speed and memory requirement. The performance evaluation of these methods has been done by using practical implementation and also by using step computation methods. JERIM-320 proves to be secure and ensures the integrity of messages at a higher degree. The focus of this work is to establish JERIM-320 as an alternative of the present day hash functions for the fast growing internet applications.

Number of breakdowns experienced by a machinery is a highly under-dispersed count random variable and its value can be attributed to the factors related to the mechanical input and output of that machinery. Analyzing such under-dispersed count observations as a function of the explanatory factors has been a challenging problem. In this paper, we aim at estimating the effects of various factors on the number of breakdowns experienced by a passenger car based on a study performed in Mauritius over a year. We remark that the number of passenger car breakdowns is highly under-dispersed. These data are therefore modelled and analyzed using Com-Poisson regression model. We use quasi-likelihood estimation approach to estimate the parameters of the model. Under-dispersion parameter is estimated to be 2.14 justifying the appropriateness of Com-Poisson distribution in modelling under-dispersed count responses recorded in this study.

An effort has been taken to simulate the combustion and performance characteristics of biodiesel fuel in direct injection (D.I) low heat rejection (LHR) diesel engine. Comprehensive analyses on combustion characteristics such as cylinder pressure, peak cylinder pressure, heat release and performance characteristics such as specific fuel consumption and brake thermal efficiency are carried out. Compression ignition (C.I) engine cycle simulation was developed and modified in to LHR engine for both diesel and biodiesel fuel. On the basis of first law of thermodynamics the properties at each degree crank angle was calculated. Preparation and reaction rate model was used to calculate the instantaneous heat release rate. A gas-wall heat transfer calculations are based on the ANNAND-s combined heat transfer model with instantaneous wall temperature to analyze the effect of coating on heat transfer. The simulated results are validated by conducting the experiments on the test engine under identical operating condition on a turbocharged D.I diesel engine. In this analysis 20% of biodiesel (derived from Jatropha oil) blended with diesel and used in both conventional and LHR engine. The simulated combustion and performance characteristics results are found satisfactory with the experimental value.

Since the actuator capacity is limited, in the real application of active control systems under sever earthquakes it is conceivable that the actuators saturate, hence the actuator saturation should be considered as a constraint in design of optimal controllers. In this paper optimal design of active controllers for nonlinear structures by considering actuator saturation, has been studied. The proposed method for designing optimal controllers is based on defining an optimization problem which the objective has been to minimize the maximum displacement of structure when a limited capacity for actuator has been used. To this end a single degree of freedom (SDF) structure with a bilinear hysteretic behavior has been simulated under a white noise ground acceleration of different amplitudes. Active tendon control mechanism, comprised of prestressed tendons and an actuator, and extended nonlinear Newmark method based instantaneous optimal control algorithm have been used. To achieve the best results, the weights corresponding to displacement, velocity, acceleration and control force in the performance index have been optimized by the Distributed Genetic Algorithm (DGA). Results show the effectiveness of the proposed method in considering actuator saturation. Also based on the numerical simulations it can be concluded that the actuator capacity and the average value of required control force are two important factors in designing nonlinear controllers which consider the actuator saturation.

The effect of different combinations of response feedback on the performance of active control system on nonlinear frames has been studied in this paper. To this end different feedback combinations including displacement, velocity, acceleration and full response feedback have been utilized in controlling the response of an eight story bilinear hysteretic frame which has been subjected to a white noise excitation and controlled by eight actuators which could fully control the frame. For active control of nonlinear frame Newmark nonlinear instantaneous optimal control algorithm has been used which a diagonal matrix has been selected for weighting matrices in performance index. For optimal design of active control system while the objective has been to reduce the maximum drift to below the yielding level, Distributed Genetic Algorithm (DGA) has been used to determine the proper set of weighting matrices. The criteria to assess the effect of each combination of response feedback have been the minimum required control force to reduce the maximum drift to below the yielding drift. The results of numerical simulation show that the performance of active control system is dependent on the type of response feedback where the velocity feedback is more effective in designing optimal control system in comparison with displacement and acceleration feedback. Also using full feedback of response in controller design leads to minimum control force amongst other combinations. Also the distributed genetic algorithm shows acceptable convergence speed in solving the optimization problem of designing active control systems.

In order to consider the effects of the higher modes in the pushover analysis, during the recent years several multi-modal pushover procedures have been presented. In these methods the response of the considered modes are combined by the square-rootof- sum-of-squares (SRSS) rule while application of the elastic modal combination rules in the inelastic phases is no longer valid. In this research the feasibility of defining an efficient alternative combination method is investigated. Two steel moment-frame buildings denoted SAC-9 and SAC-20 under ten earthquake records are considered. The nonlinear responses of the structures are estimated by the directed algebraic combination of the weighted responses of the separate modes. The weight of the each mode is defined so that the resulted response of the combination has a minimum error to the nonlinear time history analysis. The genetic algorithm (GA) is used to minimize the error and optimize the weight factors. The obtained optimal factors for each mode in different cases are compared together to find unique appropriate weight factors for each mode in all cases.

Frequent machine breakdowns, low plant availability and increased overtime are a great threat to a manufacturing plant as they increase operating costs of an industry. The main aim of this study was to improve Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) at a manufacturing company through the implementation of innovative maintenance strategies. A case study approach was used. The paper focuses on improving the maintenance in a manufacturing set up using an innovative maintenance regime mix to improve overall equipment effectiveness. Interviews, reviewing documentation and historical records, direct and participatory observation were used as data collection methods during the research. Usually production is based on the total kilowatt of motors produced per day. The target kilowatt at 91% availability is 75 Kilowatts a day. Reduced demand and lack of raw materials particularly imported items are adversely affecting the manufacturing operations. The company had to reset its targets from the usual figure of 250 Kilowatt per day to mere 75 per day due to lower availability of machines as result of breakdowns as well as lack of raw materials. The price reductions and uncertainties as well as general machine breakdowns further lowered production. Some recommendations were given. For instance, employee empowerment in the company will enhance responsibility and authority to improve and totally eliminate the six big losses. If the maintenance department is to realise its proper function in a progressive, innovative industrial society, then its personnel must be continuously trained to meet current needs as well as future requirements. To make the maintenance planning system effective, it is essential to keep track of all the corrective maintenance jobs and preventive maintenance inspections. For large processing plants these cannot be handled manually. It was therefore recommended that the company implement (Computerised Maintenance Management System) CMMS.

There are many real world problems in which parameters like the arrival time of new jobs, failure of resources, and completion time of jobs change continuously. This paper tackles the problem of scheduling jobs with random due dates on multiple identical machines in a stochastic environment. First to assign jobs to different machine centers LPT scheduling methods have been used, after that the particular sequence of jobs to be processed on the machine have been found using simple stochastic techniques. The performance parameter under consideration has been the maximum lateness concerning the stochastic due dates which are independent and exponentially distributed. At the end a relevant problem has been solved using the techniques in the paper..

Electron back-scattered diffraction was used to follow the evolution of microstructure from the base metal to the stir zone (SZ) in a duplex stainless steel subjected to friction stir welding. In the stir zone (SZ), a continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) was evidenced for ferrite, while it was suggested that a static recrystallization together with CDRX may occur for austenite. It was found that ferrite and austenite grains in the SZ take a typical shear texture of bcc and fcc materials respectively.

Adopting the measured constitutive relationship of stress-strain of river ice, the finite element analysis model of percussive force of river ice and pier is established, by the explicit dynamical analysis software package LS-DYNA. Effects of element types, contact method and arithmetic of ice and pier, coupled modes between different elements, mesh density of pier, and ice sheet in contact area on the collision force are studied. Some of measures for the collision force analysis of river ice and pier are proposed as follows: bridge girder can adopt beam161 element with 3-node; pier below the line of 1.30m above ice surface and ice sheet use solid164 element with 8-node; in order to accomplish the connection of different elements, the rigid body with 0.01-0.05m thickness is defined between solid164 and beam161; the contact type of ice and pier adopts AUTOMATIC_SURFACE_TO_SURFACE, using symmetrical penalty function algorithms; meshing size of pier below the line of 1.30m above ice surface should not less than 0.25×0.25×0.5m3. The simulation results have the advantage of high precision by making a comparison between measured and computed data. The research results can be referred for collision force study between river ice and pier.

This paper investigates the problem of absolute stability and robust stability of a class of Lur-e systems with neutral type and time-varying delays. By using Lyapunov direct method and linear matrix inequality technique, new delay-dependent stability criteria are obtained and formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) which are easy to check the stability of the considered systems. To obtain less conservative stability conditions, an operator is defined to construct the Lyapunov functional. Also, the free weighting matrices approach combining a matrix inequality technique is used to reduce the entailed conservativeness. Numerical examples are given to indicate significant improvements over some existing results.

This paper proposes a novel feature extraction method, based on Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) and K-L Seperability (KLS), for the classification of Functional Data (FD). This method combines the decorrelation and reduction property of DWT and the additive independence property of KLS, which is helpful to extraction classification features of FD. It is an advanced approach of the popular wavelet based shrinkage method for functional data reduction and classification. A theory analysis is given in the paper to prove the consistent convergence property, and a simulation study is also done to compare the proposed method with the former shrinkage ones. The experiment results show that this method has advantages in improving classification efficiency, precision and robustness.

In recent years, the research in wireless sensor network has increased steadily, and many studies were focusing on reducing energy consumption of sensor nodes to extend their lifetimes. In this paper, the issue of energy consumption is investigated and two adaptive mechanisms are proposed to extend the network lifetime. This study uses high-energy-first scheme to determine cluster heads for data transmission. Thus, energy consumption in each cluster is balanced and network lifetime can be extended. In addition, this study uses cluster merging and dynamic routing mechanisms to further reduce energy consumption during data transmission. The simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively extend the lifetime of wireless sensor network, and it is suitable for different base station locations.

The major purpose of this study is to use network and multimedia technologies to build a game-based learning system for junior high school students to apply in learning “World Geography" through the “role-playing" game approaches. This study first investigated the motivation and habits of junior high school students to use the Internet and online games, and then designed a game-based learning system according to situated and game-based learning theories. A teaching experiment was conducted to analyze the learning effectiveness of students on the game-based learning system and the major factors affecting their learning. A questionnaire survey was used to understand the students- attitudes towards game-based learning. The results showed that the game-based learning system can enhance students- learning, but the gender of students and their habits in using the Internet have no significant impact on learning. Game experience has a significant impact on students- learning, and the higher the experience value the better the effectiveness of their learning. The results of questionnaire survey also revealed that the system can increase students- motivation and interest in learning "World Geography".

In this article the homotopy continuation method (HCM) to solve the forward kinematic problem of the 3-PRS parallel manipulator is used. Since there are many difficulties in solving the system of nonlinear equations in kinematics of manipulators, the numerical solutions like Newton-Raphson are inevitably used. When dealing with any numerical solution, there are two troublesome problems. One is that good initial guesses are not easy to detect and another is related to whether the used method will converge to useful solutions. Results of this paper reveal that the homotopy continuation method can alleviate the drawbacks of traditional numerical techniques.

Through inward perceptions, we intuitively expect distributed software development to increase the risks associated with achieving cost, schedule, and quality goals. To compound this problem, agile software development (ASD) insists one of the main ingredients of its success is cohesive communication attributed to collocation of the development team. The following study identified the degree of communication richness needed to achieve comparable software quality (reduce pre-release defects) between distributed and collocated teams. This paper explores the relevancy of communication richness in various development phases and its impact on quality. Through examination of a large distributed agile development project, this investigation seeks to understand the levels of communication required within each ASD phase to produce comparable quality results achieved by collocated teams. Obviously, a multitude of factors affects the outcome of software projects. However, within distributed agile software development teams, the mode of communication is one of the critical components required to achieve team cohesiveness and effectiveness. As such, this study constructs a distributed agile communication model (DAC-M) for potential application to similar distributed agile development efforts using the measurement of the suitable level of communication. The results of the study show that less rich communication methods, in the appropriate phase, might be satisfactory to achieve equivalent quality in distributed ASD efforts.

Time-Cost Optimization "TCO" is one of the greatest challenges in construction project planning and control, since the optimization of either time or cost, would usually be at the expense of the other. Since there is a hidden trade-off relationship between project and cost, it might be difficult to predict whether the total cost would increase or decrease as a result of the schedule compression. Recently third dimension in trade-off analysis is taken into consideration that is quality of the projects. Few of the existing algorithms are applied in a case of construction project with threedimensional trade-off analysis, Time-Cost-Quality relationships. The objective of this paper is to presents the development of a practical software system; that named Automatic Multi-objective Typical Construction Resource Optimization System "AMTCROS". This system incorporates the basic concepts of Line Of Balance "LOB" and Critical Path Method "CPM" in a multi-objective Genetic Algorithms "GAs" model. The main objective of this system is to provide a practical support for typical construction planners who need to optimize resource utilization in order to minimize project cost and duration while maximizing its quality simultaneously. The application of these research developments in planning the typical construction projects holds a strong promise to: 1) Increase the efficiency of resource use in typical construction projects; 2) Reduce construction duration period; 3) Minimize construction cost (direct cost plus indirect cost); and 4) Improve the quality of newly construction projects. A general description of the proposed software for the Time-Cost-Quality Trade-Off "TCQTO" is presented. The main inputs and outputs of the proposed software are outlined. The main subroutines and the inference engine of this software are detailed. The complexity analysis of the software is discussed. In addition, the verification, and complexity of the proposed software are proved and tested using a real case study.

The mechanism behind the electromigration and thermomigration failure in flip-chip solder joints with Cu-pillar bumps was investigated in this paper through using finite element method. Hot spot and the current crowding occurrs in the upper corner of copper column instead of solders of the common solder ball. The simulation results show that the change in thermal gradient is noticeable, which might greatly affect the reliability of solder joints with Cu-pillar bumps under current stressing. When the average applied current density is increased from 1×104 A/cm2 to 3×104 A/cm2 in solders, the thermal gradient would increase from 74 K/cm to 901 K/cm at an ambient temperature of 25°C. The force from thermal gradient of 901 K/cm can nearly induce thermomigration by itself. With the increase in applied current, the thermal gradient is growing. It is proposed that thermomigration likely causes a serious reliability issue for Cu column based interconnects.

Simulation accuracy by recent dynamic vehicle simulation multidimensional expression significantly has progressed and acceptable results not only for passive vehicles but also for active vehicles normally equipped with advanced electronic components is also provided. Recently, one of the subjects that has it been considered, is increasing the safety car in design. Therefore, many efforts have been done to increase vehicle stability especially in the turn. One of the most important efforts is adjusting the camber angle in the car suspension system. Optimum control camber angle in addition to the vehicle stability is effective in the wheel adhesion on road, reducing rubber abrasion and acceleration and braking. Since the increase or decrease in the camber angle impacts on the stability of vehicles, in this paper, a car suspension system mechanism is introduced that could be adjust camber angle and the mechanism is application and also inexpensive. In order to reach this purpose, in this paper, a passive double wishbone suspension system with variable camber angle is introduced and then variable camber mechanism designed and analyzed for study the designed system performance, this mechanism is modeled in Visual Nastran software and kinematic analysis is revealed.

Over the early years of the 21st century, cities throughout the Middle East, particularly in the Gulf region have expanded more rapidly than ever before. Given the presence of a large volume of high-rise buildings allover the region, the local authority aims to set a new standard for sustainable development; with an integrated approach to maintain a balance between economy, quality, environmental protection and safety of life. In the very near future, as mandatory requirements, sustainability will be the criteria that should be included in all building projects. It is well known in the building sustainability topics that structural design engineers do not have a key role in this matter. In addition, the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) has looked almost exclusively on the environmental components and materials specifications. The objective of this paper is to focus and establish groundwork for sustainability techniques and applications related to the RC high-rise buildings design, from the structural point of view. A set of recommendations related to local conditions, structural modeling and analysis is given, and some helpful suggestions for structural design team work are addressed. This paper attempts to help structural engineers in identifying the building sustainability design, in order to meet local needs and achieve alternative solutions at an early stage of project design.

The migration of a deformable drop in simple shear flow at finite Reynolds numbers is investigated numerically by solving the full Navier-Stokes equations using a finite difference/front tracking method. The objectives of this study are to examine the effectiveness of the present approach to predict the migration of a drop in a shear flow and to investigate the behavior of the drop migration with different drop sizes and non-unity viscosity ratios. It is shown that the drop deformation depends strongly on the capillary number, so that; the proper non-dimensional number for the interfacial tension is the capillary number. The rate of migration increased with increasing the drop radius. In other words, the required time for drop migration to the centreline decreases. As the viscosity ratio increases, the drop rotates more slowly and the lubrication force becomes stronger. The increased lubrication force makes it easier for the drop to migrate to the centre of the channel. The migration velocity of the drop vanishes as the drop reaches the centreline under viscosity ratio of one and non-unity viscosity ratios. To validate the present calculations, some typical results are compared with available experimental and theoretical data.

Dorsal hand vein pattern is an emerging biometric which is attracting the attention of researchers, of late. Research is being carried out on existing techniques in the hope of improving them or finding more efficient ones. In this work, Principle Component Analysis (PCA) , which is a successful method, originally applied on face biometric is being modified using Cholesky decomposition and Lanczos algorithm to extract the dorsal hand vein features. This modified technique decreases the number of computation and hence decreases the processing time. The eigenveins were successfully computed and projected onto the vein space. The system was tested on a database of 200 images and using a threshold value of 0.9 to obtain the False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR). This modified algorithm is desirable when developing biometric security system since it significantly decreases the matching time.

In this paper, we apply and compare two generalized estimating equation approaches to the analysis of car breakdowns data in Mauritius. Number of breakdowns experienced by a machinery is a highly under-dispersed count random variable and its value can be attributed to the factors related to the mechanical input and output of that machinery. Analyzing such under-dispersed count observation as a function of the explanatory factors has been a challenging problem. In this paper, we aim at estimating the effects of various factors on the number of breakdowns experienced by a passenger car based on a study performed in Mauritius over a year. We remark that the number of passenger car breakdowns is highly under-dispersed. These data are therefore modelled and analyzed using Com-Poisson regression model. We use the two types of quasi-likelihood estimation approaches to estimate the parameters of the model: marginal and joint generalized quasi-likelihood estimating equation approaches. Under-dispersion parameter is estimated to be around 2.14 justifying the appropriateness of Com-Poisson distribution in modelling underdispersed count responses recorded in this study.

Attitude control of aerospace system with liquid containers may face to a problem associate with fuel sloshing. The sloshing phenomena can degrade the stability of control system and in the worst case, interaction between the attitude control system and fuel vibration leading to resonance. In this paper, a full process of nonlinear dynamic modeling of an aerospace launch vehicle with fuel sloshing is given. Then, a new control system based on model reference adaptive filter is proposed and its algorithm is extracted. This controller implemented on the main attitude control system. Finally, numerical simulation of nonlinear model and control system is carried out to examine the performance of the new controller. Results of simulations show that the inconvenient effects of the fuel sloshing by augmenting this control system are reduced and attitude control system performs, satisfactorily.

The RK1GL2X3 method is a numerical method for solving initial value problems in ordinary differential equations, and is based on the RK1GL2 method which, in turn, is a particular case of the general RKrGLm method. The RK1GL2X3 method is a fourth-order method, even though its underlying Runge-Kutta method RK1 is the first-order Euler method, and hence, RK1GL2X3 is considerably more efficient than RK1. This enhancement is achieved through an implementation involving triple-nested two-point Gauss- Legendre quadrature.

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.

A Rotary Disc Contactor with inner diameter of 9.1cm and maximum operating height of 40cm has been used to investigate break up phenomenon. Water-Toluene, Water as continuous phase and Toluene as dispersed phase, was selected as chemical system in the experiments. The mentioned chemical system has high interfacial tension so it was possible to form big drops which permit accurate investigation on break up phenomenon as well as the first and second critical rotor speeds. In this study, Break up phenomenon has been studied as a function of mother drop size, rotor speed and continuous phase height. Further more; the effects of mother drop size and continuous phase height on the first and second critical rotor speeds were investigated. Finally, two modified correlations were proposed to estimate the first and second critical speeds.

Probabilistic techniques in computer programs are becoming more and more widely used. Therefore, there is a big interest in the formal specification, verification, and development of probabilistic programs. In our work-in-progress project, we are attempting to make a constructive framework for developing probabilistic programs formally. The main contribution of this paper is to introduce an intermediate artifact of our work, a Z-based formalism called PZ, by which one can build set theoretical models of probabilistic programs. We propose to use a constructive set theory, called CZ set theory, to interpret the specifications written in PZ. Since CZ has an interpretation in Martin-L¨of-s theory of types, this idea enables us to derive probabilistic programs from correctness proofs of their PZ specifications.

Existing experiences indicate that one of the most prominent reasons that some ERP implementations fail is related to selecting an improper ERP package. Among those important factors resulting in inappropriate ERP selections, one is to ignore preliminary activities that should be done before the evaluation of ERP packages. Another factor yielding these unsuitable selections is that usually organizations employ prolonged and costly selection processes in such extent that sometimes the process would never be finalized or sometimes the evaluation team might perform many key final activities in an incomplete or inaccurate way due to exhaustion, lack of interest or out-of-date data. In this paper, a systematic approach that recommends some activities to be done before and after the main selection phase is introduced for choosing an ERP package. On the other hand, the proposed approach has utilized some ideas that accelerates the selection process at the same time that reduces the probability of an erroneous final selection.

Multivariate quality control charts show some advantages to monitor several variables in comparison with the simultaneous use of univariate charts, nevertheless, there are some disadvantages. The main problem is how to interpret the out-ofcontrol signal of a multivariate chart. For example, in the case of control charts designed to monitor the mean vector, the chart signals showing that it must be accepted that there is a shift in the vector, but no indication is given about the variables that have produced this shift. The MEWMA quality control chart is a very powerful scheme to detect small shifts in the mean vector. There are no previous specific works about the interpretation of the out-of-control signal of this chart. In this paper neural networks are designed to interpret the out-of-control signal of the MEWMA chart, and the percentage of correct classifications is studied for different cases.

In this paper a study on the vibration of thin cylindrical shells with ring supports and made of functionally graded materials (FGMs) composed of stainless steel and nickel is presented. Material properties vary along the thickness direction of the shell according to volume fraction power law. The cylindrical shells have ring supports which are arbitrarily placed along the shell and impose zero lateral deflections. The study is carried out based on third order shear deformation shell theory (T.S.D.T). The analysis is carried out using Hamilton-s principle. The governing equations of motion of FGM cylindrical shells are derived based on shear deformation theory. Results are presented on the frequency characteristics, influence of ring support position and the influence of boundary conditions. The present analysis is validated by comparing results with those available in the literature.

The African Great Lakes Region refers to the zone around lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, Albert, Edward, Kivu, and Malawi. The main source of electricity in this region is hydropower whose systems are generally characterized by relatively weak, isolated power schemes, poor maintenance and technical deficiencies with limited electricity infrastructures. Most of the hydro sources are rain fed, and as such there is normally a deficiency of water during the dry seasons and extended droughts. In such calamities fossil fuels sources, in particular petroleum products and natural gas, are normally used to rescue the situation but apart from them being nonrenewable, they also release huge amount of green house gases to our environment which in turn accelerates the global warming that has at present reached an amazing stage. Wind power is ample, renewable, widely distributed, clean, and free energy source that does not consume or pollute water. Wind generated electricity is one of the most practical and commercially viable option for grid quality and utility scale electricity production. However, the main shortcoming associated with electric wind power generation is fluctuation in its output both in space and time. Before making a decision to establish a wind park at a site, the wind speed features there should therefore be known thoroughly as well as local demand or transmission capacity. The main objective of this paper is to utilise monthly average wind speed data collected from one prospective site within the African Great Lakes Region to demonstrate that the available wind power there is high enough to generate electricity. The mean monthly values were calculated from records gathered on hourly basis for a period of 5 years (2001 to 2005) from a site in Tanzania. The documentations that were collected at a height of 2 m were projected to a height of 50 m which is the standard hub height of wind turbines. The overall monthly average wind speed was found to be 12.11 m/s whereas June to November was established to be the windy season as the wind speed during the session is above the overall monthly wind speed. The available wind power density corresponding to the overall mean monthly wind speed was evaluated to be 1072 W/m2, a potential that is worthwhile harvesting for the purpose of electric generation.

In a nuclear reactor Loss of Coolant accident (LOCA) considers wide range of postulated damage or rupture of pipe in the heat transport piping system. In the case of LOCA with/without failure of emergency core cooling system in a Pressurised Heavy water Reactor, the Pressure Tube (PT) temperature could rise significantly due to fuel heat up and gross mismatch of the heat generation and heat removal in the affected channel. The extent and nature of deformation is important from reactor safety point of view. Experimental set-ups have been designed and fabricated to simulate ballooning (radial deformation) of PT for 220 MWe IPHWRs. Experiments have been conducted by covering the CT by ceramic fibers and then by submerging CT in water of voided PTs. In both the experiments, it is observed that ballooning initiates at a temperature around 665´┐¢C and complete contact between PT and Caldaria Tube (CT) occurs at around 700´┐¢C approximately. The strain rate is found to be 0.116% per second. The structural integrity of PT is retained (no breach) for all the experiments. The PT heatup is found to be arrested after the contact between PT and CT, thus establishing moderator acting as an efficient heat sink for IPHWRs.

In the forming of ceramic materials the plasticity concept is commonly used. This term is related to a particular mechanical behavior when clay is mixed with water. A plastic ceramic material shows a permanent strain without rupture when a compressive load produces a shear stress that exceeds the material-s yield strength. For a plastic ceramic body it observes a measurable elastic behavior before the yield strength and when the applied load is removed. In this work, a mathematical model was developed from applied concepts of the plasticity theory by using the stress/strain diagram under compression.

Trust is essential for further and wider acceptance of contemporary e-services. It was first addressed almost thirty years ago in Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria standard by the US DoD. But this and other proposed approaches of that period were actually solving security. Roughly some ten years ago, methodologies followed that addressed trust phenomenon at its core, and they were based on Bayesian statistics and its derivatives, while some approaches were based on game theory. However, trust is a manifestation of judgment and reasoning processes. It has to be dealt with in accordance with this fact and adequately supported in cyber environment. On the basis of the results in the field of psychology and our own findings, a methodology called qualitative algebra has been developed, which deals with so far overlooked elements of trust phenomenon. It complements existing methodologies and provides a basis for a practical technical solution that supports management of trust in contemporary computing environments. Such solution is also presented at the end of this paper.

The deposition of diamond films on a Si3N4 substrate is an attractive technique for industrial applications because of the excellent properties of diamond. Pretreatment of substrate is very important prior to diamond deposition to promote nucleation and adhesion between coating and substrate. Deposition of nanocrystalline diamonds films on silicon nitride substrate have been carried out by HF-CVD technique using mixture of methane and hydrogen gases. Different pretreatment of substrate including chemical etching consists of hot acid etching and basic etching and mechanical etching were used to study the quality of diamond formed on the substrate. The structure and morphology of diamond coating have been studied using X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) while diamond film quality has been characterized using Raman spectroscopy. AFM was used to investigate the effect of chemical etching and mechanical pretreatment on the surface roughness of the substrates and the resultant morphology of nanocrystalline diamond. It was found that diamond film deposited on as-received, basic etched and grinded substrate shows the morphology of cauliflower while blasted and acidic etched substrates produce smooth, continuous diamond film. However, the Raman investigation did not show any deviation in quality of diamond film for any pretreatment.

This paper presents an automatic feature recognition method based on center-surround difference detecting and fuzzy logic that can be applied in ground-penetrating radar (GPR) image processing. Adopted center-surround difference method, the salient local image regions are extracted from the GPR images as features of detected objects. And fuzzy logic strategy is used to match the detected features and features in template database. This way, the problem of objects detecting, which is the key problem in GPR image processing, can be converted into two steps, feature extracting and matching. The contributions of these skills make the system have the ability to deal with changes in scale, antenna and noises. The results of experiments also prove that the system has higher ratio of features sensing in using GPR to image the subsurface structures.

A new design of a planar passive T-micromixer with fin-shaped baffles in the mixing channel is presented. The mixing efficiency and the level of pressure loss in the channel have been investigated by numerical simulations in the range of Reynolds number (Re) 1 to 50. A Mixing index (Mi) has been defined to quantify the mixing efficiency, which results over 85% at both ends of the Re range, what demonstrates the micromixer can enhance mixing using the mechanisms of diffusion (lower Re) and convection (higher Re). Three geometric dimensions: radius of baffle, baffles pitch and height of the channel define the design parameters, and the mixing index and pressure loss are the performance parameters used to optimize the micromixer geometry with a multi-criteria optimization method. The Pareto front of designs with the optimum trade-offs, maximum mixing index with minimum pressure loss, is obtained. Experiments for qualitative and quantitative validation have been implemented.

Music segmentation is a key issue in music information retrieval (MIR) as it provides an insight into the internal structure of a composition. Structural information about a composition can improve several tasks related to MIR such as searching and browsing large music collections, visualizing musical structure, lyric alignment, and music summarization. The authors of this paper present the MTSSM framework, a twolayer framework for the multi-track segmentation of symbolic music. The strength of this framework lies in the combination of existing methods for local track segmentation and the application of global structure information spanning via multiple tracks. The first layer of the MTSSM uses various string matching techniques to detect the best candidate segmentations for each track of a multi-track composition independently. The second layer combines all single track results and determines the best segmentation for each track in respect to the global structure of the composition.

This paper analysis performance of disbursement procedure of public works project in Thailand. The results of research were summarised based on contracts, submitted invoice, inspection dated, copies of disbursement dated between client and their main contractor and interviewed with persons involved in central and local government projects during 1994-2008 in Thailand. The data collection was to investigate the disbursement procedure related to performance in disbursement during construction period (Planned duration of contract against Actual execution date in each month). A graphical presentation of a duration analysis of the projects illustrated significant disbursement formation in each project. It was established that the shortage of staff, the financial stability of clients, bureaucratic, method of disbursement and economics situation has play major role on performance of disbursement to their main contractors.

This paper gives an overview of the mapping mechanism of SEAM-a methodology for the automatic generation of knowledge models and its mapping onto Java codes. It discusses the rules that will be used to map the different components in the knowledge model automatically onto Java classes, properties and methods. The aim of developing this mechanism is to help in the creation of a prototype which will be used to validate the knowledge model which has been generated automatically. It will also help to link the modeling phase with the implementation phase as existing knowledge engineering methodologies do not provide for proper guidelines for the transition from the knowledge modeling phase to development phase. This will decrease the development overheads associated to the development of Knowledge Based Systems.

Language Reforms and potential use of ICTs has been a focal area of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan. Efforts are being accelerated to incorporate fast expanding ICTs to bring qualitative improvement in language instruction in higher education. This paper explores how university teachers are benefitting from ICTs to make their English class effective and what type of problems they face in practicing ICTs during their lectures. An in-depth qualitative study was employed to understand why language teachers tend to use ICTs in their instruction and how they are practicing it. A sample of twenty teachers from five universities located in Islamabad, three from public sector and two from private sector, was selected on non-random (Snowball) sampling basis. An interview with 15 semi-structured items was used as research instruments to collect data. The findings reveal that business English teaching is facilitated and improved through the use of ICTs. The language teachers need special training regarding the practices and implementation of ICTs. It is recommended that initiatives might be taken to equip university language teachers with modern methodology incorporating ICTs as focal area and efforts might be made to remove barriers regarding the training of language teachers and proper usage of ICTs.

This paper considers various channels of gammaquantum generation via an ultra-short high-power laser pulse interaction with different targets.We analyse the possibilities to create a pulsed gamma-radiation source using laser triggering of some nuclear reactions and isomer targets. It is shown that sub-MeV monochromatic short pulse of gamma-radiation can be obtained with pulse energy of sub-mJ level from isomer target irradiated by intense laser pulse. For nuclear reaction channel in light- atom materials, it is shown that sub-PW laser pulse gives rise to formation about million gamma-photons of multi-MeV energy.

The objective of this work which is based on the approach of simultaneous engineering is to contribute to the development of a CIM tool for the synthesis of functional design dimensions expressed by average values and tolerance intervals. In this paper, the dispersions method known as the Δl method which proved reliable in the simulation of manufacturing dimensions is used to develop a methodology for the automation of the simulation. This methodology is constructed around three procedures. The first procedure executes the verification of the functional requirements by automatically extracting the functional dimension chains in the mechanical sub-assembly. Then a second procedure performs an optimization of the dispersions on the basis of unknown variables. The third procedure uses the optimized values of the dispersions to compute the optimized average values and tolerances of the functional dimensions in the chains. A statistical and cost based approach is integrated in the methodology in order to take account of the capabilities of the manufacturing processes and to distribute optimal values among the individual components of the chains.

General requirements for knowledge representation in the form of logic rules, applicable to design and control of industrial processes, are formulated. Characteristic behavior of decision trees (DTs) and rough sets theory (RST) in rules extraction from recorded data is discussed and illustrated with simple examples. The significance of the models- drawbacks was evaluated, using simulated and industrial data sets. It is concluded that performance of DTs may be considerably poorer in several important aspects, compared to RST, particularly when not only a characterization of a problem is required, but also detailed and precise rules are needed, according to actual, specific problems to be solved.

Gene expression profiling is rapidly evolving into a powerful technique for investigating tumor malignancies. The researchers are overwhelmed with the microarray-based platforms and methods that confer them the freedom to conduct large-scale gene expression profiling measurements. Simultaneously, investigations into cross-platform integration methods have started gaining momentum due to their underlying potential to help comprehend a myriad of broad biological issues in tumor diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy. However, comparing results from different platforms remains to be a challenging task as various inherent technical differences exist between the microarray platforms. In this paper, we explain a simple ratio-transformation method, which can provide some common ground for cDNA and Affymetrix platform towards cross-platform integration. The method is based on the characteristic data attributes of Affymetrix- and cDNA- platform. In the work, we considered seven childhood leukemia patients and their gene expression levels in either platform. With a dataset of 822 differentially expressed genes from both these platforms, we carried out a specific ratio-treatment to Affymetrix data, which subsequently showed an improvement in the relationship with the cDNA data.

A new numerical method for simultaneously updating mass and stiffness matrices based on incomplete modal measured data is presented. By using the Kronecker product, all the variables that are to be modified can be found out and then can be updated directly. The optimal approximation mass matrix and stiffness matrix which satisfy the required eigenvalue equation and orthogonality condition are found under the Frobenius norm sense. The physical configuration of the analytical model is preserved and the updated model will exactly reproduce the modal measured data. The numerical example seems to indicate that the method is quite accurate and efficient.

The fundamental aim of extended expansion concept is to achieve higher work done which in turn leads to higher thermal efficiency. This concept is compatible with the application of turbocharger and LHR engine. The Low Heat Rejection engine was developed by coating the piston crown, cylinder head inside with valves and cylinder liner with partially stabilized zirconia coating of 0.5 mm thickness. Extended expansion in diesel engines is termed as Miller cycle in which the expansion ratio is increased by reducing the compression ratio by modifying the inlet cam for late inlet valve closing. The specific fuel consumption reduces to an appreciable level and the thermal efficiency of the extended expansion turbocharged LHR engine is improved. In this work, a thermodynamic model was formulated and developed to simulate the LHR based extended expansion turbocharged direct injection diesel engine. It includes a gas flow model, a heat transfer model, and a two zone combustion model. Gas exchange model is modified by incorporating the Miller cycle, by delaying inlet valve closing timing which had resulted in considerable improvement in thermal efficiency of turbocharged LHR engines. The heat transfer model, calculates the convective and radiative heat transfer between the gas and wall by taking into account of the combustion chamber surface temperature swings. Using the two-zone combustion model, the combustion parameters and the chemical equilibrium compositions were determined. The chemical equilibrium compositions were used to calculate the Nitric oxide formation rate by assuming a modified Zeldovich mechanism. The accuracy of this model is scrutinized against actual test results from the engine. The factors which affect thermal efficiency and exhaust emissions were deduced and their influences were discussed. In the final analysis it is seen that there is an excellent agreement in all of these evaluations.

This paper reports the results of an experimental study conducted to characterise the gas-liquid multiphase flows experienced within a vertical riser transporting a range of gas-liquid flow rates. The scale experiments were performed using an air/silicone oil mixture within a 6 m long riser. The superficial air velocities studied ranged from 0.047 to 2.836 m/ s, whilst maintaining a liquid superficial velocity at 0.047 m/ s. Measurements of the mean cross-sectional and time average radial void fraction were obtained using a wire mesh sensor (WMS). The data were recorded at an acquisition frequency of 1000 Hz over an interval of 60 seconds. For the range of flow conditions studied, the average void fraction was observed to vary between 0.1 and 0.9. An analysis of the data collected concluded that the observed void fraction was strongly affected by the superficial gas velocity, whereby the higher the superficial gas velocity, the higher was the observed average void fraction. The average void fraction distributions observed were in good agreement with the results obtained by other researchers. When the air-silicone oil flows were fully developed reasonably symmetric profiles were observed, with the shape of the symmetry profile being strongly dependent on the superficial gas velocity.

In this work, new experimental data for slugging frequency in inclined gas-liquid flow are reported, and a new correlation is proposed. Scale experiments were carried out using a mixture of air and water in a 6 m long pipe. Two different pipe diameters were used, namely, 38 and 67 mm. The data were taken with capacitance type sensors at a data acquisition frequency of 200 Hz over an interval of 60 seconds. For the range of flow conditions studied, the liquid superficial velocity is observed to influence the frequency strongly. A comparison of the present data with correlations available in the literature reveals a lack of agreement. A new correlation for slug frequency has been proposed for the inclined flow, which represents the main contribution of this work.

The characteristics of fluid flow and phase separation in an oil-water separator were numerically analysed as part of the work presented herein. Simulations were performed for different velocities and droplet diameters, and the way this parameters can influence the separator geometry was studied. The simulations were carried out using the software package Fluent 6.2, which is designed for numerical simulation of fluid flow and mass transfer. The model consisted of a cylindrical horizontal separator. A tetrahedral mesh was employed in the computational domain. The condition of two-phase flow was simulated with the two-fluid model, taking into consideration turbulence effects using the k-ε model. The results showed that there is a strong dependency of phase separation on mixture velocity and droplet diameter. An increase in mixture velocity will bring about a slow down in phase separation and as a consequence will require a weir of greater height. An increase in droplet diameter will produce a better phase separation. The simulations are in agreement with results reported in literature and show that CFD can be a useful tool in studying a horizontal oilwater separator.

A new sythetic gene coding for a Human Elastin-Like Polypeptide was constructed and expressed. The recombinant product was tested as coating agent to realize a surface suitable for cell growth. Coatings showed peculiar features and different human cell lines were seeded and cultured. All cell lines tested showed to adhere and proliferate on this substrate that has been shown also to exert a specific effect on cells, depending on cell type.

A novel methodology has been used to design an evaporator coil of a refrigerant. The methodology used is through a complete Computer Aided Design /Computer Aided Engineering approach, by means of a Computational Fluid Dynamic/Finite Element Analysis model which is executed many times for the thermal-fluid exploration of several designs' configuration by an commercial optimizer. Hence the design is carried out automatically by parallel computations, with an optimization package taking the decisions rather than the design engineer. The engineer instead takes decision regarding the physical settings and initializing of the computational models to employ, the number and the extension of the geometrical parameters of the coil fins and the optimization tools to be employed. The final design of the coil geometry found to be better than the initial design.

To explore pipelines is one of various bio-mimetic robot applications. The robot may work in common buildings such as between ceilings and ducts, in addition to complicated and massive pipeline systems of large industrial plants. The bio-mimetic robot finds any troubled area or malfunction and then reports its data. Importantly, it can not only prepare for but also react to any abnormal routes in the pipeline. The pipeline monitoring tasks require special types of mobile robots. For an effective movement along a pipeline, the movement of the robot will be similar to that of insects or crawling animals. During its movement along the pipelines, a pipeline monitoring robot has an important task of finding the shapes of the approaching path on the pipes. In this paper we propose an effective solution to the pipeline pattern recognition, based on the fuzzy classification rules for the measured IR distance data.

The innovative fuzzy estimator is used to estimate the ground motion acceleration of the retaining structure in this study. The Kalman filter without the input term and the fuzzy weighting recursive least square estimator are two main portions of this method. The innovation vector can be produced by the Kalman filter, and be applied to the fuzzy weighting recursive least square estimator to estimate the acceleration input over time. The excellent performance of this estimator is demonstrated by comparing it with the use of difference weighting function, the distinct levels of the measurement noise covariance and the initial process noise covariance. The availability and the precision of the proposed method proposed in this study can be verified by comparing the actual value and the one obtained by numerical simulation.

This paper describes the pipeline architecture of high-speed modified Booth multipliers. The proposed multiplier circuits are based on the modified Booth algorithm and the pipeline technique which are the most widely used to accelerate the multiplication speed. In order to implement the optimally pipelined multipliers, many kinds of experiments have been conducted. The speed of the multipliers is greatly improved by properly deciding the number of pipeline stages and the positions for the pipeline registers to be inserted. We described the proposed modified Booth multiplier circuits in Verilog HDL and synthesized the gate-level circuits using 0.13um standard cell library. The resultant multiplier circuits show better performance than others. Since the proposed multipliers operate at GHz ranges, they can be used in the systems requiring very high performance.